By Daniel H. Martins

It is arguably true that there has never been a time in the history of what we now call Anglicanism that was essentially stable and free from serious conflict. Yet, it certainly does seem as though the last ten to 12 years have been particularly fraught with crisis — crisis of the sort that threatens not just to alter the course of Anglicanism’s evolution, but to radically redefine how we think and talk about it.

In casual conversation, sexuality is often presumed to lie at the heart of our travails. Indeed, it is undeniably the presenting issue. But many have also realized that if it had not been sexuality, it would inevitably have been something else, that forces at work within Anglican life at least since the 16th century would have brought about the same sort of crisis. The sexuality squabble is like the tremor of a quake on the surface of the earth. Yet, it is underneath the surface, in the shifting of tectonic plates, where the source of the tremor lies. These shifting tectonic plates beneath the surface of Anglicanism have to do with ecclesiology: What is the Church? What is the relation of Anglican “churches” to “the Church”? When conflict arises, how should churches, and church members, behave? How can their action be most consistent with the Church’s identity and mission, and what it means to live as a network of Christian communities? Are we accountable to one another? If so, how?

Conflict in any organization that includes human beings is necessarily political in nature, and politics invariably produces winners and losers. Within global Anglicanism, the Lambeth Conference of 1998 overwhelmingly passed resolution 1.10, which “reject[ed] homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.” This political process made “losers” out of those who advocate reassessing the Church’s traditional position on sexual ethics. But in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, those who argue for such reassessment hold majorities in the councils of the Church.

Consequently, when the Diocese of New Hampshire elected Gene Robinson to the episcopate in 2003, his election was confirmed by General Convention, despite the resolution of the Lambeth Conference. This development created serious problems for a significant minority within the Episcopal Church. They were “winners” in the context of global Anglicanism (and in the context of worldwide Christianity itself). But they were manifestly “losers” within the particular church at whose altars they were fed and in whose ministry they served.

For a great many of these conservative “losers,” the developments of the 2003, 2006, and 2009 General Conventions created, at different stages for different people and groups, what they experienced as an untenable situation, a dilemma that they elected to solve by leaving the Episcopal Church, not primarily as individuals, but as corporate bodies — first parishes and then dioceses. This has split the ranks of North American “global winners but local losers.” Among both “leavers” and “stayers,” some have explained their decision as mere “best for me/us,” while others have been more pointed, and asserted the moral and theological necessity of their position for all. In different venues and in different occasions, “leavers” and “stayers,” many of whom were close friends and colleagues prior to the recent escalation of conflict, have maintained cordial relationships, “walking about together,” as it were. In other times and places, there has been sharp criticism and, privately, even rancor.

In the meantime, the majority party in the Episcopal Church has had to wrestle with the unfolding consequences of consecrating bishops in partnered same-sex relationships, and approving the development of liturgical forms for blessing such relationships. Provinces representing the vast majority of the world’s Anglicans have formally broken communion with the Episcopal Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned us on several occasions that certain actions will further fracture our relations with the Anglican Communion, but we have proceeded with those actions in spite of his words.

Some among the Episcopal majority believe that the cause of “full inclusion” is a matter of gospel justice, and that if standing for justice means we lose our place in the Communion, then so be it. Others are truly alarmed at the prospect of being placed in ecclesial “time out,” and have sought to slow down the progressive juggernaut until, they hope, more minds are changed, both in their own church and in the other churches of the Communion.

There has been no shortage of theological and political analysis of these dynamics. It is not my intention in this series to simply add my own to the mix. Rather, I hope to allow a light from our Anglican past to shine on our Anglican present, and see whether it might yield some insight that would enable us to put our present difficulties in a more helpful perspective. William Patrick Palmer (1803–85) was a Church of England priest, theologian, and liturgical scholar who spent his career on the faculty of Worcester College, Oxford. He was an early proponent of the Tractarian Movement, but was eclipsed in prominence in that arena by Newman and Keble. In 1838 he published the first edition of A Treatise on the Church of Christ, a two-volume work that went through several editions both during his lifetime and posthumously. (He is not to be confused with another William Palmer, from Magdalen College, also part of the early Oxford Movement, who eventually became a Roman Catholic.)

Over a century-and-a-half later, many of Palmer’s ideas simply do not “fit” the reality of ecclesial life as it has evolved since his time. For instance, he was unable to foresee the ecumenical movement, which has rendered many of his notions implausible if not obsolete. His views were also colored (probably subconsciously) by the reach of the British Empire and the experience of colonialism (from the perspective of the colonizing power). Nonetheless, there is value in studying theologians like Palmer. He is close enough to our time that many of the same structures — the structures of Anglicanism, in this case — still exist, making it easier to see connections. Yet, he is sufficiently removed in time so as to know nothing of our current presenting issues; the “sexuality war” would have been unimaginable to him. The very remoteness of the vexing issues of Palmer’s time (an Anglican bishopric in Jerusalem, for example) just might make it easier for us to dig down to the underlying premises of his theology, and examine them in relation to our own vexing issues.

In the next installment of this series, we will examine the first creedal “mark” of the Church — One — through the lens of Palmer’s ecclesiology. In Part III, we will do the same with Catholic and Apostolic. In the concluding section, we will attempt to critically evaluate Palmer’s notions in light of the present state of worldwide Anglicanism, and North American Anglicans in particular.

The Rev. Daniel H. Martins (cariocaconfessions.blogspot.com) is rector of St. Anne’s Church, Warsaw, Ind.