A report from Albany Via Media Co-President The Very Rev. John T. Sorensen upon the founding of Via Media USA in Atlanta, March 27, 2004

April 1, 2004

Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

One week ago, I boarded the 5:20 AM ferry from Plattsburgh toward Burlington, Vermont for a plane to Atlanta, Georgia. There, at the Renaissance Hotel and at the Episcopal parish next door, I spent three intense days of prayer, planning and discerning with thirty-five talented, generous, gifted, dedicated and determined Episcopalians who belong to twelve via media groups from eleven dioceses in eight states. We were not sure what result the meeting would bring, but we shared a common call from our Lord Jesus to be there together and discern our collective future. During the past year, our groups had slowly sprung up from the soil of diocesan conflict over the future of our several dioceses strong, visceral reactions to General Convention. Unlike colleagues in more liberal dioceses of the Episcopal Church, most of us were theological minorities in dioceses described as conservative, orthodox or traditionalist. We seemed to all understand that being a minority meant that we were simply demanding for ourselves the right to exist in our increasingly more conservative surroundings. I believe all of us respected and understood the opinions of our Bishops who were working to join the Anglican Communion Network. Personally, although I do not share their distress, I would even say that they cannot be faulted for their anguish over the consecration of a gay bishop. I understand their sense of marginalization within the larger Episcopal Church and their sense that things have changed beyond their ability to concur, affecting their willingness to remain in the Episcopal Church as it currently exists.

But what I, and others at Atlanta’s Via Media USA meeting, do fault our conservative brothers for (there are no visible sister bishops or priests leading the movement) is insisting that the rest of the church is apostate and in error and therefore no longer can be called Christian. Perhaps they are right that the Robinson consecration is wrong. But, any reading of church history will reveal previous generations of Christian leaders who were so sure that new innovations were wrong that they killed and tortured the leaders of Christian movements they found repugnant. One need only meditate upon the burning of William William Tyndale in the 16th century to get this point. Tyndale was executed for translating the Holy Bible into English so more people could read it. Making the Bible accessible to the common educated man man and woman was repugnant to the Catholic Church of the time. Their power over interpretation was in jeopardy. They resisted and fought the change. In our time, we now wonder what the fuss over Tyndale was about. Their world changed. So, now, has ours.

It is in this appreciation of the inevitable changing of truth’s interpretation that the heart of the Via Media movement is found. As I wrote in another place, "A Via Media method recognizes that the truth of one generation might be understood differently in the next. In humility, Anglicans give their theological opponents the respect that comes from reading history," knowing that one generation’s certainty is easily undone by the next.

For me in the Via Media Movement, I believe that both sides have enough of the truth and faith of the gospel that it is my call to hold hands with both sides as we walk down the broad middle road together. Destroying or removing the other because we believe they are wrong is just not an option for people who claim to follow the crucified one. I believe that this way of handling church conflict is the heart and soul of our Anglican Communion. The only other option is killing each other, ecclesiastically speaking. Just think of the church people who were sure they were right: King Henry broke with the Pope; Queen Mary Killed Cranmer; Elizabeth imprisoned Catholics and persecuted Puritans; the Puritans beheaded King Charles and on it went. Closer to our time, the Episcopal Church in the second half of the 1800’s almost broke up over the inclusion of Anglo-Catholic ritualists, and similar divisions occurred in the 1960’s and 1970’s over the Charismatic renewal movements. Like God the creator making room for humans at creation, being willing to give us free-will so that we could freely love him, so we in the church can only follow the Epistle of John’s admonition to "love one another", pick up our crosses and make room for each other.

To paraphrase an earlier writing: In so doing we create room for each other, learning from each other, in communion around God’s table. That is why Richard Hooker held that tradition, reason and experience were so critical in Biblical interpretation. Just reading is never enough: the level of hermeneutical (interpretive) certainty is reduced by our humanity. Even enhanced by the indwelling spirit in each of us, we still, when trying to discern the nature of God and his will for us, "See through a glass darkly" as our first theologian, St. Paul, reminded us. We believe that God’s desire is for his church to remain in communion and dialogue, in times of conflict and disagreement over his will for us in his kingdom on earth. We need the help of tradition and reason to discern.

The 35 people who met in Atlanta is a distinguished group, including a number of doctorates and published authors. We are dedicated to this work. We are stubborn. We find that we work in different ways in different dioceses because each diocese is its own culture – that is what is so wonderful about our church! We are already all very different -- and together. So, for example, Episcopal Forum of the Diocese of South Carolina told how they had worked hard to sponsor even-handed, fairly conducted public forums on the divisive church issues, even when some conservatives so strongly believed the other side was wrong that they wouldn’t give the opposition the honor of a debate. In Fort Worth, women clergy are not allowed and male clergy, from fear or choice, will not be seen talking with Members of Fort Worth Via Media, who are mostly about the work of surviving, finding a welcoming Episcopal home somewhere. One priest was labeled "traitor" for simply speaking against their convention "disassociation" resolutions. In a nearby diocese, a rector was told that the vow to "obey your bishop" meant that his opposition to the Anglican Communion Network was a violation of his ordination vows. Many participants in the Atlanta meeting told of bishops who said they had no interest in discussing or evaluating the Anglican Communion Network because "we are joining it, like it or not." We wondered as we shared: "Why do most of our eleven Network bishops fear presenting the Network plan to full public scrutiny?

On the west coast, another rector was removed from all appointed diocesan positions for voting to support Robinson’s consecration at General Convention. In still another diocese in the West, clergy who require licenses to function are systematically eliminated from their positions if they oppose diocesan participation in the Network; the only "safe" clergy are those who are rectors with tenure. In the diocese of the Rio Grande, their Via Media group’s attempts to slow down the diocesan Episcopal election so that the diocese could take a collective pause, and ensure that all diocesan voices were represented in the process, was met by attacks and vilification of the marginalized group. I could go on, but suffice it to say that the stories of persecution are so pervasive that we are collecting them to get out the word. It has been a strong conservative rhetorical tool of the conservative right to complain of persecution in liberal dioceses; what I heard in Atlanta about treatment of moderates and liberals in conservative dioceses gave me the chills. If it is true that both types of diocese are marginalizing the other, then I would say that our Via Media movement could have a role throughout the church.

This brings me to our beloved Diocese of Albany. I moved here from Texas in 1990, two years after I attended (as a free-lance photographer) the Synod of Fort Worth in 1988 that was called to protest the consecration of Barbara Harris as the first female bishop of the Episcopal Church. Unlike some, I came not for theology or Anglo-Catholic churchmanship. The church on the lake called me, so I went. Ever since, I’ve been a minority in several ways: My priestly ceremonial is simpler and my theology is more protestant then many of my colleagues. But I have been happy knowing that Anglicanism here is diverse and accepting of different ways of being Episcopalian. Until last year, that is, when we were expected to support a resolution to disassociate from New Hampshire and the majority of the church for voting for a gay bishop, an admittedly new thing in the church. Groups like the American Anglican Council and the "Network" became new realities for the church. Our bishops were members; many of their colleagues were openly hoping to effect a hostile takeover of the Episcopal Church, calling for a "realignment", actively encouraging foreign primates to excommunicate our Province so that the "Network" could take over and represent the Episcopal Church instead. All this made the demurring comments of our bishops that they, at least, were "remaining in the Episcopal Church," rather opaque. We think that our bishop already has plenty of power to refuse to ordain practicing gay clergy, to refuse permission for gay civil unions, and to teach moral theology of his choosing; to be, in a word, conservative. Beyond that, disassociating from our brother and sisters in the larger church is schismatic and offensive to us. If fact, I believe it is a mark of the spiritual health and ecclesiastical diversity of the church that two dioceses like Vermont and  Albany, so different theologically, can share a common border. What they can’t do, to borrow St. Paul’s image of the body of Christ, is say to the other, "I have no need of you."

So we founded Albany Via Media, to with pick and shovel dig for ourselves a place to stand, a center where each side must allow for the presence of the other in the larger church. Most priests expect to take their place in the "councils of the church" as our ordination service requires, when debating changes in diocesan structure. The lack of an open, representative forum, or full public debate on diocesan participation in the Network has simply divided the diocese further, since opponents like us are forced to work further and further outside the system to find ways to make our voices heard, to create alternate structures for conversation and debate. Surely, we have not been perfect; we share a common sinful humanity. But we are passionate in our belief that joining an irregular, para-church "network" as a diocese should be a collaborative, participatory process involving the prayerful consideration of the entire diocese, not something to be pushed or forced into. We have been pushing back hard to make our case, feeling as strongly that our cause is right, as, no doubt do the AAC and Network supporters.

I have to say that, compared to the treatment that some clergy have received in other dioceses, Bishop Herzog has been commendably restrained, notwithstanding Bishop Bena’s calling all of us opponents "sinners." The two men showed their mettle during the past week. Following the House of Bishops’ passage of DEPO (Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Care) on March 24, the AAC came out firmly opposing the plan. So did the priests who were the "deans" of the various Anglican Communion Network convocations. DEPO was called unworkable and unacceptable. But bishops Herzog and Bena took a stand and said that it could work and that it should be given a chance. It provides what they said they were looking for: a way for conservative parishes, landlocked by conscience in "liberal" dioceses that support the Robinson consecration, to receive Episcopal Pastoral Care from "orthodox" bishops. The DEPO plan is only "Half a Loaf", said Bishop Bena, but worth a try. We in Albany Via Media have not been against our Bishops crossing diocesan boundaries and visiting conservative parishes in liberal dioceses; but we have wanted our Bishops to only do this according to a plan agreed to by the House of Bishops. In this way, I believe, our diocesan bishops would be choosing the middle way within the conservative movement, following their conscience in a non-schismatic way, according to the rules of the church.

This past week, The Living Church published an editorial on the Via Media USA movement. While somewhat critical of our "taking" of the historic "Via Media" name, they nevertheless got the whole point in a suggestion in the heart of the article.

The Via Media groups claim that their members — both clergy and lay — want to remain in the Episcopal Church. Funny thing, but isn’t that what the leadership of those conservative dioceses said when they put together the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes (NACDP)? So why, you may be asking, if both groups want to stay in the Episcopal Church, don’t they just sit down and talk about it, especially since church leaders continue to make pronouncements about the importance of dialogue? Let them figure out a way to get out of this mess in which we find ourselves.

I agree with David Kaveledge’s editorial: the middle way would be for us to sit down and work out a way through this. Tired of burning and beheading each other, our ancestors worked out a Via Media method that learned to respect the other while they disagreed. The Episcopal Church has learned to live with Protestant and Anglocatholic parties, as well as us broad-church people, for some time. The models are there. Christ is in all of us, as the hymn says, "Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in heart of friend and stranger." It is my prayer that our small movement can help our church find a way forward to learn to see Christ in each other, in heart of friend and stranger. I hope that the notion of sitting down and listening to each other catches on. Our future depends on it.

© 2004 The Reverend John Sorensen