Comments on: Response to the Lawyer/Bishops http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/ Tue, 22 Jun 2010 21:35:47 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Alice C. Linsley http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/comment-page-1/#comment-12 Alice C. Linsley Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:30:16 +0000 http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/#comment-12 Dr. Harding, Thank you for providing more clarity on this strange document. It is indeed a brief for continued chaos and anarchy. The determination of many TEC bishops to prolong the crisis is reinforced by the success of this strategy in the past. The longer they can keep people focused on the agenda of personal license as civil rights, the more ground they hope to gain. You are exactly right to counter this by speaking plainly. The Christian Gospel is shown to be counter to American individualism and liberalism and TEC is shown to be at the forefront of materialism, nihilism and the idolatry of self. Dr. Harding, Thank you for providing more clarity on this strange document. It is indeed a brief for continued chaos and anarchy. The determination of many TEC bishops to prolong the crisis is reinforced by the success of this strategy in the past. The longer they can keep people focused on the agenda of personal license as civil rights, the more ground they hope to gain. You are exactly right to counter this by speaking plainly. The Christian Gospel is shown to be counter to American individualism and liberalism and TEC is shown to be at the forefront of materialism, nihilism and the idolatry of self.

]]> By: Dave http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/comment-page-1/#comment-10 Dave Sun, 16 Sep 2007 20:08:49 +0000 http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/#comment-10 Dr. Harding, et al--Who are the six bishops who wrote this piece? Just curious... Dr. Harding, et al–Who are the six bishops who wrote this piece? Just curious…

]]> By: The Confessing Reader » Blog Archive » The Revd Dr Leander Harding’s excellent response to the lawyer-bishops http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/comment-page-1/#comment-8 The Confessing Reader » Blog Archive » The Revd Dr Leander Harding’s excellent response to the lawyer-bishops Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:52:18 +0000 http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/#comment-8 [...] Read it here. [...] [...] Read it here. [...]

]]> By: Craig Goodrich http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/comment-page-1/#comment-7 Craig Goodrich Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:19:27 +0000 http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/#comment-7 Thank you for this insightful analysis. Two additional comments I think need to be made about the fundamental premises of this silly and transparent piece of tendentiousness: 1) If we're looking at the Baptismal theology of the early Church, do we have any evidence that the errant soul discussed in 1 Cor 5 was not baptized? What does St. Paul recommend to the Corinthian church here, and why do these ambulance-chasers in purple not believe it applies to the current situation? 2) If in fact this situation amounts to a Constitutional crisis in the Anglican Communion, the closest historical analogy that presents itself is the case of King John's flagrant abuse of his position as sovereign, contrary to long-established and well-understood but unwritten traditional principles. This abuse became so blatant that at length John's fellow feudal aristocrats banded together and forced him to sign the <a href="http://www.historicaldocuments.com/MagnaCarta.htm" rel="nofollow"><i>Magna Carta</i></a>, which was at the time revolutionary only in that it made explicit hitherto unwritten constraints on the King and provided for some mechanism of enforcing them. Like the "bonds of affection" uniting the Anglican Communion, the limits on the power of the King did not need to be formally specified <i>until</i> a self-interested and nihilistic power ignored them. Or did the nobles who prepared the Magna Carta "misperceive the issues"? Thank you for this insightful analysis.

Two additional comments I think need to be made about the fundamental premises of this silly and transparent piece of tendentiousness:

1) If we’re looking at the Baptismal theology of the early Church, do we have any evidence that the errant soul discussed in 1 Cor 5 was not baptized? What does St. Paul recommend to the Corinthian church here, and why do these ambulance-chasers in purple not believe it applies to the current situation?

2) If in fact this situation amounts to a Constitutional crisis in the Anglican Communion, the closest historical analogy that presents itself is the case of King John’s flagrant abuse of his position as sovereign, contrary to long-established and well-understood but unwritten traditional principles. This abuse became so blatant that at length John’s fellow feudal aristocrats banded together and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which was at the time revolutionary only in that it made explicit hitherto unwritten constraints on the King and provided for some mechanism of enforcing them.

Like the “bonds of affection” uniting the Anglican Communion, the limits on the power of the King did not need to be formally specified until a self-interested and nihilistic power ignored them. Or did the nobles who prepared the Magna Carta “misperceive the issues”?

]]> By: Covenant http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/comment-page-1/#comment-6 Covenant Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:18:37 +0000 http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/#comment-6 <strong>Leander Harding on the Lawyer-Bishop’s Report...</strong> The Rev. Dr. Leander Harding nails it: That the Anglican Communion is not able to enforce the most minimal communal discipline is exactly the crisis in front of us. To propose as a solution something that is unenforceable does not appear as a positive ... Leander Harding on the Lawyer-Bishop’s Report…

The Rev. Dr. Leander Harding nails it:
That the Anglican Communion is not able to enforce the most minimal communal discipline is exactly the crisis in front of us. To propose as a solution something that is unenforceable does not appear as a positive …

]]> By: Leander harding+ http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/comment-page-1/#comment-5 Leander harding+ Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:08:24 +0000 http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/2007/09/15/response-to-the-lawyerbishops/#comment-5 A clarifying comment: As I read over the post I am not sure that my point about the applicability of the legal method the bishops propose is entirely clear. I want to point out that their confidence in a method which identifies issues is based on a well defined system in which "issues" mean something very particular, namely things over which the court has jurisdiction, actors and witnesses and evidence etc all have very well defined and within that system technical meanings. The legal system must be taken for granted, it is not on trial in a normal court of law. Their are constitutional courts for that. The lawyers are trying to use a method that works where the playing field is well defined in a crisis where the nature and shape of the playing field is exactly under dispute. A process which depends on well defined first principles cannot help when the first principles are under attack. Their method is not guaranteed to help them define the pertinent issues in such a circumstance. They end up defining the issue as an attempt to replace an unwritten constitution with a written one. Their unwritten and unenforcable constitution could never produce a circumstance in which careful identification of issues could lead to anything but unending wrangling since there is no authority that can bring disputes to adjudication. The kind of process they propose is not possible in a context where there is no ultimate adjudicating authority. Putting into place something like the Anglican Covenant would make a rational and dependable process for adjudicating disputes between provinces possible. The bishop's proposal is a brief for continuing anarchy. A clarifying comment: As I read over the post I am not sure that my point about the applicability of the legal method the bishops propose is entirely clear. I want to point out that their confidence in a method which identifies issues is based on a well defined system in which “issues” mean something very particular, namely things over which the court has jurisdiction, actors and witnesses and evidence etc all have very well defined and within that system technical meanings. The legal system must be taken for granted, it is not on trial in a normal court of law. Their are constitutional courts for that. The lawyers are trying to use a method that works where the playing field is well defined in a crisis where the nature and shape of the playing field is exactly under dispute. A process which depends on well defined first principles cannot help when the first principles are under attack. Their method is not guaranteed to help them define the pertinent issues in such a circumstance. They end up defining the issue as an attempt to replace an unwritten constitution with a written one. Their unwritten and unenforcable constitution could never produce a circumstance in which careful identification of issues could lead to anything but unending wrangling since there is no authority that can bring disputes to adjudication. The kind of process they propose is not possible in a context where there is no ultimate adjudicating authority. Putting into place something like the Anglican Covenant would make a rational and dependable process for adjudicating disputes between provinces possible. The bishop’s proposal is a brief for continuing anarchy.

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