Wide-ranging agenda for House of Bishops

Published January 1, 2012

Niagara Falls, Ont.
When Anglican and Lutheran bishops of every theological stripe met here recently, topics ran the gamut from open table and confirmation to standards of competency for clergy.Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, gave the Anglican Journal an overview of what dominated the bishops’ discussions over the course of the Nov. 20 to 24 meeting of the House of Bishops.

Confirmation
Acknowledging 10 years of full communion between the two churches, the meeting tackled the issue of confirmation. “In the Lutheran church the pastors confirm the candidates, but in the Anglican church all the confirmations are done by the bishops,” said Archbishop Hiltz, “and that can be a problem in shared-ministry congregations.” With that in mind, the Joint Anglican-Lutheran Commission prepared guidelines for bishops, priests and pastors on confirmation in mixed congregations. The guidelines have been approved by the Lutheran church. “After some discussion, we agreed to strike a small group to review the document in depth in the context of the theology of confirmation,” said Hiltz, adding that at the spring 2012 meeting the bishops will discuss this issue in a more focused manner.

Marriage
The clergy will continue to perform the sacrament of marriage. “Not one bishop expressed an interest in cessation,” said Hiltz, noting that for some, the possibility may have been raised as a way around the issue of blessing same-sex marriages.And discussions will continue about how the clergy can continue to support the couples they marry. “Marriage is a wonderful pastoral opportunity for the church to show Christian hospitality from the moment a couple comes to the door wanting their love to be blessed in the presence of God,” he said.”Beyond the day of their marriage, they know they have a priest and a church community that care about them,” he said. “And we emerged from that conversation feeling really good.”

Anglican covenant
Section IV continues to be the sticking point in this document, designed to deal with dissent within the Anglican Communion. “There are no difficulties with sections I to III. The language sounds very relational and very Anglican,” said the archbishop. “Section IV also starts off relational but begins to sound juridical, and that creates a problem.” While upholding autonomy, this section also makes it clear that the exercise of autonomy has consequences. “My personal concern is what happens when the direction you move in is not in accordance with the standards of the Communion. You’re out. It does not end on a note of restoration or hope, so I say it falls short of the gospel,” Hiltz said. A guide to navigating the covenant was posted last June on the church’s national website.

Open table
As they did last spring, the bishops, as the guardians of the faith, continue to uphold the church’s ancient teaching that the eucharist is the meal of the baptized. That said, the bishops discussed the matter of Christian hospitality and formation and ways in which the church can otherwise welcome people. “We continued the conversation about Christian hospitality in the broadest sense, which cannot be confined to a wafer and a sip of wine,” said Hiltz. A small group of bishops agreed to produce a guideline on open table and Christian hospitality. “We’re not finished with that conversation yet, but our hope is that this document will be perceived and adopted by the bishops as a national guideline,” he said.

Competency
The church needs guidelines on the type of clergy it must attract to move forward purposefully, and so competencies for ordination are an emerging item on the bishops’ agenda. “We are looking to produce a national document on the competencies in candidates that we need across the church-everything from knowledge of the biblical story, our Anglican heritage, the cultural context, understanding of mission and the church’s roles, as well as personal characteristics such as stability, health and the capacity to communicate,” Hiltz said. Ordination is available to a church scholar, of course, but if a cleric is serving in a parish, other things take priority. “There’s the story of the candidate who walked into a bishop’s office and said, ‘I like everything you do, but I really don’t like people,’ ” the primate said.One of the highlights of the meeting was a keynote address by the Rev. Michael Lapsley, director of the Institute for the Healing of Memories in Cape Town, South Africa, where he helps faith communities deal with the psychological wounds inflicted by violence. Lapsley lost his hands, an eye and some of his hearing thanks to a letter bomb sent to him as an activist priest. The archbishop said that Lapsley’s story struck an especially compelling chord in light of our history with the Indian residential schools and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.For more on the Rev. Michael Lapsley, see Michael.

Author

  • Diana Swift

    Diana Swift is an award-winning writer and editor with 30 years’ experience in newspaper and magazine editing and production. In January 2011, she joined the Anglican Journal as a contributing editor.

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