Speaking in Anglican Tongue

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church issued a statement last week that caught my interest. It was titled, “The Episcopal Church’s Commitment to Common Life in the Anglican Communion.” (Read it at www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_86804_ENG_HTM.htm.) Those of you who don’t care about the Anglican Communion—and you are legion—might hold on for a moment because the subject of this entry is the misuse of language; the example is specific but the point is more general and one that is especially relevant to our common public life today.

The communiqué was a response to demands by Anglican Primates (Bishops-in-Charge of other national churches around the world) that the Episcopal Church stop ordaining gays in same-sex partnerships (ie, not celibate). The Primates imposed a deadline of September 30, 2007. In its statement, the Executive Council said:

“. . . the requests of the Primates are of a nature that can only properly be dealt with by our General Convention. Neither the Executive Council, the Presiding Bishop, nor the House of Bishops can give binding interpretations of General Convention resolutions nor make an ‘unequivocal common commitment’ to denying future decisions by dioceses or General Convention. We question the authority of the Primates to impose deadlines and demands upon any of the churches of the Anglican Communion or to prescribe the relationships within any of the other instruments of our common life, including the Anglican Consultative Council.”

In other, clearer language: “You can’t tell us what to do.”

Read the second sentence in the quote above. Can you tell me what it means? And can you tell me how this statement belongs in a statement about the church’s commitment to common life? The entire statement is written in a similarly legalistic and obfuscatory style. It is a political message dressed up in churchy language. Those who have tried to make the Episcopal Church change its ways and have interfered in the constituted governing authority of the church are addressed here as “brothers and sisters” (there are no sister Primates, by the way). The communiqué denies it is resting its message on legalities, asserting instead that it speaks out of loving concern for relationship in Christ.

That may well reflect the feelings of those who drafted the communiqué. I can’t claim to know their hearts. They are certainly good people. But the unintended effect of the language used is to suggest insincerity and even deceit. It is a speaking in tongues. If I were on the other side of this issue, I would respond: Bullshit.

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14, makes a distinction that is perhaps helpful here between prophesy and speaking in tongues. (I thought it appropriate to bring in scripture since the communiqué itself begins with scripture, although a strange passage, in my opinion, for those seeking reconciliation.) The Council’s communiqué speaks in tongues, abusing the language of theology in the service of politics. The Episcopal Church is behaving prophetically in its stance on gays and women but politically in its dealings with the Anglican Communion. Paul says this:

“. . .those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church.”

The subject of this communiqué is not a mystery in the Spirit but an effort to placate members of the Communion who do not accept the stance of the American Church. It is a stall. It is in effect a lie. The Church is saying, "Well, we can’t do what you want because it isn’t the way we do things, and anyway, the point here is that we’re in relationship and we have to do something vague in Christ that allows us all to keep on as we are." Or something like that.

When we speak in tongues we mislead, intentionally or unintentionally, or as Paul says, build ourselves up. Corporate Speak is also like this. Political candidates always speak in tongues. So, increasingly, does the church. Unity bought at the price of deception and accommodation is no unity at all.

Some years ago when I was working in a parish in Manhattan I saw the implications of pandering to the toxic people among us. The few destroyed the work of many because we did not confront them directly. Everyone in every organization has seen the same thing. Toxicity spreads. In relationships, when your spouse continues to drink and beat the kids, you separate from him or her to protect yourself and your children. If a member of the church continues to accommodate those who abuse blacks or women or gays, while asseting a loving relationship to all, it is behaving hypocritically and in fact enabling discrimination.

In a true instead of rhetorical loving relationship, the Episcopal Church would not be worried about what to do if the family throws it out. It would be leaving.

And it would assert what it believes and why the current situation is intolerable in clear and forthright, even loving, language. The present communiqué is not a statement of love. It is a statement of aggression and deceit. Don’t believe it. The real subject is political power—something the new Presiding Bishop has claimed to abhor—and self-protection. The subject is money and property and power. It always is, even in the church.

That is not prophesy, no matter what prophetic work the Church does behind the veil of its snake-oil language.