The Episcopal Church of the United States has a Canon that directly addresses the question of whether a person needs to be baptised to receive Holy Communion: Canon 1.17.1. reads ‘No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in the Church’.Footnote 1 In the face of this Canon, and notwithstanding oaths of office, many priests in the Episcopal Church invite all, through various formulations, to the table. There is no overarching Canon that allows the ordained to follow the dictates of their version of the Holy Spirit in contravention of black-letter law. Nor can such an invitation be considered merely a permitted variation in the conduct of a service.Footnote 2 What then should be done about such rampant ecclesiastical disobedience? By what standard is the legitimacy of such ecclesiastical disobedience to be determined?
Perhaps a useful point from which to begin a discussion of the open/closed communion debate is with a report titled ‘Reflections on Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist: a response to Resolution D084 of the 75th General Convention’, issued by the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops (hereafter the Committee) in June 2009 (hereafter the Theology Committee Report).Footnote 3 The Committee had been engaged to discuss matters related to the relationship between baptism and Eucharistic practice. This discussion of open versus closed table is of great importance because liturgy is an essential key to the doctrine of the churches of the Anglican Communion including the Episcopal Church.Footnote 4 Further, the liturgy of the churches of the Anglican Communion, particularly at public worship and given such importance, is regulated by law to maintain good order. The Committee's summary was that there were numerous distinct issues at stake in the debate; it was not itself of one mind. The Committee then went on to set the stage and highlight the larger issues in the debate over the theological and sacramental implications of open communion.Footnote 5
Although the Committee realised that it had reached no consensus on the issue of open communion, it did offer its report to the House of Bishops and the General Convention as an initial reflection on the issue.Footnote 6 It did not want ‘checkpoints on the way to the altar’,Footnote 7 but supplied a caveat for appropriate pastoral discretion in a situation of an open and notorious sinner where reception of the Eucharist would cause great scandal. This position was offered as against the Canon of the Episcopal Church which, as we have seen, makes it clear that no unbaptised person is eligible to receive Holy Communion in the Church. The Committee therefore seems to have set up a false debate because Canon 1.17.1 does not mandate or even recommend ‘altar police’.
The Theological Committee Report continues by reminding us all that clergy enter into a type of covenantal relationship with their bishop regarding the ‘doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this Church has received them’.Footnote 8 Clergy also promise obedience to their bishop. To the Committee, it also appeared that both the bishop and the priest enter into a similar relationship with the people in their care. Given this interlocking covenantal relationship, the Canons should not be wilfully violated in an arbitrary, secretive or idiosyncratic fashion, where clergy and parish become a law into themselves. For the Committee, the reason to avoid such lawlessness is not for the sake of the Canons standing in the abstract, but rather for the covenantal relationship between bishops, priests and people.
The Committee did acknowledge the serious pastoral concerns motivating those who favour open communion. Nevertheless, it also recognised the serious implications for ecumenical relations as well as for serious intra-Communion disruption should the Episcopal Church change its current closed communion Canon. Overturning 1900 years of sacramental theology should at least be thought about seriously. The Theological Committee Report stated that the Committee's discussions had coalesced around three inter-related issues: first, the doctrinal and liturgical connection between baptism and Eucharist; second, Jesus’ practice and hopes for his followers; and third, mission and Eucharistic participation.Footnote 9
The Committee then turned its attention to the historic and intrinsic connection between baptism and Eucharist and a theological sense of the Church's traditional practice. Its conclusion, from a detailed analysis that need not detain us here with the particulars, is that baptism theologically and sacramentally leads to Eucharist and not the other way around. The Committee specifically referred to Eucharistic Prayer C in the Book of Common Prayer, which explicitly ties baptism to Eucharist:Footnote 10 ‘It is those redeemed and “made a new people by water and the Spirit” who offer the gifts that become Christ's body and blood.’Footnote 11
If the Eucharist is opened to the unbaptised, a significant number of important questions are raised, among them: what would be the doctrinal foundation for continuing the close relationship between baptism and Eucharist that would allow open communion; and can the intelligibility of baptism be retained if Eucharist precedes baptism? The Theological Committee Report then concluded with a general discussion of the two positions: closed communion founded on the historic sacramental theology of the Church; and open communion founded on the open table fellowship of Jesus.
As the Episcopal Church gavelled open its 77th General Convention, meeting in Indianapolis 5–12 July 2012, the debate was joined over the repeal of Canon 1.17.7. Meanwhile congregations around the Episcopal Church openly invited the unbaptised to the altar notwithstanding the Canon in question. Two resolutions were presented to the General Convention. After parliamentary procedures that would do a Byzantine emperor proud, the Evangelism Committee submitted the following Resolution 029 to the House of Deputies:
Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that the Episcopal Church reaffirms that baptism is the ancient and normative entry point to receive Holy Communion and that our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to go into the world and baptize all peoples. We also acknowledge that in various local contexts there is the exercise of pastoral sensitivity for those who are not yet baptized.Footnote 12
Much debate ensued in the House of Deputies, including a proposed amendment to delete the second sentence of the Resolution. All offered amendments were defeated, and the Resolution was put to a vote of the House of Deputies. By orders, 77 per cent of the lay and 64 per cent of the clergy deputies voted in favour of the Resolution.Footnote 13 The level of support for the Resolution when it was presented to the House of Bishops was very different from the level of support demonstrated by the vote of the House of Deputies, as reflected in the words of Bishop William Gregg, Assistant Bishop of North Carolina, who declared that it was not ‘up to one denomination’ to change the universal Church's teaching on baptism.Footnote 14 Most of the disagreement was directed at the second sentence of the Resolution. A number of bishops commented that allowing local clergy to decide on the question of the pre-conditions for receiving the Eucharist was ‘a recipe for anarchy’ and ‘an abandonment of the teaching office’ of the Church.Footnote 15 After much debate, a resolution was put forward to delete the second sentence of the Resolution as received from the House of Deputies. Both the amendment and the Resolution as amended passed the House of Bishops, effectively killing any attempt to modify Canon 1.17.1.Footnote 16 Thus the Canon was effectively reaffirmed by the 77th General Convention as the established law of the Episcopal Church. For the moment, the Episcopal Church has stayed put, at least on the issue of open communion, within the universal Church and the Articles of Religion.
THEOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST
The purpose of this article is not to rehash the theological debate over open or closed table. Two recent articles – one by James Farwell titled ‘Baptism, Eucharist, and the hospitality of Jesus: on the practice of “open communion”’,Footnote 17 on the side of closed table; and the other by Kathryn Tanner ‘In praise of open communion: a rejoinder to James Farwell’Footnote 18 – together provide an excellent disquisition on the ecclesiology, Christology and sacramental theology of this issue. To repeat their arguments would be a disservice to the authors.
However, brief reference to a few additional points in the area of sacramental theology may be useful. The debate over open table seems to be in many aspects a rehash of the debate between Luther and Zwingli over the nature of the Eucharist. There seems to be no clear doctrinal formulation within the Anglican Communion on the nature of the Eucharist.Footnote 19 The Communion is a big tent, with views of the Eucharistic presence ranging from Anglo-Catholics’ belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the elements of bread and wine, to Low Church members who adhere to the view that it is a mere memorial. Given this wide continuum, it is fair to say, viewing the matter holistically, that the more one tends toward a realisation of the Real Presence, the more closed table one will be out of reverence for the sacrament.Footnote 20 The more one tends toward mere memorial, the more open table one will be. This wide perspective may be seen in the range of Christian churches, from the Orthodox and Roman Catholics who are clearly closed table, to most ‘Low Church’ Protestant churches, which are open table or simply do not care.Footnote 21
Depending on where a rector ends up in this debate probably determines, with exceptions certainly, where that rector will land on open versus closed table. The Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church, by being the via media and minimally doctrinal, offer a continuing re-enactment of the Reformation, often with the same approach to taking prisoners.Footnote 22
The question of ‘memorial’ does bring up one very cogent point made by Farwell in a footnote in commenting on the assumption, often put forward by those of low ecclesiology, or those who seldom acknowledge the significance of the tradition of the Church, or others, such as the Jesus Seminar members, who argue that ‘only what is early is supportable, logical, or authentic to the spirit of Jesus’:Footnote 23
This is no small assumption … the importance of the early biblical (and liturgical) material must be understood in relation to the nature of Christian liturgical practice, which is not mainly mimetic, but anamnetic. Christian liturgy is not calming of anxiety in the present by imitation of the past, but the transfiguration of the present and future by remembrance of the past. In anamnetic worship, the relationship between the founding person and event, on the one hand, and the ritual rehearsal of the community's faith in that person or event, on the other, is more complex than the simple duplication of prior practices, so much so that fidelity to the founder might well involve practices and formulations different from that of the founder.Footnote 24
Farwell argues that open table misses a huge pastoral opportunity to shepherd people through the whole ordeal of dealing with desire or longing. He suggests that advocates of open table are falling into our modern society's priority of the individual, a priority that leads to the loss of the common good.Footnote 25 Further, open table totally reorients the process of conversion and the rite of Christian initiation. In the years before the Second Vatican Council, church leaders carefully looked at the history of the development of baptism, confirmation and Eucharist and agreed on changes needed to adapt these sacraments to the needs of the contemporary Church. Following the Council, the Roman Catholic Church published four documents relating to the sacraments: ‘Christian initiation: general introduction’, ‘Rite of baptism for children’, ‘Rite of confirmation’ and ‘Rite of Christian initiation of adults’ (RCIA). The RCIA restored the order of baptism–confirmation–Eucharist and emphasised the interconnectedness and right order of these three sacraments.Footnote 26 Open table upturns all of this, brings into question the functionality of baptism and confirmation, and probably causes irreparable division with the Anglican Communion and the efforts at ecumenism. Or, to put the issue another way:
The church is radically inclusive and baptism is the means by which people are included. Communion is the celebration of that inclusion, not its means. It is supremely ironic that a church that spends so much energy (rightly) celebrating the baptismal covenant could then turn its back on its significance in what seems a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of these two sacraments, and their interrelationship.Footnote 27
A major concern with the theology of the open table is the limiting perspective of one metanarrative – of hospitality and inclusion – to the exclusion of other necessary metanarratives. The New Testament is much more complex and the arguments in favour of open table ‘rest almost exclusively on the texts of Jesus’ meal ministry without reference to the other parts of the story’.Footnote 28 The open table narrative fails to relate to or reflect the passion, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Christ. ‘Consequently, although the primacy and priority of God's grace is affirmed in the practice of CWOB [Communion without Baptism], the way that grace acts in repentance, redemption, justification and glorification is not explored.’Footnote 29 We cannot limit our understanding of the gospel to hospitality and inclusion for to do so ignores temptation, sin, repentance and atonement as well as joy, fellowship and ecstasy. Michael Tuck states that ‘A sacramental system built on this single metanarrative [of hospitality and inclusion] is doomed to failure’.Footnote 30 The diversity of the Scriptures leads to various understandings of the Eucharist, all of which must be honoured and held together by our praxis. Such other metanarratives would include the Eucharist as the present ultimate communion of the individual with God and the participation of the Eucharist in Christ's sacrifice on the cross.Footnote 31 For Tuck, the traditional orientation of ‘font to table’ bears more theological and pastoral weight than does the theology and pastoral weight of open table standing alone. Baptism is the correct sign of inclusion in the Body of Christ. No-one is turned away from the font. Baptism is the sign of our commitment to follow Jesus on the way.Footnote 32 However, ‘font to table’ is not saying ‘no’ but rather ‘not yet’. The Eucharist should function as a sign of fellowship, but it should also be our intimate encounter with God and a sign of our union with Christ in the sacrifice of the cross. Only in ‘font to table’ can the realities of sin, judgment, redemption and glorification find expression in our normative liturgies in addition to the eschatological reality of inclusiveness.Footnote 33
ECCLESIASTICAL DISOBEDIENCE
As discussed above, notwithstanding the debate over open versus closed table, the House of Bishops, as the competent legislature, recently decided the issue for the moment by refusing to modify or delete Canon 1.17.1. To intentionally violate a Canon is nothing less than ecclesiastical disobedience. Many say that they are led by the Holy Spirit to violate those Canons they disagree with. The answer for them to this debate is freedom of conscience and the dictates of their version of the Holy Spirit. There is little difference between this concept – that each person may violate what laws they want to violate because they perceive that the Holy Spirit wants them to so violate the laws – and anarchy. It is probable that my Holy Spirit is not saying the same things as your Holy Spirit. Law in the Church is no different from law in civil society. Law serves the common good by providing consistency of treatment and clarity of responsibility.Footnote 34 Consequently, to disobey requires justification to be obedient to God's plan.
As discussed above, Canon 1.17.1 directly prohibits open communion. Given that starting point, the next question is whether a dissenting rector who invites all to the table in his parish church has agreed to be bound by this Canon. The answer is clearly yes. Article VIII of the Constitution of the Episcopal Church requires that no bishop shall be consecrated or a priest ordained unless they subscribe and make the declaration that, among other things, they will conform to the ‘Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship of the Episcopal Church’.Footnote 35 Violation of this oath, or more broadly, ‘[v]iolation of the Constitution and Canons of the General Convention’ or ‘[v]iolation of the Constitution or Canons of the Diocese in which the person (bishop, priest or deacon) is Canonically resident’ or ‘[a]ny act which involves a violation of Ordination vows’ is an offence under the Canons subject to presentment and trial.Footnote 36
Invitation to an open table is, therefore, a punishable offence under the Canons of the national Church. Consequently, any such advocacy is ecclesiastical disobedience. We can now go one of two ways. We may justify the disobedience under some standard whereby the individual rector can decide what Canons he or she will or will not obey, under some theory that following the dictates of one's own conscience supersedes ordination vows. The foundational basis of this position is that my oath is inherently subordinate to my view of God's will and, therefore, inherently meaningless. The law of the Church binds me only to the extent that I wish to be bound. Under this theory, each priest is elevated not only to the position of his or her own pope but also to the position that each priest has the inherent ability to declare divine law without restraint and without regard to the sensus fidelium. This approach leads immediately to the establishment not of congregationalism, where at least the entire congregation collectively decides doctrine, but to some form of imperial rectorship. This approach totally disregards the polity of the Episcopal Church and forces the conclusion of creeping schism. The moral player here rejects not only the legitimacy of the law but also its capacity to be labelled or defined as a law.Footnote 37 There is no answer to this arrogance of the individual and the resulting anarchy.
A more moderate and grounded approach is for the priest to argue that Canon 1.17.1 is not a correct reflection of divine law and therefore not a valid law under the polity of the Episcopal Church. Here the moral agent, the rector in our example, refuses recognition of an unjust law but accepts the nature of its promulgation.Footnote 38 The criteria and justification for ecclesiastical disobedience can be seen as analogous to civil disobedience. Canon 1.17.1 as a human law, following the schema of St Thomas Aquinas, violates not natural law as in the case of civil disobedience but divine law.Footnote 39 In the case of open table, we are not dealing with a human law contrary to natural law or eternal law, but to the debate as to which approach – open table or closed table, as contrary statements of divine law – reflects the eternal law.
If this positing of the debate is correct, then the open table adherents can argue that because Canon 1.17.1, by requiring closed table, does not reflect the eternal law of God, Canon 1.17.1 does ‘not bind in conscience’.Footnote 40 For Aquinas, paraphrasing St Augustine, a law lacking moral legitimacy is not valid and we, as moral beings, are obliged to disobey such a law and work for its repeal.Footnote 41 Martin Luther King put it this way:
The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of law: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal right but also a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all’.
…
A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a human law that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.Footnote 42
In the context of ecclesiastical disobedience, rather than evaluating the law on some basis of civil justice, such as commutative or distributive,Footnote 43 the evaluation is of two versions (open and closed) of the same divine law. This will then lead us back to the theological discussion briefly considered above. The next question is therefore: how should the Church's legal system respond to such disobedience?
RESPONDING TO DISOBEDIENCE
Here a comparison with civil disobedience by a lawyer is useful and arguably necessary because the Constitution and Canons do not give any particular guidance. As for lawyers, ecclesiastical disobedience by clergy differs from that of other members of the Church because clergy are subject to binding rules of obedience to which they must answer as discussed above. One approach to an ‘unjust’ law is to try to improve the law by lawful means.Footnote 44 This approach was tried at the last General Convention (as discussed above) and the House of Bishops rejected the effort at ‘lawful’ change. However, this limitation in the American Bar Association's ‘Model code of professional responsibility’ is in unison with the claim that ‘[e]ach lawyer must find within his own conscience the touchstone against which to test the extent to which his action’ is ethical.Footnote 45 Courts have recognised this tension. The California Supreme Court, for example, held that an applicant for admission to the Bar of the State of California, who had been arrested multiple times for civil disobedience when involved with the civil rights movement, was not disqualified from the practice of law. In fact, such conduct might be considered the result of ‘the highest moral courage’.Footnote 46 Arguably, as in the case of lawyers, Church authorities should approach ecclesiastical disobedience with sensitivity to the moral context of the law-breaking.Footnote 47
Notwithstanding this need for sensitivity, there are counter-arguments to a permissive view of ecclesiastical disobedience, again by analogy with lawyer civil disobedience. It can be argued that ecclesiastical obedience has broader cost to the clergy, to the Church as a whole and to the Constitution and Canons. Even if you can disobey, should you disobey in a system that generally reflects divine law? An initial objection is that such ecclesiastical disobedience weakens the normative power of the Constitution and Canons. Because the authority of the General Convention depends on the willingness of the clergy to accept and obey its actions as reflected in the Constitution and Canons, erosion of respect for the Constitution and Canons is a serious threat to the polity of the Episcopal Church. Clergy who disobey the Canons, even with the best of motives, send the message to the Church as a whole that the polity of the Church can be ignored when an individual deems it appropriate to do so.Footnote 48
Further, a hierarchical church in which the clergy feel no particular commitment to the rule of law would be ineffective at enforcing normative conduct within that church and therefore likely to be unstable. As mentioned above, if authority is not exercised at the level of General Convention, it will slide down the scale to ‘the local diocese and to the local parish, and Anglicanism is invaded by a creeping congregationalism. Each Anglican parish ends up doing its own thing.’Footnote 49 Canon law can be viewed as the operations manual for the Church. If we have primacy of individual conscience over the law, then the purpose of law to bring order into the operations and life of the group fails. Without law, the Church faces restlessness, discontent and resistance.Footnote 50
The counter to the claim that ecclesiastical disobedience weakens respect for the law of the Church is based on the very nature of civil disobedience.Footnote 51 As Dr King wrote in his ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’,
an individual who breaks [a] law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.Footnote 52
And as Palumbos states:
By submitting oneself voluntarily to the legal system's judgment, one recognises and affirms the law's authority and the legal obligations it imposes, even while protesting its morality. This aspect of civil disobedience does not change simply because it is a lawyer who commits it.Footnote 53
I would conclude the same for a priest who violates a Canon.
Other arguments can be made in allowance for ecclesiastical disobedience. Often episcopal authority ignores the disobedience because such authority recognises that there are competing moral precepts and understandings of divine and eternal law of greater worth than the law being ignored, for which the ecclesiastical disobedience is justified. Further, acts of ecclesiastical disobedience are rare, or at least in the past have been, and that acknowledgement that some moral obligations may trump obedience to a particular Canon will not unleash widespread ecclesiastical disobedience.Footnote 54
Ecclesiastical disobedience clearly presents a choice to the diocesan bishop or to the House of Bishops it challenges: punish the lawbreaker and affirm the value of Canon 1.17.1 recently affirmed or acknowledge mistake in the Canon and amend or repeal it. Far from weakening the authority of General Convention, ecclesiastical disobedience affords General Convention the opportunity to strength its normative power. General Convention, in response to ecclesiastical disobedience, should re-evaluate Canon 1.17.1, come to grips with the divine law implications of the open or closed table debate and either strengthen the canonical obligation imposed by affirming the law and punishing the errant priest or bishop, or revise or repeal the Canon.Footnote 55 The awkward position that the Episcopal Church now finds itself in is trying to have the best of both worlds and ending up in the worst of possible places. The House of Bishops declines to repeal Canon 1.17.1 while at the same time countless priests are inviting everyone who is on the journey of faith, no matter where they are on that journey or how lost, to the communion rail. The result is not only an impression but the actuality of indecision. ‘While Rome may dither and wonder which gods to placate, which voice to follow, single minded and decisive Alaric storms the walls and takes the Forum.’Footnote 56 The House of Bishops appeases those who have a catholic high-sacramental theology and the more orthodox within the wider Anglican Communion, while at the same time effectively appeasing those who do not hold to such a theology by not taking action against clergy who foster open table.
The result is the creeping irrelevance of the General Convention. Liberal-minded ecclesiastical individualists may be delighted with this refusal to exercise authority and the effort by the House of Bishops to placate everyone. However, it has led to an impossibility of exercising authority at any level but the diocesan, where bishops may still have some authority.Footnote 57 Yet inaction at the diocesan level has had the further effect of local parishes determining whether to follow 1900 years of Christian sacramental theology or throw theology overboard to maintain an interesting conclusion about the table fellowship of Jesus.Footnote 58 This indecision diminishes respect for the rule of law from top to bottom and fosters the disintegration of ecclesial cohesion.
Ignoring ecclesiastical disobedience undermines the justifications for and effectiveness of such disobedience in several ways.Footnote 59 First, such indecision, or aversion of the eyes so to speak, strips ecclesiastical disobedience of its value as a tool to improve canon law. By ignoring such disobedience in response to its actions, the House of Bishops minimises the law–morality conflict that the ecclesiastical disobedience highlights. The result is that the Church loses the opportunity to come to grips with the issue. Second, the priest or bishop who has advocated open table shows his or her respect for the polity of the Episcopal Church, the authority of General Convention and the seriousness of their ordination vow by accepting canonical censure. If the priest or bishop faces no disciplinary proceeding as required by canon law as a result of clear canonical violation, this element of respect is not displayed to the faithful. The result is that the faithful lose their respect for ecclesiastical authority and the General Convention ceases to be relevant. The end result is the weakening of the authority of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church and of the diocese. This is not the intended result of legitimate ecclesiastical disobedience. As with civil disobedience, the goal of such legitimate disobedience is to strengthen legal authority, not undermine it.Footnote 60
Our current position in the Episcopal Church is the worst of all possible worlds as a result of General Convention wanting an outcome that offends no-one. If General Convention wishes to remain relevant to the life of the Church, and if we as Episcopalians want to retain our polity as a hierarchical church in global communion, then we need to reaffirm our rule of law and either punish the offenders or change the law.
Perhaps it is useful to end this discourse on ecclesiastical disobedience with the words of Rowan Williams, in ‘An appreciation of the Ecclesiastical Law Society on the twenty-fifth anniversary of its foundation’:
We are an ordered Church, and an ordered Church means a Church in which the fancies, preferences and egos of those in authority are controlled. A disorderly Church is one in which lots of people's personalities thrash around, fascinatingly, excitingly and very damagingly. An ordered Church is one in which you have some reasonable expectation of what's expected of you. … And I hope that the principle Richard Hooker worked from – that law as the basis of Church and society is, at its fullest and richest, a reflection of the lawfulness, the harmonic regularity of the whole universe under God – is something that remains not only in our thinking and our action as people involved with the law, but in our prayer and contemplation as well. … Woe betide us then, if as a Church we play down what the law can and should mean. Woe betide us, if we forget that order is the servant of freedom, not its enemy.Footnote 61
