Ancient practices
The Anglican archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, is coming to America to preside over a ceremony to install a bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. According to this report, the Episcopalian Church USA is not pleased about the archbishop's visit.
The Rev Mark Harris, a member of the Executive Council in the ECUSA said, “The archbishop of Nigeria may think the Episcopal Church has acted wrongly, but that is quite different from using that as an excuse to cross boundaries and do things that violate longstanding practice”. A similar response was given by Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, when she said that Akinola's visit without notice or invitation was not keeping with the “ancient practice” of the church that bishops do not minister outside their jurisdictions.
It has hard for me to understand how Harris or Schori do not see the obvious irony in their comments. They both cite the longevity of a practice to prove its worthiness. However, one of the reasons archbishop Akinola is making his visit is because evangelical Episcopalians are tired of the ECUSA breaking with ancient practice. The practice of not ordaining homosexual bishops goes straight back to that ancient book known as the Bible and has been practised much longer than Anglican polity.
How does one decide which ancient practices are worth holding on to and which ones are not? The knock against the Bible-based tradition of barring homosexuals from ministry is that it is culturally conditioned, outdated and thus easily jettisoned. Could not the same argument be used against this “ancient practice” that Harris and Schori are so set on upholding? With technology, travel and global communities being as they are, it would be quite easy to build a case against this longstanding polity practice.
I suppose citing Mark 7 would be one of those ancient practices not worth holding on to.