by Christopher I. Wilkins, Ph.D.

April 21, 2006
Feast of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury

The Episcopal Church’s 2006 General Convention is fast approaching. As it does so, I would encourage Episcopalians to prayerfully consider—meaning both to examine and to contemplate—the well-known statement from Richard Hooker that Via Media USA has chosen to represent its mission: “The via media is not a compromise for the sake of peace, but a comprehension for the sake of truth.”

As a deer longs for water and the heart for rest in God, so Anglicans long to find a via media whenever conflict arises or crisis threatens. As we seek a middle way, it is important not to take paths which might seem easy, but in the end only delay resolution of conflict or for but a short while keep crisis at bay. It is important, instead, for us to seek paths of truth, even if they are difficult. On such paths, the things that are true for each of us and for all of us, in their harmony and divergence, reveal themselves as life-giving.

To move forward together in the midst of our current conflicts, we should remind ourselves of the context in which they have arisen. They, like we, have arisen in the midst of the Anglican Communion, a long-lived worldwide community of faith. Our bonds in it have not been those of a common culture or uniform doctrine. Nor should they be. Instead, our bonds come simply from the fact that, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said, “we meet.” United by the strife that divides us we may be. But we meet.

As diverse Christian people, we meet across boundaries of culture, tradition, experience and nation. We persistently challenge each other, in and through our differences, to find what centers us as a particular part of the Christian family. When we meet, we have the opportunity to see Christ in each other in new, as well as familiar, ways. If we choose, we can meet to refresh ourselves for the ministries to which God has called us in our own times and places—even if they may seem at odds with one another. We can do so without demanding uniformity from each other, but insisting instead on two things uniformity dampens: trust and mutual respect.

Why should we? Because we follow, in Christ, the Word of God whom John’s gospel tells us came into the world as a light that no darkness could comprehend, and as a truth no lie could stifle. The darkness that comes from ignorance and discord, from whatever quarters they have emerged, continues to fail to thwart God's Word among us. When we can see each other in the light of Christ, particularly when we are called to different expressions and actions in faith, we move out of darkness, and in light.

The Episcopal Church’s General Convention in 2006 will face again its major question concerning sexual ethics. Should loving, committed same-gender couples have their relationships and ordained ministries recognized by a church already committed to their civil rights and freedoms? At least some of those most passionate to answer either “yes” or “no” believe that those who answer differently have cast themselves out of Christian faith and holy fellowship. It is difficult to see how compromise could be possible between passions so radically divided, or on the basis of the disagreement as it has been cast between them. It strikes me as vanity to search for one. Insofar as the Windsor Report, for example, as it addresses this question and those that follow from it, is taken as a call to compromise, I fear that it is being taken amiss. Insofar as such a report can be accepted as a call to our greater comprehension of each other as Christians, respecting at once the integrity of church, conscience, and communion, I believe we allow it to take us where Christ would have us go.

Being of many nations, both as the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion which it helped create, we must make our middle path broad indeed. It was originally. Among the English who invented it under Elizabeth I, the via media served to prevent further destructive conflict between those who were drawn to the competing Christian gospels of that day, whether from Rome, Geneva, or even further afield. It was also a means by which the monarch, and with her the state, could faithfully cease, as she put it, “to try men’s souls.”

Having learned not to consider only one Christian path to be authentic, Anglicans from the very beginning have issued a prophetic challenge to those who would divide the faithful according to any single group’s peculiar exclusions and designs. To refuse this divisiveness, we must meet each other as equals on a via media. This path calls us to cherish each other in a faith that informs and exceeds the particular questions of a particular moment. In such faith, we refuse the false witnesses who say that only those who believe as they do are to be considered saved. By such faith, we focus not on the pain that others may bring into our world, or we into theirs. Instead, we concentrate on the healing we can bring, overcoming not just ignorance and discord, but a host of other ills. We learn to call this grace, and to be in awe of God’s life-changing providence manifest through it.

We need to see each other in Christ’s light—that is, see Christ’s light in others’ faces. We should not ask what to give up in order to be seen as faithful. We must ask, instead, what we may best express of ourselves in order to show forth integrity in whatever faith has come, by God’s grace, to us. We may differ, but do not have to turn our differences into matters for conflict or compromise. Insofar as we can see differing people in our church striving to discern the paths that Christ has illumined for them, we respect both them and ourselves. We do so by the grace of God who comprehends us all—and whom, when among us, darkness does not overwhelm.

* * *

Dr. Wilkins is the facilitator of Via Media USA.

Copyright © November 2006 Via Media USA. Further distribution is permitted so long as this notice is included. All rights reserved.