The North American Anglican has given Colletti his opportunity to respond and he does so with Colletti: A Response to My Critics. His response mostly stuck with those who were given an opportunity in the North American Anglican itself. I’ve said most of what I want to say in my pieces The Cattle Have Already Checked Out: My Response to Joe Colletti’s “On the Theology of Communion and Separation” and “Dreaming of the Red Churches”: My Wrap on Joe Colletti’s Theology and the Responses. I would like to make a few observations that I think have gotten lost in the discussion:
- Colletti’s statement that “I actually do believe there have been instances in history that did warrant a positive separation, namely the Council of Trent. This is because I do believe the Council of Trent imposed automatic excommunication against people attempting to hold the orthodox position on justification, which was a fundamental pertaining to the doctrine of salvation.” is simply wrong. The concept of merit and its implementation (which IMHO is objectionable) which was building in the later Middle Ages was precisely the one that Luther objected to and began the separation of the Reformation; Trent came after and codified Catholic practice. One thing that complicates this debate is that classical Augustinian concepts of justification are viewed on either side through the lens of respective ecclesiologies. Catholics–and Augustine himself–viewed it through the mediating role of the Church, Protestants generally don’t, and Anglicans adopted a “compromise” view that is evident in the classical BCP’s. A more classically Augustinian view can be seen in parts of Catholicism even after Trent, as was the case with the Jansenists and Bossuet.
- Colletti’s endless appeals to what the Episcopal Church officially teaches are not “in the real world.” I don’t know a more charitable way to put it. Episcopalians are masters at reciting the Creeds Sunday after Sunday and not believing half of them. The introduction of critical Biblical studies had a corrosive effect on what the ministers believed and taught, which in turn led to a predictable effect on the laity. The 1960’s put two issues front and centre in the Episcopal Church: the sexual revolution (which led to the likes of Bishop Gene Robinson) and the social justice movement, which became an obsession in a church whose demographics were unsuited to a meaningful response.
- The ACNA’s problem–and those of the Continuing Churches, who to their credit have worked to resolve their divisions–is that there are too many disciples of Diotrephes in the mix: “I wrote a few lines to the Church; but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, declines to recognize us. Therefore, when I come, I shall not forget his conduct in ridiculing us with his wicked tongue. Not content with that, he not only declines to recognize our Brothers himself, but actually prevents those who would, and expels them from the Church.” (3 Jn 1:9-10). That’s true, for example, on both sides of the WO debate; it is a battle of authority and who will be first in the church. This is especially an occupational hazard of churches with Episcopal governance, but it will destroy the ACNA if it is not addressed soon and forcefully.
You can’t solve problems unless you define them correctly, and for all of his mastery of Church history this is something that Colletti–and for that matter some of his critics–have failed to do.
Positive Infinity 