The following article by Bishop Bill Atwood is from the August 6, 2013 edition of the AAC’s International Update. Sign up for this free email here.
The tarmac at Dhahran Airport in Saudi Arabia gets really hot. I can still vividly remember a time when the temperatures were so high that it would burn your feet through the soles of your boots. The number that sticks in my memory is 132˚ F, but it could have been 232˚ (or whatever the temperature of molten lava is).
I was there with my Air Force plane delivering mail and picking up passengers. At the airport and in the terminal, there were several anomalies. First of all, apart from airport staff, we were the only people there. There were no other planes on the ramp and no passengers either arriving or waiting for departure. The lavishly stocked duty free shop was staffed by a handful of workers even though there was no one to shop. The building was new, very modern, and spotless. Nevertheless, cleaning crews walked the corridors with push brooms in tandem.
After poking around for a while we figured out how to get from the passenger side of the terminal to the operations side where we could file our flight plan and check the weather. Arriving at “ops,” I was greeted by an anxious, young, American sergeant with a clipboard. “We have a problem, Sir,” he announced nervously.
“What’s the problem, Sergeant?” I asked.
Holding up the clipboard, he pointed to the papers and said, “We have mutually exclusive manifests. There is high priority PAXPRO (passengers prohibited) cargo, and a medivac patient that has a heart problem and has to get to the hospital at Ramstein most riki-tik (really fast). You can’t carry a passenger with the hazardous cargo without a waiver and you can’t leave the guy-he’s really sick. We’ve tried all day to get through to 21st Airforce HQ for a waiver, but there is some kind of problem with the lines. Big time problem.”
I told the co-pilot to go out to the plane and try to raise the 21st Air Force Command Post on the HF radio to ask for a waiver, then we went to weather and dispatch to file our flight plan for Germany.
For the better part of an hour, the co-pilot tried to get the Command Post on the radio, but couldn’t get through. Before cell phones and satellites that could be used, we had to rely on short wave transmissions that were subject to the uncertainties of atmospheric conditions.
When it came time to board, we had still not been able to get through.
Not wanting to leave priority cargo or a critically ill person behind, I pondered what to do. Hazardous PAXPRO cargo required a “numbered Air Force” waiver. That meant that a waiver would have to come from the Command Post that covered airlift operations from the Mississippi river to Pakistan.
Then, in my head, I could hear my Grandfather’s voice. An Army general, he had filled me with all kinds of great guidance. I heard him saying, “Regulations are guides to the wise and bondage to the fool.”
“Give me the clipboard,” I told the anxious sergeant, and I wrote “PAXPRO Cargo passenger waiver,” put the date and time and signed it. “There. We have a waiver.”
“You can’t do that!” exclaimed the sergeant.
“Apparently I can. If you look, you have a signed waiver. At least you don’t have to worry about getting in trouble. It’s all on me.”
We got the patient to the hospital without incident and delivered the cargo where it needed to go. While I’m sure you appreciate the reminiscence, here’s the real point. The Kingdom of God works like that, too. Regulations are guides to the wise and bondage to the fool. There are underlying principles that cannot be violated without eternal consequences.
Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” But He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?” And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:23-28)
One of the great recurring problems of the modern day Anglican Communion is focusing on “regulations” rather than on the undergirding principles. A prime example was found in the great offense found when diocesan boundaries were crossed to provide Gospel ministry and oversight in places where it was not faithful to Scriptural (and thus Anglican) norms. The objecting argument was that diocesan boundaries were/are the defining principle of Anglicanism. That’s wrong. Diocesan boundaries are a useful tool that is helpful in safeguarding the Gospel. However, when a Diocese turns away from the Gospel and is leading people away from the redeeming love of Christ, it is not an ethical violation to transgress the boundary in order to preserve the principle for which the boundary was originally put in place.
In other words, when the boundary, which was put in place to safeguard the Gospel, becomes perverted and is being used as an un-redemptive tool, it is not an ethical violation to transgress the structural boundary to preserve the Gospel which gave rise to the structure in the first place.
When a Diocese or a Province takes action that violates the revealed truth in Scripture, it does not matter how tidily the bureaucracy has authenticated it. The issue is not fidelity to Diocesan procedure, the question is whether the decision conforms to Scripture.
More than a few Provinces who consider themselves wholly orthodox are maintaining normal relations with other Provinces who have moved in spiritually destructive directions because the offending Province claims that they have followed their own procedures. That is no more efficacious than a resolution or new canon declaring the repealing of gravity would be.
Jesus doesn’t love the structures of the church as an end in themselves. He loves the Church and the people. He loves redemption that transforms lives. Measures that rob people of the transforming love of the Gospel are anathema to Him, and they will ultimately receive His whip of cords rather than His approval.
Right now, there are tragic instances in which structures of the “instruments of unity” in the Anglican Communion have compromised their Gospel purpose. As such, they no longer have the moral or spiritual authority to act. The same is true for us as individuals, for parishes, Dioceses, and Provinces. When people rebel against God’s purpose and will that is revealed in Scripture, they are fit only for repentance or removal. Those who have charted the errant and un-redemptive courses that are tragically common may escape judgment for a time, but it will come. Gravity can’t be repealed.
