Walking in the Light Together

Since my consecration on March 29, I’ve spent much of my time traveling throughout our 30 churches in the West, listening to the hearts of clergy and laity who are trying to follow Jesus in a culture that often feels more like Babylon than Jerusalem. These visits have been a profound blessing. They’ve allowed me to offer pastoral care, share vision, and witness the extraordinary faithfulness of ordinary Christians who want to follow Christ in difficult times. Doing this work alongside my wife, Julie, has been a gift beyond anything I imagined.

Yet amid these joys, my heart has been heavy as I’ve watched our province struggle to address the abuse of ecclesiastical power. These failures have left wounds that can’t be ignored. They’ve also stirred in me the need to reflect deeply on the authority entrusted to bishops from the very beginning of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

When the ACNA was first forming out of many lifeboats and networks, we knew we needed strong episcopal leadership. Bishops were entrusted with broad executive authority to help knit together a new province and to secure recognition from global Anglican partners in Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, the Southern Cone, and elsewhere. Their boldness, doctrinal clarity, and courage were essential for our survival. In those early years, their role in governance was significant by necessity.

But every family grows. And that growth often prompts questions for reflection and restructuring, questions about how the family not only grows together but lives together. Questions like:

• What happens when a family that needed strong, decisive parental leadership in its infancy reaches adolescence?

• Do bishops need to spend more time listening?

• Should clergy and laity be more intentionally involved in shaping our governance, our culture, and our common life?

• Should we reconsider long-standing practices such as the absence of debate on the floor of Provincial Council?

•   Could deliberation within the separate houses of bishops, clergy, and laity strengthen our discernment, even if it requires a longer legislative process?

• Would allowing resolutions to be submitted and discussed more broadly help us address challenges in healthier and more unified ways?

These questions aren’t merely procedural. They touch the very heart of how we walk together as God’s people. They’ll also be explored at the Introduction to Anglican Polity and Canon Law course at All Saints Cathedral in Long Beach this January (click here for details).

There’s another memory that’s been on my mind. Shortly before the ACNA was inaugurated, several bishops convened a gathering at Ridgecrest to address the spiritual and emotional trauma many of us carried from our departure from the Episcopal Church. I know from my own experience that victims of ecclesiastical abuse often hide their pain in order to keep the system going. Sometimes they even wonder what they might have done to bring that pain on themselves. Unprocessed pain can become toxic. It can lead to unhealthy patterns when people feel unheard or when apologies, restitution, and genuine reconciliation never come.

In such circumstances, both accusers and accused can drift farther into darkness instead of toward the light.

At Ridgecrest there was repentance, grieving, prayer, and spiritual warfare. But looking back, I’m not convinced it was enough. And so I find myself asking again whether our reformation of character has kept pace with our reformation of doctrine. Is it time to pause and recommit ourselves as leaders within the ACNA to a deeper reformation of character?

Much has been said about our need for canonical restructuring, particularly regarding Title Four. When our constitution and canons were first written, we believed we were the good guys in questions of biblical faithfulness, marriage, and holy orders. I don’t think we imagined that we ourselves would face the kinds of moral failures we once decried in the Episcopal Church. As a result, we created a minimal disciplinary structure that hasn’t proved adequate for the challenges of the last decade.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, including us. The ambiguities and gaps in our original Title Four have contributed to delays, adversarial processes, and deep frustration. The newly revised Title Four is lengthy because it tries to close those gaps while upholding natural justice, the presumption of innocence, and the need for timely resolution. I’m grateful for the work of Professor Samuel Bray, the Reverend Bill Bartow, and the Task Force for their research and revision, and for the Very Reverend Andrew Rowell for leading the effort after my own tenure ended.

I urge all of us to read the revised Title Four carefully and to contribute to the health it seeks to restore to our province by taking all accusations of misconduct seriously. But even the most carefully crafted canons can’t close the loophole of the human heart. Our hearts are deceitful and often hide from us our own sins. And so the question remains. What does this moment require of us as bishops?

A dear friend once shared how his ministry changed after a sabbatical with Dallas Willard. He shifted from seeing himself as a CEO to embracing his calling as a father in God. I wonder if it’s time for bishops in the ACNA to make a similar shift. This wouldn’t mean abandoning our responsibility for governance. It would mean leading in a way that empowers the Timothys, Priscillas, and Aquilas among us to share in that work, while we focus on what only bishops can do, which is to shepherd the flock as spiritual fathers in God.

These are the questions I’m carrying as we move forward. And I do so with confidence in God’s promise in First John 1:7 through 9. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we’ll have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from all our sins.

May we choose to walk in that light together.