Liberal Episcopalians are taking offense that TEC, at long last, is coming under heavy fire for its radical drift of the past several decades. The offense is such that some are thinking the unthinkable -- that "it's time to move on" without the Anglican Communion. More and more are acknowledging that TEC has already, to quote the Windsor Report, "chosen to walk apart". Some are in the throes of denial, but their noisy histrionics are ringing hollow.

Canon Mark Harris of the Diocese of Delaware is more reserved in his role of company man putting on a brave face while the organization makes a stab at a new identity. "Eating crow" is not what Episcopalians are known for. Nor, for that matter, are they known for heartfelt acts of repentance, unless it's for the sins of somebody else in another century. In the life cycle of institutions, it's not yet time for Episcopal leadership to admit they were wrong. Indeed, they can still get plenty of mileage out of insisting everyone else is wrong.

That is Canon Harris' apparent objective in his Jan. 11 blog, which I have dubbed a Manifesto for Walking Apart. In what appears as a quiet, reflective mood, he makes the case that The Episcopal Church, and in particular its hierarchy, are unfortunate victims. Because he makes his case in such thoughtful tones, one does not sense right away that he is playing a "victim card". But he is, of course. He starts right in complaining about "uninvited and unwelcome efforts to pressure The Episcopal Church", which has been woefully "encumbered" by "ecclesiastically 'foreign' intervention". This is not the voice of one buoyed up by the strength of his convictions. This is the voice of someone waking up in a much larger world than he'd dreamed, in which his own place and his own importance are uncertain.

Harris' apologia is symptomatic of the Episcopal Church at a pivotal point in its history. A number of the ideas that have driven recent generations are here on display and worthy of examination. In my first article I commented on the concept of "church" typified in Harris' writing. In this present article I shall comment on the understanding of authority implicit in the same writing.

What is noticeable right away is that the concept of authority does not appear at all except with the connotation of "authoritarian" - that is, as something negative. Authority is something bad in principle. Thus Harris illustrates "the adolescent dread" of authority typical of modern American culture and certainly of the Episcopal Church, the chaplain and cheerleader of that culture. Authority is anything that will tell me what to do; or perhaps -- since overt authority is construed exclusively in the negative - authority is anything that dares tell me I can't do whatever I damn well please. This last description of authority is consistent with the examples and the many complaints in Harris' article.

Since he is not writing about authority per se, Harris does not use the word in his text. Nonetheless from his use of terms like "magisterium", "monarchy", and "patriarchy" a coherent picture of authority emerges. In spite of the controlled demeanor of his writing one detects a slur in his use of these words. Each has a well developed connotation as a negative, inflammatory term, and it is the latter connotation, derived from colloquial usage, that lends coherence to his thought.

For example, in his introduction Harris refers to "organized structures of the Anglican Communion [acting] as if they are the voices of a magisterium or a patriarchy, having powers beyond that of recommendation". He might purportedly be arguing a simple matter of history: there is neither Pope nor Curia dictating policy nor doctrine in the Episcopal Church, nor in any of the Anglican Churches. Our Churches are governed, by contrast, by "powers of recommendation" under "bonds of affection".

But to suggest that TEC's critics are putting on airs of infallibility, or imposing something other than the well known consensus of all the churches in every time and place, is plain distortion. What the "foreigners" are insisting upon is that TEC be accountable for her actions, like any group of adults living in community. It is at this point that TEC cries "foul".

Harris is right about one thing: it is a unique moment in the history of the Anglican Communion. The Communion has never been faced before with one of its member Churches arrogating to itself the power to change doctrine. While TEC has argued that it has not changed "core doctrine" in its recent innovations, member Churches must, for the first time, decide if they agree; and if not, how they will respond. To call such a response "foreign intervention" or "imposing oppressive restrictions" is evidence of paranoia.

Harris will recognize as legitimate only "powers of recommendation", which is to say only those "powers" which wield no real power at all. Such "powers" are strictly symbolic without any expectation of holding real people accountable. When questions are pressed beyond mere "matters for our deepest consideration" and become "mandates requiring our acquiescence", someone is "imposing oppressive restrictions" or "exercising lordship over others".

And yet quiescence is precisely what Harris deems appropriate for others. Feeling betrayed he asks, why are the member Churches of the Anglican world speaking up now? TEC's affected radicalism is nothing new. Harris traces the present wave of controversy to the crisis surrounding women's ordination in the mid-70's.

Here is where Harris' real belief in authority comes to light - the principle of "moral urgency". Harris defends TEC's unilateral action in ordaining women in an offhanded manner, as if the merit of the Church's action were self-evident: "Our decision to ordain women [was] a decision taken as a matter of moral urgency in our own church." When a matter is deemed "urgent", then the action taken in response is self-authenticating. Such decisions are unassailable, or at least nobody else's business.

What emerges is a coherent Baby Boomer doctrine of good and bad authority. "Bad authority" is anyone who wants to tell me what to do or hold me accountable for what I've done. "Good authority", by contrast, is what presses me "urgently" to keep in step with the pulse of the times and thereby assures me of my moral legitimacy, or at least my relevance.

For the record I am aware that Mark Harris is not technically a Baby Boomer, having been born in 1940. The Baby Boomers represent a generation raised in a permissive affluent society. Two distinctions set them apart from earlier generations: first, money in their pockets, and second, time on their hands. Campus radicalism and popular culture came of age with this generation and assumed its name. Many who preceded the Boomers, including some of their parents, jumped on the cultural bandwagon that rolled out of this formative period. The Episcopal Church as a whole experienced its own cultural revival at this time.

In Part Three of this series I will reflect on Mark Harris' gospel of deliverance from American shame and point out how such a gospel necessitates the Church as an adversarial society.

---The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of Saint Luke, Orlando, Florida. He is a regular VOL columnist.