Calvin Robinson and the Good Representative

In Which I Am the Platonic Ideal of an Anglican

File: The High-Church Hieroglyphick Represented in the Sign of the Embleme, Put up at an Inn in Stoke by Naland, in Suffolk (BM 1868,0808.3411).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Oh, ah, well, I’m off with Matt down to DC and barely have time to think about anything. But there is a little bit of a tempest brewing in the Anglican teacup, and I thought I might as well wade in, because why not. So basically, Calvin Robinson, a day or two ago, was given temporary oversight by Bishop Ray Sutton of the REC, one of the member jurisdictions of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). Jeff Walton reporting on X:

I have spoken with Reformed Episcopal Church Bishop Ray Sutton who has provided further information regarding St. Paul's Anglican in Grand Rapids and Fr. Calvin Robinson. Sutton has agreed to provide personal oversight while the church determines its future affiliation.

Sutton notes that Robinson was ordained to the diaconate by the REC's sister church, the Free Church of England, and that he has a "temporary" license to minister, but is still on the rolls of the Anglican Catholic Church. Neither the parish nor Robinson have joined the REC. As explained to me, a bishop may provide temporary episcopal oversight, but that's not the same as the parish or clergy joining the Reformed Episcopal Church (and, by extension, ACNA).

According to Mark Marshall:

The above is not a novel arrangement. When a number of dioceses and parishes left the Episcopal Church after 2003, most found oversight from Archbishops from Africa and South America while a more permanent solution was in formation. Abp. Venables of the Southern Cone and Abp. Akinola of Nigeria were particularly helpful. The more permanent solution was the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), formed in 2009. The bishops of the Reformed Episcopal Church greatly assisted bringing about ACNA and joined as a subjurisdiction.

So is appropriate that now the REC/ACNA is assisting an orthodox parish and its priest as they find themselves in a difficult transition. It is serendipity really. And I am proud that my denomination and bishop is doing this.

But then things hotted up because Archbishop Steve Woods issued a statement yesterday. I’ll just plunk what he said here, because it’s easiest:

So all of this is very exciting, even if you are trying to pull a wedding off in about a week and a half and get home in time for graduation. And, honestly, I’m not quite sure what to think. I would very much like to know what, if anything, happened behind the scenes, for I cannot imagine that there were no phone calls or texts between various parties before this letter emerged. Or maybe I am too cynical by half.

Being an Anglican, I am comfortable taking the middle way. There are points on both sides, one might say, and very certainly wheels within wheels. For example, it should not be controversial to say that Calvin Robinson is controversial. Part of what makes him who he is is his ability to ride a stressful news cycle and come out, fully correct in black cassock, in a room full of people in the White House, all partaking of a worship song, many of them with their hands in the air. Robinson’s proximity to and support of Mr. Trump, his “based” persona, is one of the reasons that—and this is only my guess—someone like Bishop Sutton might consider taking him under his wing, and Archbishop Steve might not be amused. Conservatives are finding their allies wherever they can, and ideological and, strangely enough, theological purity is becoming less of a concern than the willingness to say truthful things in public. This opens them up, necessarily, to accusations of hypocrisy, and that, honestly, is perfectly fair.

Which is to say, the ACNA is a hodgepodge. The Anglican Diocese of the Living Word is on the right. The Diocese for the Sake of Others is on the left. There are a lot that fall in between those two poles. There are intractable differences between dioceses and congregations that threaten to break the whole thing apart. Women’s Ordination, of course, but secondarily, certain charismatic proclivities, and Anglo-Catholic high church ones as well. And that’s all before you get to politics.

Many Christians across denominational lines were excited and happy about Robinson’s excoriation of the women clergy in the room at the Mere Anglican conference (Joe Rigney even put it in his book, which might be one of the reasons that Dani Treweek hates it—the book—so much). But what he said about Martin Luther and the Reformation, from my point of view, was ridiculous. I don’t know why Robinson isn’t Roman Catholic already, and the mention of the word “Mass” always makes my delicate reformed soul shudder.

So, of course, it is blandly true that Calvin Robinson isn’t a “good” representative of the ACNA. His theological views set him very much outside mainstream conservative Anglicanism, which broadly represents what the ACNA is. At the same time, probably no individual Anglican in the ACNA would be a “good” representative because it’s so fractured, and everyone is so quick to observe how everyone else is doing it wrong.

Would it be too awful to appeal to age? Calvin Robinson strikes me as being very young—indeed, I believe he is. And youth is unsettling for the aged and infirm. Young people go from strength the strength, soaring as on the wings of eagles. They are earnest. They believe in what they are doing with a fervor and fervency that is appealing and jarring all in the same moment.

Speaking as a middle-aged person, and a woman at that, I think the ACNA is proving more robust than I could have ever expected. For, along the way, we could have shipwrecked at every point. The various theological and political factions that push and pull and are never resolved seem intolerable. Indeed, some cannot tolerate them and go elsewhere. But for me, at the end of the day, I am always asking myself, “Who are the real Christians in the Room?” or, if you want to be annoying, “the Conversation” or worse yet, “the Space.” And very often, the problem is that one doesn’t know, or one knows, and yet there is no way to find comfort in the midst of what feels like a theological or political minefield. But I don’t have to know. That’s what bishops are for, and, seriously, I absolutely want to see the texting thread.

So anyway, have whatever kind of day you prefer.