It’s curious to me that you so vehemently despise the episcopal structures that the Communion has or is trying so hard to develop to handle this situation, yet the RC is constantly dealing with the same from schillebeeckx and his Dutch compatriots in their support and inclusion of women in priestly leadership. Any censure they’ve received has been slight, and as we saw a couple years ago, the pope still receives schillebeeckx in audience. Is Benedict “tolerating” heterodoxy”?

It’s funny that you point your finger at members of the Anglican Communion for being Experientialists when so many in your church (as I well know from teaching at an RC university) are so clearly the same! The state of affairs in both churches, as you know but will go to pains to deny, is so much more complex that you make it out to be. Seriously, you have professors scared to write about Mariology for fear of being accused of denying dogma, you have women PhD students wondering why they haven’t received a better argument for keeping them out of seminary and off the altar than “It’s just not an option to be discussed”, evolution is making its way into the RC academy more and more everyday thanks to fellows like de Chardin.

Alvin, let’s lay off the labels for a while and try to engage in charitable productive dialogue that recognizes the subtleties and nuances of each others’ position. We might actually get somewhere that way.

You write: “The Church has always been a place in which theologians have taken risks and have been rewarded or punished for taking those risks.”

True … and your point is? What views in the Episcopal Church are censured today? Who gets punished? Are bishops and priests disciplined for publicly denying the deity or resurrection of Jesus Christ? Or to put it differently, whose views are marginalized today in the Episcopal Church? Opposition to the ordination of women to the priesthood has already been effectively eradicated in the U.S. I think it is safe to say that within ten years we will be able to say the same about the opposition to the blessing of same-sex unions. But perhaps you approve of these developments and regard their imposition upon the faithful as compatible with “orthodoxy.” Fair enough. What about moral issues like abortion? Is support of abortion-rights also orthodox? What counts as heterodox today in the Episcopal Church? What views effectively eliminate one from ordination?

Oh, by the way, I’m a great fan of N. T. Wright. I also believe that Rowan Williams is a thoughtful, erudite theologian. But I think his leadership skills are wanting and that he is largely responsible, by his actions and inaction, for forcing the global south bishops to assert themselves at GAFCON. Perhaps anyone in his position would have failed to avert GAFCON, but the leadership approach adopted by Williams virtually guaranteed it.

I doubt many would believe that Orthodoxy is some static, archival type monolith. Few would admit to that after Newman. Yet, many talk like this when they’re referring to the Anglican Communions supposed rejection of or lack of support for a wholehearted orthodoxy. Yet, what exactly are we suggesting that they’re rejecting by jettisoning a necessary orthodoxy among participants in the Anglican Communion. When one reads something by Bishop Spong, it’s a bit of a easy sport to point out all the ways in which he’s a heretic. Read Bp. Wright, the Apbs of York and Canterbury, Ellen Charry at PTSEM, Rev. Kate Sonderregger at VTS, or many of the southern cone Bishops and it’s hard to deny their orthodoxy. Is it really the case that there has been an overwhelming turn to heresy among Anglicans? No. Is it the case that orthodoxy has been made optional? Well, if you subtely infer that orthodoxy demands keeping women away from the altar, then yes. But orthodoxy is and always has been more complex and interesting than that.

The Church has always been a place in which theologians have taken risks and have been rewarded or punished for taking those risks. But even Arius wasn’t accused of making Orthodoxy optional. His views, rather, were declared heretical, and not by way of foreknowledge on the part of the council members, but rather by vote of the council. Orthodoxy happens as a church practice, and it develops. Therefore, it’s not surprising that may Anglo-catholic parishes now welcome women at the altar, and gladly.

And as for a new understanding of catholicity, i’m not sure what you mean by that, as I take my understanding of catholicity in no small part from the documents of Vatican II and the writing surrounding the council. Just as the writing of Vatican II takes a more “inclusive approach” as you put it toward addressing the concerns that the church has for the world, I think that we continue to see ecumenical councils, like those between Orthodox and the Roman churches, as well as the writings of Ratzinger and Williams taking the same tack. But I don’t think that’s all “catholic” means. Nor do I think that those like Williams and Wright, who I presume you’re implicating, would agree that catholic is a justification for accepting heterodoxy, nor do I think you could find textual support for this claim.

“The new GAFCON developments are indeed regretable …”