The Vexed Preamble: A Logical Analysis
October 22, 2004

1. At the time of the first legislative movement towards the creation of the Episcopal Church as a discrete entity (1785), a Constitution was proposed for adoption without a Preamble but with an enabling resolution beginning:

Whereas, in the course of Divine Providence, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America is become independent of all foreign authority, civil and ecclesiastical … .

2. Article XI of the same Constitution stated:

This General Ecclesiastical Constitution, when ratified by the Church in the different States, shall be considered as fundamental, and shall be unalterable by the Convention of the Church in any State.

3. At that time the only existing “instrument of unity” was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

4. The Preamble as it now stands was added to the Constitution of the Episcopal Church in 1967.

5. At that time, the only “instruments of unity” in existence were the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference. (The Anglican Consultative Council achieved its formal status a year later in 1968; there had been an earlier less formal Consultative body).

6. The present Preamble to the Constitution contains no language either of force or constraint, and is not a “law” properly speaking, but a statement of historical fact and identity. As Hooker points out (though here he is talking about the Scripture rather than human positive law):

I wish they did well observe, with whom nothing is more familiar than to plead in these causes, “the law of God,” “the word of the Lord;” who notwithstanding when they come to allege what word and what law they mean, their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches in some historical narration or other, and to urge them as if they were written in most precise exact form of law … When that which the word of God doth but deliver historically, we construe without any warrant as if it were legally meant, and so urge it further than we can prove that it was intended; do we not add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem more than they are? [III.V]

My conclusion: The Preamble to the Constitution of the Episcopal Church is not fundamental in relation to the Constitution of the Episcopal Church. It is a historical statement describing, among other things, our membership in a fellowship of Churches, without reference to any “instrument of unity” apart from the Archbishop of Canterbury, and with no legal constraint established towards any other emergent structures of international or Communion-wide ecclesiastical authority which may come into existence, or evolve from their original ethos as consultative bodies.

My hope: I too have no wish to dissolve the Anglican Communion, although I do not see it as of the essence of what it means to be an Episcopalian. The Anglican Communion as a historic reality based on inherited traditions (see Windsor Report §47) is not the same thing as either the “instruments of unity” or any proposed future synodical body. It is, to my mind, clearly of the bene esse to remain in Communion, but only to the extent that it serves the mandates of the Gospel. I hope that the focus on the Gospel may soon be restored, via an agreement to abide by the principles of spiritual fellowship fundamental to the well-being of the church, rather than legal constraint which will inevitably lead to division. The choice between Spirit and Law is the same one faced in Galatia. I see no reason to choose differently now than Paul counseled choosing then.

Tobias S. Haller BSG

2003 General Convention deputy from New York

Edited for clarity and format. Reproduced by permission of the author.