Doctrine, Discipline, an Worship walk together: The Case of Bishop Love
by Stephen Noll:
Doctrine, discipline, and worship are companions on the way as the Church follows Jesus Christ.
This truth is enshrined in the ordination oath of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer: “Will you be loyal to the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ, as this Church has received them?” (BCP 526, 538).
When William Love first took this oath in 1991, he did so in good conscience. But in the following years, the Episcopal Church began changing its doctrine of marriage, its worship, by approving “trial use” liturgies for same-sex couples, and its discipline by amending its constitution (Article X) and canons (I.17.5; I.18.1; II.3.6) and by passing resolutions to authorize same-sex marriage rites (A045 [2015]) and to require that every diocese provide same-sex marriage to those seeking it (B012 [2018]).
Bishop Love protested these changes as a bishop of the Communion Partners group and then standing alone by attempting to block same-sex rites in his diocese. He argued that biblically, God ordained marriage for one man and one woman (Gen 2:24; Mark 10:7-9), that this was the historic teaching and practice of the Church and the Anglican Communion, and that this teaching was enshrined in the liturgies of the Book of Common Prayer.
The Episcopal Church (TEC) disagreed with him and charged him with violating his ordination oath, and the Hearing Panel agreed with TEC. In so doing, they articulated a different configuration of how doctrine, discipline and worship walk together.
TEC and Bishop Love agreed that the doctrine of the church concerning marriage is of weighty importance, not a secondary matter that can be overlooked. But whereas Bishop Love appealed to the teaching of Scripture and tradition, the Hearing Panel justified TEC’s doctrinal revisions in terms of current norms of moral therapeutic deism.
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