I need to be able to explain this without offending a bunch of folks, which is just impossible I know, but I need to try anyway. I just don’t know how to lay out my thoughts in a way that is precise in order to convey what I am really thinking, because right now my thoughts are a jumble in my mind. It would be too easy to land too far on one side of the argument or the other and not meaning to. Perhaps, just a series of statements and for now and leave it at that. In addition, it will be way, way too easy for me to sound like a reactionary, and I don’t mean to sound like a reactionary of any side. We’ve had way too much of that these past 6 years, already.
I keep thinking of the statement by the Mennonite pastor of Washington Christian Fellowship in D.C. that I heard one Sunday many years ago. In the context of his whole sermon, he said, “Jesus’ way is always a third way.” Ever since then, for really most of my adult life, I have always tried to look at issues and controversies, arguments and fights, accusations and declarations within the Church by asking, “What might be the completely different way that could be the third way of Jesus?” I believe that the attitudes and actions of most all things that separate us are a two-way-street. There is fault and blame on both sides, within both perspectives, attitudes, theories, theologies, visions, etc. We are human – we never get it “right” because of our limitations. So, looking for a third way to help solve the conflict or dispute or schism is where my mind goes almost automatically, now. Even though any thought of mine will really be only just another way.
After working with data over the past couple of years, there can be little debate that The Episcopal Church has suffered a tremendous decline in numbers and influence within our culture and our national life.
We have been on a 30-40 year experiment to remake this Church, and for many adherents of the experiment Christianity itself – just to very pertinent examples: retired Bishop Shelby Spong of Newark, the recently deposed priest trying to merge Christianity and Islam and seeing no conflict, the recently elected bishop of a small diocese that believes in the conflation of Christianity and Buddhism and proceeded to write his own liturgies and creedal statements.
There are plenty of other examples of leadership (clergy and lay) that are now in leadership that in years past would have been called skeptics of the faith, traditionally rendered. The skeptics may have been respected and honorably engaged to hear the why of the skepticism, but they would not been made leader of a Christian Church. It wouldn’t have made sense. Now, it is almost a virtue for a leader in this Church to be a skeptic of the foundational and traditional beliefs/principles of the Church catholic.
It’s like putting a person in charge of an airline company who doesn’t believe that aeoplanes can really go wondering through the air. The new leader believes he is on a mission to save people from the dreadful notion that we can safely go from one place to another by hurtling through high altitudes in a metal tube. What would be the result of hiring such a leader, regardless of how sincere he may be? If this happened, people would lose confidence in the airline (they have a crack-pot for a CEO), the airline would lose its place within the industry, ridership would probably tumble down drastically, and the airline would be destroyed. Of course, the solution to such a situation would be to find another CEO that actually believed that aeroplane flight is possible and safe. But, the conditions of the corporate culture at the time would not allow for the CEO’s removal.
The 30-40 year experiment continuing on in the leaders of this Church (and as a priest I have to include myself in this group) believing that the 2,000 tradition of the Church Catholic and Apostolic is obviously wrong in this modern age, that people are damaged by believing such superstitions, and that a new belief must be forged in order to save the organization and the religion (I don’t go there, however). We can look at denominations that have already gone down this path to see what the result will be. The Unitarian Universalists and the United Church of Christ can be examples for what will result if we continue with this experiment we are engaged in.
This path is also out of touch with the wantings and leanings of younger generations, so the hope that our path will divinely meet up with the rest of the people is false. The demographic data reveal this. We are beginning to see the results of the experiment and the results don’t look too good.
I’ll stop for now. I don’t know how well this has “come out.” I don’t know if this is how I really want to describe all this. But, I can say that the way the conservatives and the liberals within this Church have conducted themselves over the past 30-40 years has not worked and has resulted in schism, division, tremendous decline, and loss of good influence. A third way needs to be found.
Category Archives: the episcopal church
We must do this differently!
Over at The Country Parson, I was reading through the posts and found one about the Atlantic magazine article on Rowan Williams entitled The Velvet Revolution. It reminded me of comments from many people dissatisfied with Rowan’s conduct as the Archbishop of Canterbury surrounding our troubles over the past 6 or so years. I wrote a response, and here it is:
…Anyway, because Williams is pilloried by both sides, me thinks he is doing what needs to be done. He acts and reacts in “different” ways that satisfied no one in these strange days. We, who sit as armchair Archbishops of Canterbury, often sit with rules dictated by the “Systems-of-this-World” rather than by the principles laid down by the Gospel.
He is acting like an Anglican! We want him to act like a Fundamentalist for the victory of our own “absolutely correct” side of the argument – decisive, cast the stone, make the declaration that “they” are the ignorant bigots or the godless heretics. Thank God we are not like “them!” Thank God Rowan does not act out the worst of our natures.
Within our current American (or perhaps Anglo, Anglo-American, Anglo-Nigerian, etc.) cultural proclivities, we demand action NOW. It doesn’t work that way – not in the Kingdom of God. God will not bend to our will, but will slowly, slowly, every so slowly transform us out of our hubris and sickness-of-soul into our better natures that reflect His will. He lovingly does this for Peter Akinola as much as for Gene Robinson – as much for that bigoted, racist, homophobe sitting in that pew over there as for the gray-matter-spilling-out open-minded henotheist in that pew. Be an Anglican for our cause, not a Fundamentalist for our cause.
If God is this patient with us (with me), if God casts out no one who imperfectly seeks after Him, then how can Rowan do so? How can we do so, unless our goal is nothing more than the imposition of our position and not the hope of seeing the fulfillment of God’s will within even our most hated enemy? Take up the cross…
We have to approach all of this in a different way, because the way we are doing it right now is not working!
Imago Dei
Christianity declines in the West all the while seekers of truth, of life well lived, and of a good society only grow. Those who seek such things are looking not to the Church, which claims to provide what is needed for a “good life,†but they look elsewhere. General society no longer finds the Church or Christians compelling. If they look upon us and see themselves only, why should they heed or consider what we say about God’s good life?
Civil society, with respect to the common good, continues to decay into hyper-individualism, unrestrained consumerism, conflict, selfishness, fear and loneliness. The present experience of the Church joins in… and is compromised.
If we are created in the Image of God, why do we not look like it? Why do we not treat one another as Christ calls us in the two Great Commandments? Why do most of our lives look more like the lives of people who make no claim of God, rather than the great Fathers and Mothers of the Christian Faith and Tradition? We worthily strive to do good works to serve and save humanity, but without the realization of the Cure of Souls the good works are empty – anyone can do good works and material good works last only for a time.
Is it that the Systems-of-this-World are too alluring and seductive for average people to recognize their fallacious promises? Is it that too much energy or effort is required to turn from the fallacy to a way of living that is so contrary to our current culture all wrapped up in the Systems? Is it that average people see no real alternative? Is it that Satan or the Enemies-of-our-Faith are too strong? Is it that we misunderstand what it means to be Christian in Western society – in the similar way that the Jewish leadership of Jesus’ time misunderstood what it meant to live out the Covenant with God? Is it that there really is no God and we deceive ourselves? Could it be that we have never really experienced God or the life God grants to us in the first place? It is a seditious life God calls us to – we are given a radical invitation, but few pick up the call. Have I?
If those who are yet to find God do not see something different and compelling about our lives (the essential nature of how we consider ourselves and the dispositions we possess and the way to treat one another), then why should they consider what we have to say? If there is no discernible difference between “us†and “them,†than are the claims made by Christians of a better way of life misguided, naïve, duplicitous, false? What?
The two Great Commands of Jesus compel us to live in such a way that we find life, that we find freedom, that we find healing. If these claims cannot be experienced honestly by even those who insist they are true, then we must ask why not? Why does the Church not grow? Because of us?
This is not an attempt to reform The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, or anything other than ourselves – our souls and bodies. We come together and are tired of the internal fighting that destroys the unity of Christ’s Mystical Body; we are tired of the continual accusation and hubris as we take upon ourselves the role of Judge; we are tired to the incessant compulsion to attempt to jettison tradition and remake the Faith in our own image rather than trust the lived experience of faithful men and women of over 2,000 years. Here is what we want to do: Live life to the full as God intends. We, as Anglicans, used to be able to recognize that desire in even those with whom we vehemently disagreed and with whom we still broke bread together even in the midst of great debate and argument.
We have been co-opted by the Systems-of-this-World and are blind to their deteriorative effects upon us – to the detriment of the call of God for a better world that can only be realized through the regeneration of mind, heart, and soul. We recognize it, and we strive to be not a part of it any longer so that we can be for our own good and the good of the world a people. It starts with me, with you, with each of us that seek God in truth and candor. Let us be about the Cure of Souls.
Diocese of Long Island
From the Diocese of Long Island:
Episcopal Diocese of Long Island
March 21, 2009 The Reverend Lawrence C. Provenzano was elected Bishop Coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island at the diocesan election convention March 21, 2009, which convened at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City, NY. Father Provenzano was elected on the second ballot.
I was so terribly glad the process went very well. This is one time I’m quite proud of the diocese. We had a very good Eucharist directly out of the Prayer Book. A great hymn sing, mostly for LEVAS, while waiting for the results of the first ballot. The singing was rousing, the decorum of the people joyous and respectful, and a big majority vote for Provenzano on only the 2nd ballot! (Even though I couldn’t vote, this was the man I hoped would win.)
It was good!
Oh, those Moravians
The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops is meeting. On the agenda is the subject of full communion with the Moravian Church. They are an interesting Church. According to their history, they began 60 years before Martin Luther and 100 years before the establishment of the Anglican Church (CofE). I first remember seeing the Moravians when I helped a graduate school colleague move to Allentown/Bethlehem, PA. The Moravians have a school and seminary, as well as their U.S. headquarters, there.
Like religious Quakers and Anabaptists, there is something that I am drawn to in Moravian “systems” or disciplines or ways of thinking and doing.
From the Wikipedia entry for them:
Spirit of the Moravian Church
An account of the ethos of the Moravian Church is given by one of its British Bishops, C H Shawe. In a lecture series delivered at the Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Shawe described the Spirit of the Moravian Church as having five characteristics. These are simplicity, happiness, unintrusiveness, fellowship and the ideal of service.
Simplicity is a focus on the essentials of faith and a lack of interest in the niceties of doctrinal definition. Shawe quotes Zinzendorf’s remark that ‘The Apostles say: “We believe we have salvation through the grace of Jesus Christ ….” If I can only teach a person that catechism I have made him a divinity scholar for all time’ (Shawe, 1977, p 9). From this simplicity flow secondary qualities of genuineness and practicality.
Happiness is the natural and spontaneous response to God’s free and gracious gift of salvation. Again Shawe quotes Zinzendorf: ‘There is a difference between a genuine Pietist and a genuine Moravian. The Pietist has his sin in the foreground and looks at the wounds of Jesus; the Moravian has the wounds in the forefront and looks from them upon his sin. The Pietist in his timidity is comforted by the wounds; the Moravian in his happiness is shamed by his sin’ (p 13).
Unintrusiveness is based on the Moravian belief that God positively wills the existence of a variety of churches to cater for different spiritual needs. There is no need to win converts from other churches. The source of Christian unity is not legal form but everyone’s heart-relationship with the Saviour.
Fellowship is based on this heart-relationship. Shawe says: ‘The Moravian ideal has been to gather together kindred hearts … Where there are “Christian hearts in love united”, there fellowship is possible in spite of differences of intellect and intelligence, of thought, opinion, taste and outlook. … Fellowship [in Zinzendorf’s time] meant not only a bridging of theological differences but also of social differences; the artisan and aristocrat were brought together as brothers and sat as equal members on the same committee’ (pp 21,22).
The ideal of service entails happily having the attitude of a servant. This shows itself partly in faithful service in various roles within congregations but more importantly in service of the world ‘by the extension of the Kingdom of God’. Historically, this has been evident in educational and especially missionary work. Shawe remarks that none ‘could give themselves more freely to the spread of the gospel than those Moravian emigrants who, by settling in Herrnhut [ie, on Zinzendorf’s estate], had gained release from suppression and persecution’ (p 26).
In all of our Episcopalian and Anglican fighting over the last 6 years, what battles within me comes from two angles. The first comes from my American-Evangelical-Holiness and Arminian upbringing that says that belief in what we know as traditional Christian teaching and concepts are vital to real faith and relationship with God. There can be corruption of belief and a self-caused falling away from grace and salvation. We must guard against such corruption and be holy as much as it is possible with us.
The second comes from my knowledge of the effects of cultural inculcation upon our ability to understand Scripture and God’s instruction to us, and of the co-opting of the Way of Christ by the Systems-of-this-World. We so easily mistake cultural conviction for the Gospel. The Culture assimilates the profoundly contrary message and call of Jesus Christ and warps it so to justify its own existence. We fall prey to its allure. So, most of the Christian experience in most of our churches tends to be profoundly deficient. (And one wonders why fewer and fewer people find the Church to be compelling or a something worth much attention.) Given all that, our human fallibility, and our tendency to need to justify our own desires and proclivities, we tend to want to impose our myopic concepts upon all, demanding that all others capitulate to our sectarian theological precepts (or our national interests). We tend to loose trust that God will be God, God will be judge, God will be saviour, God will be sustainer, God is perfectly capable of managing His Church, and that the immediacy of NOW does not impinge upon God’s ability to do as He pleases, when He pleases, how He pleases. We are so short-sighted. We are so insecure in our faith. We lack trust in the very God we proclaim.
I fight between wanting to demand people believe “this way†(force acceptance of a check-off list of doctrines or tenants that makes things nice and neat) and the freedom realized from a willingness to allow people their own way and for God to make His own judgments about who is in and who is out. (Surely, God does make decisions based on His criteria alone about who is in and out – the choice is given to us and by our decisions we opt out ourselves.)
What do I want to say? I find it hard to let go! To let go of the fear I have of being wrong, the fear I have of the corruption of the Gospel, the fear I have that other souls will be lost because false teachings concerning the necessities of the Gospel overwhelm us. There are reasons for such fear, truly. But the question is the response to the reasons! The battle for the right response rages within me. Sign this covenant, this declaration, use these exact words, accept this precept, or else… or realizing that God works beyond my ability to rightly categorize, philosophize, theologize, and all that.
Beyond my Evangelical background and the experience of God I discovered through it, I have learned of the vital importance of the Tradition. That which survives over time, over millennia, among a vast array of cultures, can be trusted. I am becoming a Traditionalist, not because I demand conservation of prior institutional systems and doctrines of the Church catholic, but because that which lasts and changes lives is worthy to be proclaimed and intensely listened to.
We are too American. We are too haughty. We are too insecure. So, of the details of the Moravians above, I draw into myself ideas of a quite simplicity, happiness, un-intrusiveness, fellowship, and add to it Anglican comprehensiveness and a willingness to trust God that He will sort out our differences – differences that are probably based on internal stuff that doesn’t really come close to Jesus’ simple and profoundly difficult command to love God with all of my being and to love my neighbor as God enables me to love myself.
It isn’t that I have a problem with the traditional beliefs of the conservatives or the latitude and rebelliousness of the liberals, but I have a problem with either side demanding that they “really know,” that they are “absolutely right,” and their propensity to condemn outright the other side. The joy of the Lord is my strength, not my ascendancy to the 39-Articles or the Jesus Seminar. Anglicans used to strongly believe that “fellowship is possible in spite of differences of intellect and intelligence, of thought, opinion, taste and outlook.” We are loosing our ability to be in the via media. I fear that in full-communion with the Episcopal Church, we may infect the Moravians with our disease of vainglory, division, and hatred.
The Collapse of Evangelical Christianity
I’ve been saying for some time now that American Evangelicalism will enter a significant decline, if not collapse, in the near future. I say this primarily because American Evangelicalism has aligned itself with political conservatism – a wedding of conservative theology with conservative socio-politics. (Equally so, conservative politics via the Republican Party has been absorbed into the politicized Religious Right. To be a Christian one must be a far-right Republican. To be a “real” Republican, one must adhere to the Culture War social agenda.)
This kind of thing has already happened in the past with Mainline Protestantism – a merging of liberal theology (Social Gospel) and liberal politics (more currently manifest through identify-politics and political-correctness). Mainline Protestantism collapsed because the social and political overwhelmed or actually replaced the theological – social action became more important than relationship with God and the worship of God.
Interestingly, the Democratic Party did not fall pray to liberal theology in the same way that the Republican Party has been overrun by the Religious Right. It was a different time.
American-Evangelicals have not learned the lessons of history, and now they are condemned to repeat it.
There is an interesting article in The Christian Science Monitor – once and perhaps still a Gold Standard for the international social and political reporting – entitled The coming evangelical collapse
The article begins:
We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.
Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the “Protestant” 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.
I want to comment on a couple points brought up by the author:
• The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.
I don’t think this will happen! For one thing, those involved in the Emergent Conversation are Evangelicals, even if of the next generation of post-modern different-kind-of-Evangelical than that which is reflected in the Cultural War prone Religious Right. Mainline Protestant liberals are entering into a “Post-Christ” existence that looks far more like Unitarian Universalism than a traditionally understood Christ-centered Christianity and that won’t stop (even as their ever dwindling numbers drive them further into obscurity) – the Emergent folks aren’t going there.
• Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions.
I think this is where Anglicanism can play an increasingly vital role, if we are able to maintain our Christian distinctiveness and not fall prey to the dividing and reactionary forces – if we resist the compulsion to become like American-Evangelicals or Liberal Protestants! Frankly, were not doing a very good job resisting the temptation. (Much of our current Episcopal Church leaders certainly fall in line with Liberal Protestantism and are unrelenting in their push to remake the Church in their own image, but many of these people are entering retirement age! The next generations of Episcopalians are not like them, thank goodness, as the post-Baby Boomer Evangelicals are not like their parents in their religious experience and expression.)
Faith in American will certainly look different in the next 20 years (and I think 20 more than 10). The triumphalism of Baby-Boomer American Evangelicalism will certainly take a beating. Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy will maintain, if not grow, but I doubt they will have a significant impact on the unChurched and increasingly secular people – they will not be viewed as a place to explore faith due to their dogmatism.
Again, by the nature of Traditional Anglicanism where a historic Gospel is proclaimed and seeking and questioning are truly engaged and dealt with and were a comprehensiveness is welcomed in our common life, this seems to fit well with the sensibilities of up and coming generations. Will we be able to take advantage of this for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the reconciliation of us all to God, or will we continue down the road we are currently on to our own division and destruction?
Is the Anglican Communion Worth It?
A couple days ago, I posted a response to one of Fr. Harris’ (Preludium) comments about wanting people to understand the polity of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. To that wish, I agree.
But, Fr. Harris seems a bit more willing to forgo the Anglican Communion than I am or many other Episcopalians. So, I commented.
It seems that my comment and a couple others have made to a brand new post, coming up yesterday.
Here is the original blog post from Mark Harris and my response, entitledThings I wish we could get right.
Here is the second post by Fr. Harris, and resulting comments, entitled How important is it to belong to the Anglican Communion?.
You can read my comments –
What we have a right to do… what we should do
Fr. Mark Harris, Executive Council member, parish priest, and author of the blog Preludium, has post a clarification concerning the polity of the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church entitled, “Things I Wish We Could Get Right. Technically, I agree with what he has written – it is true, factual. But, is the restatement of our polity within the Communion simply to clear up of misunderstandings (which are rampant), a justification of what we have done in the past, or perhaps the all-too-American unilateralism in the assertion of our “rights?”
I don’t know – and I don’t infer any negative reasoning behind Fr. Mark’s post. Here is how I responded and what I asked:
Mark – I agree with you concerning the above, technically. However, where does and how does an honest and respectful interdependence within the Communion come into play (regardless of how the other guys act toward us)?
For example, there is a push to have BO33 overturned/overruled/called moot during our upcoming GC. We know how a good part of the Communion will react, even among those who are sympathetic to our position. Technically, we absolutely have the right within the Communion and within our polity to act however we determine we want to act. Yet, sometimes to act in ways that are technically permissible do not bring us to a good end.
As a priest that happens to be gay, I do not see the exercising of our right to forgo BO33 or rejecting the call of most of the rest of the Communion to maintain the moratoria as a positive way forward.
Why? Not because we do not have the right to do as we please for whatever reason(s), but because we do not live on an ecclesiastical island. If we exercise or legal right to determine for ourselves what we shall do regardless of international/inter-provincial reactions (even when we hate the other position), what comes of our GLBT brothers and sisters in most of the rest of the Communion where their only option is silence or violence when our place and voice and influence is denigrated even further or removed altogether from the greater Communion?
There has to be a point where our all-too-American hubris and unilateralism gives way. For the safety of and the yet-to-be-realized justice within the rest of the Communion for GLBT people (or anyone else), we may need to put aside full implementation of what we believe to be true and just within our own Church. For their sake, I’m willing to sacrifice a bit longer and steer away from what we have the technical right to decide and do.
Can we do that? Can we act in ways other than our American cultural proclivity towards hyper-individualism and unilateralism? I’m just asking, or perhaps seeking a different way forward.
What will I be to them?
I was talking with a group of priest friends and lay friends the other day. We were talking about, what else?, the general direction of the Church and all that. All of us are completely tired of the usurpation of most all of the Church’s focus and efforts by reactionaries on the left and right concerning power plays and same-sex relationship arguments. We are not unconcerned, however, about attitudes concerning the place of Jesus the Christ in our common understanding regarding salvation and restoration of our relationships with God, one another, and God’s creation.
Then, we talked about the rumor that the Vatican is about to initiate another Papal Personal Prelature for Anglicans (like Opus Dei) or something like the “Uniate” Churches for Anglicans (but more than simply the Anglican-Use Catholics). Some of the group I was walking with thought that if this actually happened, it would be another very big draw for Anglicans that believed in / desired the continence of the Anglican distinctives, but also wished to be align with world Catholicism rather than liberal American-Protestantism. I think such a development would have a big impact on the Anglican Communion (perhaps even someone like Rowan Williams joining on).
Someone mentioned a comment by former Fort Worth bishop Iker to “moderate conservatives” choosing to remain in The Episcopal Church (TEC) – basically he said something like, “Welcome to being the new and despised ‘conservatives’ of TEC.”
Since a good many of the “conservatives” have already left or are in the process of leaving TEC, the remaining “moderate-conservatives” or even moderates become the new bad “conservatives” that reactionary-liberals love to hate and exclude. I want to say, again, that the terms “conservative” and “liberal” break down, and many people who take upon themselves those adjectives are more pseudo than real conservatives or liberals. There is no inherent conflict between being a conservative or being a liberal, just a difference in focus and approach, IMHO. The “reactionaries” are those of any persuasion that act and react against their opponents in ways that tear apart and denigrate.
So, what will I be to them?
I suppose to many people I become one of the new bad “conservatives” because I insist on abiding by:
– The Canons and the Prayer Book (which means the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral);
– That the “Anglican Three-legged Stool” starts with Scripture as the authority (as Hooker might assert), and that Reason and Tradition are authorities that help us understand the primary authority – Scripture. This also means that for me, traditional understandings of issues with respect to biblical exegesis are not “written in stone” or “handed down” above re-evaluation and examination by the Church. Here is where the Tradition has to be taken seriously and the burden of proof for change rests upon those who seek the change. Yet, we know that our understanding of Scripture and God’s will revealed through Scripture does change over time as our ability to reason well grows with maturity and knowledge. Cosmology or the homosexual issue are but two examples.
– I do not feel in the least the need to change the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and I will assert that most people in the pews don’t either, regardless of cries by certain groups of minority opinion that we must for the sake of reasons rooted in social and political causes rather than good theological reasoning;
– I believe in the call to Holiness (even as God is Holy) in our morality, ethics, and behavior coming from God’s revelation to us, understanding that we all fall short and that God restores;
– I believe that God provided a way of restoration that many people reject because they demand their own way regardless (hyper-individualism). The way provided is referred to as salvation through Jesus Christ, alone;
– I have great respect for other cultures, languages, religions, and thought systems and like being engaged with them. I affirm that it is good to understand those different than myself and to be understood by them, but I in no way believe that it is my Christian responsibility as an Anglo-American, Euro-centric, English-speaking, white, gay, male to denigrate, deny, or put aside my heritage, religion, language, gender, sexuality, or traditions for the sake of some weak notion of “diversity” or to think that by doing so that those different than myself will feel any more welcome or valued or that they will have any more respect for me as Christian if I do. Really, what Muslim, Hindu, Jew (add your own designation) would respect me more when I deny what I really am or think that by putting aside what I believe that I am a person of integrity? Double-speak and hypocrisy reign when this happens.
I’m sure there a lots more I could write. When it all comes down to it, we get so caught up in all this crap thinking that we are capable of honestly knowing the full “will of God.” Again and again, love God with all of our hearts and love our neighbors as ourselves. Why do we get so distracted? Perhaps, it is because we are too concerned about what we will be to “them” and not concerned enough about what we are to God.
A good foundation
This morning, I attempted to read through a biblical commentary covering John, chapter 17, for our Home Group meeting, tonight. I came across a piece of paper with names and phone messages written on the outside – from my time as an undergraduate at Bowling Green State University. Inside, the sheet of paper was a bible-study outline neatly printed by one of my roommates who lead a small-group for our campus ministry at BGSU – Active Christians Today (ACT). ACT is a ministry of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ fellowship/denomination, one of the historic results of the Campbellite movement.
So, as ease as it is to become distracted from one’s original intent when the Web is involved, I searched for “Cambellite” on google and came up with a website that dealt with a poster’s question of whether the Cambellite churches are cults or not. The person asked the question because Cambellite churches believe in a form of baptismal regeneration (as well as taking communion every week).
Then, an advert appeared at the top of the page: “Because a modest woman is a beautiful women.” It is an ad for “Modest Apparel” for women. I suspect a man could dress immodestly and get away with it??? Can we become any more distracted???
Anyway, back to the bible-study notes from college I discovered. A couple posts ago, “What the heck,” I woefully attempted to put into words thoughts about strong beliefs, about what Anglicanism or Christianity is not with regard to the prevailing culture (liberal or conservative) and all that. A train wreck, but I “process out loud” and it was yet another attempt to get at what I believe as I figure out what I believe.
On this bible-study outline was a verse from I Corn. 3:11:
“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
Perhaps, all the stuff from “What the heck…” dealt with the question of foundations. What is our foundation upon which we build our organizations and our own faith?
It is easy to say, of course, “Jesus Christ.” Yet, I sense that for too many people in certain segments of The Episcopal Church and within parts of Anglicanism (and Christianity all together), we are attempting to lay a new and different foundation in reality. Subtly similiar, yet profoundly askew. On the ground, when most of what we hear comes along the lines of a Christianity or a Jesus that aligns with either, 1. materialism/consumerism, nationalism, and hyper-individuality or 2. the “inclusiveness” or “diversity” mantras born out of political-correctness and identity-politics, then it seems a new foundation is being constructed. These new foundations, at least with regard to living out the Kingdom of God as Jesus described bringing us “life to the full,” will, well… fail. And, they are failing. We see the results all around us as we attempt to justify our culturally subordinate religious opinions about what is and isn’t “Christian.” We see the results particularly at present as more and more people find nothing worthwhile in our organized religion.
When our modus operandi is to point accusing fingers at anyone other than our group and our determination to rebel and our demand for self, I don’t blame people for wanting to stay away. If we lived as Christians, in whatever knowable sense God might intend for those claiming his Son, I would guess that far more people might see something far more compelling in this thing called the Christian life than they do now. Those who do claim Christ just might find themselves living a far less deficient life in the Spirit, also.
What is our foundation? The more I think about it, really, the more I come back to the simple, yet profoundly befuddling, two commands of Jesus. Frankly, this is one of my favorite parts of Rite I and I am glad I get to say it so often,
“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
So simple, yet so profoundly difficult that we chose to build other foundations so to attempt to justify our religion and our dogmatism. What shall come of the cause of Christ? What shall become of us?