Luminous Darkness

I’m going to attempt to live blog from the meeting I’m attending tonight which is of District VII of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The “leadership” of the diocese will be present, and we are going to be discussing “the choices before the diocese.”
However, I want to begin with a quote from St. Basil the Great, taken from section 78 of his On the Holy Spirit. In it, he describes the nature and tone of the Church in his day, the middle of the 4th century, wracked as it was with the Arian controversy:

The love of many has grown cold; concord among brothers is no more; the very name of unity is ignored; Christian compassion or sympathetic tears cannot be found anywhere. There is no one to welcome someone weak in faith, but mutual hatred blazes so fiercely among brothers that a neighbors’ fall brings them more joy than their own household’s success. And just as a contagious disease spreads from the sick to the healthy during an epidemic, in these days we have become like everyone else: imitators of evil, carried away by this wicked rivalry possessing our souls. Those who judge the erring are merciless and bitter, while those judging the upright are unfair and hostile. This evil is so firmly rooted in us that we have become more brutish than the beasts: At least they herd together with their own kindred, but we reserve our most savage warfare for the members of our own household.

I see that when I first read this that I put a note in the margin of my copy that says: “Sounds like the church of today!”

I will post what I can as the meeting progresses.

Since today is the Feast of St. Andrew, I attended the noon Eucharist in the cathedral downtown here in Pittsburgh. I am not sure who the priest was that took the service, but his sermon was a fascinating dismissal of the entire decision-making process that has been in place throughout the history of the Church. He began by saying that in our American culture today we feel that we can only accept something once we have discussed it at great length and then voted on it. For him, the impact of this is that we do not fully accept any idea or proposition, but rather constantly ask for more proof and more evidence.

He then went on to say that this is also the way that the ‘modern’ Church makes decisions about doctrine, that is, by voting on them, and that this is wrong and goes against true Christian practice and belief. He held up St. Andrew as someone who simply followed what Jesus told him to do, and said that we should do the same. Of course, he didn’t mention what we should do when faced with a problem that Jesus didn’t discuss.

He pointed to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, which, he helpfully reminded us, is the largest legislative body in the United States with its ‘900 members’ (i.e. those in the House of Lay and Clerical Deputies — I guess that the House of Bishops and its 300 members is not really relevant somehow), as a body which makes doctrinal decisions by voting on them.

In all of this, he failed to mention that our form of ecclesiastical decision-making in the Episcopal Church was set up in the 18th century after the American Revolutionary War on purpose, to differentiate us from the state-run Church of England. To this day, the Queen of England appoints bishops and Parliament must sign off on any major doctrinal or liturgical changes, such as any revisions to the Book of Common Prayer. The Episcopal Church believes that this democratic process is the best way we have come up with to discern the teaching of the Holy Spirit in contemporary society. Through discussion, debate, and an eventual vote, we are able to try and see what new things God is telling us.

I would certainly not say that the system is perfect. At my first General Convention, I was partly amazed but also partly horrified at some of the ridiculous debates that wasted time, energy, and money. In addition, my experience at the World Council of Churches led me to an understanding that perhaps there is some value to the idea of consensus decision-making rather than straight up-or-down voting.

Now, the other piece of the Church’s history that this sermon failed to discuss are all of the councils that have been held throughout the centuries. In particular, the early Ecumenical Councils, recognized by all mainline Christian bodies as doctrinally unique and centrally important, were, in fact, voting assemblies of bishops from throughout early church. Texts such as the Nicene Creed (which, strangely, we did not say during the Eucharist — perhaps there was no room to fit it in after the lengthly sermon) were created out of these debates and discussions which, in fact, were fairly politically motivated. For example, the Roman emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicea in 314 C.E. in order to calm down the fighting factions in the Church of his day, but the main benefit that he was hoping for was political stability throughout the empire.

This idea of democratically-based doctrinal decision-making is not new at all, but, in many ways, forms the basis for the entire Christian theological tradition and points to the idea of continuing revelation — that God is still speaking to us today.

One of the points that I am going to make in my eventually to be published article about an Anglican covenant (which came out of my M.Phil. dissertation at Cambridge) is that the term ‘Anglican Church’ is one with which we are not familiar. In fact, it is particularly important that we remember that a ‘church’ is not the same as our ‘communion’. As Anglicans around the world, we may disagree with exactly what a ‘communion’ is, but I hope that we can agree that it is not a ‘church’. The Anglican Communion is made up of churches, but it is definitely not a church itself. It is part of the ‘Church’ — that body of all faithful Christians living and dead (the great cloud of witnesses), but each national church maintains its own integrity. This is what we bring to the Christian world — an understanding of the particular relationship between our provinces — something of real value to the rest of the Christian tradition and we need to remember that.

What brought on this little comment on was this article from Reuters about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent trip to China, where he is referred to as the ‘head of the world’s Anglican church’. (I suppose there is a whole other article to be written dealing with the ‘head’ part rather than the ‘church’ part, but I’ll leave that for another time.)

Thanks to One Thing I Know, I was led to an article about church shopping in the evangelical Christian community: iChurch: All We Like Sheep. The author makes a number of interesting points about how following a Christian lifestyle in the United States has become in many ways synonymous with the consumerist culture that we have here. He points out that Christianity for many has become simply another product that we buy in order to continue on our journey of making ourselves happy and fulfilled:

Approaching Christianity as a brand (rather than a worldview) explains why the majority of people who identify themselves as born-again Christians live no differently than other Americans. According to George Barna, most churchgoers have not adopted a biblical worldview, they have simply added a Jesus fish to the bumper of their unregenerate consumer identities. As Mark Riddle observes, “Conversion in the U.S. seems to mean we’ve exchanged some of our shopping at Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, and Borders for the Christian bookstore down the street. We’ve taken our lack of purchasing control to God’s store, where we buy our office supplies in Jesus’ name.

He rightly goes on to point out that:

Consumers demand options, but this poses a problem. Formation into the likeness of Christ is not accomplished by always getting what we want.

For me, as a member of a so-called ‘mainline’ denomination and not an independent church, this is important in the way that I have to commit to going to the church of my denomination which happens to be geographically near me. Although as Episcopalians we do not quite have the cannonical parish structure of the Roman Catholic church, unless one lives in a city, there is usually not a whole lot of choice about what church to go to if ones considers onself to be a member of that specific denomination. This means that I have to make that choice to commit to something greater than simply a local expression of the church.

This, in turn, is one of the reasons why I value our worldwide Anglican Communion. Despite the problems inherent in being in relationship with people across the world who differ from my views about Christianity, we are still members together in somethin greater than any of our own local expressions of it. That is what the Church (big ‘C’) is all about — being part of that community of belivers who follow Jesus and serve him together in community. The community is both local and global, and I believe that we throw that off to our long-term peril.

I have decided that it is time to state some of my views about the current situation within The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, especially given how much more divisive the conflict has become since General Convention 2006 finished. Much has been said about how The Episcopal Church has either ‘broken away from’ or has ‘moved beyond’ the rest of the Anglican Communion, depending upon one’s views. I however, feel strongly that both sides (if such a narrow division can even be said to exist) have here moved towards the boundaries of orthodoxy by forgetting that we are all called to be one Church in Christ. Please read the whole passage carefully, do not just skim it because you believe you know what it says; we can all always be taught something new by letting the light of scripture illuminate our darkness:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

I have heard many people, including close friends, on both sides of this divide say words along the lines of ‘we do not need those people any more’. The passage above is very clear that in saying that these are not words that we are allowed to use regarding our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now, many people believe that centrists such as myself are perhaps simply ambivalent about our views, or do not actually believe in anything. Nothing could be further from the truth in my case. I have a very strong sacramental and bible-centered faith and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I understand my Christian life as an equal cooperative effort between word and sacrament, and champion a difference between the word of God in the Bible and the Word of God, the logos, Jesus Christ. In addition, I hold strongly to the via media understanding that our God-given reason serves as the mediator between holy scripture and the historical tradition of the Church, and feel that the Holy Spirit is still at work leading us into all truth.

I firmly believe that change is necessary in the church’s understanding of its faith and life in any age, especially in the world of today where we have not always chosen to acknowledge that our world is very different than it was even a few decades ago, much less a few hundred years ago. However, I do not believe that change should allow different parts of the Church to say that they have no more need of other parts of the body of Christ. I feel that there is value in an historical and international dimension to the worship of God, particularly as expressed in the worldwide relationship between the diverse provinces of the Anglican Communion. In short, neither side in this conflict has convinced me that they are taking the Church itself seriously, and I have heard the same level of vicious, non-Christian behavior from people at both ends of the spectrum.

To lay my cards fully on the table here, I should say that in general, theologically, I support the liberal points of view about such issues as women as leaders in the church and homosexuality. (I prefer, in general, not to use the words liberal and conservative since they are misleading and overused, but since this language is what we have at the moment, I will use them with caution.) Conservatives seem to feel that they are categorically right without any hint of interest in actually listening to the voices of those who have been oppressed both inside and outside of the church for generations. In addition, they seem to forget that for those affected personally by these debates, this is not just an ‘issue’ to be discussed, but the current state of someone’s life, a person created in the image and likeness of God and loved by God. On the other hand, liberals have for many years used up so much of the political and moral capital of a shrinking church to discuss these few issues when there is so much else wrong in the world that is left undiscussed. Many of my friends may be offended by this, but I really do believe that the fact that thousands of children die in Africa every day from starvation is more important than a debate about human sexuality in the United States. I certainly cannot fully understand the pain and prejudice suffered by those who have been oppressed, but I still believe what I have said to be true. The world is broken, we know that it is getting worse, and I do not see the Church doing all it could to help.

In fact, when I look at what is going on in the church right now, what I see is behavior fairly reminiscent of the situation in the United States politically. Everything has become a zero sum gain, where the only option is either 100% or nothing. There is no possibility of compromise, and both sides have decided the outcome before the discussion has even happened. Instead of adopting this behavior, based in the economics of globalization and trade, the church should be arguing firmly against such behavior, in opposition to the prevailing culture. That is what we are called to do as Christians.

I imagine that I many get a few fiery comments regarding what I have said, but that is enough for now. I will post more at another time, and will leave you to find more information about Anglican centrists on the web (not all of whom I agree with fully, but that is the point of course) for yourself. I found this short essay a good place to begin: The Centrist Movement.

An article in Christian Today discusses some recent comments by Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales where he says that the Anglican church is in serious danger of becoming irrelevant because its members cannot hold a civilized debate between themselves:

If the church of God can’t conduct a debate in a civilised way when it claims to be a reconciled and reconciling community - what message does that give to the world? We cannot as a church call for compassion, peace and justice in our nation and in our world if we as Christians do not exemplify those virtues in our own lives and in our dealings with one another.

However, the part of the article that I find especially interesting is at the end, where the Rev. David Philips, the general secretary of The Church Society, says the following in response to some suggestions from Archbishop Morgan about liberalizing attitudes towards homosexuality in the church:

If he thinks he’s right can he show us any church which is growing by giving this message? Those that are growing are those that are not giving compromising messages.

My question here is why are we so obsessed with the growth of the church? It is true that many mainline Protestant denominations have seen a decline in membership over the past few decades, and so it makes sense that people might be concerned with dropping numbers, but it has gotten to the point that church growth is seen as the sole issue that people feel is worth any kind of discussion (other than sex of course). However, if we really believe that the Church of God is eternal and made by God, it seems unlikely that it is simply going to disappear. Additionally, if we believe that we have some of the right ideas about the way in which the church should exist (not that I believe that any one church can fully encompass the true worship of God), then I do not think that we need to be overly concerned about how many people there are in our churches. God will still be praised and glorified regardless of whether there are 1,000 worshipers, 100 worshipers, or one worshiper. For me, it would make more sense to spend my time talking to people as individuals about the life-transforming message of Christianity in a deep and meaningful way rather than trying to take the quick way out and convert the masses with simple truths and easy answers.

I would like to do a bit of shameless self-promotion, and point out the following piece which has been published on Anglicans Online, an excellent resource for Anglican news worldwide: On a recent church survey. In part, this essay came out of a conversation a few weeks ago with skjaere so thanks to her (or at least her mother!) for pointing out the original article.

Perhaps I’ll even start updating this journal blog more regularly too. =)

I’m sure many of you heard on the news yesterday about the recent report released by the Anglican Communion in response to, among other things, the election of a gay bishop in New Hampshire last year. This is my initial response to the report, as posted recently to a mailing list of the members of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA (the church’s governing and legislative body). More comments will follow at a later date.

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18 October 2004

I would like to make a brief report on the press conference which took place today at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London for the release of the Windsor Report 2004 by the Lambeth Commission on Communion. I will say first that the full text of the report is available here: Windsor Report. Also, a video of the press conference itself is available online here: Episcopal News Service.

I attended the event in order to help the staff of the Anglican Communion Office distribute the Report to the media. I arrived at the entrance to the crypt below the cathedral where the press conference was to take place around 11:00 am, British Standard Time. There were already a number of reporters present waiting to be allowed inside, as well as a few people holding up signs about some of the issues expected to be raised in the report. These people were not protesting but simply expressing various points of view in a calm and civil manner.

As I was helping a woman put together the press packs I discovered that she was the new Press Officer for St. Paul’s Cathedral, and that this was her first day on the job! Around 11:15 am the press began to enter the crypt itself and the small room quickly filled up with over one hundred reporters and camera crews. A few other non-media people were also allowed in to stand at the back and watch the proceedings.

At 12:00 pm the press conference began and Archbishop Robin Eames, Primate of All Ireland and the Chairman of the Commission, was introduced. He spoke for about fifteen minutes summarizing the Report itself and the process by which it had been created over the last year, as well as his hope for its reception and implementation by the member churches of the Anglican Communion. Next, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies and a member of the Commission, made a brief statement expressing similar sentiments.

Both men expressed first and foremost that the Report came unanimously from the commission members, despite there being strong differences of opinion in that group about many matters dealt with in the Report. They also stressed the overwhelming support among the members of the Commission, and in almost all of the materials received by the Commission, for maintaining the integrity of the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Eames then took a few questions from the media, covering issues as diverse as the timeframe for the recommendations in the Report to be implemented to the ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church.

As the media filed out we gave them copies of three letters written in reaction to the Report, one by Archbishop Eames, one by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and one by Frank Griswold, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA. A number of other groups were also handing out leaflets to the media expressing a variety of points of view about the Report. Some members of the media stayed around for a few minutes looking for people to interview while others rushed off to file their stories, and the rest of us headed home to start reading the report.

I do not want to express any particular sentiments about the report itself at this time as I am still in the process of reading it all the way through. However, on first glance it does seem to me that the commission has spent a great deal of time thinking about the nature and structure of the Anglican Communion, and has come up with a piece of work that can be helpful in a number of different ways for thinking about these issues. This is a document unlike anything ever produced before by our church, and hopefully it can serve as a starting point to help us as to try and discern “the will of God for the Anglican Communion,” as Archbishop Eames puts it in the opening sentence of his foreword to the Report. I am also heartened by his words further on in that same section: “Perhaps the greatest tragedy of our current difficulties is the negative consequence it could have on the mission of the Church to a suffering and bewildered world. Even as the Commission prepared for its final meeting the cries of children in a school in southern Russia reminded us of our real witness and ministry in a world already confronted by poverty, violence, HIV/AIDS, famine and injustice.” Hopefully sentiments like this can eventually prevail and the church will not lose sight of its wider responsibilities in the world.