Jefferts Schori: Episcopal Church not splintering
On one level, you would think that the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church is being willfully blind, stating that the church is not splitting apart over the issue of gay ordinations.
Meanwhile, several parishes in Virgina have done exactly that -- split from the Episcopal Church altogether.
But in a strange way, Jefferts Schori is right. The Episcopal Church is not splintering because gays are being ordained. It is splitting, but because of a disagreement over the fundamental nature of Christianity.
Episcopal parishes in Virginia are on the way out:
As several of the largest Episcopal parishes in Virginia decide to break away from the Episcopal church, those close to home say there's no surprise to the decision.
"The larger of those congregations have pretty much disagreed with the direction the Episcopal church is going in for many years," Retired St. Paul's Memorial Priest Paula Kettlewell said.
At the heart of the decision, the acceptance of gay relationships, the consecration of an openly gay bishop, and, most recently, the installation of the first woman bishop as the head of an Anglican church.
"They think that the Protestant Episcopal church, the church that they have now removed themselves from, has erred, has gone away from what's taught in the Bible and traditional church," Professor of Religious Studies at UVa, Heather Warren said.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is denying the obvious:
The Episcopal Church is not splintering, despite a decision by several Virginia parishes to leave and join Anglican conservatives, the head of the church said Monday.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said the parishes' move would not encourage other parishes to align with Nigeria's Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola, who has called the church's growing acceptance of gay relationships a "satanic attack."
I'm not sure where Peter Akinola is coming from, but both he and Schori are right, but probably for the wrong reasons.
The Episcopal Church is breaking up, but not because of the gay issue.
It is a satanic attack, but not because being gay is evil.
Christianity is a religion of revelation. What that means is that Christians believe that God reveals His truth though the prophets and through the teachings of Christ. Those revelations don't necessarily need to make sense to us. Some might be obvious (don't kill, don't steal) while others seem odd by the standards of many (ordaining homosexuals).
This is different from a faith, or more properly, a belief system, based entirely on human reason. In that case, there is no absolute truth out there, but people try to come to some sort of consensus based on human knowledge and experience.
There is a lot to be said for the "reason" approach, of course. Misunderstood revelation has been the source of a great deal of violence throughout history. That happens when people forget that a revealed religion is not devoid of reason. In fact, revelation has large gaping holes, in which human reason is required to fill in the details. The Catholic Church teaches that this is the divine mission of all mankind, to use reason to understand God's revelations.
The point is that I think this is what is driving the Episcopal Church apart. Gay ordination is just the expression of that difference. The Bible is quite explicit in denouncing homosexuality, both in the Old and New Testament. Yet some people think this is unreasonable. It might very well be. But the real question is whether human reason trumps God's revelation.
In a sense, that's a silly question. Human reason does not automatically demand that gays be ordained. Only some humans believe that. Others have reasoned the opposite without invoking revelation as part of their argument. Still others have reasoned out instead that God is far wiser, and if He has revealed that gays ought not to be running his Church, then a reasonable decision would be to accept that.
So really, it's just that some human reason is being used to replaced God's revelation, or so many conservative Episcopalians would say. But regardless of whether most people agree with ordaining homosexuals, or only some, or just a very few -- for conservatives it doesn't matter. This is not a numbers game. As a revealed faith, there is only one vote that counts -- God's. To start jettisoning major portions of revelation as incompatible with human reason turns the Episcopal Church into something...different. I'm not sure what it you would call it. But it doesn't seem Christian on the most basic level.
For conservatives, the problem is about a disagreement about revelation versus reason. Liberals seem to think this is about gays.
Is that a satanic attack? Well, if there is a Satan, what would he want more than decouple the faithful from God's revelation?
I know all this sounds so very medieval, but then maybe this is why it is being reported only in the most shallow level. Women priests? Gay bishops? Nonsense. It goes much deeper than that, and the deeper you go, the older the concepts become. So yes, it does sound medieval, but that's no reason not to try and understand what is really going on inside the Episcopal Church. If this schism is understood on these terms, then you quickly realize that if Jefferts Schori decided tomorrow to toss out all the gay clergy, nothing would change. The real reason for the split is the role of reason itself. No one is talking about that, and until they do, the disintegration of the Episcopal Church will continue.
Skew my story on Skewz.com
Rate political news for their bias, read related stories, and leave your own skewed commentary
Search for more opinions from Canadian bloggers on these related keywords
Anglican Church Episcopal Church Katharine Jefferts Schori Presiding Bishop Peter Akinola
Sphere presents related news articles and blog posts
Sphere It!
Comments
Agreed. The issue is how do you answer: What are the holy Scriptures?
As some men of God once answered (in part):
"The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." Westminster Confession Of Faith
Some churches simply ignore this plain teaching. Unfortunately this has been happening since the days of the Apostles as seen in many of the New Testament letters.
Posted by: Denis at December 19, 2006 02:50 PM
Well said sir.
I agree completely.
Posted by: Scott Merrithew at December 19, 2006 02:59 PM
What a load of pop psychology. Your use of the term "reason" throughout this post betrays a serious and fundamental misunderstanding of the history of both philosophy and religious studies.
As only the tip of the iceberg, it is absurd to state that a belief system based on reason denies that an absolute truth exists. It is precisely the opposite!
Posted by: bob at December 19, 2006 03:39 PM
sorry bob
Steve's actaully got it right... he very clearly outlined the fundamental weakness of all religion. in the absense of absolute truth in the form of ongoing and definitive revelation from God... the existing canon of revelation, whether it be the Torah, Koran, Bible, Communist Manifesto, Nature Magazine, or whatever publication you decide to put your faith in, will always be subject to human interpretation.
there may be an absolute truth out there, (I personally think there is) but humans are obviously incapable of understanding it, and therefore substitute understanding with interpretation. The results of those interpretations being directly responsible for most of the wars, violence, opression and general stupidity over the last 7000 years or so.
Posted by: Sierra at December 19, 2006 05:12 PM
Sorry I meant to say...
The results of those interpretations, coupled with greed, ambition, and the lust for power being directly responsible for most of the wars, violence, opression and general stupidity over the last 7000 years or so
Posted by: Sierra at December 19, 2006 05:15 PM
Sorry Sierra, but Steve doesn't have it right.
A belief in reason does not in any way shape or form require a belief that there is no absolute truth. Unless by "truth" you mean something like "moral truth".
Most of the time when Steve uses the term "reason", which has a very specific meaning in both philosophy and theology, he seems to mean something along the lines of "opinion" or "interpretation". Whatever it is, it sure isn't reason, as understood by most religious scholars.
Second, I agree with you wholeheartedly that the existing cannon of revelation is always subject to human interpretation. And as such, this is not an argument about Faith vs. Reason, as Steve argues. It is an argument about whose interpretation of revelation is "better" or "more true".
Steve implies that it is only those dastardly liberal episcopalians who are interpreting revelation, while "conservative" episcopalians are simply accepting on Faith the revelation as given -- as if there were no interpreation required.
Posted by: bob at December 19, 2006 06:56 PM
As Kant observed, just because you can say there is a penny in your pocket does not mean one exists. Just because you can say "absolute truth" does not mean that the concept is coherent. It is meaningful to assert the existence of absolute truths within a particular closed system of logical convention, such as 2 + 2 = 4 in our integer system, base 5 or greater. The truth claim is about a feature of the system of representation. However, any claims about our systems of representation in relation to the real world are contingent. As chaos theory amply demonstrates, anything of interest in the world is constituted by causalities too complex for any system of human representation to model completely and consistently. A life of "Reason" necessarily involves faith, as Holmes indicated in "A Soldier's Faith" and other speeches, and as Nietzsche set out in book five of Joyous Science.
The incompleteness of reason is no cause for despair. A plant cannot grow "toward" the sun, because that would be too operationally complex for a plant, it grows "away" from darkness, which is tractable to implement at the cellular level without top-down control. So too human systems of knowledge. It begs the question to assume computationally tractable ideals. Rather, scientific/empirical knowledge grows away from error, through continual and unending creative transformation of the systems of modeling and their relationship to experience.
This does not imply relativism. Error and failure are certainty objective. A child does not have a preordained ideal "walk" program in the brain. There are many ways to walk, as gait and the required neuro-muscular sequencings will vary with bone length ratios (which change over time), etc. But "fall down" is pretty objective. Walking "truths" that can't stand up to scrutiny (so to speak) cannot simply be asserted as subjective truths. Thus the absence of any meaningful notion of an "ideal" walking program or "absolute walking model" is hardly an objection the the activity of learning to walk. Moreover, positing the existence of an absolute walking program probably interferes with learning to walk more than it could help.
I think the real issue here is the evolved wisdom of tradition versus social experimentation. As Holmes observed, social experimentation is a fine sport, so long as one appreciates it takes a century to replace a tree.
Posted by: murray at December 20, 2006 10:12 AM
Without arguing the semantics of the word "reason" the important piont is that reason is to be applied to fill in the holes (from a human perspective) in scriptures. Having said that, you cannot ignore the scripture in the process of your reasoning. For example, you cannot reason that gay relationships are acceptable when scripture says homosexuality is wrong.
I had a serious issue a number of years ago with my divorce. I struggled mightily over it. Fasted, prayed... but I could not reconcile the fact that it seemed I was to be punished for my wife leaving me. I did a lot of study on the subject and concluded that the divorce was acceptable. (Let's not debate that here - just accept that that was my personal conclusion.) The point is that I went to scripture, read, investigated the historical context of the times at which the scripture was written and looked at every angle I could. I believe that my decision is scripturally sound. But some of the decisions by the Episcopal Church are clearly NOT permitted through scriptural revelation. Doing the kind of investigation I descibe would quickly show that.
People and congregations who recognise that fact are the ones who have problems with where the denomination is going.
Posted by: the_whiteotter at December 21, 2006 11:01 AM
"But some of the decisions by the Episcopal Church are clearly NOT permitted through scriptural revelation. Doing the kind of investigation I descibe would quickly show that."
It is offensive for you to imply that Church leaders (and even simple religious folks) in these Congregations have not, and are not, going through the same sort of struggles with their faith that you went through with yours. Do you honestly believe that they are just whimsically making these decisions? Take a look around -- it is causing great strife and great pain -- and it is not being done lightly.
If you look through the Archives of the Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran, United, etc., churches, you will find extensive theological, philosophical, and moral discussions on just these issues. The struggles are all too evident. Just as there were on issues of slavery, treatment of women, and a whole slew of other "contemporary" problems.
Many faiths do not view the scriptures, themselves, as the word of God, but instead as recorded observations of the Life of Christ by exceptional, but ultimately human, teachers. As such, for many, many, Christians, the scriptures are seen as guides to moral practice and not as proscriptions.
You may disagree with the way others view the scriptures; but just as I am sure that you feel that only God is capable of ultimately judging the terms of your interpretation of divorce, why don't you let God judge the terms of others interpretations as well.
Posted by: bob at December 21, 2006 05:38 PM
'Like the blue!
I can't enter into the theological discussion here, as I am no theologian.
But to put it very simply, Jefferts Schori is living in a parallel universe to reality when she asserts that "the Episcopal Church is not splintering."
It's been splintering for a long, long time. Any Christian Church that begins to pick and choose which parts of Scripture it will accept and which passages "no longer apply to an evolving humanity" has ceased to become a Christian Church. It's simply the chattering class at prayer, who truly feel that they are superior to everyone else, especially "fundamentalist" and "evangelical" Christians.
I should know. I have more than a passing acquaintance with such folk in the Anglican hierarchy, and I voted with my feet a year and a half ago. Whatever the failings of the Roman Catholic Church, at least its Magisterium holds to the eternal truths of our Christian faith, passed down from generation to generation.
John Paul the Great was a magnificent example of a true and courageous teacher and spiritual leader, which is, actually, the "job description" of a bishop of the Church (who would know when listening to what Jefferts Schori and Andrew Hutchison [the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada] have to say?)
Posted by: 'been around the block at December 22, 2006 09:15 AM
The bigger issue with the mainstream protestant churches is the throwing out of centuries of tradition for faddish theories. Much like socialism, there are people who believe that they can ignore the example of history can craft society in their own vision.
And they wonder why theses churches are becoming more empty with each ridiculous edict being passed.
Posted by: Mitch at December 22, 2006 04:38 PM
Steve does have it right.
Those in the North American Anglican church are making choices regarding this statement.
"The Bible and the plain interpretation thereof informs all our choices."
1. If no, a) you leave the church and only come back for family occasions.
b) you stay and become a force for liberalization.
2. If yes, a) you leave and go to another church.
b) you stay you stay and become a force for conservatism.
My wife, as a pastor, chose 2a. The church is splitting 4 ways because the 1b and 2b people can't stay together much longer.
Ordaining gay bishops is not the issue, it is the revelation of the issue. Is incompatable with The Bible and the plain interpretation thereof. You can't do that and maintain the long standing fiction that your church believes in the Bible in any meaningful way. The ordaination of gay bishops is part of a theological package that denies just about everything in the Apostles' Creed. If the leaders can deny that, they can easily deny that their church is splitting apart.
Posted by: PlaidShirt at December 22, 2006 11:15 PM
 
|
|
