Angry in the Great White North

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.