I've taken a few days off to ponder what is occurring in cyberspace over the selection of a new bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan of which I am a member. For those of you unaware, this diocese is the third smallest in the entire (global) Anglican Communion. We have a total average Sunday attendance (ASA) of less than 600 people spread out in approximately 25 congregations (some of which are summer only) in a region that is roughly 400 miles from east to west. Our previous bishop, Jim Kelsey, was killed in a car accident roughly 20 months ago. Given the size and limited financial resources of this diocese, many of the congregations began practicing a form of "Mutual Ministry." That is to say, given the lack of funding to hire full time seminary trained clergy, the congregations developed ways to raise up members of the congregation to serve as presbyters, deacons, and preachers working with a regional missioner who followed a number of congregations. In the months that followed Jim's tragic death, the leadership of the diocese which included the man who was recently chosen to be the new bishop proposed significantly changing the manner in which an Episcopal diocese made this selection - actually the "significantly" came later, well after the "process" was in motion. The planners were careful to dance along just inside the church's canons ("laws") in order to pull this off. The man they have selected is strongly influenced by Buddhism and ascribes to a more radical (I don't like using that word) version of Christianity. I wince at saying radical because of the polarization we are experiencing which I will get to below. Perhaps, if I paraphrase from one of his sermons last Fall. Anselm was an early church theologian who strongly emphasized atonement, humankind had fallen out of favor with God by our sinfulness, Jesus' crucifixion was necessary to wash us clean of our sin and bring us back into God's favor. The bishop-elect rejects that theology and instead puts forth the beliefs of Julian of Norwich who says that we are always within the love of God, that we have never fallen out of God's favor and that a loving God would not require the execution of his only beloved son to bring humanity back into his favor. I may have gotten some of the subtlety wrong, but it's a beginning.
Once the news hit the blogosphere tongues began to wag - questions regarding his Buddhism (he received a Buddhist lay ordination) and questions regarding the process. Sadly many of the main players in my chunk of cyberland fell into their respective camps without regard to the actual situation. "Conservatives" jumped on the ANTI bandwagon because of his Buddhism and "Liberals" jumped on the PRO bandwagon, in many cases because of the reaction of the ANTI crowd. Such is the intense polarization that exists in the church these days. As one who has known and worked with the man and witnessed the development of the "process" over the past 20 months, I was aghast at the reactions I received as I tried to raise important issues and concerns at some of the blogs I regularly visit. Comments posted at some of the more left leaning progressive blogs were blasted - I was accused of being paranoid, reactionary, etc. - despite actually living in the midst of the situation. Attempts at raising questions about the process at some of the conservative sites were dismissed because many there wanted only to overemphasize the man's supposed Buddhist credentials. For me, Truth was simply getting lost if it was ever even present.
Which leads me my primary point. This whole experience has saddened and frightened me. What does happen to Truth? Is Truth relative? If so then there really isn't a way to coalesce as a group around Truth. In fact, the web appears to enable this relativity. It is very easy to find a blog that mirrors your own Truth. The posts and comments essentially bounce back and forth until the crystal vibrates in its only relative harmony. Understanding isn't broadened, it contracts until it's a white hot coal of belief. IMHO this is true on both sides of any issue and is certainly true at the various spiritually themed blogs I visit. Even television news is drifting this way. Want to only hear things from a conservative view, watch Fox. More liberal? MSNBC.
What I don't quite understand though is the realization that 100 years ago, print media was notorious for this type of thinking. Newspapers were sought out because of their viewpoints. What I can't quite put a finger on is how we got from there to here and why here seems so much more scary. How do we transcend the polarization if all we are doing is throwing words back and forth at each other? Words that are ignored by the enemy. Perhaps this is the real reason that the Episcopal church is in decline. This is a church that grew out of an understanding for the need for a middle way. For centuries there as been a healthy tension in the Anglican church between the Protestant wing and the Anglo-Catholic wing. That tension is still very much in existence but the force that keeps the two poles spinning together seems to be breaking down and I fear that the two poles will one day fly apart leaving only nothingness in the here and now.
10 comments:
Wonderful post.
I think you have hit upon the most important thing. Healthy tension. Tension that does not judge the other but causes each to examine themselves more fully. It is too easy to become complacent in one's beliefs when surrounded by sycophants.
Maybe that is why you and I so often choose to "live in the wilderness". There is a healthy tension with that, and it helps us to grow. People who don't seem to want to do that puzzle us to some degree!
Regarding your question, "What does happen to Truth?", an old saying came to mind. "The first casualty in war is the truth."
Also, in the prior comment, I was struck by the thought that "to live in the wilderness" one has the peace and quiet and time to reflect, meditate, and to think. When I visit you and the dog herd, I thrill with the quiet and the blessing to just sit and think.
PoP
Isn't it important, even adamant, to defend the wrongfully accused?
As to Atonement, the Forensic/German "Atonement" Anselm talks about around AD 1100 is not the Atonement Paul speaks about AD 54, nor the Jewish Atonemnt Day Atonement Hebrews speaks about AD.
The Substitutionary Atonement Calvin speaks about AD 1550 is a development post Anselm. PSA the one enjoying Hegemony these days is a development´mainly post Calvin in Pietism, thus much later than AD 1660 ;=)
It's not "orthodox".
In the Bible there are some 10 or 20 different views of Atonement, not to mention the Mystics such as Julian of Norwich...
Very few believe in the Anselm/Calvin/Pietist Penal Substitution Atonement variety of Atonement.
So: a Storm in a Tea cup - for obvious Political reasons.
American Politics of the Age having become more and more ugly.
Nothing to do with Truth at all.
I'd feel quite at home with those attendance statistics.
I have a very strong feeling for Buddhism too.
::chuckles:: And the comments continue to focus on the non-issue for me. DP, I don't know what you meant by stating your comfort over the attendance. I agree that smaller is better. However, some of these congregations have an ASA of a dozen or less. That's a bit too small for my tastes.
My concerns have been with the way the process (devised by the bishop-elect) was used to choose the bishop-elect and the inherit ways in which that process was manipulative and exclusive. That said, I have accepted that fact that no amount of typing will be able to get people to understand that. Hence the ending point of my post - what happens to Truth in this age of mandatory polarization?
Your dad brings up a good point. That is the other half of that healthy tension. Even though my personal "wilderness" is actually bare pasture land, the balance is a wonderfully dynamic thing.
I have the peace and quiet of the dogs and hardly anyone going by my house, coupled with the tension of things like the automatic waterer for my long-eared equines freezing up, my septic getting sluggish, 5 inches of blowing snow drifting my road shut, tornadoes, gully-washers covering my road, etc.
There is something about small things like merely having water, sewer, and being able to physically get to town being a healthy balance of "real truths" in a world where in so many things, "truth" is a contrived and irrelavent thing...
Thanks for this, and for your other posts elsewhere. I think you are trying to raise some serious issues.
If what you describe is anything like an accurate depiction of what KTF says about Julian and the atonement, he has very seriously misunderstood her. It is in Christ's Wound that we are held within the love of God -- and the Passion was the means by which God expressed his eternal Love. Yes -- it was not about "buying off" the Father or Satan. And after all, it was "because God so loved the world" that the Son came, suffered, died, was buried, and rose again; not to please an implacable deity, but because this is what deity does when it loves someone so much.
To get back to your main concern: the process. You have given me serious food for thought. I hope you will post some of what you sent me on Facebook here, concerning the process. The candidate's role in the discernment process is in itself a cause for grave concern.
Thanks again.
The atonement "and the Passion was the means by which God expressed his eternal Love. Yes -- it was not about "buying off" the Father or Satan.
And after all, it was "because God so loved the world" that the Son came, suffered, died, was buried, and rose again..."
This is exacly what is claimed in the Swedish 1526/1541 Bible, in a foreword to one of the Letters, to be precise.
Atonement = Love.
"Pro me" as Dr Martin stressed.
I know you're weary of the fight, but this came to mind today: Joseph said, “Now therefore let Pharaoh select a man who is discerning and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land, and take one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven plenteous years. Let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming, and lay up grain under the authority of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine that are to befall the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish through the famine.” The proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find anyone else like this-- one in whom is the spirit of God?” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has shown you all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command; only with regard to the throne will I be greater than you.” And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Removing his signet ring from his hand, Pharaoh put it on Joseph’s hand; he arrayed him in garments of fine linen, and put a gold chain around his neck. He had him ride in the chariot of his second-in-command; and they cried out in front of him, “Bow the knee!” Thus he set him over all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 41:33-43 NRSV)
Hmmm... Just so you know, there are some others on my standing committee with concerns.
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