Is This Really Via Media?

The Diocese of Central NY has been associated with the Via Media movement in ECUSA. Here are some aspects of this movement that you might not know about:

The Via Media curriculum, developed and licensed by Every Voice Network of San Francisco (everyvoice.net/viamedia), is the most ambitious evangelistic effort by liberal Episcopalians in many years. An eight-lesson DVD disc, print curriculum, and facilitator training are sold as a package, and prices vary based on how much training a parish desires.

The Rev. Buddy Stallings of Staten Island, N.Y., referred to Alpha as he helped lead a Via Media training session last May in Jackson, Miss. “We, like you, have watched it and have admired it,” Stallings said. “But we do feel like its fairly narrow evangelical approach leaves us wishing for something bigger, more comprehensive, broader, that gives us more breathing room.”

The producers of Via Media have succeeded, in this sense: Their curriculum will appeal to Episcopal parishes that consider Alpha too evangelical in its theology, too “literalist” in its reading of Scripture, or somehow not truly Anglican in its ethos.

What makes Via Media appealing to those parishes, however, also will limit its appeal to parishes that believe the Christian gospel answers certain questions definitively. While Alpha relies on videos featuring one teacher, the Rev. Nicky Gumbel of Holy Trinity Brompton, Via Media gathers five people at a time around a table for a discussion.

The conversation format works fairly well on most topics, but it’s also a clear indication that the curriculum considers theological opinions equally sound, at least if expressed by Episcopalians. Participants in the conversations reinforce this notion repeatedly. So, for instance, the Rev. Jay Johnson of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and
Ministry says that Anglicans are “uncomfortable with faith by decree,” whether by a pope, a bishop, or a text (including the Bible). Anglicans are instead comfortable with “faith by conversation,” he says, adding that truth comes from a chorus of voices rather than a univocal lecture.

One weakness in Via Media’s chorus is the absence of a decidedly evangelical voice. Rather, its participants cover the spectrum from center-left to further left. Most of the participants are charming and intelligent, and nearly everyone says at least one thing to which an evangelical Anglican could say amen. Many of these voices also say things that would ruffle nary a feather in a seminary but stray from historic Anglican theology or from the fairly generous boundaries of the prayer book.

For example:

– Via Media presents “open communion”–by which it means offering the body and blood of Christ to the non-baptized and to non-Christians–as normative, though it is far from a churchwide (or officially approved) practice.

– The Rev. Susan Russell of All Saints, Pasadena, says Anglicans are “not limited by the language of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” when describing the Holy Trinity.

– The Rev. Winnie Varghese, chaplain at Columbia University, rejects the doctrine that Jesus died for sinful humanity, asserting instead that goodness and love incarnate is killed, and that Jesus came to us in vulnerability rather than power. “There is actually a danger and idolatry in making an idol of Jesus,” she says in response to whether Jesus is the only way to the Father, as the Gospel of John records him saying of himself. “Jesus never asks us to worship him. Among all the gospels that we have, that’s not one of the stories. Jesus asks us to follow.”

– In a discussion of sin, the Rt. Rev. Stephen Charleston of Episcopal Divinity School and other participants agree that it’s wrong to compile lists of rules (especially about sex). Nevertheless, Charleston gives his own list of corporate sins: policies that cause homelessness, economic oppression, environmental destruction. He identifies the church’s sins as “blindness, an inflated sense of privilege, prejudice, sexism, racism, and homophobia.”

Via Media offers some moments of warmth, such as when participants describe what they love about celebrating the Eucharist or receiving the elements of Communion. The Rev. Shannon Ferguson Kelly of All Saints, Pasadena, tells a sweet story of a boy from her second-grade Sunday school class who was convinced he no longer believed in God. Kelly asks the boy who created the spark that led to the Big Bang, which led to many more conversations. She quotes the boy’s father as saying his son prayed for clarity about why he no longer believed in God.

The presence of the Rev. Malcolm Boyd–the well-known author of Are You Running With Me, Jesus?–is one of many ways in which Via Media celebrates the Episcopal Church’s increasingly liberal policies on gay clergy (the topic arises in all but one of the video segments). His voice is perhaps the most personal and passionate in the series. “Jesus has always been a companion–close, accepting, loving, guiding present,” Boyd says in one
segment. In another moment Boyd says, “Jesus loved me because I’m gay. Jesus loved me because I’m Malcolm. Jesus loved me because Jesus is Jesus.”

For most of this series, though, participants spend less time talking about who Jesus is, or how to have a tangible relationship with him, than how glorious it is to be an Episcopalian in the early 21st century. That’s fine for people who love this sort of thing, and at least several hundred parishes surely will find this a compelling message. Others, however, will think something important is missing–something that enables people to say, without pride, “I once was lost but now am found.”

Doug Leblanc, an episcopal layman, is the editor of the GetReligion blog.