Matt Kennedy directs the Editorial attention to this explanation from “conservative” Anglican Jordan Hyldenon why I can never rejoin the church into which I was baptized:
If conservative Anglicans are ever to come to a détente with liberals over the issue of homosexuality—perhaps not to agree with them, but at least to come to terms with them—it would have to involve understanding that revisionists on this issue have genuinely grappled with the authoritative text of Holy Scripture. Their persistent concern is that liberals do not do this, but rather regard Scripture as outdated and no longer authoritative for Christian faith and life in the modern world. Conservatives often fear that liberals simply pick and choose the bits of the Bible they like, and leave the rest behind.
Now, one might come to the conclusion after grappling with the authoritative biblical text that same-sex blessings may be warranted. The noted Episcopal biblical scholar Ellen Davis is one such figure, arguing in the summer 2008 issue of the Anglican Theological Review that it’s quite possible for conservatives and liberals to disagree on the matter, precisely while working from the assumption that “no individual or church community can in good faith reach a position on this issue without reckoning seriously with Scripture.” One might disagree with
Davis that Scripture is as indeterminate on the issue as she thinks; she herself acknowledges that her Duke colleague Richard Hays would think so, along with many figures in the Anglican world, such as former Ugandan archbishop Henry Luke Orombi in the pages of First Things. But most Anglicans are likely to agree that Davis is a careful reader of Holy Scripture, someone who works very hard to listen for the Word of God in its pages. For several years now, she has traveled regularly to teach the Bible to seminary students of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan. In her teaching, Davis’ Sudanese students can recognize someone who seeks to be faithfully obedient to the Scriptures, even if they disagree with her on the shape of that obedience.
Sadly, it has become increasingly difficult for most Anglicans to recognize this quality in the Episcopal Church’s leadership, and Bishop Jefferts Schori’s somewhat freewheeling sermon serves to highlight why. Some years ago, the Yale theologian David Kelsey pointed out that it’s axiomatic to say that the Scriptures are authoritative for the Church, since that’s the very definition of what it means to say that a text is canonical Scripture. So long as many conservative Anglicans cannot see how the Episcopal Church is answerable to the authority of the Scriptures, it will remain difficult for them to see the Episcopal Church as a Church. This has a very great deal to do with the schisms of the past decade.
For the moment, completely leave aside the theology of The Issue as well as whether liberals take Scripture seriously or whether the Episcopal Organization can still legitmately be called a Christian church or not (as far as I’m concerned, they don’t and it can’t but that’s not why I can never again call myself an Episcopalian).
See if the following makes sense. You and I attend the same church and I’ve known you and your wife for years. Imagine your surprise, then, when you come home from work and find your wife and I in bed together engaged in some kind of sexual activity or other. You’re naturally outraged and you demand an explanation from me.
Well, I say, I’ve thought long and hard about this issue and have come to the conclusion that the two of you aren’t really married. And since she’s single and of age, I didn’t think that some kind of sexual activity or other with her would be that big of a deal to you.
You’re astounded. What about all the evidence that my wife and I are married, you demand? What about the fact that when I introduced her as my wife, she didn’t tell you she was only my girlfriend, did she?
What about that wedding picture of my wife and I that’s on top of our fireplace? You get out your wedding album; what about all these pictures, you shout, shoving the album in my face? Here’s a notarized marriage license; what about that?!!
I admit that marriage is one possible interpretation of all that but it’s not the only one. Anybody can fake anything these, days, I say, and you could have, for reasons personal to both of you, wanted people to think that you were married. No, I’ve pondered this issue for a very long time, I tell you, and I can only conclude that you’re not really married to that woman over there. Now if you’ll excuse us…
Do you think you and I will remain friends much longer? Do you think your marriage will last much longer if the woman you married to just sits there and says nothing?
Thought not.
Look. Words have meanings. Two theologians claim that they’re genuinely grappling with The Issue, that they’re both taking Scripture seriously as they do. If these two people come to two diametrically-opposed conclusions, one of the two theologians is not genuinely grappling with anything at all, never mind the Word of God, but merely “interpreting” the Bible in a way that tells him/her what he/she wants to hear while claiming to be engaged in ”serious scholarship.”
Let’s be honest for once; when you give a pointy hat and a hooked stick to two unrepentant sinners, debate is closed, your “church” has decided what it thinks about The Issue and what it thinks about The Issue is not what you think about it.
That being the case, a traditionalist “détente” with Anglican liberals would be a complete waste of time as well as spiritually dangerous. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?” asked Mrs. Schori’s bête noire, “and what communion hath light with darkness?
I shouldn’t have to keep saying this to otherwise-intelligent people but Western Anglicanism has made up its mind. Since it has decided men rather than God, the best thing for intellectually-honest Anglican traditionalists to do now would be to put as much distance between themselves and “official” Anglicanism as they possibly can.
One can value earthly institutions far too highly. Remember what the Lord said what we should do with salt that wasn’t any good anymore.
If conservative Anglicans are ever to come to a détente with liberals over the issue of homosexuality—perhaps not to agree with them, but at least to come to terms with them—it would have to involve understanding that revisionists on this issue have genuinely grappled with the authoritative text of Holy Scripture. Their persistent concern is that liberals do not do this, but rather regard Scripture as outdated and no longer authoritative for Christian faith and life in the modern world. Conservatives often fear that liberals simply pick and choose the bits of the Bible they like, and leave the rest behind.
Now, one might come to the conclusion after grappling with the authoritative biblical text that same-sex blessings may be warranted. The noted Episcopal biblical scholar Ellen Davis is one such figure, arguing in the summer 2008 issue of the Anglican Theological Review that it’s quite possible for conservatives and liberals to disagree on the matter, precisely while working from the assumption that “no individual or church community can in good faith reach a position on this issue without reckoning seriously with Scripture.” One might disagree with
Davis that Scripture is as indeterminate on the issue as she thinks; she herself acknowledges that her Duke colleague Richard Hays would think so, along with many figures in the Anglican world, such as former Ugandan archbishop Henry Luke Orombi in the pages of First Things. But most Anglicans are likely to agree that Davis is a careful reader of Holy Scripture, someone who works very hard to listen for the Word of God in its pages. For several years now, she has traveled regularly to teach the Bible to seminary students of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan. In her teaching, Davis’ Sudanese students can recognize someone who seeks to be faithfully obedient to the Scriptures, even if they disagree with her on the shape of that obedience.
Sadly, it has become increasingly difficult for most Anglicans to recognize this quality in the Episcopal Church’s leadership, and Bishop Jefferts Schori’s somewhat freewheeling sermon serves to highlight why. Some years ago, the Yale theologian David Kelsey pointed out that it’s axiomatic to say that the Scriptures are authoritative for the Church, since that’s the very definition of what it means to say that a text is canonical Scripture. So long as many conservative Anglicans cannot see how the Episcopal Church is answerable to the authority of the Scriptures, it will remain difficult for them to see the Episcopal Church as a Church. This has a very great deal to do with the schisms of the past decade.
For the moment, completely leave aside the theology of The Issue as well as whether liberals take Scripture seriously or whether the Episcopal Organization can still legitmately be called a Christian church or not (as far as I’m concerned, they don’t and it can’t but that’s not why I can never again call myself an Episcopalian).
See if the following makes sense. You and I attend the same church and I’ve known you and your wife for years. Imagine your surprise, then, when you come home from work and find your wife and I in bed together engaged in some kind of sexual activity or other. You’re naturally outraged and you demand an explanation from me.
Well, I say, I’ve thought long and hard about this issue and have come to the conclusion that the two of you aren’t really married. And since she’s single and of age, I didn’t think that some kind of sexual activity or other with her would be that big of a deal to you.
You’re astounded. What about all the evidence that my wife and I are married, you demand? What about the fact that when I introduced her as my wife, she didn’t tell you she was only my girlfriend, did she?
What about that wedding picture of my wife and I that’s on top of our fireplace? You get out your wedding album; what about all these pictures, you shout, shoving the album in my face? Here’s a notarized marriage license; what about that?!!
I admit that marriage is one possible interpretation of all that but it’s not the only one. Anybody can fake anything these, days, I say, and you could have, for reasons personal to both of you, wanted people to think that you were married. No, I’ve pondered this issue for a very long time, I tell you, and I can only conclude that you’re not really married to that woman over there. Now if you’ll excuse us…
Do you think you and I will remain friends much longer? Do you think your marriage will last much longer if the woman you married to just sits there and says nothing?
Thought not.
Look. Words have meanings. Two theologians claim that they’re genuinely grappling with The Issue, that they’re both taking Scripture seriously as they do. If these two people come to two diametrically-opposed conclusions, one of the two theologians is not genuinely grappling with anything at all, never mind the Word of God, but merely “interpreting” the Bible in a way that tells him/her what he/she wants to hear while claiming to be engaged in ”serious scholarship.”
Let’s be honest for once; when you give a pointy hat and a hooked stick to two unrepentant sinners, debate is closed, your “church” has decided what it thinks about The Issue and what it thinks about The Issue is not what you think about it.
That being the case, a traditionalist “détente” with Anglican liberals would be a complete waste of time as well as spiritually dangerous. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness?” asked Mrs. Schori’s bête noire, “and what communion hath light with darkness?
I shouldn’t have to keep saying this to otherwise-intelligent people but Western Anglicanism has made up its mind. Since it has decided men rather than God, the best thing for intellectually-honest Anglican traditionalists to do now would be to put as much distance between themselves and “official” Anglicanism as they possibly can.
One can value earthly institutions far too highly. Remember what the Lord said what we should do with salt that wasn’t any good anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment