A Schism by Any Other Name

After last week's General Convention of The Episcopal Church, held in Columbus, Ohio, gay attendees and their allies were taking a while to absorb its meaning. As friends of mine on the scene noted, the worst did not happen. No resolution was adopted expressing regret or apology for the election of Gene Robinson as a bishop in 2003. Nor was a resolution adopted halting the development of rites for same-sex unions. Also, gay-supportive Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada was elected the first woman presiding bishop.

On the other hand, the day after the Convention voted to reject the anti-gay Windsor Report, bishops (with help from Jefferts Schori, and using what many have called heavy-handed tactics) pushed through a resolution "to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation," and to "call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."

Bishop Robinson writes, "The scene of gay and lesbian deputies, willing to fall on their own swords for the presumed good of the Church, voting for this resolution against their own self-interest was an act of self-sacrifice that I won't soon forget.

"Keeping us in conversation with the Anglican Communion was the goal - for which the price was declaring gay and lesbian people unfit material for the episcopate. Only time will tell whether or not even that was accomplished. Within minutes - yes, MINUTES - the conservatives both within our Church and in Africa declared our sacrificial action woefully inadequate. It felt like a kick in the teeth...."

The Anglican Primate of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, a leader of the right-wing forces, concluded a June 23 open letter to the Episcopal Church USA with this: "We assure all those Scripturally faithful dioceses and congregations alienated and marginalised within your Provincial structure that we have heard their cries." That's like a guy confiding in you that he intends to marry your wife after she divorces you. Akinola seeks reconciliation the way a predator does with its prey. This is not about theology, it is about power, and gay issues are merely a pretext for the power grab.

These are the makings of a schism. The Western branches of the Communion can hardly allow themselves to be overrun by medieval obscurantism in the name of unity. As Akinola himself stated after the destruction of Christian churches in northern Nigeria by Islamist thugs, "From all indications, it is very clear now that the sacrifices of the Christians in this country for peaceful co-existence with people of other faiths has [sic] been sadly misunderstood to be weakness."

How right you are, Eminence. The impulse toward compromise on the part of tolerant progressives is exploited by intolerant conservatives who have no interest in compromise. There is no reason why continuing a conversation should require unilateral concessions. The appeasement in Columbus was reminiscent of the signing of the Munich Agreement by Neville Chamberlain in 1938. The difference in this case is that the appeased aggressor won't bother to sign a phony peace agreement.

Colin Slee, the Dean of Southwark Cathedral, contrasts Akinola's obsession over homosexuality with his church's relative silence regarding Nigeria's "massive abuse of women, polygamy, female mutilation and stoning for adultery." In the Gospel of John, of course, when the scribes and Pharisees cite Mosaic law calling for an adulterous woman to be stoned, Jesus replies, "Let the one who has not sinned cast the first stone." But Akinola is far more in sympathy with the Pharisees.

The current acrimony's roots lie in the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which, as retired Bishop John Shelby Spong writes, "was overwhelmed by a homophobic combination of first world Anglican evangelicals with third world Bible quoting Anglican fundamentalists."

More recently, the Windsor Commission called for the 38 national branches of the Anglican Communion to endorse "current Anglican teaching." To the contrary, Spong notes that the Anglican Church "has never recognized an infallible pope or an inerrant Bible," and asks, "Would those Anglicans who have engaged critical biblical scholarship be asked to subscribe to the pre-modern mindset of some third world countries that oppose evolution, interpret the Virgin Birth as literal biology or view the Resurrection as a physical resuscitation?"

The problem is not disunity, but dogmatism. Some people are convinced that they have a lock on divine truth, and that it lies in a literal-minded reading of the Bible. This does not resemble Anglicanism. Others, who value the past two centuries of biblical scholarship as well as extra-Biblical sources such as the reality of God's creation, recognize that as mortals we can never possess the knowledge of God, but can only seek greater understanding. As Bishop Spong observes, "Whenever growth occurs there is always conflict and dislocation." This happened previously over the issue of women bishops. Quite simply, the children of the Enlightenment have to stand and fight for it.

The prophet Ezekiel spoke against false prophets: "They have misled my people by saying 'Peace!' when there is no peace. Instead of my people rebuilding the wall, these men come and slap on plaster. Tell these plasterers: It will rain hard, it will hail, it will blow a gale, and down will come the wall."

Let it come down.

16 Comments for “A Schism by Any Other Name”

  1. posted by B in DC on

    The greater communion has asked the US Church to sit in the back of the bus or face eviction from the bus and to be thankful they’ve given them that option… what a crock. I hope the church fights bullies where every they are.

  2. posted by Randy R. on

    This is a good point to remember: It’s not really about gays; it’s about power. We are only the pretext.

  3. posted by Northeast Libertarian on

    The biggest irony, B in DC, is that the US church paid for the bus, holds the title to it, and can repossess it at any time, leaving the driver to load himself and his fellow travellers in a rickshaw.

  4. posted by Richard J. Rosendall on

    Yes, NL, that and the role played by the Archbishop of Canterbury were aspects of the story I didn’t manage to work into this piece. Those may be topics for later forays.

  5. posted by John S. on

    I definitely think the conservative churches are in the wrong on this, but nevertheless, I would caution everyone to take everything Bishop Spong says with a truckload of salt. He may be Episcopalian (Anglican), but he’s no Christian. For one, he doesn’t believe in the resurrection, and no resurrection = no Christian. If I were Anglican, I would leave the small differences (like gay clergy) to individual congregations and save my efforts in order to tackle the big issues (such as a bishop of the Episcopal church publicly denying the reality of the Church’s central tenet, the Resurrection).

  6. posted by Richard J. Rosendall on

    I have heard such comments about Spong, but if there is anything wrong with the particular Spong quotes I use in my article, please address them. I suspect your disagreement with Spong regarding the Resurrection is over interpretation. His reference to the Resurrection in what I quoted had to do with whether it should be interpreted as a physical resuscitation. One can certainly be a Christian and not believe that, at least by one’s own lights if not by yours. In other words, one can believe fervently in the Resurrection, without thinking of it in literal, purely physical, terms.

  7. posted by Mark on

    Richard: If the resurrection was not a literal physical event, what the heck was it? I can say my grandmother resurrected from the dead if I don’t define resurrection ~literally~.

    If Spong is not an atheist, he certainly rejects most of the traditional Christian beliefs about God.

  8. posted by Casey on

    I think the danger in using Spong is that the mere presence of his name as a trusted source in the article makes it very difficult – and perhaps unwise – for anybody to use this document as a means of persuading more orthodox Christians. He is regarded as a joke and a heretic, and many will assume that he’s the only person you could find to support your point. There are better sources out there.

  9. posted by Richard J. Rosendall on

    Aren’t we all the children of God, participating in the resurrection through Christ? You may think it necessary and obvious that such things can only properly be taken as literally as possible, but you cannot control what others believe. If God wanted us to cling rigidly to the most primitive and patently false beliefs, She hardly needed to give us these wondrous brains of ours. The evidence of God’s creation is that we are expected to use our brains to think for ourselves. If you find it easier to treat Spong as a joke than to engage his ideas, suit yourself. I think that the impulse toward orthodoxy needs to be battled more than supplicated, but happily we are free to labor in different parts of the vineyard. There is entirely too much bossiness.

  10. posted by Mark on

    “Aren’t we all the children of God, participating in the resurrection through Christ?”

    No, I believe “God” is a meaningless fantasy.

    “You may think it necessary and obvious that such things can only properly be taken as literally as possible, but you cannot control what others believe.”

    I just asked what a non-literal ressurection from the dead means.

    Of course I can’t control what anyone else believes.

    “If God wanted us to cling rigidly to the most primitive and patently false beliefs, She hardly needed to give us these wondrous brains of ours.”

    I don’t believe in “God.”

    “The evidence of God’s creation is that we are expected to use our brains to think for ourselves.”

    We have brains because of a long process of natural evolution, not because of some supernatural being.

    “If you find it easier to treat Spong as a joke than to engage his ideas, suit yourself.”

    I never said Spong was a joke. I sort of like the fact he rejects some of the more absurd elements of Christianity.

    “I think that the impulse toward orthodoxy needs to be battled more than supplicated, but happily we are free to labor in different parts of the vineyard. There is entirely too much bossiness.”

    I think we’re better off giving up on the invisible friend in the sky entirely, but you can believe as you like.

  11. posted by kittynboi on

    Theres no reason to complain about Spong. People don’t comme back to life after they’re DEAD. It just doesn’t happen.

  12. posted by Richard J. Rosendall on

    Mark, I wasn’t only responding to you.

    Of course one can dismiss religious beliefs altogether, but it doesn’t leave much else to say to those who do believe. Given the prevalence, power, and persistence of religious belief among so many people, I think it is better to point out that faith can complement reason rather than being at war with it. Conceding religion as a whole to fundamentalists and then dismissing it altogether is conceding far too much ground. The non-rational dimension need not be irrational. What is rational, for example, about being in love with someone? One doesn’t fall in love via a rational process. But that doesn’t make it IRRATIONAL. Even if you insist that there are not mind and spirit, there is only mind, the mind (like the universe) is far more complex than we understand. People like Spong embrace an approach to faith that does not require them to reject or ignore the scientific revolution. If you imagine a religious text as a finger pointing toward the moon, fundamentalists mistake the finger for the moon — and they are all too eager to tell us everything about the moon even though it is entirely beyond them. Spong does not mistake the pointing finger for the moon, and recognizes that the moon in this case transcends us and that some humility is thus called for.

  13. posted by David on

    This kind of disagreement within an established religious denomination is the exact reason why I and others have left churches, synagogues and mosques. The Jews split into various factionsl; Christians have been splitting apart since the time the apostles lived; and Muslims are finding themselves siding with ultraconservatism and more liberal viewpoints. So I ask, what is the ruckus over a possible split in the Anglican Church? I’m certainly no expert, but it seems to me that the American Episcopal Church would be better off without the worldwide Anglican Church.

  14. posted by Richard J. Rosendall on

    David: Yes.

  15. posted by Mike A. on

    This is a test.

  16. posted by Randy R. on

    Heck, this is what all religions do — they fight over doctrine. Even the mormon church split into difference faction the within one generation after their founder died.

    There is always a group that tries to suppress dissent for the sake of unity. Either they succeed, as the medieval church did, through threats and ignorance, or they lose, as the the renaissance church learned. Either way, someone Christianity survives. But only through a lot of pain and suffering and tremendous energy spent on fighting each other.

    Bottomline? All institutions serve their institution first, and ideology tied very closely with that. It rarely has anything to do with such quaint notions of charity, love or ‘doing the right thing.’

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