the Episcopal Church and Scripture: "Opening the Bible", Ch. 1

Ferlo's initial approach to the Bible in Chapter 1 expresses hesitation; given who we are, "[c]an we still regard the Bible with the reverence and awe with which our ancestors regarded it--as 'the revealed Word of God' and 'the rule and ultimate standard of faith,'....?" (6)


In my opinion, this type of self-questioning should always be before the Church. Can we really be sure we are even capable of standing in a proper relation to Scripture? That at any point when we take it in hand, we are regarding it properly?

After all, "books are far more readily available" than they were in Cranmer's day, say, and "they no longer wield an intrinsic authority" (5); worse: we have lost the habit of attentive reading. Few of us "read anything at all with the diligence and care that a serious book demands"; we just "don't have the time" and, shockingly, "don't have the skill." (6) Ask yourself, dear reader, whether you truly have the skill, the developed set of settled dispositions, necessary to attend to Scripture with the requisite degree of comprehension. Have any of us reached a point where we cannot do better? If so, then how many--and is the number increasing? Indeed, how much rancor in the Church is really due mostly to intellectual vice, a kind of sloth ignorant of itself, hidden in eager assertion?

Episcopalians "recognize no central interpreting authority to decide for them what is true and what is not". This latitude comes with a high "price": we encompass "a wide spectrum of approaches to reading the Bible, and an even wider spectrum of convictions about the nature of the book itself." This can result not merely in disagreement, but more importantly a pressing variety of ignorance: our having "no idea what a responsible method of reading would look like." (7) Truth be told, a number of us became Episcopalians from fleeing fundamentalism or "the revival tent" approach to faith, and the presence of the Bible can make "a surprising number of people uneasy." (1)

With these blocks, and no doubt others, to reading the Bible hampering our efforts, what are we to do? No doubt some critics of the Episcopal Church would join in these worries, adding their own as well. What does Ferlo say?

II. Exposure to the Bible
The capacity to carry out a responsible reading of the Bible need not arise among us ex nihilo, as it were; the soil is already prepared in virtue of the nature of Anglican worship as expressed in the forms of the Prayer Book. In effect, even among the uneasy and the underprepared, worship--weekly or daily--can largely by means of repetition begin to help equip us with the dispositions needed to make a responsible reading. What are we to do then? Judging by Ferlo, committed worship--with the Book of Common Prayer--is a good place to start: weekly if need be, but daily would be better.

Worship with the BCP inevitably--by its very design--exposes the petitioner to large sections of the Bible, and some very important sections rather often, over and over again: the Psalms, the Magnificat, the Song of Simeon--even the Bible almost whole appears in the lectionary, repeated over and over in the reading of worship. This design is an imprint from the Reformation, according to which, Ferlo says, it was "every believer's right to read the Bible freely and openly, translated into a language everyone could understand"; indeed, "in matters of faith ony the Bible mattered," contra the Roman Catholic emphasis on tradition and "papal authority". (2) More specifically, the Thirty-Nine Articles declared the Bible "containeth all things necessary to salvation", such that nothing unprovable from Scripture could be required of the believer. Thus, Cranmer designed the prayer book of the Church of England with an "increased amount" of Scripture to be read aloud in "public worship"--and the worship language of the BCP itself cribs over and over from the Bible. (2)

Mere repeated exposure to large stretches of Scripture in the context of worship, private and public, is not enough, as Cranmer seems to have recognized; such exposure could just as well develop dispositions of inattention or incomprehension--say, just letting the spoken or sung words glide by as if they were mere ornaments, or thoughtlessly reading into the text what it does not say. Ferlo notes "[f]ree access to an English-language Bible"--to which the Church of England was committed after 1558--" provoked storms of controversy in the 1500s and 1600s" (3) Cranmer himself, concerned "that the subversive rabble would start expounding Scripture in alehouses" advised Bible-readers to "consult 'learned men' who were authorized to expound Scripture's meaning." (4-5) That is, from the beginning of Anglicanism proper in the English Reformation, a "bare reading" of the Bible has not been the norm; Ferlo notes that Richard Hooker "insisted that the book must always be read in context--not just in the context of common worship, but also in the context of received tradition" which presumably would contain the "reliable, responsible commentary" that the Bible demands. (5) Knowledge of "the tradition" for Hooker et alia seems to have meant something narrower than what the phrase means in Roman Catholicism: not so much knowledge of "the context of ancient cultures and languages in which the Bible was first written and published," which was taken for granted, but more particularly "the first four centuries of Christian believing." (5-6)

To this, Ferlo adds knowledge of "the context almost two thousand years of intellectual, scientific, religious, and social change." (6) He throws in the kitchen sink, maximizing the context against which the Bible should be read. That is, any piece of information--economic, historical, political, and so on--is potentially relevant to a reading of the Bible. He seems to imply, in other words,

[A] there is no domain of merely secular information irrelevant to reading the Bible.

I happen to agree with [A], inasmuch as I believe there is no merely secular domain, but I wish if Ferlo had meant to hold [A] he would have been more explicit about it. Whereas a Christian in Hooker's day, using Hooker's seemingly more restricted notion of context, might have hoped to master the patristic tradition against which the Bible is to be read, nobody can reasonably hope to master the wide context Ferlo envisions. One result of adopting Ferlo's approach may be that our readings, however informed, are incomplete. More can always be added; meaning overflows the bounds of the propositions used to expound the text.

III. An Approach to the Bible

Where does Ferlo see this going? Are we not at sea if nobody here below can reasonably hope to master the wide context of interpretation that the Bible calls for? And isn't this sort of trouble exactly what the critic would have feared? Ferlo notes Episcopalians "as people of faith share a certain conviction about the Bible: that God the Holy Spirit lives and breathes in these pages, and in those who seek with humility and compassion to understand such challenging, ancient texts." (8) That is to say, though "the Bible has a history that determines how it should be read" it "recounts a history" as well, a history which is ours as people of God, "the history of God's continuing actions among us...."; in the sacrament of Holy Baptism "we claim God's history as our own." (8)

In other words, Ferlo comes back to reading in the context of worship; he writes "[i]n Luke's understanding [Lk. 24:25-32] voice precedes script: Scripture must be told ans heard before it is written and read." (12) The fact that the Bible is read in the context of worship is decisive for its meaning. Reading it in acts of worship, we the baptized should always have background in its history--though we cannot hope to master that history. The point of reading the Bible in worship is not to have attained a comprehension of its historical sense; this is simply not necessary. More important are the facts that the Spirit moves through the Bible, and the Spirit moves through the baptized reader of the Bible.

Ferlo quotes Luke 24:25-32, Jer 15:16, Ez. 3:1-3, and Rev. 10:9-10--places where the Bible seems to portray its own reading. These texts envisage reading as eating; "[t]he prophets ingest God's word just as Adam drank God's breath. By its own account, reading the Bible can transform your life, as food transforms your body." (10) Ferlo recommends techniques of reading which can model eating: "the slowly meditative, 'ruminative' methods (called lectio divina, or sacred reading) that characterized the study of the Bible as an integral part of the monastic discipline." (11)

Coming at the Bible intending to master its literal sense by having mastered its historical context, we risk missing what for Ferlo is the main point of reading the Bible: being transformed by the Holy Spirit. Proper reading, a historically informed reading in the context of worship, is already tacitly pictured as effected in grace, in the presence of the Spirit. That presence, Ferlo acknowledges, may be either sweet and delightful, or bitter an threatening. (10) True, "[c]ommunion with God is made possible by tasting the sacred page" (10) and "[h]earing Scripture prepares the ground for the encounter with the Holy One, but it does not substitute for it" (12), but we are not mere voyeurs reverently peeking through at God-in-history over there; we are meant to be participants. Or: our reading of the Bible is primarily meant to bring God-in-history over here, to us. We may "read the book" variously informed, "but in the end it is God who reads us." (13)

In reading Scripture, we see God, but more than that: we see God seeing us, "leaving us with our hearts burning within us." (13) Communion with God, Ferlo seems to be saying, cannot be indifferent to our identity, to who we are. We come into contact with God through Scripture, and who we are can be transformed. Seeing how God sees you can lead you to keep doing certain things as you have, or it can lead to repent and reform the orientation of your mind and your life, bringing it in line with what God's will intends for you. This communication of new life by means of an encounter with God is, Ferlo seems to say, the main point of reading the Bible.

IV. And its Authority?

Thus, for Ferlo, the authority of the Bible among Episcopalians is rooted both in our commitment to it as the criterion for faith and dogma, a commitment that comes to us especially from the English Reformation, and its central place in our common worship by the prayer book, public and private. These are not equiprimordial foci, though; the Bible cannot simply be read on its own as a source for dogma; it needs a context if its meaning is to be reliably discerned. The most important part of that context is not its history but worship--without the context of worship, the transformative power of the text would be muted if not lost. Thus, on reflection, Ferlo would seem to say the authority of the Bible is rooted in its power to transform our lives according to the loving will of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. Ideally, the Bible is read as a criterion for dogma in the context of such transformation.

Would this palliate the critics? I think not entirely; what Ferlo has emphasized is a necessary condition: that Scripture be read open to the transforming, convicting power of God. But, I should think, they will want to hear more about the connection between a reading informed by an encounter with God, and the dogmatic content of such readings. More needs to said: what is our way in toward discerning the determinate content of Scripture?

Nevertheless, I should hope what Ferlo has said might help put to rest the more egregiously excessive, hyperbolic, and bitter criticism levelled at the Episcopal Church. Episcopalians have not completely or utterly disregarded the authority of Scripture, particularly if they are open to being transformed by it and hold that God moves through its pages. Would the critics disagree there? If not, then shouldn't we have more common ground in our disputes than in fact we do?

Could the Word have incarnated a female human nature?

I say the Word could have done so; whether or not one says that such a thing would be fitting, such an act is within the range of God's absolute power.

Addendum, in case what should be obvious is not:

As Christ could have been Christa, say, there is no obligation on the Church's part that a bishop or priest be male; Christa could have represented humanity as well as Christ did.

One who nevertheless obstinately holds that only males can be ordained to the episcopate--that there is an ontological block to female ordination and not merely a block in fittingness--is committed to denying the absolute power of God, and that implies a commitment to denying God.

The result, as there is and can be no other God, is that any who deny that women can be ordained--as a matter of ontology--are committed to atheism, which to say: heresy.

Still, there is an argument to be made for restricting ordination to males resting on the symbolic value of having humans who cannot bear children mediate grace to the laity. Their very barreness serves both to elevate the grace-filled fecundity of Mary as a model for Christian virtue, and to point away from the male clergyman as a model. However, that argument implies a block not of ontology--as if women could not be ordained--but only of fittingness. For some congregations at some times in some places, restricting ordination to males serves better. But that restriction, enabled by merely contingent, historical circumstances, is itself entirely contingent. Thus, to turn it around, one might imagine circumstances under which ordination should be restricted to females as a contingency. More to the point, it becomes entirely intelligible from a critical point of view how the Church over time should have moved from restricting ordination to males to opening ordination up to females.

the Episcopal Church and Scripture

From time to time one hears the presenting issue between the Episcopal Church and its critics is really not the morality homosexuality so much but rather the authority of Scripture; here is R. Albert Mohler, President of the of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in 2003:

For a church to move to ... elect a homosexual bishop is to abdicate biblical authority in such an extreme way that it raises questions about the whole integrity of the church.

A bit closer to home, here is the Episcopal Church's Canon Kendall Harmon of South Carolina in 2005:

While the clash over sexuality makes the headlines, it is only the tip of the iceberg; underneath the debate about non-celibate same-sex relationships lurks the deeper issues of the authority and interpretation of scripture and the way authority is dispersed in the Church.

One could easily multiply instances; here is the spokesman for the new ecclesial entity of Quincy, one-time Episcopalian vicar John Spencer in 2008:

We feel the Episcopal Church has been on a fast, major drift away from scriptural authority and historic Christian teaching....

Blogger Ramsey Wilson of what was once the Falls Church congregation of the Episcopal Church put the gist of the contention well back in 2006:

The 2003 confirmation of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, a divorced father of two who is an admitted, non-celibate, unrepentant homosexual, no doubt is important to orthodox Christians in the Episcopal Church. The importance, though, derives from the fact that Bishop Robinson’s confirmation is merely the latest in a long line of instances in which the Episcopal Church has expressed an utter lack of respect for the authority and reliability of Scripture. [emphasis mine]

Whatever the efficacy of homosexuality as a sexy wedge issue around which to rally the discontented, the conservative Anglican case for criticizing the Episcopal Church stands or falls on exactly this point about the authority of Scripture. In other words:

[A] If the critique is justified, then the Episcopal Church must have an utter lack of respect for the authority of Scripture.

By "the critique" I mean the cluster of opinions of both those who would merely like to see the Episcopal Church reprimanded in some severe way by the Anglican Communion as a whole, and those who would like to see the Episcopal Church replaced as a province in the Anglican Communion. The severe reprimand above would compel the Episcopal Church to choose either to conform to the order of the Anglican Communion or else assent to leave it.

The point I wish to make with statement [A] is that if the Episcopal Church did indeed after all have respect for Scripture's authority, then the critique would be a significant overreaction. The ordination of VGR cannot be merely an isolated instance of error, or merely part of a contingent pattern of error; it has to be part of a systemic failure rooted not in an innocent or superficial mistake, but in a conscious and settled rejection of Scripture's authority. Otherwise, our critics would have needlessly introduced dissension and division into the Body of Christ.

So, I contend that

[B] the Episcopal Church respects Scripture's authority.

If [B] holds, it would follow from [A] that our critics are not justified. In that case, the actions of CANA, GAFCON, etc would be rooted in error--an error dangerous to the substance of the faith, inasmuch as the orthodox are credally pledged to believe in the unity and catholicity of the Body of Christ, and these critics are exactly such orthodox by their own proclamation.

The case for [B] is quite strong in my opinion, inasmuch as the Epicopal Church has left little question as to where it stands on the issue of Biblical authority; volumes from the most recent two Church's Teaching Series from the '70s and late '90s have been devoted to the issue, and there are several other monographs with similar degrees of authority. Moreover, it seems to me equally clear that the actions of GC2003 are rooted in the approach to Scripture outlined in these publications.

Thus, I propose looking into these volumes to see what the Episcopal Church actually says about Scripture and Biblical authority; alas, I am unwilling merely to take our conservative brothers and sisters at their word on this one.

Where to start? Why not with Roger Ferlo's Opening the Bible; you can pick it up new for $12 and used for $3, plus 4$ shipping at Amazon, for instance.

Fret not over Global Realignment, should it come

Sure, in Scripture Jesus prayed that we all might be one, noting that this would be a sign to the world of the truth of the Way. But then again, he seems to have had personal experience here below of division and discord among his followers; from the synoptic narratives:

(Mark 9, NRSV):
38 John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’ 39But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. 40Whoever is not against us is for us. 41For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward....'

(Luke 9):
49 John answered, ‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ 50But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you.’

While it is easy to take issue with my application here, the basic idea seems sound: at some point we are on the same side, in spite of all the wrangling, and what's more: even if the Secessionists deny that we are on their side. It's not as if converts to the conservative variety of evangelical Christianity can be safely contained in a bottle, to be uncorked only when needed to elect Republicans. The Spirit: taking care of business is its name.

Or, from Mark 4:
26 He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’

That's right: it is not our job to know how, or even to be anxious about how. We have been given the seed, and it is our job (1)to go out from wherever we are, (2)to scatter seed on the ground, and (3) sleep some. Do not lose any sleep over realignment: it is of no ultimate importance.

A Community Dying From Avarice?

Our dessicated prattling around secession--pro and con--invites trivial ripostes constituting a degenerating discourse full of sound and fury, strutting and posturing--in the end signifying nothing.

In case we have not noticed, our nation and its saints here below are in the midst of an economic crisis of historic proportions, one that challenges the foundations of our republic--a challenge moreover that comes at a very bad time, as we are trying to wrap up two lingering wars without pre-emptively starting a third. Chaos is upon us--families are suffering, children are suffering, and things could get much worse for very many very soon.

Shouldn't the church address these realities directly, acknowledging them in their due weight and noting their roots? How many pulpits have sounded out on our crises? Or do congregations-at-worship exist in parallel worlds really disjoint from the mundane one in which crises and storms break out, only appearing to be part of it?

Maybe the problem is we do not have the habit of addressing personal sin by name, especially the sins of the middle class, our principal constitutency, and so we do not have the habit of calling for personal conversion--much less repentance.

Against Semipelagianism

Semipelagianism (hence "SP")--developed by John Cassian in response to Augustine's polemic against Pelagius--implies that one makes a free first step toward salvation, a first step that is in the power of the individual apart from grace. That first step in itself is incomplete, and can be completed only with God's assistance by means of grace.



It seems that SP implies



(A) there can be human actions apart from God's grace,



and that is a proposition I wish to deny. No aspect of human action is possible apart from grace. Insofar as there is an aspect of human action--moral or otherwise--it owes its reality to God's act of creation. But God's act of creation is one of grace--it is a sheer gift. However, since SP implies (A), and (A) is--so far as I can tell--false, it follows SP is false.

salus populi est suprema lex

Derek replied some time ago to my reflections on Mary--and though this is perhaps now an ancient controversy, I still have something left to say.

I.
Things seem to have "wound down" considerably, as we might have reached bedrock conviction on a number of issues.

Consider the distinction between dogma and doctrine; "[t]his," he says, "as far as I’m concerned, is why this is worth fighting over." He is right to say that if the fifth Marian dogma is in fact a true dogma, I should wish to see him converted to it, as dogma by its very nature is mandatory. I agree with him. But look: timing is everything. I would wish him to be converted--but when? When I want to see it happen? No--in God's time. Sure, we have to sow the seeds of dogma, but that doesn't imply they will sprout on my schedule. At the suggestion he might be an anonymous Marian--that he might have already, anonymouosly have accepted the fifth dogma regardless of his conscious dissent here below--he is offended:

I hate to say it, but this completely rubs me the wrong way. If a roshi told me that I was an anonymous Buddhist, or if I were told by an imam that I was an anonymous Muslim, I’d thank them nicely for their complement of my character but feel a bit annoyed at their condescension.

Well, what if the roshi or the imam were right? John reflects on our preference for darkness and shadow in his gospel--annoyance would be an expected reaction to confrontation with dogma--on Scriptural grounds even. That may be condescending, but I think John would say I prefer darkness on other issues and practices; who can stand to leave the shade for long?

But, on the other hand, this may be bedrock for him: the notion of an anonymous Christian or Marian or whatever is--perhaps--just inconceivable. To the contrary, it strikes me that this is just how God operates elsewhere. Who would have guessed you'd be born--exactly you and not some other? Approximately nobody--and God didn't ask your permission first. You were thrown into the mix, and that's all there is to it. Who's to say you won't get tossed around again? I think of God as throwing us into new--even scarcely conceivable--existential situations, but Derek does not. And that seems to be a bedrock difference.

II.
Consider too how Derek develops the theological notion of recapitulation to help make sense of Marian dogmas. He writes:

The central question for me, then, is origin and volition: was the choice of obedience at the annunciation Mary’s free, “unaided” will, or was it her choice assisted and inspired by the Spirit already at work in her life? I can’t see it any other way than the second. To my way of thinking, even Mary’s “yes” was at God’s initiative through grace. It was surely not a coerced “yes”, but the prime mover for the action, its true origin, was in God and not Mary herself.

He has come to several large issues here--how human will relates to divine will, the nature of human action, how grace impacts action and the will, et al. These issues are so large, reasonable people may well be expected to disagree--like Banez and Molina, say. If settling on whether to accept the fifth dogma depends on addressing these issues, it may be each side has at least a prima facie reasonable case, and tolerance is called for from each side toward the other. We can probably agree on that.

Even so, another bedrock difference might emerge. It seems Derek has a rather Lutheran view of freewill--taking Luther's debate with Erasmus as defining where Luther stood. On that view--if I understand Derek correctly--Mary is no more an autonomous agent when she says "Yes" to God than an axe is when I swing it and split firewood, to adapt a figure from Luther. Surely in each case Mary and the axe play a role, perhaps an essential role, but their roles have nothing to do with autonomous freedom or incompatibilist freedom, to use the technical term. But on just this point, I side with Erasmus. To put it crudely: Mary and God act together in producing her "Yes," but she contributes something apart from God, which God could not contribute on his own, without which there would be no "Yes" at all--and could not be. Pressed, I would fall back on an amalgam of Scotus and Molina (as yet unpublished, mea culpa) in defense. Anyhow, here we seem to have another bedrock difference.

Given these differences, it's a good thing we can tolerate each other. There is something in our compatibility that recommends the Anglican ethos; for instance, neither of us are obligated as Anglicans to refuse to participate in the Eucharist with the other. To him, I'm probably confusing dogma with doctrine, but the doctrine is relatively harmless if a bit bizzare. To me, he is in for a big surprise.

Is it over yet?

Like those Japanese holdouts from World War II who stayed the course right through the '40s and '50s, right-wing Anglicans continue to insist on fighting yesterday's battles tomorrow.

I.
In case you've been hiding in the jungle for the last couple months or so, you should know that the last shreds of the ragged fabric of conservative ideology have unraveled, disintegrating spectacularly across the globe. Once upon a time Neoconservatism seemed compelling--can anyone after our five years in Iraq and Afganistan mouth neocon pieties with a straight face? And I still have relatives who self-identify as fiscal conservatives, though they are currently in a state of shock. I don't personally know anyone who follows fiscal conservatism out to its logical extreme--libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism--but there are a few high-profile examples out there on the radio and the internet. The Republican Party from Reagan forward--who remembers Nixon fixing prices?--has been happy to run huge deficits on principle, and that has always seemed to me sufficient to show that their fiscal conservative/libertarian rhetoric a la Buchanan, Tullock and von Mises was just for chumps, alot of chumps. Classical liberalism has long been dead.

Nevertheless, there are too many dead-enders with too much invested to abandon folly. Or, just as credit markets are said to be "frozen," we might say these secessionists are frozen, locked into their course.

What remains? Visceral, grumpy conservatism: paleocons, mashing together Burke with Kirk, social Darwinism and christianist fundamentalism, all with little regard for consistency--consistency which would lead to the already discredited neocon or classical liberal positions.

There are still consistent conservative positions available, yet to be tried: Carl Schmitt & Martin Heidegger might do in a pinch as the focus for new efforts willing to tacitly give up on Christianity's truth. I am impressed at how far the U.S. seems to have adopted Schmitt's point of view, as one can see in how our Executive Branch's powers have expanded in the War on Terror. But I do not think right-wing American voters are ready to embrace Schmitt/Heidegger openly. More likely: the right-wing elite embraces them, moving away from Strauss, while the elite's PR wing produces a front for their mass following consisiting of a jumble of grumpy, fiscal, and neocon positions. And from that quarter we will likely hear an intensification of calls to confront the Enemy for, say, defying "our" religion or "our" political values or "our" way of life.

II.
I've made the point before that GAFCON's efforts are riddled with inconsistencies; there is nothing there to serve as a stable foundation for debate, much less a form of life. Likewise with the Southern Cone: Preludium makes the point that its reception of Schofield and Duncan generates internal inconsistencies. And so what? Like right-wing dead enders, Anglican dead enders have no remaining coherent ideology, Christian or otherwise. What we are dealing with in the Anglican Communion is power politics, Machiavelli writ large, or maybe "theologico-political realism" for lack of a better term. The end of realignment justifies the praxeis necessary to produce the relevant result, so the key is to work out the mechanics of how to get to realignment.

That is ironically the very thing Archbishop Williams probably detests most of all; yes--he detests liberalism in its various forms--political, classical, theological--but liberalism is rooted in realism as an attempt to move realism in an ethically circimscribed direction: not Hobbes' leviathan but Locke's polity, not mercantilism but Smith's mostly free markets, etc. The problem is that such ethical circumscription does not typically restore theological primacy. Williams likely did not see TEC's Global South critics in terms of machiavellian realism, at least until very recently. Sure, maybe the GS is actually rightly characterized as accepting theological primacy for the most part, and the problem is rather with Minns-primacy; I hear he was once a high-powered businessman well-placed in the world. Maybe he--and other American GS leaders--picked up machiavellian habits from long habituation to the "rules of power" in the marketplace. Who knows? Williams wanted to restore theological primacy, even before seeing it take a left-wing course; thus he was willing to work with the GS as long as it seemed they too accepted theological primacy, even if wishing it to take a right-wing course.

III.
Now? We're waiting for Fort Worth, and perhaps others, to consummate their union with the ethos of machiavellian realism through performing the act, the act of schism. Won't be long now.

And what then? Preaching the Gospel and celebrating the Eucharist: what else? The Episcopal Church will have failed--this time--at containing competing factions within a common worship. Do you think the Church of England hasn't likewise failed? Remember the roundheads. More important than success at maintaining a common worship is fidelity to the effort. That may seem tragic, but it is not, since we are called to a common worship, to common prayer--e.g. it is not hubris. As awful as it may seem to say, our situation is not a tragedy at all, but more like a comedy, even a farce.

quot homines, tot sententiae

Continuing with debate over the proper place of the Virgin Mary: Derek responded with Denuo..., and I should like to say a few things as well.

Where better to begin than with a quote von Balthasar: One is ashamed for a Christianity which today is ashamed of its own Mother. (tr. Aidan Nichols)

I.
Derek says: Show me the evidence, Scotist, that this was held by the undivided Church, and I’ll be happy to consider it more deeply. It is hard to know what level of evidence if desired, but there are some interesting bits and pieces from the Church Fathers--I presume Bernard, Bonaventure, and the like do not count, or at least do not count as much:

Expanding on one of the "causa salutis" reference of an earlier post, here is Irenaeus:
Just as Eve, wife of Adam, yet still a virgin, became by her disobedience the cause of death for herself and the whole human race, so Mary, too, espoused yet a virgin, became by her obedience the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race. (Adversus haeresus, III, 22)

And again from Irenaeus in the same work: And as by the action of the disobedient virgin, man was afflicted and, being cast down, died, so also by the action of the Virgin who obeyed the word of God, man being regenerated received, through life, life . . . For it was meet and just . . . that Eve should be "recapitulated" in Mary, so that the Virgin, becoming the advocate of the virgin, should dissolve and destroy the virginal disobedience by means of virginal obedience. (Ibid, III, 22,24)

St. Jerome put it briefly (Ep, 22, 21): Death through Eve, life through Mary.

Modestus of Jerusalem has it that through Mary we are redeemed from the tyranny of the devil. (Patrologia Graeca 86, 3287)

John Damascene addressing Mary: Hail though whom we are redeemed from the curse.
(Patrologia Graeca 86, 658)

There 's a neat saying from Augustine: Christ is truth, Christ is flesh: Christ truth in the mind of Mary, Christ flesh in the womb of Mary. (Sermo 25, Sermones inediti, 7: PL 46, 938)

And in that spirit, a bit from Origen's Commentary on John: The Gospels are the first fruits of all Scripture and the Gospel of John is the first of the Gospels: no one can grasp its meaning without having leaned his head on Jesus' breast and having received from Jesus Mary as Mother.

This is just a list I pieced together; it is not exhaustive, but might serve as a ground floor to the discussion, as all of it would be accessible free of charge to anyone with Google. Anyway, maybe there is enough here to merit further serious consideration. Although such quotes might be explained away individually--no great feat--that strategy is beside the point. Rather, we were seeking evidence for an appropriate base of belief or practice in the "undivided" church which might have found faithful articulation in the fifth Marian dogma. Such quotes, from diverse authorities spanning centuries, seem to me to constitute the desired evidence justifying further inquiry, or deeper consideration. This call for deeper consideration is not much--granted. And there is no demonstration of my case from these quotes--granted.

To Derek's section II, I shall have to plead ignorance. There is too much in Lumen Gentium which I cannot claim to understand, though it seems to me anyone holding to the analogy of faith would disavow any consideration of a Marian dogma apart from other dogmas; abstraction would produce new content. As I believe RC theologians generally take the analogy of faith seriously, they would seem to have to prefer considering Marian dogmas only as part of a greater dogmatic whole. Of course, that's not quite what I am doing, as the greater dogmatic whole a RC theologian might recognize is probably something I would not recognize.

The real difference between us, quotes from the Fathers et al aside, seems to be the distinction Derek draws in his section IV between doctrine and dogma. He writes dogmas are absolute and binding in a way that the more general term doctrine does not require, as a dogma is a belief we must hold about the faith, whereas a doctrine is a belief we actually hold. He might entertain the fifth dogma as a doctrine, something some hold where he thinks we may see popular devotion gone awry, but there is no sufficient basis, he seems to say, for regarding it as dogma.

I can live with that--both the doctrine/dogma distinction and the rejection of the dogma. Why? He is willing to tolerate Marian devotion as a doctrine, even if not as a dogma. And indeed though I think it really is a dogma, proving that in Anglican terms, from Scripture, might be impossible. There is no reason, as an Anglican and an Episcopalian, I have to convert him and others to belief in the fifth dogma as dogmatic, however desirable conversion would be.

Moreover, and perhaps more controversially, the text Derek quotes from the RC Catechism defining dogma as truth in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith has a certain looseness to it. A devotee of Rahner, familiar with the notion of an anonymous Christian, might think there could be anonymous Marians as well.

That is to say, even an Anglican who would think the propositional articulation of the fifth dogma is in error could nevertheless be a Marian in spite of himself, were he disposed to regard Christ with the heart of Mary. In that case, he might have a faithful relation to the dogma in question--an irrevocable adherence as it were. True, the fullest adherence for a rational animal might include propositional articulation, but adherence might well be possible in the absence of such articulation, or even in the presence of a contrary affirmation, as when words are uttered contrary to the inward disposition.

erga veritatem

In reply to Derek's Contra Scotistam I, I'd like to defend some of the points I made earlier about Mary--though I have to reinterate my disavowal of expertise and experience. Others with more exposure to Mariology should do better than I can, or at least be more accurate; caveat lector.

I.
Doctrine develops, and it develops naturally from devotion.

Whence the Chalcedonian definition? I should say: development from reflection on sacred text, sacred practice, and secondary theology--development that worked. Verily, saying

Thus, early devotion to the BVM as I see it was not fundamentally about doctrine. [But is any devotion fundamentally about doctrine?] Yes, there certainly was doctrine about the BVM, but as Christopher notes, it was in relation to Christology

would not preclude that early devotion developing into a separate doctrine, even a true doctrine. The contingent historical practices of ancient patronage making that early devotion intelligible as an historical phenomenon need not be essential parts of the developed doctrine. Just so, contemporary doctrine articulating the need for obedience to the last commandment of the Decalogue does not require taking women as property; nor do the inital commandments require henotheism. And rightly so.

II.
One may see Mary as the Church--"here is your mother"--in SoS commentaries and elsewhere; that symbolism is consistent with taking Mary to be Mediatrix. In fact, it seems to set up a structure crying out for just such doctrine. The schema I threw around was:

the Father---the Son---Mary---the Bishop(---the Priest)---the People.

Nothing precludes the schema being elaborated thus:

the Father--the Son--the Church [Mary--....].

That would be to say the Father is normally mediated to the people through the Son only in the Church, where Mary represents the Church before Christ.

III.
The gist of what Derek wants to say, the main point I think, is here:

The bottom line for me is this: Yes, Anglicans should honor Mary, giving her the veneration she is due....But does this mean we must embrace modern Roman dogmas in her regard, especially the contentious issue of “co-redemptrix”? I think not. Yes, our salvation comes through her as she bore the Christ and shared with him her humanity, but redemption proper is a function of the Uncreated Godhead. If she were to be “co-redemptrix” for her role, by extension the patriarchs must also become “co-redeemers” for their role in the unfolding of salvation according to both the flesh and the spirit. (And you won’t see the Roman church pushing for that anytime soon…) So, devotion to Mary? By all means. Scholastic dogmas of Mary? Unnecessary, I think. Illicit? No, I don’t think that either—but not required.

First, I do not think that the argument beginning with "If she were to be "co-redemptrix"... is sound. What the Roman church pushes or does not push for is not a necessary criterion for how doctrine should develop. More importantly, the roles of the Patriarchs differed from that of Mary. While they contributed to the history of salvation, their contribution was significantly different from Mary's. In virtue of that difference, her contribution might merit a different title.

Well, what's the difference? Picture Mary and Abraham witnessing the life of Jesus. They would see the same events of the very same life, but they would see them differently inasmuch as Mary has a connection to Jesus that Abraham does not simply from the fact she is his mother and he is not.

You might say--and this is very close to my main point--Abraham knows something like what Mary knows when he takes Isaac away to be sacrificed. Kierkegaard mentions this likeness in Fear and Trembling, though he does not make anything of it in terms of Marian doctrine: both Abraham and Mary are paradigms of faith. In Kierkegaard's treatment, Abraham's first-person experience of taking Isaac out to be sacrificed matters; indeed it is essential to the truth God wishes to communicate in Genesis 18 et al.

Just so, Mary's first-person experience of Jesus' life matters. Is it essential to the truth God wishes to communicate?

It seems Derek would say "No!" here. That is, it seems according to him you do not need to see Jesus as she saw him; nothing essential to the faith is gained by it. Whatever she knew of Jesus that was peculiar to her is a remainder that well remains with her alone, with no ultimately significant loss to us.

Of course I disagree with this hypothetical Derek, and say "Yes". Genuine faith in Jesus requires grace, at least so that we might regard the object of our belief, the Jesus of the Gospels--Jesus as Mary knew him--with grace. That is, not as a patron with whom I negotiate a mutual exchange or from whom I first and foremost get what I want, but as beloved.

Of course Abraham and Mary are not exactly parallels: e.g. Abraham's faith was not formed by the actual sacrifice of Isaac; Mary was not so fortunate with Jesus; Mary saw the life of Jesus unfold with a type of grace that Abraham lacked in seeing Isaac. So far as I can tell, these differences would intensify the significance of Mary's first-person experience of Jesus. Coming to regard Jesus as beloved, in grace, is sharing the most relevant and essential aspect of Mary's experience of Jesus. There is no other type of love fitting for him.

I call having this love for Jesus that Mary had "having the heart of Mary", and then went on to say:

anyone who partakes of the Eucharist without the heart of Mary fails to discern the Body in its fullness, and fails to partake with the fullness of meritorious faith.

That still seems right to me. If it is, then there is a sense in which grace is mediated to the Church through Mary, though that grace does not originate with her, and the work of redemption Christ completed is not her work.

A Speculation on Marian Devotion: Hardcore Anglo-catholicism

I come at Roman Catholic praxis from way, way outside; my early contact with Christ came via Jehovah's Witnesses. Thus I do not get that bent out of shape over Spong et al. But in the past I have been quite alarmed at the clear trend in the Roman Catholic Church toward the promulgation of additional Marian dogma which gives her the titles of "Co-redemptrix" and "Mediatrix"; it seemed some might be led into regarding her as somehow divine, as another Christ. So far as I can tell, that is not the intent of the dogma at all, but then one might ask, what is its intent? It seems the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church stands or suffers on exactly this question, at least for those looking in.

I. Statements & the Drive for Promulgating the Dogma

Irenaeus had referred to her as causa salutis rather early on; St. Antonius (c. 300) had said "All graces that have ever been bestowed on men, all came through Mary." "All" is rather strong--and is sure in some quarters to raise eyebrows and ire, no? St. Bernard says Mary is "the gate of heaven, because no one can enter that blessed kingdom without passing through her"; St. Bonaventure speaks at greater length in a very important passage:

As the moon, which stands between the sun and the earth, transmits to this latter whatever it receives from the former, so does Mary pour out upon us who are in this world the heavenly graces that she receives from the divine sun of justice.

I suppose instances of support from tradition could be multiplied, and it ought to give one pause: is it all just poetic fluff, or is there something more serious here? Consider the line of relatively recent Popes who have promulagted the doctrine:

Pius X: We are then, it will be seen, very far from attributing to the Mother of God a productive power of grace - a power which belongs to God alone. Yet, since Mary carries it over all in holiness and union with Jesus Christ, and has been associated by Jesus Christ in the work of redemption, she merits for us de congruo, in the language of theologians, what Jesus Christ merits for us de condigno, and she is the supreme Minister of the distribution of graces.

Benedict XV: As the Blessed Virgin Mary does not seem to participate in the public life of Jesus Christ, and then, suddenly appears at the stations of his cross, she is not there without divine intention. She suffers with her suffering and dying son, almost as if she would have died herself. For the salvation of mankind, she gave up her rights as the mother of her son and sacrificed him for the reconciliation of divine justice, as far as she was permitted to do. Therefore, one can say, she redeemed with Christ the human race.

Pius XII: It was she, the second Eve, who, free from all sin, original or personal, and always more intimately united with her Son, offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father for all the children of Adam, sin-stained by his unhappy fall, and her mother's rights and her mother's love were included.

JPII: Mary, though conceived and born without the taint of sin, participated in a marvellous way in the suffering of her divine Son, in order to be Co-Redemptrix of humanity....

As she was in a special way close to the cross of her Son, she also had to have a privileged experience of his Resurrection. In fact, Mary's role as Co-Redemptrix did not cease with the glorification of her Son.

Mother Theresa and cardinal O'Connor signed on to Mark Miravalle's drive from the '90s to call on JPII to promulgate the dogma--a drive that has gathered six million signatures from 148 countries, including over 40 cardinals and 500 bishops. That's bigger than GC--and Lambeth, I dare say. The drive continues under Benedict XVI--and opposition to promulgation seems not to come within the RCC on theological grounds, but rather merely pragmatic grounds: the timing is not right; Protestants etc will be unduly alarmed. Ladies and gents, it is only a matter of time. What's going on here?

What's an Anglo-catholic to do? There is a strong case for getting on board, it seems to me.

II. Inside the Dogma, so far as I can tell
The problem is simply that we--and all of creation--are broken off, contrary to our natures, from the Father. The whole point is to get back to him. An additional problem: we are very, very low, and the Father is very, very high--we are bound to mess up the effort to get back to him unless he makes a special effort to "bridge the gap." One could from a Christian point of view look at religions outside the Judeo-Christian line as attempts to get back to the Father that have gone awry in various ways; it is not as if we have not tried, as if we could stop trying. But we will never get it right on our own.

Hence the Advent of the Word in flesh, the Bridge that crosses the Abyss, who makes it possible for us to approach the Source, the One, God as Father, even Daddy. Hence Christ in his
life among us, his Crucifixion and Resurrection, makes it possible for us to return to the Father: he is our Mediator; we could say it in a schema like this:

the Father---the Son---the People

since it would not work to simply leave it as:

the Father---the People.

And I think lots of Christians would be quite happy to leave things at that: Christ is our Mediator; we need a relationship with him, and through him we are reconciled with all creation to the Father--true so far as it goes.

But there's a problem: Christ has ascended. Can't deny it: it's right there in the Creeds, in Scripture, in tradition. And it's obvious to experience: search the world, and you will not find the risen Lord strolling through Jerusalem. Is he just gone then? Has he abandoned us? How could he possibly mediate grace through which we might be reconciled to the Father if he is simply gone? Well, he is present through the Holy Spirit. How exactly? In lots of ways, but most especially in the sacraments, in the Holy Eucharist. So: the mediation of Christ is itself mediated by the Eucharist; but the Eucharist cannot mediate on its own, which is to say our schema is now a bit more complicated:

the Father---the Son---the Bishop(---the Priest)---the People

And many more Christians will be happy to leave things at that--and many high Anglicans too, I suspect. Here is where the Marian dogmas come in: the mediation of grace from the Son through the Bishop must itself be mediated--in the salvation economy of this state. But by whom? Mary; hence our schema will look like this:

the Father---the Son---Mary---the Bishop(---the Priest)---the People

What's the point? Succinctly: anyone who partakes of the Eucharist without the heart of Mary fails to discern the Body in its fullness, and fails to partake with the fullness of meritorious faith--of course such partaking is possible only through grace, not by our own fiat.

The point is there is more to the needed discernment than what the intellect alone could possibly provide. What matters is a reception of the sacrament with a will aligned to that of God's--a will suffused with holy charity. Do not partake of the sacrament thinking "Thus I shall escape Hell" or "With this I shall enter heaven" or the like; that is not genuine charity, and signifies a will out of alignment with that of God. It is not genuine love that loves for what one will get in return; such "love" is fallen, suffused with sin, vitiated and of itself without merit. What then? Love God for who God is; when you know that Christ is in the sacrament, you are to love him for who he is, not for what he can do for you.

Yes, an instrumental approach to Christ might be useful as a beginning, but only as a beginning to the reception of the sacrament in grace, where Christ is loved simply for who Christ is: true reception in the Spirit. But how? What would such grace look like from within? Here we come to Mary: Mary free from sin is able to love her son as we fallen are unable to love at all. To the extent we are able to love Christ with genuine charity, we love him with the same type of love that Mary loved him--all through grace of course. We see him with eyes of grace, with her eyes, inasmuch as we can only approach hm through the Gospels, i.e. through the very mysteries by which she knew him. So we should learn to regard Christ with her eyes, with her heart, and in that regard we come to discern him in fullness. Hence the point of developing Marian devotion: one becomes with God's help disposed to charity.

On this view, the Bishop and Priest are--considered strictly--like empty vessels, vehicles conveying grace through the Eucharist and essentially no more. The living content in the Eucharist, the presence of the Lord for us, passes through the lens of Mary--as it were--in the sacrament. After all, one can learn all this from the unordained; a teaching bishop is strictly accidental. Likewise, Bishops and priests are only accidentally fitting models for mimesis; even corrupt clergy may still be vehicles for the Eucharist, but Mary is always a fitting mimetic model.

Anyhow, this is the core of what I can make of the Marian dogmas. There is more, and there are other angles to take, but this one seemed apt.

III. And Anglicans?
To the extent Roman Catholics, driving to promulgate this doctrine, love their neighbors, they will wish to bring their neighbors closer to God, as Christ commanded, for instance. Given the truth of the schema above with Mary playing a role as Mediatrix, promulgating the dogma would be of some importance, especially to fellow Chistians; otherwise they are obstructed from the fullness of reconciliation. Thus pragmatic considerations are of immense import; if Protestants are not ready to receive, promulgation may drive them further into alienation from the Father. How then to prepare them to receive?

It seems to me that the Anglican Communion could contribute something here, even now. On the one hand, its members have succeeded here and there in drawing mainline Protestant fragments together: Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians even. To that extent, modest Anglican devotion to Mary has an opportunity to grow in other mainline churches. And to the extent that succeeds, the right time, the kairos, for promulgation draws nearer. To the extent, however, the AC is drawn over into a modern, Calvinist orbit, one wherein Marian devotions are dismissed with scorn, that day recedes further away.

Back to Business

Having been at this thing for a while, I thought it might be useful to compile some of the writings on this blog about GC2003's presenting issues: ordaining Robinson and blessing SSUs.

Oddly enough, the controversy brought me to active membership within the Episcopal Church once I saw that the decisions of GC2003 were rooted in what I thought was a persuasive, antecedently developed theology. It seemed--indeed it still seems--that controversy raged without serious theological engagement, despite what seemed to be an obvious opportunity. Now I would say with more confidence that the dearth of engagement from critics of GC2003 is deliberate, and not a matter of ignorance or oversight.

Some links:

Episcopal Argument & my Argument
An Older Version of my Argument
the Oldest Version
& Subsequent Debate:
I
II
III
IV
V

Charles I

Against Kendall Harmon's "Sex Without Form and Void"
I
II
III
IV

Reply to Witt

Against Harding's Critique of the Episcopal Church's Argument
I
II
III

On "Claiming our Anglican Identity"
I
II
III

Kennedy on Heresy
I
II

the homosexuals/ homosexual activity distinction

homosexuality and the Holocaust

the church and the ordination of active homosexuals

holiness

sexuality and personhood

reconciliation and SSUs

complementarity

Seitz on plain sense

the AAC and plain sense

Nigeria's laws

Lambeth 1998 1.10

Lambeth 1998 and epistemic humility

epistemic humility

defending epistemic humility against Harding

reading Romans I:26-7

plain sense and metaphysics

ACI on plain sense

more defense of epistemic humility against Harding

Against Gagnon
I
II

Post Lambeth: This is Going to Take Alot of Work

It seems to me Theo Hobson is right:

Yet liberal Anglicanism failed to make a stand. There were obviously lots of angry noises, but they didn't add up to anything. Amazingly enough, Williams' call for patience was generally heeded. The nature of liberal Anglicanism quietly shifted. It became meek before the rise of evangelical orthodoxy.

Is it still possible to be a liberal Anglican? Not in the old way. Liberal Anglicans have to follow Williams onto the high wire, to some extent. By staying within an institution that has taken an anti-liberal turn, they collude in his act. In other words, liberal Anglicans have been Rowanised. They buy his long-range hope for reform that the church as a whole can accept.

Many on the Anglican left who supported GC2003 or the like have, in fact, followed Williams up onto the high wire, remaining within an institution lurching rightward in hope of something better coming in the future: extending the reforms of GC2003 et al would be all that much harder were the Anglican Communion to split. "Moratoria or marginalization" is clearly the message, whether it can be enforced or not.

This sort of message is not too surprising from Williams. He is not sympathetic to political liberalism, and although there is an element of liberation theology in his work, he does not seem to have been formed by anything analogous to the Civil Rights movement in the US--which seems to me to have decisively impacted the moral sensibilities of Episcopalian bishops. Liberation themes in his work--I have Resurrection in mind--could well indicate Williams will not tolerate acting so as to cast off provinces in the developing world, come what may, even if their primates and policies are offensive for one reason or another. He would rather call for sacrifice and toleration from the developed world than lose them--and from a certain scriptural point of view that kind of strategy is cogent.

That is to say Williams intentionally burdens the Episcopal Church, Canada, and any province sympathetic to GC2003 et al with the task of bringing the other provinces "on board." He simply will not assist; it is not in his job description, and it would risk driving away just the provinces with which he most wishes to keep in communion.

We are in the position of having to "thread the needle":

Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ (NRSV, Mt. 19:23-4)

We are like the rich person seeking to enter the kingdom of heaven--rich relative to other provinces. We have our problems, to be sure, but whether one considers FGM and the institutions of child marriage and honor killing, or infant and maternal mortality, or per capita GDP, literacy, economic and political freedom--and so on--it is clear that we have a vast array of advantages, much of which is ours from luck.

For us, in the midst of this wealth--this power--to cultivate something like poverty of spirit or meekness is like a camel going through the eye of a needle. The temptations to discard genuine meekness and poverty of spirit are just too strong. After all, we have arguments, hermeneutics, and what seems to be a slowly gathering international consensus on our side; we feel we are in the right, that it is a justice issue, that fidelity to the Good is at stake and fidelity to our own outcasts, the gay Christians in our congregations and even more outside looking in. And so far as I can tell these feelings are correct.

It seems to me our House of Deputies--accurately representing the vast weight of the laity and clergy--is considerably further to the left of the bishops. And it seems that way in England too; I would conjecture to many in the Church of England, Williams seems like some far-out, out-of-touch old man. And he probably is very much so. He and our bishops are in danger of being brushed aside, swept away--as we saw Williams brushed aside in the CoE's proceedings on ordaining women to the episcopate.

But remember these words from our Teacher:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

There is simply no sense in turning our advantages in political power and moral theology into more self-righteous hypocrisy; the church has plenty of that as it is. Abusing our power will not leave us happy in the end. Perhaps it is worth considering whether we should take on the poverty Williams requires of us, whether we should take on this poverty even if it should bring mourning with it, even as the thirst for righteouosness goes unabated. The last bit from the quote above grabbed my attention: it seemed to imply poverty of spirit can go with the prophetic calling. There is no inconsistency between answering the prophetic call and the moral standard of the Beatitudes.

In plain English that must imply consenting to the moratoria does not mean betraying our gay brothers and sisters. Though it seems impossible, foolish even to try--like the camel going through the needle's eye--nevertheless there is a way, there must be a way.

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’

Again, in plain English, here are some tentative suggestions about what this might come to in concrete terms: at the very least, the work of building a case for the actions of GC2003 should continue. And we might well admit that the theological case for those actions can be made better, clearer, more persuasively. If the rest of the Communion is to brought over to our side--seeing that right wing assistance from the developed world will not soon abate--the making of a more cogent case should be a priority.

Then we should also bring agitation for civil rights for gays in Nigeria et al to the fore; that issue should receive a much higher profile in the affairs of the Communion. And there will be sacrifices--as when pastoral affairs at the parish level grind against moratoria at the Communion level. Father Dudley is something of an icon here--it being safe to assume the CoE sets a tenable pattern for unofficial, parish-level rites around blessing SSUs. The real sticking point will be around the election of another partnered gay bishop. Still, it seems there may be a number of ways forward; e.g. the bishop is gay, but becomes partnered only some time after election. There is no logical inconsistency here that should prevent assent to moratoria.

The Communion qua institution will see things as an institution, but it is surely true that the life of the church is largely outside the bounds of the necessary institution, and it is there we might find the life of the Spirit, in a type of exile looking forward to the day when institution and Spirit are brought closer together. It will take alot of work.

For a Theologically Explicit Covenant Process

Lambeth 08 seems to be lurching toward a covenant process concerned primarily with questions of procedure and procedural fairness, a process in which questions of theology about the nature of God, the nature of Christ, the church, and scripture are shunted to the side. That would be tolerable--it's definitely the liberal thing to do--except for the fact that the Communion's procedure-talk makes reference to theological questions of the type I mentioned as if they were settled in the Communion, as if, say, there were a consensus about the doctrine of the Incarnation.

But is there really such a consensus about dogma? If not, then the talk about procedure is empty: make-believe.

Maybe it would be a good idea to compel our bishops to talk theology at Lambeth in their indaba groups, so that they could render a basic, core theology explicit as part of the Covenant process--at least so we could be sure there really is some theological core to refer to here.

I do not picture anything ostentatious, like flowery churchbabble. Keep it simple. Could they agree:

Jesus Christ is the Lord.
Jesus Christ is the Savior??

And maybe even:

Jesus Christ is both fully human and fully divine.
God is three Persons with one nature.
Christ is one person with two natures??

That would be an awful lot to go on. That might even be enough for Lambeth 08--tears of joy would flow freely throughout the Communion. Indeed: it might calm things down a bit if we could see where the bishops stood.

Maybe some would confess "We do not understand what it means to say God has a nature"--and that would be fine; we would see where the confusion is, and we could also see whether those who would confess the above can defend and explain their confession.

But an admission of confusion is still a far cry from a settled confession to the contrary; it is one thing to say I do not like the word "Lord" and quite another to simply say Jesus Christ is not the Lord--there are others with an equal claim. Still, it would be good to saee how many bishops would choose to affirm contraries to such propositions as those above.

Here's the thing: a process that codifies disciplinary measures to be used against dissenters will be used eventually as a weapon by each side against its opponents, escalating fissiparous pressures rather than soothing them. There is a good chance, it seems, that even if Williams receives the covenant he seems to want, that it will nevertheless be used against the unity of the Communion.

Rather than, as it were, hand feuding parties firearms for settling their dispute, it might be better to let them talk about something substantial at the root of their dispute rather than merely procedural and likely counterproductive. Aren't our bishops capable of doing theology together?

Don't Conflate Anglican Conservatism with Orthodoxy! Here's Why

Some comments I recently made in conversation here seem to have struck a nerve. So let's bring them out into the light; my hypothesis is that affirmations of faith made in the narrative mode are gibberish and nonsense, but relatively benign nonsense for all that. That is:

I would not dare conflate Anglican conservatism with doctrinal orthodoxy, just as I would not wish to conflate Borg-style panentheism with orthodoxy. The elite populating our consvervative Anglican think tanks cannot actually say "God exists" and mean it in the traditional sense, much lass confess Jesus is Lord and Savior. And I mean "cannot" in its strict, logical sense; it is logically impossible, unless they back down from their so-called "orthodox" theology.

Why? Any adherent of Lindbeck or narrative theology relativizes discourse, including especially theological discourse, to a conceptual framework, a way of life, a language game. That is inconsistent with traditional orthodoxy, which made affirmations of faith in an absolute sense, not in a relativized sense. In the traditional mode (a la Aquinas) one simply confesses "Jesus is Lord and Savior" simpliciter; in the narrative mode one confesses "Jesus is Lord and Savior" only relative to some language game. Thus, when a "Lindbeckian" says "Jesus is Lord" what she means cannot be the same as what is required of the faithful. This is a problem indeed: God wishes to be worshipped in Spirit and Truth, and not truth-relative-to-language-game-n.

As a confirmation of the seriousness of the charge, note that Lindbeck himself was compelled to disavow his own theories in First Things, claiming to profess a form of Realism. Ludicrous, yes, but Linbeck seems eventually to have "got it"--many others still seem lost in the dark. Here is Dulles making my point in a relatively innocuous fashion:

If we are to worship, speak, and behave as though the Son of God were himself God (as Lindbeck rightly affirms), is it not because the Son really and ontologically is God, whether anyone believes it or not? By inserting the homoousion in the creed, the Council of Nicaea was indeed laying down a linguistic stipulation; but more importantly, it was declaring an objective truth.

[Full disclosure: I did not realize Polanyi was a metaphysical realist contra Wittgenstein, presuming Dulles' reading in the article is correct. That's a sore point indeed--I've been wrong about Polanyi in the past then, criticizing Harding's recourse to Polanyi, as if that tied Harding to language game relativism. While there is an issue about whether his "participatory realism" is sufficient, it at least seems to be an effort in the right direction.]

Here is Lindbeck's response (scroll down); first he sees Dulles' issue:

He [Dulles] thinks that my stress on their intrasystematically regulative role makes it doubtful that they also function propositionally; or, in more conventional terms, he suggusts that the emphasis I place on truth as coherence with other beliefs obscures the primacy of truth understood as correspondence to objective reality. He concludes that “Lindbeck’s own program concedes too much to postmodern relativism.”

Then he makes the disavowal; first:

This indictment, I shall argue, is a mistake, but as I am in part responsible for the misunderstandings which occasioned it, I shall not blame the Cardinal, but simply seek to clarify the confusions that have led him astray.

That is:

The ontological truth claims of the creedal confession of faith remain existentially foundational and are also chronologically prior to its becoming dogma in 325 and 381.

I love it. And from Lindbeck....Oh well: Wittgenstein defenestrated. Looks like meat's back on the menu:

Cardinal Dulles infers that I am “postmodern” chiefly from my use of Wittgenstein and Geertz. That use, however, was heuristic rather than probative and could be entirely omitted without materially affecting my argument.

What's left of the ruined edifice, i.e. "my [unaffected] argument"? Lindbeck again:

Formally, however, it would be better to say from a doctrine-as-regulative perspective that the linguistic stipulation protected (not “declared”) objectively true affirmations.

"Protected" you say? Wittgenstein and narrative theology were to be deployed the way you'd set out O'Douls Amber for the kiddies at the prom party; or: it's not the full-strength version of Wittgenstein, it's Wittgenstein-changed-into-water. And I did not see Lindbeck spelling out what "protected" should be taken to mean here. Dulles acknowledges the movement Lindbeck has made:

At the end of my review I expressed the hope that George Lindbeck could amend his cultural-linguistic theory to give greater attention to the capacity of religious language to disclose the reality of God. I am gratified to find that in his response he shows a great willingness to move in this direction without forfeiting the strengths of his present position.

Have his Anglican followers made this crucial defenestrating movement as well? Making it seems to "downgrade" Wittgenstein all the way--leaving only, in Lindbeck's terms, cognitivist and expressivist ways of articulating the faith. The "cultural-linguistic" approach, post-movement, seems to be a way of articulating an updated cognitivist/propositional approach, better armed now to battle expressivism. To my knowledge, though, Lindbeck's conservative Anglican admirers have not followed him in his return to the propositional approach.

Thus, it still seems there is a problem for Lindbeck's people. In a sense it is O.K.: their affirmations may be taken as so much inspired babbling in tongues. In this case there is the benefit that everyone already knows what they are trying to say b/c the noises are so similar to genuinely significant speech--thus Paul's strictures on babbling are satisfied.

Some Reflections on the UU Church Shooting

As Lambeth '08 grinds on and on toward its--so it seems--rather disenchanted but eminently reasonable outcome, little signs percolate to the surface of the news cycle from the mission field. I am not referring to Archbishop Williams' scapegoating Bishop Robinson--I think it is quite apparent that scapegoating him has not worked, and will work even less to secure anything like unity with catharsis in the future. Too many people left and right know better by now, and excluding him presents the Communion to much of the globe as a pathetic parody of itself

I. ....the newspaper in one hand

One of these signs--it seems to me--is a recent mass shooting at a church in TN. It turns out the shooting at a Unitarian Universalist church was not a random, murderous mass shooting, but a hate crime, where the accused gunman acted specifically out a hatred for Liberals and Gays; he identified himself as a "Confederate" and a "believer" in "the Old South". The NYT wrote:

A man who the police say entered a Unitarian church in Knoxville during Sunday services and shot 8 people, killing two, was motivated by a hatred for liberals and homosexuals, Chief Sterling P. Owen IV of the Knoxville Police Department said Monday.

He was shooting up a childrens' play; he planned to keep firing his shotgun until the police took him down. The man is not exactly a poster boy for John Calhoun's malevolent iteration of Jeffersonian agarianism--feeding on shit like "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by Bill O'Reilly, he managed to blame liberals and gays for his being unemployed. It probably did not strike him as noteworthy that any unemployment benefits he enjoyed he owed to the efforts of the political left.

II.
His situation is worth pondering for a moment. He connected (A)his being unemployed with (B)liberals and gays, and then he connected (B) with (C): the UU church--apparently oblivious to the glaring cognitive dissonance implied in those connections. Yet these connections do not seem random; they seem rather to be commonplaces this poor sop picked up from our common culture ready-made when he sought a "reason" why he was without a job. "Common culture" is loose, but the term has to be loose given its a wide extension: print media, TV, movies, the internet, water-cooler conversation, etc.

Oh--perhaps there are people offended by the use of "church" for Unitarian Universalism; I've been in the company of many Christians who use "Universalist" as a term of abuse when they use it at all, an epithet of disdain--presumably for the UU take on the Trinity and Incarnation--like this anonymous poster who wrote (on 7/28):


There is no problem defending the orthodox position if, like myself, you are reasonably orthodox. Nor do North American Anglicans who are in fact unitarians and deists seem to have trouble defending their positions, at least in their opinion....

Instances could be multiplied; I have in mind comments like these made in 9/07, comments which reflect what seems to be a certain type of violent mindset on the right, in the context of conflict between Schori and Episcopalian conservatives:

He was really upset by this –in tears and shaking- and it included deposition, law suits, not allowing him to resign. . . We were quite angry on hearing this and wondered if they realized they were talking to a NM – TX bishop. Their cities may have a lot of urban gang problems; but, they don’t realize most of us have guns, know how to use them and nobody’s gonna mess with our bishops!

And:
It is sad that we have to feel the need to defend ourselves, almost to the point of doing that one thing most of us who have done it, pray we never have; to take up arms to defend our way of life. That is what the reference to Small band of paratroppers was.


And:
I’m already reaching for my pistol…
followed by:
Agreed. However, “reachin’ for my pistol” is an old expression I use around here. No threat is being made.

Interestingly, the saying is misattributed to Goering and Streicher, but is actually taken from Johst's play Schlageter performed for Hitler's birthday in '33:

Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning, or: Whenever I hear 'culture'... I remove the safety from my Browning (tr. at link above).

One could reach outside the narrow band of our troubles to refer to such things as Coulter's fun-and-games call for murdering a Justice:

"We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said. "That's just a joke, for you in the media"--

an instance of what David Neiwert at Orcinus has felicitously called an ideology of "eliminationism". Christians, Christians who make a big deal out of how they are following a Christ versus Culture model a la Barth's Bremen Declaration, have absolutely no business playing with our secular culture's tolerance of violence and the cultivation of domestic terrorism.

III.
One might ask: are these violent sentiments worth protecting? Should Lambeth provide any shelter in its institutional arrangements for such sentiments?

This TN incident would not be the first time gays were targeted--recall that the Holocaust targeted gays. And what will we say about Leviticus 20:13?

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.


Some Christians, including one of GAFCON's major backers, Howard Ahmanson seems to think--still--that stoning gays is permitted; indeed, homosexuality is criminal, and even a crime for which one can be executed, in a number of GAFCON and GAFCON-sympathetic provinces.

Is it OK to live by 20:13 now--is its being OK a matter relative to culture? Was it ever OK to live by 20:13? When "biblical authority" comes up , Lev 20:13 should come up. Lev 20:13 is not alone for brutality in Scripture.

Consider the conquest of Canaan, e.g. the command at Numbers 31:17--even male babies and children carried in the womb are to be slaughtered on divine command. God commands the death of babies in numerous instances, e.g. most famously the mass murder at Exodus 12:29, and the command at I Sam 15:3--which Saul gets in big trouble for disobeying inter alia; God promises to tear pregnant women and their unborn infants apart at Hosea 13:16; God commands the deaths of the infants and childern of Ai in Joshua 8...had enough?

The Bible shows--reveals--to us who God is, the character of God, and we are meant to love God. With that in mind, these savage passages--which only partially represent the blood-soaked pages of Holy Scripture--provide a test for any set of hermeneutical principles with which one might approach Scripture, and especially for their consistency.

Anyhow, my point in closing is twofold: (1)Lambeth should not provide any shelter at all for violent sentiments against gays, or for sentiments tolerating violence; (2)Christians are people of an especially violent book, and in particular a book explicitly promoting violence against gays. In view of (1) and (2) it seems Christians--even those at Lambeth--bear a special burden for disengaging their religious practice from the culture of violence that targets gays. One hopes our bishops will remember this.

Mean Lambeth Quotes

Mouneer, Deng & Wright are not oblivious ninnies; Mouneer knew what he was doing, I should think, when he said:

I do not believe that The Episcopal Church is going to
change its direction. It is not all about sexuality but about biblical interpretation, Ecclesiology and Christology. This reminds me with the position of US administration before and during the war in Iraq. They refused to listen to millions of voices that cried against the war. The North American churches believe that the truth was revealed to them and that the other churches in the Communion need to follow them.

The comparison between the Episcopal Church and the odious Bush Administration is a trope by now--as is the distorted portrayal of the Episcopal Church as if it were going alone. Such tropes identify the speaker with a community within which they are expected, intelligible, normative. Their being false does not matter so much as the mutual recognition such tropes bring--"he really is one of us after all"--and the resulting constitution of the speaker's identity, an effect that requires a crowd.

How important is such recognition and conservative identity? It seems to become more important as such recognition and identity are more thrown into question--and what it means to be a conservative Anglican is very much up for grabs right now. Mouneer, Deng, and Wright seem to be trying to give some definition to the phrase "conservative Anglican," as if they might function as an alternative to GAFCON if they were to be seen by Anglican conservatives as legitimate options.

What does that mean for TEC? Anglican conservatives would not need such rallying if they already held defensible ground--and that is the problem. At the moment they do not hold defensible ground. Rather than "charge" their chaotic position and drive them into an outright rout, it seems the bigwigs of the Communion, including especially a moderate like Williams, want to cede some defensible ground to conservatives, so that they will have some small place. Perhaps such sentiments are behind the push to enact a ban on ordaining gay bishops--who knows?

If that is the case, at the very least TEC and its friends should be sure to get a clear condemnation of cross-border poaching as well--a condemnation which by implication would condemn GAFCON as it stands.

The Curious Rise of Cosmological Dualism?

There is no need, one hopes, to argue for the centrality of the Shema to Christian faith:

שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד

or, read with appropriate deference to the holiness of the Tetragrammaton:

Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad;

or in the LXX:

ἄκουε Ισραηλ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν;

in other words:

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God! The LORD is One!

Across languages, across the vagaries of translation, the cry of the Shema has endured the passing of time, the rise and fall of empires and princes: an essential point of reference, if anything can be.

I.
Eventually, in the course of Israel's long love affair with the Lord, the elements of henotheism that might have attended initial use of the Shema drained out, leaving a committed monotheism in its place--so far as I can tell. And that shift toward monotheism is, I should think, extremely significant, even decisive for any contemporary canonical reading of Scripture.

So, for instance, it is difficult not to read the P creation story as carrying implicit, tacit criticism of Babylonian creation mythology. The Lord had no need to slay a Dragon in order to fashion the world of our acquaintance; the earth passively awaited his mere word in obediential potency. Such was his power, a type of power apparently beyond the comprehension of pagan myth. I take it we should see the P creation myth, in its scriptural context, as establishing a trajectory in Israel's knowledge of God, so that although the P story does not actually teach creation ex nihilo, later Jews encountering Greek metaphysics during the intertestamental period will look on the doctrine as coherent and complementary to their story's prior articulation. The one Lord God comes to be understood as a Creator God whose power is of such extraordinary magnitude, he not only need not slay a dragon--he needs no dragon at all: no co-eternal sludge from which to work.

There are not two principles of creation, God and something else--a primordial sludge, say, awaiting his word. And a fortiriori there are not two opposed, contending principles of creation, God and an anti-God, a principle of Good and a principle of Evil, fighting it out on the cosmic stage. That would be a cosmology reminiscent of Manichaeism, a faith of the third century persian Mani whose teaching so famously tempted Augustine. I do not mean to contend that Augustine's temptation is ours, that Manichaeism has returned to tempt the unwary away from the Shema's canonical monotheism. Rather, I mean to point out the general doctrine of which Manicaeism is merely a species has returned to tempt us into revision: what I will call cosmological dualism, the idea that God must compete with another principle, personal or otherwise, an idea implying the wrongheadedness of the Shema's devotion. Maybe I am just plain wrong, blowing minor indications up out of proportion, but if I am right, I hope you will agree we have a problem indeed.

II.
Contemporary Judeo-Christian theology has largely given up the traditional notion of divine apatheia, or impassibility, generally under the impression that "only the suffering God can help"--and not merely suffering in terms of Christ's human nature, as Aquinas might have parsed the phrase. After the horrors of Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the traumas of Nazism and Stalinism, the genocides and atrocities of the twentieth century, it is thought surely God suffers with us--and in particular the Father, or God in his divinity. Consider a quick survey of the literature: Nicolas Berdyaev in The Meaning of History, Miguel de Unamuno in The Tragic Sense of Life, Emil Brunner in The Christian Doctrine of God: Dogmatics I, Karl Barth in Jungel's The Doctrine of the Trinity: God's Being is in Becoming & Barth in Church Dogmatics IV/2, Moltmann in The Crucified God and The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, Bonhoeffer in his Letters and Papers from Prison, Abraham Heschel in The Prophets--is there any sense in revisiting the revision of the Doctrine of God with a who's-who list like this favoring passibility? Oh yes--the Anglican Communion started playing with passibility early on, with JK Mozley's The Impassibility of God, commissioned by the CoE, from the '20s. And I should mention the contemporary evangelical open theism movement, with a list of books in favor here, and against here; do not forget process theology--see the lists here and here.

What worries me about the move toward accepting passibility in our concept of God is the danger of losing our grip on the canonical monotheism developed so slowly and painfully through the OT/Hebrew Scripture. In effect, we seem to run a risk of falling away from the devotion properly expressed by the Shema into something henotheistic, or dualist--I want to say "pagan" but that would not be quite right, inasmuch as early henotheistic Israelites would not have counted as pagan; it is better to say that we should--with more than a milennium of Christian theology behind us--be more circumspect. We should know better.

Implied in giving up the notion of apatheia is a revision of the notion of God--and Christ--Pantocrator, and the concomitant creedal profession of faith. Omnipotence or being all powerful had been thought to go with God alone, who had no rivals, no obstacles, who could do whatever was possible. But to say God suffers is to subject God to the flux, to succession, and to imperfection: there are some things God cannot overcome with Power, which he must--being Love--suffer along with us. For instance, it might be thought he cannot overcome the human capacity to misuse freedom for sin by his mere power alone. A divinity who could not share our pain would be somehow deficient--especially seeing that he could not overcome it by an exercise of his power--and a divinity that could but would not share our pain would not be a loving divinity, or so it might be thought.

I disagree with such sentiments, and they seem to me to lead to a costly revision of our concept of God--a costly one, inasmuch as a revision here implies across-the-board revision. That is, if we revise our understanding of God to accept passibility into the concept, then we shall have to revise our understanding of the Incarnation, and with that the Atonement, the Doctrine of the Trinity, and that of the Church, and so on, as each of these makes use of the notion "God". At each point, we shall have to--it seems--move from a traditional teaching to a contrary teaching, inasmuch as passibility and impassibility are contradictories--or at least contraries.

What does all this have to do with cosmological dualism? On the face of it, when passibility is introduced into the concept of God, it is done so for the reason that God faces an obstacle that could not be overcome by power alone--or knowledge and goodness alone. The obstacle puts a limit on what God could accomplish given his power, knowledge, and goodness, and coming up against that limit, being a God of love, God cannot remain indifferent: he suffers, or so it is thought. It seems to me that such an understanding opposes an obstacle to God; there is something, X, over and against God, which he cannot rule and overcome alone. The X may be the human capacity for free choice, say, or something else. Whatever it is, this X explains the crappy state of things in the world; God would prefer things be better, but given X, this is the best that can be done. In opposing God's preferences, X functions in this scheme like a principle of evil, a reason for evil, and as a consequence we muct understand the world to feature a struggle between God and X--whatever X may be, even if it is impersonal like a human capacity of some sort. The schema "God vs. X" is a type of cosmological dualism--not Manichaeism exactly, nor mere paganism, but a dualism nevertheless related to the teaching of Mani by resemblance.

III.
My criticism is all too brief; I admit it. But I hope the intent is clear enough. Let us reconsider, and at least pause, at the introduction of passibility into our understanding of God. It seems to introduce a tension into our faith, as it seems to be incompatible with the canonical reading of the Shema evident in Scripture and tradition, and that incompatibility should be like a red flag, an indication that the new revised version of God bears an especially great burden of proof, as it asks so much of us in asking that we back away from the profession of the Shema:

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God! The LORD is One!