Showing items filed under “April 2016”

Good Disagreement

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As you know, in our wider Church, first the primates, and now the Anglican Consultative Council, have been endeavoring to find a way through strong disagreement while they continue to ‘walk together’ (the expression from the Windsor Report). Meanwhile, the Presiding Bishop will appoint a committee of Episcopal bishops, to include Communion Partner bishops, to talk about finding room for dissenting bishops within the fellowship of our own Church. (For this effort he is, to my mind, to be commended). I dare say that the same balancing act is found in its own way at the parish level.

On this topic I have been reading a book, edited by Andrew Atherstone and Andrew Goddard, called Good Disagreement? Grace and Truth in a Divided Church. I learned in their introduction that Charles Wesley turned to classic aphorism into the verse of a hymn:

Let all hold fast the truths whereby
A church must stand or fall;
In doubtful things grant liberty
Show charity in all.
Thus shall we to our sacred name
Our title clearly prove.
While even our enemies exclaim
‘See how these Christians love.’

We should enthusiastically assent to all what Wesley says, even as we are called to account by the last lines. At the same time, we realize that the exhortation has more to do with how we conduct disagreements than their actual resolution.   The reason is this: we need to determine which things are ‘stands of faith’ (over which the church stands or falls), which ‘doubtful things.’ And to determine this drives us back to the cases themselves. There are, in other words, few cases where we can apply a prior and more abstract rule to the specific debates that arise in the Church so that we can say, ‘this one is central,’ and ‘this one is doubtful.’ The disagreements recapitulate themselves.

One exception would be direct contradictions of claims of the Creed (though even here one may raise the case of someone like Bishop Spong who did exactly this with no consequences). These would indeed be instances where faith ‘stands or falls.’ (Though even here Eastern and Western Christians have fought- that is what the difference in the Nicene Creed between proceeding ‘from the Father’ or ‘from the Father and the Son’ is about). The real trouble arises when we realize that other issues may have implications impinging on larger issues. Cardinal Newman once said that a snip of a small artery can cause the whole body to bleed out- in other words, the body is one and issues are connected.

At the same time there is obvious truth in the aphorism. Each of our churches has its own liturgical quirks (I can assure you!) which we don’t think are reasons to avoid each other. (Though even here there was a time in the 19th century when Anglicans thought just this because of the implications of, say, reserving the sacrament for the nature of Holy Communion). But where does the obvious zone of taking a stand end and the zone of ‘whatever’ begin? Well, that brings us back to the cases themselves, and so back to the Bible, theology, and discernment themselves…

Given all this, does Good Disagreement… have anything to add?  Its best contribution is from Bishop Tom Wright on Paul’s treatment of reconciliation and disagreement. Debaters should not differ over abstract issues, and even the law vs. gospel dichotomy does not convey Christian contention well. Israel was to be reinterpreted in terms of the new, end-times Messiah, Jesus, and his Lordship over God’s creation and humankind. So the debate must revert to this new reality and its implications for the Church’s life. In short, disagreements must go back to Scriptural and theological first principles.   At the same time, for example in the series of new pastoral conundra of I Corinthians, disagreements must also display virtues also derived from Messiah Jesus himself, e.g. relenting from divisions (chapter 1), consideration of the poor (chapter 11), charity (chapter 15), or forbearance in light of the eschaton, etc. To the exhortation to theological exertion and such virtues answer disagreements over which the Church struggles? They do not. But they do describe a style of Christian disagreeing, which in itself cannot be discounted.

Peace,

+GRS

Christian Realism in an Election Year

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I must confess that I miss the electoral system in Canada, with the election occurring eight weeks after it is called, after the expenditure of a fraction of the campaign money. Be that as it may, the remarkable past few months make me feel obliged to offer some comment.
 
The last time there was what one might think of as a public theologian, particularly in the political realm were the 1950's and 60's. The figure I have in mind was the ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr of Union Seminary. He had been a major voice opposing the isolationism of the late 1930's, and went on to address the Cold War. While he has more recently been exposed to strong critiques, he is worth listening to in our own time.
    
At the heart of Niebuhr's approach is the Christian doctrine of the human person. We are at once made in the image of God and fallen. We exist between these two poles. As a result we easily lurch between an excessive optimism and pessimism, between an undue sense of our powers for good and despair. Niebuhr sees this playing out in American history in swings between interventionism and isolationism.
    
One might describe certain virtues which follow from his basic insight. We do have a responsibility to act when we can, but always with humility about the limits of our capacity, unforeseen consequences, and our own mixed motives. We need to see our neighbors and opponents as caught between the same poles of human nature, as essentially like ourselves. We also need to make room for the idealism of a distinctly Christian witness even in a broken world. I would attribute much of this to Niebuhr's Lutheranism, with its strong sense of the role of the law to restrain evil, and of the 'two swords' of the gospel and of legitimate but limited secular power.
  
Humility, a sense of our own flaws as well as our calling, the distinct role of the Gospel, all of it what Niebuhr called 'Christian realism':  I think our society could use a strong dose of these, as well as the dignity and seriousness he exhibited, in our present moment.  

+GRS

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Complete the Race (II Timothy 4:17)

At the end of our vacation we find ourselves in Chicago for its Marathon weekend (the fastest, I have read this morning, perhaps because it is cool and relatively level). Marathons offer many good things. You can see world-class athletes from places like Ethiopia and Kenya. There is a feel of fiesta with signs by family members, getups by some for-fun runners, and food for sale.

But as I looked out my hotel window at 7:30 a.m., I watched the race of competitors who have lost legs or their use. Wheeling vehicles by arm for 26 miles means serious fitness and determination.

Those competitors were to me, this morning, a symbol of the Church too. For each is wounded. The larger family cheers them on. Each by grace has risen up to run the race. Ahead is the goal, the prize, the welcome home. We find the companionship of Jesus the Lord, there, and along the route too.

Amen.

GRS