Bishops' Blog

Two Out of Three....?

Two out of three…? So goes the rock song by Meatloaf, but it is meant ironically, for that outcome, when the third element is crucial, is not so good either. There are triads where you cannot add the score up to 2-1 and call it a day. So it is with the so-called “three-legged stool” of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. The latter two help us to hear the Scriptures, which every ordained person swears is “the Word of God,” and whose hearing and interpreting take-up the first-half of our worship every Sunday.

I have been thinking today about our Convention (with respect to which I thank all those who gave of their prayer, time, and effort). I meant it when I spoke of my desire to be a bishop for the whole diocese, and when I encouraged a free exchange of views. Furthermore, I acknowledge the sincerity of those who brought their sense of our culture and their own experience to bear in advocating a change to our marriage canon. But in addition to being chief pastor, I am also your chief teacher, and it is in the latter capacity that I am required to offer the following observation.

Debate in convention is a constrained and difficult forum, and yet I worry that no appeal was made to Scripture about this change. We need Scripture so that we can make sense of experience and culture.  If we are to argue, let us, like the rabbis, argue over its interpretation. This eclipse of Scriptural reference is in fact consistent with a wider trend in our Church at present.

Now you might be assuming that the Scriptural case has been made at the national level, but I would beg to differ. I was a member of the theological taskforce (in 2009-2011) when the matter was last considered with traditional representation, and we came out with a split decision. (The report is worth reading:  ATR 93:1, winter 2011). Or perhaps one might assume that we as Episcopalians don't go in for fundamentalist proof-texting, but this really should encourage us to interpret well and in light of the whole witness of Scripture. Woe to us if it becomes an excuse for neglecting the Scriptures.

(In what follows I will leave in abeyance the questions of Tradition and Reason regarding same sex marriage).  First of all, not just the Old, but also the New Testament address the issue (most classically in Romans 1:22-27). In Mark 10:5-9 our Lord himself roots the complementarity of male and female in the structure of creation willed by God as we read in Genesis 1:27-28. Finally in Ephesians 5:31-32 this shape to creation found in Genesis 2:24 is given an additional spiritual meaning for Christians in the order of redemption. The implication is that the marriage of man and woman is a vocation within the Church.  

Please note that nothing I have cited need gainsay the welcome to all in baptism nor the mention in our debate of the virtues, which may be found in gay couples. Nor does it address what the State should or shouldn't do.  I am addressing the Scripture's witness to us as the ecclesia of God.

Thanks to those who took part in our debate.  I mean not to foreclose it, but to expand and deepen it. I welcome further discussion.

Peace

+GRS

Yes and then No

I once asked my Doktorvater George Lindbeck about the great theologian at the University of Chicago, David Tracy. His criticism went like this: he was a man who never said 'no.'  By this he meant that everyone Tracy treated had a place in his system, was part of some larger dialogue, etc. Tracy was all both/ and and no either/ or, but ways on his own terms and part of his project, rather like some amoeba absorbing bits into himself. You have doubtless met folks like that in everyday life.

When it comes the Gospel, Paul tells us that in Jesus Christ it is always a 'Yes' from God (II Corinthians 1:19). And it is important that this be said first in all circumstances. But it then becomes clear that we can only grasp that yes, its import and implications, as we articulate what isn't being said. I am not talking about nay-saying grumpiness, but simply about clarity which requires differentiation. The theologian, Christopher Morse, at Union Seminary wrote a book called 'Not Every Spirit,' in which he claimed that Christian doctrine has in large part a 'fencing' function, as it disbars what we ought not to say.

In this regard I want to propose a way to read our propers. I have in mind first our preachers, but lay people as well. Ask yourself first, about each passage: how is this good news for me and us in Jesus Christ?  But then ask: if this is true, what, as a result, isn't? 

Let me give an example. In John 1:14 we read that the Word of God became flesh and tabernacled with us. It is not hard to hear a great 'Yes' in the divine condescension. But then we see in this decisive act the end of any claims to religious pluralism, to a parity among religions. And all versions of Gnosticism which denigrate the bodily creation are ruled out of court as well. These No's come in the wake of Yes. 

A positive spirit is a good thing, but not at cost of the distinctiveness of Christ's person and work in what is called the 'scandal of particularity.'  Hearing the 'No' that ensues actually helps us really hear the abiding 'Yes.'

Peace

+GRS