A Response to the Presiding Bishop

In her address to the Episcopal Church's General Convention 2009,

http://ecusa.anglican.org/78703_112035_ENG_HTM.htm

Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefforts Schori made the following remarks

'"When I was growing up, my mother often reminded us of what my grandfather used to say to her and her siblings when they were in trouble, 'We’re going to have words, and you’re not going to get to use any of yours.' Well, we’re going to have words."

and more notoriously:

"The crisis of this moment has several parts, and like Episcopalians, particularly the ones in Mississippi, they’re all related. The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention."

"Ubuntu doesn’t have any 'I's in it. The I only emerges as we connect – and that is really what the word means: I am because we are, and I can only become a whole person in relationship with others. There is no 'I' without 'you,' and in our context, you and I are known only as we reflect the image of the one who created us. Some of you will hear a resonance with Martin Buber’s I and Thou and recognize a harmony. You will not be wrong."

Now, in reading what the Presiding Bishop stated as carefully as possible - for in all cases like this one when she has said something controversial, her opponents and her supporters immediately go to their spin lines, with the opponents citing this as yet one more instance where she has transgressed against Christian orthodoxy, her supporters complaining that she has once again been misunderstood, her opinions distorted, her meaning misinterpreted.

A couple of nights ago, I had dinner with a Roman Catholic friend of rather impeccable conservative credentials, bewails the PB's latest offense to Christian belief and practice. Interestingly, he didn't quite get the point. And that is exactly the point about Katherine Jefferts Schori...neither does she. Her Catholic roots betray her. She does not in fact understand Protestantism. She really doesn't know, and certainly does not acknowledge that there is any difference between individualism and selfishness. Whether deliberately or unwittingly, her words exacerbate the very crisis that is the focus of her speech. Later in this same speech, the Presiding Bishop speaks of "subsidiarity", which might be described in secular terms as "home rule". One might be tempted to ask, "If subsidiarity is a good thing, why not autonomy" ? For this Presiding Bishop has done more than any other preceding her to crush out autonomy as a governing principle with the Episcopal Church, at least where the rights and prerogatives and parishes and dioceses are concerned.

What the Presiding Bishop entirely fails to recognize is those very local realities that have brought schism to the Episcopal Church. This is the reality of bishops and priests who for years have misinformed and failed to inform their flock on those actions taken by General Convention and in some cases, the diocesan conventions as well. This is the reality of deferred protest, of ineffective dissent,of talk without action. It is the reality of property laws, court decisions, and litigation funds. It is the reality of bishops refusing to ordain ministers from conservative seminaries and refusing to accept ministers whose opinions challenge theirs. It is the reality of individuals, parishes and dioceses gradually and discretely terminating financial support for institutions and programs that are morally unsupportable and in some cases poorly managed.

Although Bishop Schori managed to get through her entire address - it can hardly be termed a "sermon" - with not a single biblical passage, Holy Scripture itself provides a stronger and clearer response than any other words. In Leviticus 5:17 we find the following passage:

"If a person sins, and commits any of these things which are forbidden to be done by the commandments of the LORD, though he does not know it, yet he is guilty and shall bear his iniquity."

This is not group sin, and it is not group atonement for sin. There are passages in the Mosaic Law, in Leviticus 4 and 5 that do deal with group atonement for the sins of a group as a whole, where the priest and the ruler performs a sacrificial rite on behalf of the "assembly", but this verse and others like it deal In Job 13, tempted by Satan and hounded by his hypocritic friends, Job exclaims:

Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him.
He also shall be my salvation,
For a hypocrite could not come before Him.
Listen carefully to my speech,
And to my declaration with your ears.
See now, I have prepared my case,
I know that I shall be vindicated.
Who is he who will contend with me?
If now I hold my tongue, I perish.

These are not the words of Ubuntu, or Martin Buber's I-Thou relationship, or Jack Spong's "depth psychology". These are the words of a human being, who knows good and evil, and who understands the difference. This is the voice of the suffering virtuous; the person who believes in spite of all. To such a person, the Presiding Bishop has no message of hope, indeed, no message at all.

In Psalm 19, King David declaims:

Who can understand his errors?
Cleanse me from secret faults.
Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
Let them not have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
And I shall be innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my hear
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer

This is the humility the Episcopal Church lacks. This is the salvation it needs, both individually and as a whole. Psalm 38 records how David responded - and how we should respond - in times of crisis:

For I am ready to fall,
And my sorrow is continually before me.
For I will declare my iniquity;
I will be in anguish over my sin.
But my enemies are vigorous, and they are strong;
And those who hate me wrongfully have multiplied.
Those also who render evil for good,
They are my adversaries, because I follow what is good.
Do not forsake me, O LORD;
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!

When we can say, in one breath hat "my sins are every before me", but "I follow
what is good", that is the place to be. God goes with us on our journey, where ever we are and if indeed we, the sum of all the "I"s do indeed follow what is good, we need not worry about where God takes us and we will not get lost.

In Ecclesiastes 9, we find written:

13 This wisdom I have also seen under the sun, and it seemed great to me: 14 There was a little city with few men in it; and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great snares[b] around it. 15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that same poor man.
16 Then I said:

“ Wisdom is better than strength.
Nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised,
And his words are not heard.
17 Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heard
Rather than the shout of a ruler of fools.
18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war;
But one sinner destroys much good.

Clearly, this heresy, this ideology of the individual, it has the deepest of roots. And we have just barely scratched the Old Testament, not even referring to the prophets, all of who proclaimed God's truth - as individuals. And one need not mine deeply into Paul's letters, to find such heretical ideas. In Acts 10, Peter preaches the gospel to Cornelius's househlold, as follows:

"And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. 43 To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.” While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. 45 And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. 46 For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then Peter answered, 47 'Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?' 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord."

And this incident of mass conversion is consistent with the Great Commission found in Mark's gospel, for which source traditionally was Peter himself.

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."

Individual faith, grounded an individual decision empowered by God's grace - the gift of the Holy Spirit - resulting in the salvation of all the individuals who, collectively, form the Holy Catholic Church.

We are near to Calvin's birthday. There are many, and unfortunately an apparently increasing number - and the Presiding Bishop appears to be one of them, who deny humans the gift of free will, of the exercise of any role at all in the order of salvation. The PB is herself accused of Pelagianism on account of her high view of human nature and the dignity of man. But the path of free will in obedience to God is that narrow Via Media which she has missed, which many who seek to justify themselves by good works - or no works at all. And this spiritual plight lies at the heart of what plagues the Episcopal Church: for its evangelical wing was always arguably as Arminian as Calvinist or even Lutheran. All three of these Protestant evangelical traditions are in peril today across Anglicanism and within the Episcopal Church, but it is the Wesleyan tradition that stands under the harshest assault today.

I had originally intended to haul out my favorite quote from St. Augustine on compassion for the dying - and this comprehends all who are threatened by spiritual death, but in this context, I woul prefer to let John Wesley say the benediction:

From Sermon 14 (The Repentence of Believers:

http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/sermons/014.htm

"By the same faith we feel the power of Christ every moment resting upon us, whereby alone we are what we are; whereby we are enabled to continue in spiritual life, and without which, notwithstanding all our present holiness, we should be devils the next moment. But as long as we retain our faith in him, we 'draw water out of the wells of salvation.' Leaning on our Beloved, even Christ in us the hope of glory, who dwelleth in our hearts by faith, who likewise is ever interceding for us at the right hand of God, we receive help from him, to think, and speak, and act, what is acceptable in his sight. Thus does he 'prevent' them that believe in all their 'doings, and further them with his continual help;' so that all their designs, conversations, and actions are 'begun, continued, and ended in him.' Thus doth he 'cleanse the thoughts of their hearts, by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, that they may perfectly love him, and worthily magnify his holy name."