Commentary on: Why We Left the Episcopal Church, published By The Rev. John Yates and Os Guinness Monday, January 8, 2007; Page A15 (Washington Post)
"When even President Gerald Ford's funeral at Washington National Cathedral is not exempt from comment about the crisis in the Episcopal Church, we believe it is time to set the record straight as to why our church and so many others around the country have severed ties with the Episcopal Church. Fundamental to a liberal view of freedom is the right of a person or group to define themselves, to speak for themselves and to not be dehumanized by the definitions and distortions of others. This right we request even of those who differ from us."Definition: "Revisionism" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionism
"Historical revisionism is the critical reexamination of historical facts, with an eye towards rewriting histories with newly discovered information. A particular form of historical revisionism, named negationism, is concerned with the denial of facts accepted by mainstream history."
I'd say that the question of who and what is distorted is definately at the center of They say:
"The core issue in why we left is not women's leadership. It is not "Episcopalians against equality," as the headline on a recent Post op-ed by Harold Meyerson put it. It is not a "leftward" drift in the church. It is not even primarily ethical -- though the ordination of a practicing homosexual as bishop was the flash point that showed how far the repudiation of Christian orthodoxy had gone."
I grew up in the Episcopal Church, and left it mainly due to being forced to choose between views of orthodoxy similar to those expressed here or "revisionist" views that accepted reality and saw much of what is in the bible figuratively. Ironically I left the Church because I followed the revisionist views. I could not accept what was told to me was "the orthodox" view of Jesus Christ as Savior and the need to be "born again" to share in that salvation. I could understand being "born again" -- but I soon came to see this as a beginning not an eternally repeated end in itself.
They are claiming that their secession from the Episcopal Church is about a "liberal view of freedom", and protest the "distortions of others" yet their views do not rest in liberal views but in their own distorted views of what the church should be fundamentally about. Paradoxically, they are leaving because they would deny the rights of mainline Episcopalians to take the "mythic" elements of Christianity with a little salt.
Are we supposed to believe them? Okay I admit I don't. They are using the same sophisticated arguments the South used when it left the union. The South claimed they didn't revolt because of slavery? That they were leaving because of "states rights" and opposition to tarriffs. Sure, Okay. Their opponents didn't see it that way. Likewise this group is leaving because the majority of the American Church sees that there is a certain need for reinterpretation and revision in beliefs in the face of reality and revisions in our understanding of that reality.
"The core issue for us is theological: the intellectual integrity of faith in the modern world. It is thus a matter of faithfulness to the lordship of Jesus, whom we worship and follow. The American Episcopal Church no longer believes the historic, orthodox Christian faith common to all believers. Some leaders expressly deny the central articles of the faith -- saying that traditional theism is "dead," the incarnation is "nonsense," the resurrection of Jesus is a fiction, the understanding of the cross is "a barbarous idea," the Bible is "pure propaganda" and so on. Others simply say the creed as poetry or with their fingers crossed."
And the folks leading this attack take it all very literally, talking in tongues and sharing a charismatic approach more in line with other denominations:
I'm sure that both sides of this debate probably feel this way about the other side:
"It would be easy to parody the "Alice in Wonderland" surrealism of Episcopal leaders openly denying what their faith once believed, celebrating what Christians have gone to the stake to resist -- and still staying on as leaders. But this is a serious matter."
Shades of Martin Luther! Of course the founder of Episcopalianism is more to be found with Henry the VIII, who could have been characterized this way easily since he was once a supremely loyal Catholic and only revolted over the issue of divorce.
"First, Episcopal revisionism abandons the fidelity of faith. The Hebrew scriptures link matters of truth to a relationship with God. They speak of apostasy as adultery -- a form of betrayal as treacherous as a husband cheating on his wife."
The bible prophets compare both belief in idols, and triumphalism, arrogance and hubris in belief in God to "adultery." That is why there are extensive sections in Jeremiah about his relationship with Hannaniah and Hannaniah's belief in a triumphalist God who would save Israel from the Babylonians because he believed he would. Jeremiah himself would rather that Hannaniah would have been right but the "truth" from God is that God was going to do what he had decreed and no prayers were going to move Him until he was finished and the Hebrews had been scattered to the wind and realized the foolishness of their triumphalism and arrogance. Hannaniah, like so many religious preachers before and since had an arrogant faith that was supremely confident that it was the only correct faith and that he had the truth in his corner. "Fidelity to truth" is as important as blind faith. If the facts don't warrant a belief, then that belief needs to be reinterpreted or "revised" or it is simply a falsehood.
But is the issue really about the "repudiation" of Christian Orthodoxy, or the re-examination of it in the light of revealed facts and critical thinking? If orthodoxy can't adjust to facts, then it is a creature of dishonesty not a creature of truth. If there is no middle ground between faith and apostasy, no wonder there is so much confusion between these groups! There is no such thing as a half truth.
But there are many truths that are figurative in nature and that were told without ever having had the intention of being scientifically historical in nature. Even history up until present times is a matter of who is telling the story. Some historical accounts have proven to have been ancient spin, ancient legends, or even to have been lies. For people to claim half-truths and even pure lies as truth is cheating on God because God didn't make this world a place for us to create fantasies to play in, but a place for us to find our way through, and for Christians, to Him. Adultery is as much clinging to a false image of God as it is clinging to idols or abandoning faith entirely. The stories, if taken as conveying a real truth, are all true stories. The fiction in them is meant to convey that figurative truth with all the more clarity.
"Second, Episcopal revisionism negates the authority of faith. The "sola scriptura" ("by the scriptures alone") doctrine of the Reformation church has been abandoned for the "sola cultura" (by the culture alone) way of the modern church. No longer under authority, the Episcopal Church today is either its own authority or finds its authority in the shifting winds of intellectual and social fashion -- which is to say it has no authority."
I can't speak to this. I became first a Buddhist and later a Jew because Christian Orthodoxy had no authority of truth to me, the sort of authority that actually does come from God and doesn't merely assert a thing based on its own sotto voice. This argument sounds suspiciously like the "Either/Or" arguments of Kierkegaard carried to our own time. If either side of this debate were talking with the full authority of faith then I'd trust their arguments better. Faith is a powerful argument and tends to build bridges rather than tear people apart. Faith is also about things unseen. Blind faith is about things that never were and usually never can be. True Faith is about posibilities. Blind faith sweeps lemmings off of cliffs on the premise that "one can't prove its not true" -- that lemmings can swim to heaven.
"Third, Episcopal revisionism severs the continuity of faith. Cutting itself off from the universal faith that spans the centuries and the continents, it becomes culturally captive to one culture and one time. While professing tolerance and inclusiveness, certain Episcopal attitudes toward fellow believers around the world, who make up a majority of the Anglican family, have been arrogant and even racist."
It seems to me that those who sever ties on the basis of their own perception that they have the sole "correct" take on faith are the ones cutting themselves off from their fellows. The fallacy of theologians and Emperors alike has been the conceit that God is made in their image and that God will bend to their will. The continuity of faith will survive any sort of "revisionism." What it won't survive is falseness and duplicity, conflict and violence, because those things destroy faith.
"Fourth, Episcopal revisionism destroys the credibility of faith. There is so little that is distinctively Christian left in the theology of some Episcopal leaders, such as the former bishop of Newark, that a skeptic can say, as Oscar Wilde said to a cleric of his time, "I not only follow you, I precede you." It is no accident that orthodox churches are growing and that almost all the great converts to the Christian faith in the past century, such as G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, have been attracted to full-blooded orthodoxy, not to revisionism. The prospect for the Episcopal Church, already evident in many dioceses, is inevitable withering and decline."I think that rejecting history, science, and common sense on these grounds destroys the credibility of faith far more than trying to bend tradition to accept new realities, perceptions or understandings. Even if it is more temporally successful or attractive to people. This is literally a matter of interpretation. Orthodox generally cleave to human interpretations of the divine and clothe those interpretations in divine authority. Revisionists are willing to admit that even the most authoritative of teachers teach in a human voice with human foibles either in the original transmission or in its translation and mouth to mouth transmission. Revisionists are willing to admit that maybe they or others can (and did) make mistakes.
"Fifth, Episcopal revisionism obliterates the very identity of faith. When the great truths of the Bible and the creeds are abandoned and there is no limit to what can be believed in their place, then the point is reached when there is little identifiably Christian in Episcopal revisionism. Would that Episcopal leaders showed the same zeal for their faith that they do for their property. If the present decline continues, all that will remain of a once strong church will be empty buildings, kept going by the finances, though not the faith, of the fathers."
I always suspect scoundrels when i hear such absolutes. Surely a 2000 year old tradition can survive critical scrutiny and need not fear questions or truthful revisions. And what is this fear of revisionism? Is it better to pander to liberals and homosexuals, or to homophobes and people who choose the ugliest interpretations of their faith?
"These are the outrages we protest. These are the infidelities that drive us to separate. These are the real issues to be debated. We remain Anglicans but leave the Episcopal Church because the Episcopal Church first left the historic faith. Like our spiritual forebears in the Reformation, 'Here we stand. So help us God. We can do no other.'"
There is nothing so infidel as co-religionists who decide to accommodate reality, make friends with cherished enemies, or stand humble before God. I could consider revisiting the other "revisionist" Episcopal Church, but this orthodoxy seems repugnant, alien, distorted, and dishonest to me. And I can well imagine how Henry The Eighth must have felt when his effort to create a Church of England spawned hate filled "puritans" from both the Catholic and the Protestant side. But then again, maybe not. My mind is not of a 16th century zealot.
"The Rev. John Yates is rector and Os Guinness is a parishioner of The Falls Church, one of several Virginia churches that voted last month to sever ties with the Episcopal Church."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/01/07/AR2007010700982.html
Posted by cholte at January 9, 2007 11:48 PM