One God, Two Testaments, Three Creeds, Four Councils, Five Centuries
Reflections on orthodoxy by C. Christopher Epting, the Presiding Bishop's deputy for ecumenical and inter-faith relations from a January 2004 issue of The Living Church.
As ecumenical officer of the Episcopal Church, I am often asked today, either implicitly or explicitly, whether we are still "orthodox" or not. In other words, now that we have revised our liturgy (and continue to experiment with "supplemental" liturgical texts), ordained women and homosexual persons, and have acknowledged that, at least in some of our churches, same-sex unions are blessed, have we departed completely from what might be called "orthodox" Christianity?
Obviously, we are not Orthodox (with a capital O). That designation is reserved for the Eastern or so-called Oriental Orthodox churches, tracing their identities back beyond the Great Schism of 1054. By this definition, the Roman Catholics, as well as protestants and Anglicans, agree that we {are all "non-Orthodox." The question is, are we orthodox (with a small "0") -- do we hold "the right opinions" on essential matters of the Christian faith?
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26 comments:
What I seem to see is a growing split in Christianity more fundamental, so to speak, than the interdenominational schisms. It's between those who cling to dogma more firmly; and those who are in-process of letting it go and seeing something more profound in the symbols of our heritage than we have yet lived up to.
Jeff and Darius,
Your comments remind me of novelist Flannery O'Connor's reaction when a dinner companion once explained to her his view that the consecrated eucharistic bread was truly only a symbol of Christ's broken body. Her heated response was: "If it's just a symbol, then to hell with it!"
hg ... and YOUR comment reminds me of how limiting the "either or" construct is. Why can't it be both "real" and "symbolic"? Do we really have the hubris to believe that the theologies we construct, the rituals we treasure and the symbols that draw us closer to God and to each other come CLOSE to capturing all of who God is? Last time I checked that's called "idolatry" and whether it's a golden calf or a prayer book or a piece of communion bread if we're worshipping "it" instead of the One it was intended to draw us to we're on shaky ground. (In good company, given our scriptural history, but shaky ground nonetheless.)
Sister Susan,
On any day, I will take being on what you consider "shaky ground," knowing Jesus is a steady companion, rather than risk keeping Jesus at arm's length by epistemological philosophizing and asking rhetorical questions that few people care much about.
At the risk of sounding defensive, please read my "Of Sheep and Shepherds" sermon posted earlier this month on this blog and then talk to me about "keeping Jesus at arm's length.
Are we orthodox? Not according to 3/4s of Anglicans worldwide today.
Well, we still think we're catholic and if you poll the Roman Catholic faithful they don't think we're that EITHER so there ya go!
I agree with Jeff in that it is hard to say if we are really "o" orthodox. I do agree with his opinion of Elizabeth I, and at the risk of being redundant, I give you again her quote on the matter:
"I have no desire to make windows into men's souls. There is only one Christ Jesus, one faith.
All else is a dispute over trifles.
Believe what you want about the bread made holy, but come to the rail to receive it."
~~The brilliant "Elizabethan Compromise" summed up in this quote attributed to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth I~~
I so admire that woman!
Here's what I bet all of us agree on: Before there was any Christian dogma or doctrine, there was Jesus, who taught and then showed, through his crucifixion and resurrection, that God is not interested in the precise thoughts of our minds, but in the orientation of our hearts and how we therefore treat one another. Just this much ought to be seen as world-changing orthodoxy enough.
Peace and mercy!
Notice that everyone here is concerned with discerning Scripture, the will of the Spirit, and of being Christ-like. Notice that with all the various interpretations and paths, who is at the center of them all--Christ. God. Spirit.
Some traditions and faiths demand and insist that we step on precise and specific stones to get to that Cross. Others, like ours, the Episcopal/Anglican tradition, do not. This is not new. This is our tradition. We do not build windows.
Jeff writes:
Tony - I think this author would propose that the 3/4ths you are talking about are bordering on Orthodox (big O), not orthodox (small o).
Jeff, what exactly is this based on? It is certainly not based on any Orthodox perception that I am aware of. The Eastern Orthodox certainly don't think that we are part of their communion. The 3/4s I was referring to are all Anglicans, including Anglicans from the largest (numerically) provinces.
Jeff writes:
"the Eastern Orthodox, as with the Anglican Orthodox, place great emphasis over Scripture, valuing it over the relationship with God-- even using it to define their relationship with God."
Jeff, this is absolute nonsense. It is nonsense with respect to the EOs as well as Anglicans. I'd like to know where you got this ill-founded idea. It sounds like a typical liberal charicature (sp?) of conservatives.
I think there are actually two major issues before us. They are related to each other, like two streams that finally join together to form a river.
One is how we apply the Scriptures to our life together as a Church. This is the progressive vs the traditionalist, the revisionist vs the fundamentalist, the liberal vs the evangelical - whatever label suits.
The other issue concerns revelation. How do we apply personal revelation in our life together as a Church? The "spirit is doing a new thing" we hear from our leadership - but how do they know this? What is the criteria for which we decide that the spririt is doing a new thing? If the spirit is truly "the Spirit of Jesus" and He is doing a new thing, how do we know that's true? On what authority do we make that judgment?
Is it personal experience? is it majority rules? Is it tradition? Is it reason? Is it the Scriptures? Which Scriptures? Who decides how to validate extrabiblical revelation?
I think this is where we are seeing a chasm deepening in the Episcopal Church and with the worldwide Anglican Communion. We cannot find common ground to even agree on the parameters of this discussion and our differences are ultimately irreconcilable unless we can agree on the criteria. The criteria itself is the issue - we can't agree on the Scriptures, how will we agree on revelation?
If the basis for judging the vality of revelation is the scriptures vs experience (if I have all ready decided that my behavior is Godly, what difference does it mean if the Scriptures say something else?
Do we not say this over and over: "I am blessed in my lifestyle, in my sexual identity, therefore I am blessed and what I am doing is blessed and affirmed by God. if the Scriptures disagree with that then the Scriptures are wrong, out of date, or obscure - but I will validate the authority of personal revelation by my own experience, not the experience of a bunch of dead people from 2,000 or more years ago - I will decide, it's my choice - the spirit is doing a new thing because I experience that in my life."
Now how can that ever be reconciled with the Anglican understanding of interpreting Scripture and validating personal revelation? For Anglicans, it is Scripture that informs personal revelation, not the other way around.
If we cannot agree on the criteria, have we not all ready chosen to walk apart?
aatw
"If we are agreed in one faith, one Christ, why do we have to agree on personal revelation over Scripture or vice versa? It is but a trifle."
The simple but challenging answer for all of us is that it's not "a trifle": You can't separate Christ from Scripture because it is the Scriptures that testify to Christ. How would we ever know of Christ outside of the Scriptures? How would we know of our sinfulness and our need for a savior outside of the Scriptures? How would we know that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and not just another wonderful human being? How would we know "all things necessary to salvation" apart from the Scriptures?
That's why even Anglicans have considered Scripture to be the final authority for faith and practice throughout the centuries. (See the Thirty-nine Articles and the testimonies of many Anglicans over the centuries.) Yes, our branch of Christianity does hold Scripture, tradition, and reason in balance, no question although we would undoubtedly differ on the definition and the weight given to each one). But there's a reason why our Anglican predecessors felt compelled to insist that the church could never set one Scripture against another or command a Christian to believe anything outside of Scripture (see Article XX). There's a reason why John Jewel would insist that Anglicanism brought nothing new to Christianity but instead was a form of Christianity that lined up with the early church fathers.
Our "personal revelation" (as well as our reason and experience) must always be measured against Scripture. Suppose that my "personal revelation" leads me to murder someone. Was that personal revelation from God? Of course not. But how do we know? From the Scriptures (and more specifically, in this case, the ten commandments). Yes, our conscience may stop us from murdering someone, but it may not as well; just look at some of the criminals out there. A faulty conscience is a sign of how deep our fallenness truly is, and a sign of our sinfulness.
Our "one faith, one Christ" is based on Scripture; if it is not, then we will have neither one faith nor one Christ. Some will believe in our need for a savior, the fully human, fully divine Son of God who came to redeem us from our sins. Others will believe in our need to follow the teachings of a human being who was possibly the best example who ever walked this earth of what God is like. The two beliefs are not the same, even if you consider both acceptable; there is not one faith there, nor one understanding of who Jesus is.
"It is the act of coming together as a community at the rail that binds us together as Anglicans."
Even there, our common prayer binds us together in common doctrine. Our eucharistic prayers and our words of institution are full of doctrine.
"It is not a set of shared beliefs and doctrine."
Just take a look at any of our BCP prayers (not just the eucharistic one) and look at how they are full of doctrine. "Shared beliefs and doctrine" do not bind us together? Thousands of Anglicans are spinning in their graves right now.
"We are NOT a confessional church."
Yes and no. No, we're not as that term is popularly understood these days. But are we a confessional church? Of course we are. Every week we confess, "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again." Every week we sing the Gloria, in which we confess our belief in certain attributes and facts about the Holy Trinity. Every week we say the Nicene Creed. I agree with those who say that Anglicanism has a diffused rather than a systematic theology, but we still confess our faith each week in our worship, and perhaps daily in our private devotion.
****
All of this is not to say that there are no doctrinal differences among Christians (of course there are, and there are doctrines that are adiaphora), but that we cannot say that doctrine does not bind us together. It does, and the lack of agreement on essential doctrine separates us greatly, even if we are in the same denomination.
Peace of Christ to all,
Chip
Alas, Jeff (and by the way, I do enjoy reading your posts very much - are you going to Columbus?) you write that the Anglican Church "is not a set of shared beliefs and doctrine." Aye, there is the rub. The majority of the Anglican Communion believes that it is (as contained in the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles). This is why it seems that we have all ready chosen to walk apart - the Episcopal Church has long been on this road (and I think many Episcopalians do sincerely believe it is a good thing, that God is really doing something new and the Anglicans worldwide have not yet been enlightened). But for the majority of Anglicans, the millions and millions of Anglicans worldwide, we are bound together by a common faith. We Episcopalians do not agree with the majority of Anglicans and we haven't for a long, long time. The church you describe is not what Elizabeth I envisioned, nor is it the one that Ridley and Latimer died for. The new expressions of sexuality and marriage are examples of how far we've walked apart all ready. I will say it again, we cannot agree on the criteria to even discuss how we apply Scripture to our lives and how we test the validity of personal revelation. By saying everything is okay does not make it so. And that is what makes this so darn sad. The Anglican doctine matters very very much to evangelicals and Anglo Catholics and some charismatics as it is expressed in the Prayer Book and the 39 Articles - it matters very very much. All ready our Prayer Book has drifted far from the Prayer Books around the Anglican Communion. It matters and to have those doctrines dismissed as irrelevant in light of the progressive doctrine of "community" continues to break us apart. It doesn't work - and again the doctrine of revelation becomes a stumbling block. It's irreconcilable differences.
We don't even speak the same language anymore. The definition of our words are different. We have been walking apart for a long time - at least 30 years all ready. General Convention 2003 just woke the rest of the world up to what has all ready happened.
This is why all the Anglican Instruments of Unity have warned and suspended the Episcopal Church from full fellowship with the Anglican Communion at this time. They are trying to tell us the truth - but we can't hear it. As American Episcopalians - who are so used to getting our way and believing we are right all time - we just can't believe it. We just can't believe it.
aatw
Jeff,
I guess you'll have to refresh my memory: Why do you disagree with the statement, "You can’t separate Christ from Scripture because it is the Scriptures that testify to Christ"? I don't think that any Christian can deny this statement, no matter how much weight he or she puts upon personal revelation. How would we have any words of Christ apart from the Scriptures? How would we have any information about Christ's love, mercy, and grace apart from the Scriptures? How would we have any accounts of Jesus' healing and other miracles apart from the Scriptures? Would our BCP be sufficient? Even there, our BCP is full of Scripture. Sure, God could have ensured that accounts of Jesus were accurately transmitted orally from generation to generation, but he didn't leave us to that; in his providence, he had Christians write the gospels. Christ himself, if we believe the words attributed to him (and I realize that some here may come from more of a Jesus Seminar-type perspective, while I do not), opened the eyes of the disciples to how the Old Testament Scriptures spoke of him. You may believe that the Scriptures contain an admixture of truth and error and are only a "starting point" for the faith, but even so, without them, we don’t have any record of Christ's life, teachings, or death on the cross. How, then, can we separate Christ from the Scriptures?
My second question would be this one: How do we judge whether our personal revelation reflects the will of God? Again, my conscience could conceivably malfunction and lead me to do a whole bunch of evil things. My reasoning could be wrong. My experience does not give me the whole picture. My point is that even the commands given to Israel at Mount Sinai are not natural to the human heart. We envy regularly; murder and theft occur every day; many human beings commit adultery. Since our minds, hearts, consciences, and every other faculty that we have are susceptible to sin, how would we know absolutely not to steal or envy? And so when it comes to our personal revelation, what is our measuring rod? How can we determine that something reflects the heart and mind of God? We must turn to the revelation that God granted us in the Scriptures. (Even the two greatest commands come to us through Scripture. Would we ourselves, given our natural self-centeredness, ever have dreamed them up?)
"God continues to work actively in the world and in our lives." What Christian doesn't believe this, Jeff? Of course, God is at work in the world. He continues to draw people to himself. He continues to justify sinful human beings and then transform them into the image of his son. He continues to use Christians as agents of transformation in the world. Of course, Christ is the destination—God's plan is to bring everything in heaven and on earth under Christ's lordship (Ephesians 1:10).
I don't believe that you or any other progressive don’t value Scripture, Jeff. Do those of us who are orthodox put Scripture above our relationship with God? Not at all. Rather, we realize that Scripture and our relationship with God inevitably go hand in hand, as I tried to illustrate both in the first two paragraphs above and in my previous note. We look to Scripture to know how to love the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We look to Scripture to know how to pray. We look to Scripture to follow Jesus as his disciples and obey his commands. We look to Scripture throughout our Sunday worship because we believe that "all Scriptures were written for our learning"—and, more than that, our heart transformation. We look to Scripture for the basis for our sacraments. We look to the Scriptures to share the good news about Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection. Our relationship with God simply does not exist without the Scriptures, Jeff. They are not above our relationship with God; the goal is to know, love, and serve Jesus Christ, not a book. Undeniably, though, in God's providence he has made the Scriptures indispensable to our relationship with him.
Peace of Christ,
Chip
Chip,
As a GLBT Christian who usually (although not always)concurs with more progressive interpretations of doctrine, I think you raise some excellent points for which we progressives often skirt direct answers. By what criteria do we discern whether a change is "of the Spirit" or of some other motive? It had better not be exclusively whether it feels 'right' or 'good' or 'liberating' to us individually. We are all subject to sin; none of us completely surrenders all ego to God's will. My personal answer is that my discernment about such matters comes in three phases. First, I pray about it, asking the Spirit of Christ to lead me in discerning right from wrong. Second, I ask myself: if I were on my deathbed, would I feel anything squeamish, regretful, or shameful about the action, position, or behavior? If the answer is no, nothing about it would create a wedge between me and God, then I move to my last phase of discernment: am I the only one of my peers (or one of a neglible minority) who feels that way? The rule of majority is not always moral, but it's a feasible cross-check for fallible human conscience. That is why I believe the actions of GC2003, approved by the majority, are of the Spirit. Unfortunately, much of the interaction and exchange since then has been flagrantly self-serving, politically driven, and abhorrently unChristian in spirit, on the part of both progressive and conservative Christians. We will be held accountable some day for how we have treated one another. Thank you, Chip, for your civility and for asking some of the hard questions.
I seem to recall hearing that the Jewish historian Josephus (circa 70 CE) confirmed that Jesus existed and was crucified, but other than that you are quite right, Chip, to insist that we can't know anything about Jesus without looking to Scripture. On the other hand Scripture doesn't exist separately from the authority of the community or an individual's experience. The Church set the canon in the first place, and no one is able to entirely separate one's experiences from how one interprets the Scriptures.
Actually this seems to point to the caricatures of both the left and the right. The left gets painted as mostly ignoring Scripture, while the right gets painted as being clueless about the gap between Scripture and the interpretation of Scripture. In both cases the caricature has some basis in reality, although it is not an accurate reflection of reality.
Jon
Jeff, Scripture for the orthodox is the objective standard by which we discern what is going on in our experience. If this is placing Scripture over relationship, then you have thousands of years of Jewish and Christian history to argue against. For the orthodox, we try as best as we can not to take our experience and make Scripture fit it. For the orthodox, Scripture is revelation given to us by God so that we can understand how best to walk with Him and live with everyone else.
Jeff,
Thanks for your thoughts. Allow me to question you on a given point, however.
"Do we use Scripture literally? No."
Does anyone here take Micah 6:8 literally, or is "do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God" metaphorical without any literal meaning intended? What about the many commands to care for the poor? How about the command not to commit adultery?
All of us take Scripture literally at many points in our discernment processes. We have to do so. Scripture doesn't allow us to take a totally metaphorical approach to it. Let's say that I'm tempted to steal a possession of a friend of mine. Do I take "You shall not steal" literally? Of course. Or what if I envy my neighbor, for [whatever reason -- fill in the blank]? Do I take God's command not to envy literally? Of course.
And because we are sinful, God does not want all of "our innermost desires, wants, and needs to be fufilled." Sure, God loves to give us our Holy Spirit-inspired desires, including the desire to love and serve God; absolutely! But he does not bless the deeply rooted sinful desires that every single human being has, whatever they may be for each individual. We always will struggle with sin in this life, even as the Holy Spirit transforms our lives to make us more like Christ. God loves us, yes -- more than we can ever imagine. But like any good parent, he tells us "no" at times, and he already has said "no" in the Scriptures to stealing, adultery, envy, and murder, among other things.
I don't know about you, Jeff, but the more I look at my innermost desires, the more sin I find where I didn't see it before. (Envy is a particularly difficult one for me.) That's something that, when I'm submitting to Christ, humbles me and drives me to him. Sin, in its many forms, is as natural to us as breathing. I'm thankful, though, that God is in the lifelong business of transforming Christians more and more to be like Jesus. It's incredible, amazing grace that when we turn to Christ in repentance and faith, God adopts us into his family, gives us the Holy Spirit, and begins the long process of transforming our character so that we become like Jesus. That's too wonderful for any of us.
Peace of Christ to you,
Chip
Anonymous,
Thanks for your thoughts. They are clearly heartfelt, and I appreciate them. Much of what you say regarding discernment resonates with me. The major point in my decision making process that you don't mention is the most important one for me: Will my decision violate God's commands in Scripture? (Or, put more postively, is my desire in accordance with God's will for me as expressed in Scripture?)
And thanks for the sober-minded reminder that God will hold us accountable for how we treat each other. As C.S. Lewis once said, we've never met someone who wasn't an immortal, and that should influence us to treat each person with respect and dignity.
God bless!
Chip
Jon,
Yep, I recall that Josephus does mention Christ's existence and death on the cross, but little else. Thanks for that contribution! I'll also agree with your other points concerning Scripture; without the superintending influence of the Holy Spirit, we will not be able to see it clearly due to our sinfulness.
Peace of Christ,
Chip
Jeff,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. You write, and make points, well.
Here, we get to what I'd guess is the primary difference between progressives and orthodox: Are human beings essentially good or sinful? We both believe that God created humanity, and it was good. We both believe that God has given common grace to everyone that makes things less bad then they could be: both the sun and the rain are experienced by the righteous and the unrighteous, etc. However, because of humanity's fall, the orthodox believe that every faculty of human beings has been corrupted by sin —- not that we are as bad as we could be, but that we are sinful to such a degree that we are separate from God and need to be reconciled to him. Consequently, we are not "good" when we are born into this world due to our proclivity to sin, and every human being needs to be reconciled to God. That reconciliation occurs through repentance and faith in Christ, through which we are adopted into God’s family and given the Holy Spirit to transfom us into becoming what God desires us to be.
I realize, however, that many (most?) progressives do not believe in original sin, which has been the teaching of the Christian church for centuries. Differences about even that one doctrine, however, change how we view salvation, Christ, and many other facets of the Christian life. Hence, our divisions run deep.
Peace of Christ,
Chip
Jeff-
This thread may be too old for you to respond, but something you said in your last post got my attention.
"I understand that strong as the love is between my parents and I and between my children and I, Gods is stronger. I can't imagine a just God who would ever allow, no matter how wrong something one of his children did, to suffer in eternal punishment for one mistake. Especially when there are so many environmental, genetic, and socialogical factors that can contribute to those choices."
What if one of your children killed someone...purposefully. They were hurt to the core, so they planned it and excuted it. and they went to jail, and got the death penalty- after a jury of their peers convicted them. Would you be there every step of the way, loving them and hurting with them? Just from reading your posts, I would have to say you would. I know that my heart would be breaking for my child,and I"dbe with them every chance I had, and love them unconditionally. But all of that would not change the fact that if they were guilty, they would have to pay the price of their actions. I could not, nor would not change that.
I guess that is how I view God. His love is so great as to encompass all our sins...but there are consequences to our actions, and I can't believe that He will just forgive them because He loves us so much. If that were the case, we wouldn't need a Savior. I love my children desperately, but if we don;t allow them to face any consequences of their actions, is that really instructing them? If you are late everyday to work, you're going to get fired. If you don't learn to be on time, you will have a hard time keeping a job. That is the reality of consequences. And I think that is where some of the disagreement lies.
Jeff,
Laura stated much of what I wanted to say very well. As C.S. Lewis once said, "We are all rebels who need to lay down our arms against God." The theology that you outline makes Christ no longer a savior, but just an example.
And, Jeff, do you know any of us who are orthodox personally? I think you'd find that we are quite joyful in our following Jesus. The Christian life is a paradox: Christ bids us all to take up our crosses and follow him, but his burden is also light. There is more joy in following Christ than anything else in the world.
Peace of Christ!
Chip
Great site loved it alot, will come back and visit again.
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