Resisting fundamentalism - a dreadful poster

J. Michael Povey
Povey Prattle Blog
http://jmichaelpovey-retiredpoveinsarasota.blogspot.com/2012/01/resisting-fundamentalism-dreadful.html
January 27, 2012

This poster has gone viral on the internet today. I find it to be utterly appalling. It makes me feel embarrassed to be an Episcopalian.

It is of course historically inaccurate on two counts.

First: We have not resisted fundamentalism since 1784. Fundamentalism as a major factor in American Protestantism did not emerge until the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Second: The assertion that Jesus "resisted the Pharisees" is a rather simplistic interpretation of scripture. What we see in the gospels is that Jesus had disagreements with some of the Pharisees.

In fact his only encounter with a named Pharisee - Nicodemus - shows a Jesus who is gracious and thoughtful. Never did he resist the Pharisee Nicodemus.

It is plain wrong to suggest that Jesus resisted the Pharisees - what all of them.

What I find to be most objectionable about the poster is that it seeks to

define the Episcopal Church on the basis of what we are against. That's a

miserable "lowest common denominator" identity. Is that the best we can

offer in the name of the Lord Jesus?

I have two further caveats.

First: A blanket disparaging or disrespecting "one liner" about Pharisees ignores the fact that modern day rabbinical Judaism is deeply rooted in the teachings of Pharisees. Instead of dissing the Pharisees we could and should be rejoicing in the ways in which Judaism has kept alive the light and teaching of Torah.

Second: We are to be pitied if the best we can say about fundamentalists is that we resist them. It's become almost a way of life in some of the Episcopal parishes which I know. Typically the preacher or teacher will throw in a one-liner, a cheap shot against fundamentalism, evincing giggles and guffaws from congregants. I confess that I have done this. It feels good, but it does nothing to build up (edify) the people of God.

There are various reasons why I disagree with fundamentalism. I could outline them piece by piece. But God have mercy on my soul if in such a process I do little more than disrespecting my fundamentalist sisters and brothers.

Two final words:

I live in Sarasota FL and am filled with admiration for the ways in which the fundamentalist and evangelical Churches care for the poor. I will not resist that.

Just south of here in Englewood FL a parishioner in an Episcopal parish there began to think about the poor and/or homeless folks in town. She began an ad-hoc ministry of feeding and clothing (and providing shelter in ultra cold nights - yes we have a few of these in Florida).

This ministry developed and grew. As it did so the parish sought partners in the wider Christian community. Guess which church is the prime partner. It is the Four Square Church, (Pentecostal). That's irresistible.

Nuff said.

*****

Episcopal Church Slogan Indulges Dismissive Parody

By Bryan Owen
The Creedal Christian
http://creedalchristian.blogspot.com/2012/01/episcopal-church-slogan-indulges.html
Jan. 28, 2012

Recently on Facebook I came across a poster that says: "The Episcopal Church: Resisting Fundamentalism Since 1784 (Like Jesus resisting the Pharisees since the First Century.)"

Calling this "a dreadful poster" that is "utterly appalling" and which makes him embarrassed to be an Episcopalian, J. Michael Povey notes at least two historical inaccuracies:

First: We have not resisted fundamentalism since 1784. Fundamentalism as a major factor in American Protestantism did not emerge until the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Second: The assertion that Jesus "resisted the Pharisees" is a rather simplistic interpretation of scripture. What we see in the gospels is that Jesus had disagreements with some of the Pharisees.

"We are to be pitied," Povey continues, "if the best we can say about fundamentalists is that we resist them." And he rightly notes that a cheap shot like this poster's slogan "feels good, but it does nothing to build up (edify) the people of God."

In my neck of the Episcopal woods, this sort of thing often crops up in the form of Baptist bashing. Perhaps it's partly because Episcopalians in Mississippi are vastly outnumbered by Baptists and we sometimes feel defensive about being different and in the minority. I also know many Episcopalians who were raised in the Southern Baptist Church who had dreadful experiences, some of which can only be described as spiritually abusive.

Then again, some of the reasons for Baptist bashing may come from the hubris of actually believing that we are more enlightened than they are, and so from the heights of our intellectual and moral superiority we feel entitled to dish out dismissive judgment. There are, of course, many reasons to disagree with the Southern Baptists and other Christians. And there are all kinds of reasons to be grateful for discovering the riches of the Anglican tradition in this small part of the Anglican world we call The Episcopal Church. But it reflects poorly on who we are and what we actually stand for as Episcopalians when the best we can do is bash other Christians with whom we disagree.

Fr. Tony Clavier has also noted the historical inaccuracies in the slogan "Resisting Fundamentalism since 1784." And he also points to an irony at its heart:

A particular church which seeks to describe itself as existing over against some other form of Christian expression narrows itself, in fact becomes as reactionary as the body from which it distances itself. The slogan is sectarian.

Fr. Tony then offers some fine thoughts on "conversion to" vs. "conversion against," what Anglicanism at its best offers, and how we might engage in a more positive and faithful form of evangelism:

One understands that many converts to Anglicanism in America enter our red doors to escape forms of Protestantism in which they have felt oppressed and constrained. Fair enough. Similarly many converting from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism are driven by similar motives. Again, fair enough.

Yet one hopes and prays that their conversion is conversion to rather than conversion against. One also hopes that their aversion to elements in their former church homes isn't a means of avoiding disciplines which are merely Christian in the odd belief that Anglican churches are places where one may believe anything or nothing, or worse still places where their secular political and social beliefs are embraced unquestioningly. Our Liturgy, our Creeds, our submission to Holy Scripture as God's revelation demand a positive and yes a submission of mind and heart and lifestyle.

When we perhaps clumsily proclaim that Anglicans have no theology of their own, we say something important but not something vague. We embrace the faith of the Church with a capital C. When we state that human language cannot fathom the mind of God we don't mean that God has failed to reveal in Jesus all we need to know and believe for our salvation. If God has not so revealed himself he is not a God to worship and adore.

Anglicanism offers and presents at its best the way of salvation which takes seriously not merely selected proving texts from the Bible, nor a religion which panders to local political opinions and parties, but fundamentally -there's that word - foundationally or basically a vision which takes seriously the Church, the ministry, the sacraments and a treasury of spirituality, personal and communal through which cultures, races, nations may apprehend and embrace the Gospel of Jesus the Lord. It seeks not merely to offer a way of death or after death, but a way of life which embraces the whole person in their context. Anglicanism at its best is not dismissive but admissive, neither belittling intelligence nor confounding what we sometimes patronizingly term a simple faith.

If we are to recover our patrimony we must tell our story without indulging in dismissive parody. We have no title to superiority, called as we are to servanthood, compassion and mercy, to be reconcilers in a divided nation and world rather than contributors to division and arrogance. Can we not rather advertise ourself as "The Episcopal Church, Telling the Story of Jesus since 1784″?

In our Baptismal Covenant, we have promised to "proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ" and to "seek and serve Christ in all persons." This poster's slogan breaks both of those promises. And so J. Michael Povey and Fr. Tony are right: in telling our story and affirming what is good about The Episcopal Church, we can do better than indulge dismissive parody of other Christians.

*****

"RESISTING FUNDAMENTALISM SINCE 1784″

Fr. Tony Clavier
Shreds & Patches blog
http://afmclavier.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/resisting-fundamentalism-since-1784/
January 28, 2012

For the past couple of days or so a page has appeared on Facebook which proclaims "The Episcopal Church, Resisting Fundamentalism since 1784″. Let me begin by being characteristically pedantic. Fundamentalism is a term which was first used at the beginning of the 20th Century as a rallying cry among Presbyterians who feared their denomination was being taken over by those who were taking seriously what we loosely term Biblical Criticism.

The word "criticism" even then carried with it overtones of negativity in the same manner as the word "myth" presses buttons nowadays. In theological terms both words are neutral, with no particular relationship to devaluation or untruth. The fact that they worry non-scholars warns us that in the modern world, Christian scholars have the difficult task of pursuing study while having a duty not to create stumbling blocks for ordinary Christians.

After all the Gospel is for all and not merely for an elite. Yet because Christianity involves the mind and reason, scholarship is an important vocation and has been since Paul and John probed deeply into the meaning of that which Jesus did and taught. Recently a good deal of nonsense has been proposed by those who reject the word religion as being something negative and in opposition to faith.

In short at the moment when the Episcopal Church became a particular church within the Anglican Church, no one was resisting fundamentalism. Indeed the Episcopal Church survived in part because of the witness and passion of evangelicals, a group often dismissed today as being fundamentalists despite the fact that Anglican evangelicals have embraced much of Biblical Criticism in their biblical scholarship.

My unease about the slogan to which I draw your attention has another dimension. A particular church which seeks to describe itself as existing over against some other form of Christian expression narrows itself, in fact becomes as reactionary as the body from which it distances itself. The slogan is sectarian.

One understands that many converts to Anglicanism in America enter our red doors to escape forms of Protestantism in which they have felt oppressed and constrained. Fair enough. Similarly many converting from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism are driven by similar motives. Again, fair enough.

Yet one hopes and prays that their conversion is conversion to rather than conversion against. One also hopes that their aversion to elements in their former church homes isn't a means of avoiding disciplines which are merely Christian in the odd belief that Anglican churches are places where one may believe anything or nothing, or worse still places where their secular political and social beliefs are embraced unquestioningly.

Our Liturgy, our Creeds, our submission to Holy Scripture as God's revelation demand a positive and yes a submission of mind and heart and lifestyle. When we perhaps clumsily proclaim that Anglicans have no theology of their own, we say something important but not something vague. We embrace the faith of the Church with a capital C. When we state that human language cannot fathom the mind of God we don't mean that God has failed to reveal in Jesus all we need to know and believe for our salvation. If God has not so revealed himself he is not a God to worship and adore.

Anglicanism offers and presents at its best the way of salvation which takes seriously not merely selected proving texts from the Bible, nor a religion which panders to local political opinions and parties, but fundamentally -there's that word - foundationally or basically a vision which takes seriously the Church, the ministry, the sacraments and a treasury of spirituality, personal and communal through which cultures, races, nations may apprehend and embrace the Gospel of Jesus the Lord. It seeks not merely to offer a way of death or after death, but a way of life which embraces the whole person in their context. Anglicanism at its best is not dismissive but admissive, neither belittling intelligence nor confounding what we sometimes patronizingly term a simple faith.

If we are to recover our patrimony we must tell our story without indulging in dismissive parody. We have no title to superiority, called as we are to servanthood, compassion and mercy, to be reconcilers in a divided nation and world rather than contributors to division and arrogance. Can we not rather advertise ourself as "The Episcopal Church, Telling the Story of Jesus since 1784″?

*****

Self-Representation and Self-Revelation

By: AKMA
Random Thoughts Blog
http://akma.disseminary.org/?p=2912
Jan. 31, 2012

There was a mock-up of an advertisement going around Facebook the other day, purported to be part of a new campaign for the Episcopal Church in the US (I'll keep stipulating its national orientation, even though it legally renounced that in favour of 'The Episcopal Church', for convenience's sake; here in Scotland, the US version is not The Episcopal Church).

The ad depicts an ordained woman, a gay couple with cute multiracial children, and a young man with a martini glass, each captioned 'I'm Episcopalian'/'We're Episcopalians'. Beneath the photos are three lines of type: 'The Episcopal Church / Resisting Fundamentalism

Since 1784 / Like Jesus resisting the Pharisees since the First Century.' Evidently this poster went down well with a umber of my Episcopal friends; I saw it under a number of people's status updates. I was deeply troubled by it, though, and (rather than leave a comment under one person's post) I thought I'd explain how profoundly wrong-headed I think the poster is over here on my own turf.

First: I fully support the ordination/consecration of women to all orders of ministry. I fully support the incorporation of gay couples in the sacramental life of marriage (not yet realised, but still pushing). And if hot young men want to drink martinis, I suppose I support that too, though I don't care much about it.

If all the poster did was to make the point that Episcopalians ordain women, are mostly OK with gay relationships (though not yet to the point of marriage), and don't forbid martinis, I would be unimpressed. These are not the reason someone should go to the Episcopal Church; plenty of other denominations can say the same.

Still, if you already know that you want to go to a church and you have been burnt by a Christian body that limits women's participation in ordained leadership, that rejects same-sex relationships, or bans martinis, it would be useful to know that the Episcopal Church doesn't fall into the above categories - though it would be more honest if the poster did so in a way that conveyed varying degrees of dissatisfaction within the Episcopal Church relative to those three characteristics.

But the poster then goes on to assert that the Episcopal Church has been resisting fundamentalism since 1784. I'm not sure how to construe that as a truthful claim; what eighteenth-century 'fundamentalists' were the colonial Episcopalians resisting? I'm not aware that there was a fundamentalist movement at all until the controversies of the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The poster can't truthfully mean that Episcopalians have been resisting 'conservative theology' since then, because from the eighteenth century till today there have been conservative Episcopalians as well as liberal Episcopalians.

Moreover, the various Christian bodies that do not ordain women, or discountenance same-sex relationships, or forbid consumption of alcohol, are not in any sane way subsumed under the heading 'Fundamentalism'. It's hard to see this tagline as something other than a historically ungrounded cheap shot directed indiscriminately at conservative Christians, some of whom are indeed... Episcopalians.

The closing line submits that the Episcopal Church, like Jesus, resists Pharisees. That one just leaps out and grabs me by the throat for its misbegotten bigotry. Jesus certainly quarrelled with first-century Pharisees, as did Sadducees, Essenes, ordinary nonpartisan Jews, and Pharisees themselves.

But the claim that Jesus resisted them conveys the sense that those wicked Pharisees were trying to ram something down people's throats, and Jesus led a liberation movement against them. That is a possible, popular, interpretation of the New Testament - I think reads selectively and reflects an unsatisfactory appreciation for what Pharisaism was and where it stood in first-century culture - but it's very far from being a self-evident historical datum. And when it's conjoined in a comparison of Jesus with the Episcopal Church in a battle against fundamentalism, it can hardly escape the implication that both the Episcopal Church and Jesus stand over against Judaism (the ongoing currents of which draw in great part on Pharisaic traditions) in mocking derision.

To sum up, the poster strikes me as 'lite' on a very charitable reading, and perniciously false and spiritually toxic if it be taken at all seriously. A promotional campaign that advances ideological appeals as more signifcant than truth cannot be healthy for anyone involved. What the poster says to me is: 'The [US] Episcopal Church: ignorant, smug, self-congratulatory, and condescending'. Since I know well that a great many Episcopalians are none of the above, the poster offended me as a misrepresentation of the Episcopal Church at its best, and as a misleading signal to onlookers who might think that the ad truly represents the Episcopal Church [USA].

END