A RESPONSE TO MARK HARRIS - BY ERNESTO M. OBREGON

In his recent article to The Witness, Fr. Harris presents us a post-modern justification for the actions of the General Convention of ECUSA in 03. For despite his analysis of Anglican history, he shows himself well aware of the possibility that the Global South primates representing the majority of the Anglican Communion may well take some type of action. This is why he makes interesting claims in his paper that I doubt would stand up to profound analysis. Among them are equating "unity of the faith" with fascism, and charging that wars are a result of the desire for a "unified world view"?this despite the fact that philosophers and scientists have been searching for a such unity for centuries, whether one calls it metaphysical or cosmological unity, without going to war. Moreover, in his historical analysis, he seems to have often lost the forest for the trees, confusing diversity with "the discomfort of a more fractured world and a shadow of a substance," and unity with a forced "common ecclesial culture."

It may help the reader to understand Fr. Harris' article if it is deconstructed using two key paragraphs of his monograph and some key historical facts. The key historical facts are (of course): the overwhelming vote at Lambeth 1998 where nearly 90% of the assembled bishops voted for the approved sexuality statement, the Primates' statement of 03, and the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury. These are the statements with which Fr. Harris has to contend.

First paragraph:

The western world was brought kicking and screaming into modernity, and parts of the church never got over it. To some extent the missionary efforts of the western churches gave voice to faithful people who found modernity difficult. In new places the old worldview could still be voiced without the need to make science and religion mesh. And now, as modernity is undergoing a transformation into we know not what that is, as we enter the post-modern period the church is kicking and screaming again. And now the discontented are both the holders of a classical or pre-modern worldview and those who took on modernity in all its complexity. Those opposed to what the Episcopal Church is doing represent a cloud of witnesses from increasingly un-useful worldviews, and it is no wonder these brothers and sisters are often at odds with one another as well as with the actions of General Convention.

Three charges are made in this paragraph. The first charge is that many, if not most, of the missionaries who went out and evangelized large parts of the Global South were non-adaptive personalities who were incapable of integrating their lives to allow science and religion to mesh. This is an incredible generalization that I doubt is backed up by any scholarly studies. It rather reads more like some Hollywood mythos or a progressive's wish-fulfillment than of solid fact, given the charges that follow. The second charge is that the "discontented" hold a "pre-modern" worldview, that is a primitive one. This connection between missionaries and primitive worldviews makes it obvious that Fr. Harris is charging that 90% of the Anglican bishops hold "un-useful" worldviews, and, by implication, that most of those bishops are the ones located in the old mission lands, which means Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. There is a third charge that those bishops are conflictive personalities who cannot even get along among themselves, a most interesting charge given the unity of statement on these issues.

Who then is capable of a correct post-modern viewpoint? It is no surprise that his conclusion is that, "what the Episcopal Church is doing," is holding up the banner of post-modernity and correct thought. However, to people of color, this does not sound like post-modernity and not even like modernity, but like old-fashioned Victorian colonial thinking. That a mostly white Eurocentric denomination considers most of our viewpoints "un-useful" and "pre-modern" and that they do not need to listen to us but us to them is of no surprise to us. We were told that back in the 1800's heyday of British imperialism. This makes it the more interesting that Fr. Harris mentions colonialism by the third paragraph, contending that the plethora of Anglican cultures makes this impossible now. It seems that it is not as impossible as Fr. Harris contends.

Additionally, Fr. Harris shows a high level of naivete about American culture. He fails to consider the possibility that the actions of General Convention do not show any principled stand but rather show only typical American behavior. It is not that difficult to show that The Episcopal Church's rejection of the resolutions the Lambeth Conference and doing what it wishes is no different than President Bush's (and Congress's) relationship to the UN. That The Episcopal Church then fails to carry out an agreement reached at the Primates' Meeting is no different than the failure of President Clinton to present the Kyoto treaty to the Senate. That The Episcopal Church is upset over the possibility of repercussions and possible discipline, arguing that no one can judge us, is a typical USA attitude towards the world. That many in The Episcopal Church insist that any expressions of disagreement, or demonstrations, or financial boycott show disloyalty is no different than the way those who strongly opposed Iraq were charged with lack of patriotism. It needs no appeal to the Holy Spirit to explain ECUSA's actions, only a study of modern American culture and European attitudes to its colonial holdings during the 1800's.

Harris: Second paragraph:

...We are in the church mess of our times because national churches, denominations, and world church structures cannot stand solid in a world where the notion of a single overarching narrative is no longer considered either relevant or possible. While it is true that post-modern scholars make the claim that an overarching narrative is not possible, it is precisely the opposite claim that Christianity makes. Apparently 90% of the bishops appear to think that such a narrative is possible, which is why Fr. Harris found it necessary to dismiss their viewpoints as "un-useful" and "pre-modern." They are certainly un-useful to the cause he wishes to support.

The claim of classical Christianity is precisely that in Christ we have our overarching narrative, that which unites heaven and earth and makes sense of all of history. "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together," (Col. 1:17, NRSV). The Christological principle is the beginning point of our philosophy. Moreover, to classical Christianity, it is not surprising that outside the Christological principle, it does become impossible to reach a metaphysical overarching narrative. Interestingly enough, science still searches for its Holy Grail of a Grand Unified Theory, uniting electromagnetism, gravitation, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force believing that an overarching cosmological narrative is not only quite possible, but also attainable. But I digress from Fr. Harris.

It is in the context of these two paragraphs that the rest of Fr. Harris' monograph can be interpreted. In order to support his post-modern claims, Fr. Harris does two things. One, he exaggerates differences among Churches, as though any difference, cultural or theological, is proof of a different fundamental narrative. That is, he forgets the difference between adiophora and essencia. Two, he implies that the "unity of the faith" always included an ecclesiastical unity of culture, something which it actually never included. It is helpful at this point to give an extremely brief summary of early Christian history that will be helpful in answering the question of how to establish a truth claim.

From the earliest days of the Church, we have a picture of both diversity and unity that belies Fr. Harris' claims. The Pauline arguments with Peter over whether it was necessary to establish an ecclesiastical unity of culture are well documented. The decision of the Church was that the unity of the faith did not demand a unity of practice, as is documented in Acts, Galatians, Colossians, etc. Nor did it require that all agree on all theological points, as the vigorous discussions recorded in Scripture attest. In one of the books called by Peter's name, it is even admitted that Paul's writings are sometimes hard to interpret. Sub-apostolic and post-apostolic Church History continue this pattern. The Ecumenical Councils consistently decided for minimalist statements of faith, allowing wide-ranging theological discussion to continue.

The well known schools of Biblical interpretation, the Antiochene, the Alexandrian, etc. attest to this healthy and ongoing theological dialogue. Neither was full unity of practice necessary. The various liturgies of that time period attest to the variety allowed within the Church. And yet those liturgies had a common skeleton which attested to a received apostolic practice. While the Councils did bring ecclesiastical order, varieties of expression, as diverse as the Eastern monarchial bishop and the Celtic peripatetic bishop existed alongside one another. Thus for Fr. Harris to argue that the developing variety in the Communion somehow destroys the possibility of unity is to ignore that very same development of the early Church. Variety of expression and the unity of the faith go side by side with each other.

What the Church did insist was that on the things in which it had made a decision, obedience was required. It also insisted that a truth claim could not be decided by one culture alone. A Council of Jerusalem or a later Ecumenical Council was a gathering of peoples from different tribes, nations, peoples, and tongues. Local mono-cultural decisions could be overturned by a multicultural Council. The Early Church was not as "pre-modern" as Fr. Harris would have us believe. They realized that truth claims require input from various worldviews and a healthy presence of the Holy Spirit in order to test them. This is why the Orthodox will not change doctrine or worship to this day. While we may not agree with them, they are making a claim that they cannot change their received truth without such a gathering in the presence of the Holy Spirit. To put it in post-modern terms, the Early Church was making the claim that in the meeting of the various local narratives, in the presence of the Holy Spirit, Truth could be found, and that such Truth could be enforced on the local narratives. But that Ecumenical Church also recognized the integrity of the local narratives, allowing for much variation, as is well documented.

That is, the post-modern claim that there are various narratives, none of which is overarching, is contradicted by the Church, which claims that Truth is possible and that a multicultural multiethnic gathering in the presence of the Holy Spirit is one of the best way to ascertain that Truth. As over against the fascism claim of Fr. Harris, the Church Catholic does indeed claim that a local Church can be held to obedience to Truth, and that such is not fascism. Moreover, there is an illogical discrepancy in what Fr. Harris states. If it were fascism that the Communion insist that ECUSA obey its resolutions, is it not also fascism that Fr. Harris insists that the Communion must remain in relationship with ECUSA?

If ECUSA is free to follow its local narrative, so is every Church in the Communion, and thus ECUSA cannot insist on retaining unity lest it also be guilty of that same fascism of which it accuses others. Once a unity of narrative is discarded, no one local body can insist on the compliance of another local body in another situational setting. This is the illogicality of some of the post-modern arguments. Should ECUSA appeal to previous Lambeth resolutions, Fr. Harris has already made the case that such are not binding on ECUSA's narrative, thus they are not binding on anybody else's narrative. All narratives are local, to a post-modernist, there is no way to judge, in post-modernism. However, Fr. Harris does not truly believe in post-modernism. As pointed out above, Fr. Harris makes a universal truth claim of his own, that the worldviews (narratives) held by the 90% are inadequate.

When Integrity established an Ugandan chapter, it was making the argument that its narrative is indeed overarching and to be applied even against the opposition of the local narrative. In fact, the use of post-modernism by Fr. Harris is somewhat disingenuous since the advocates of a change in the Communion's position argue in terms of universal human freedom, and seek to base their arguments in Biblical reflection in such a way that it is obvious that they do believe in an overarching narrative of Truth.

Thus Fr. Harris is neither a skeptical or an affirming post-modernist. He is simply a modernist who does believe in the ability to construct universal Truth claims. His arguments are, at best, disingenuous. But what troubles me is the eurocentrism of his claim to truth that allows him to discard the call of 90% of the bishops of the Communion and the call of the Primates. Fr. Harris has not answered the question of what claim to knowledge allows a predominantly white, middle-class Church to discard so easily the considered decisions of a multicultural multiethnic assembly. Nor has he answered the question of why that assembly may not choose to either discipline or withdraw membership to such a Church, or to even recognize only a part of that Church.

The Rev. Ernesto Obregon is the Hispanic missioner for the Diocese of Alabama. He was ordained in the Southern Cone and served as Archdeacon of the southern region of Peru.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE GOSPEL (PART II) - BY FLEMING RUTLEDGE

Part one of this address had to do with the subject of good and evil, righteousness and sinfulness, godliness and ungodliness—and how the line between them runs through each person. The classic theological term for this is simul peccator et iustus (sinner and saint simultaneously). The second subject is the doctrine of the Word of God in our present situation.

I don’t need to tell you that the Episcopal Church is in turmoil. I want to look briefly at the mainline churches in general. That’s the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Episcopalians, and the United Church of Christ. These American denominations in direct descent from the Reformation are being challenged as never before in our history. Weekly if not daily, it seems, a new article declares that the mainlines are “losing ground” or are “in decline,” if not “collapsing” or “imploding” or “in free fall.” At the same time, the denominations themselves are splitting along lines described as “liberals” vs. “conservatives,” “revisionists” vs. “traditionalists.” Perceptive observers of the American scene emphasize the chasm between the intellectual and media elite, on the one hand, and the huge, politically influential “Christian Right” on the other. The mainlines are barely holding their traditional center. Although many individual congregations are actually thriving, the overall statistics and projections for the traditional Protestant churches are dire.

With all due respect to those who might think me presumptuous, I think I know what the problem is, and I don’t think it’s the homosexuality issue. Speaking as one who has traveled extensively through the mainline churches and listened to hundreds of sermons over a number of years, I believe that the essential problem can be precisely identified in just a few words, and they are the words of our Lord himself as he spoke to a group of Sadducees: Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? Jesus’ point against the Sadducees is that the power of God is able to create an entirely new reality that transcends all human categories.

The link between the two—the Scriptures and the power of God—is the key. The power of God is manifest through his Word. This is the power that called the creation into being, it is the force that created the Church in the first place, it is the engine that drove the Reformation—yet this power today is increasingly less heard from mainline pulpits, either as thunder or as still small voice, for we have largely ceased to believe that God speaks. All the symptoms arise from that cause. That is the underlying ailment that is producing the morbid effects.

Flannery O’Connor, patron saint of those who care about language and Christian doctrine, wrote to a friend:

One of the effects of modern liberal Protestantism has been gradually to turn religion into...therapy, to make truth vaguer and vaguer and more and more relative, to banish intellectual distinctions, to depend on feeling instead of thought, and gradually to come to believe that God has no power, that he cannot communicate with us, cannot reveal himself to us, indeed has not done so and that religion is our own sweet invention.

We have gradually come to believe that God has no power and has not revealed himself to us. That, I think, is exactly what has happened. The current emphasis on “spirituality” puts the focus on us and our religious activities, rather than on God. It is anthropological rather than theological. Underlying all of this is the question of power, of dunamis. The idea that the Word of God is powerful in and of itself has been fading in the mainlines for a long time...

[Content continues with theological reflections, Scriptural analysis, critique of liberal and conservative polarizations, call for theological renewal, and commendation of African-American witness and theologians like Stringfellow and Campbell.]

...The antidote to mainline malaise in the present moment is a revivifying dose of Scripture and the power of God.

Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood forth. —Psalm 33:8–9

Praise the Lord!

ADDENDUM

William Stringfellow tells a story both amusing and alarming:

I recall, a few years ago, serving on a commission of the Episcopal Church charged with articulating the scope of the total ministry of the Church in modern society... Toward the end of [the first] meeting, some of those present proposed that it might be an edifying discipline for the group, in its future sessions, to undertake some concentrated study of the Bible...

The proposal was rejected on the grounds, as one Bishop put it, that “most of us have been to seminary and know what the Bible says; the problem now is to apply it to today’s world.” Stringfellow’s diagnosis is right on target: the life-giving power of the Word of God is unknown to the group’s leaders.

Fleming Rutledge was in parish ministry for 22 years. She was one of the first women to be ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church...