POSTMODERN DIVIDE

By Uwe Siemon-Netto UPI Religious Affairs Editor

WASHINGTON, March 25 (UPI) -- Editor's note: The Christian Church is in the process of a new schism running horizontally across the denominations. The dividing issue is truth -- is truth eternal or is it temporal? What follows is the first installment of an open-ended UPI series on the many ramifications of this religious phenomenon.

In Canada, a medical student, who is a devout Christian, will not be allowed to graduate because he refused to perform abortions, according to LifeSiteNews.com, a Toronto-based Web site.

Meanwhile, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has appointed the Rev. Ignacio Castuera of Los Angeles communicator of a "theological justification for choice," reports Agape Press. Castuera, a Methodist, stated that the Jesus of the Bible "would indeed support a woman's right to choose."

This begs the question: Since both men claim to be Christians, which of the two is authentic?

Nothing illustrates more clearly the new division within the "Body of Christ" as the difference between the student and the pastor. It is a schism that runs horizontally across all Protestant denominations and even Catholicism, a divide infinitely more severe than all previous splits in church history.

In the past, antagonists battled over truth, to be sure, but still upheld the ancient faith statements of the Church -- the Apostolic, the Nicene and the Athanasian creeds.

Today, on one side of the battle lines are the faithful, chiefly laity, affirming the authority of the Bible. On the other side are those bishops and theology professors who say that truth cannot be eternal but is always subject to continuing revelation, shifting with the spirit of the time.

Both sides celebrate the same liturgies, sing the same hymns, and are often held together by the same administrative structures. Beyond that, however, they have little in common. Indeed, growing numbers of orthodox Christians believe that their kind is, or will soon be, persecuted -- with the help of their "revisionist" brethren.

This has happened before in totalitarian times, and may already be taking place in democratic societies. The Rev. Raymond J. de Souza, a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Kingston, Ontario, warned in the monthly magazine, First Things, of the danger of tyranny in his country.

"As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism," wrote de Souza, quoting pope John Paul II.

De Souza then cited examples:

British Columbia denied Trinity Western University, an evangelical institution, the license to certify teachers because it prohibits homosexual behavior among its students. (Canada's Supreme Court ultimately overturned the provincial government's decision.)

The Ontario Human Rights Commission fined Scott Brockie, owner of a printing business, $5,000 for refusing to print the letterheads and cards for the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives; Brockie stated that promoting homosexuality was against his Christian conscience.

In some Scandinavian countries, legislation is being prepared proscribing anti-homosexual sermons from the pulpit. According to de Souza, a similar state intrusion into matters of faith may be in the offing in Canada, where the government has asked the Supreme Court whether a proposed exemption of clergymen from the duty of having to solemnize same-sex union was compatible with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"The fact that the question is even being asked is an ominous portent," wrote de Souza in First Things. "So advanced is the totalitarian impulse in Canada that advocates of the federal redefinition of marriage positively boast of how broadminded they are in allowing churches to administer their own sacraments as they see fit."

De Souza then developed a "worst-case scenario of state expansion":

"First it will be churches forced to rent out their halls and basements for a same-sex couple's wedding reception. Then it will be religious charities forced to recognize employees in same-sex relationships as legally married. ... Then it will be a hierarchical or synodal church not being allowed to discipline an errant priest or minister who performs a civilly legal but canonically illicit same-sex marriage."

In a related context, the Rev. Thomas C. Oden, a theology professor and leader of the Confessional Movement within the United Methodist Church was asked how long he thought he could remain in a denomination where a jury of pastors has just found a Lesbian colleague not guilty of "practices declared ... to be incompatible with Christian teachings."

Having "married" her partner in a civil ceremony, this minister, the Rev. Karen Dammann, is sharing her parsonage with her in Ellensburg, Wash.

"This is extremely embarrassing to most Methodists -- but not to the point of calling on them to leave the church that baptized them," Oden told United Press International.

"We have decided to stay and struggle even under highly ambiguous circumstances. We are ashamed of our church -- ashamed because it cannot enforce its own church law."

But then Oden went on, "It is still a church as long as sacraments are duly administered and the word gets to be preached, ... I can still preach in Methodist pulpits Christian doctrine and sexual morality."

But what if, as in the Rev. de Souza's Canadian scenario, the state coerced ministers to act against their Christian conscience? "In such a situation one would have to be willing to go to prison. It's possible we'll see Canadian pastors in jail. Their witness would be tremendously important for world Christianity."

Oden is known to be one of the most courageous defenders of orthodox faith in U.S. Protestantism. But his choice not to quit his denomination where he has watched "radical secularists take over the seminaries" is controversial in other Christian quarters.

For example, the statement by Peter Lee, Episcopal bishop of Virginia, that "schism is worse than heresy," prompted this outburst by Auburn Faber Traycik, editor of The Christian Challenge, a feisty conservative Anglican journal: "What a ridiculous notion! Shall we be proud for having chosen heresy over schism?"

Throughout Western Protestantism the dispute rages over whether the de facto split between orthodox and revisionist Christianity has not already long occurred. David Virtue, the inveterate chronicler of the travails of world Anglicanism, believes it has.

"Anglicanism in North America is in the toilet," he said. "Of the world's 38 Anglican primates, 21 have either broken communion with the Episcopal Church USA or called the communion impaired" (after the consecration of the openly homosexual Canon Vicki Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire).

While bishop Lee seemingly downgraded the significance of heresy, the Rev. William T. Kump, a pastor of the breakaway Reformed Episcopal Church in Newport News, Va., told United Press International how the regular church folk feel about this.

"It eats them up. It sucks them up. It drags them down. They feel deeply hurt. They feel burned. They flee to our church and require a lot of pastoral work.

"My impression is that there is no room for compromise with heresy. You have to get completely away from it in order to feel safe."

Next installment: "You are literally killing us."