Depth of Field

http://captainyips.typepad.com/journal/2007/05/depth_of_field.html

[Captain Yips Secret Journal] 11 May 2007--Something for those of us Anglicans who like to call ourselves defenders or maintainers or reasserters of orthodoxy to keep in mind is that the great teachings of the Church are snapshots of the incomprehensible. The doctrines are not God. Ansel Adams took wonderful photographs of Yosemite, but the photographs are not Yosemite. They are splendid hints of a greater splendor. That’s a straightforward bit of common sense that, as they do too often, reappraisers abuse. We know that the Presiding Bishop has talked about putting God into a small box, and to be sure that’s always a danger. What is little noticed is that reappraisers put God into an even smaller and shoddier box.

So the latest antics of All Saints Pasadena are scarcely a surprise. It’s pretty easy to rephrase “substitutionary atonement” into shockingly offensive and unpalatable language: “God murdering His Son,” “cosmic child abuse,” and so on. The technique is common enough, akin to those political cartoon where George Bush is portrayed in the most simian form. When they do that, the cartoonists are saying, “we don’t have to listen to him, he’s not worth the effort, nothing he says can be expected to make sense.” Likewise, by beginning with a caricature of the doctrine, the reappraiser does not have to deal with the real teaching and its implications. So this condemnation of a caricature of teaching is well established reappraiser practice, and unremarkable in itself.