Saturday, November 17, 2007

Faithfulness

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

Jerry Bower has no leg to stand on when he criticizes an orthodox bishop like Bob Duncan of violating his oath of loyalty to the Episcopal Church (Sunday Forum: The Pittsburgh Schism, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/11/07, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07315/832649-35.stm ), as the Episcopal Church has set such a poor example of faithfulness itself. The Episcopal Church committed a serious breach of faith with the other provinces of the Anglican Communion and did not consult with them before confirming the election of a non-celibate homosexual man as the Bishop of New Hampshire.

The liberal leaders of the Episcopal Church have shown themselves especially prone to perfidy. Former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold broke faith with his fellow Primates on so many occasions that he lost all credibility in their eyes. They ceased to trust him. For example, Bishop Griswold signed the Primates’ Communiqué from the October 2003 meeting of the Primates, warning the Episcopal Church that the consecration of Gene Robinson would tear the fabric of the Communion. He then presided at Robinson’s consecration himself a couple of months later.

Presiding Bishop Schori has followed in the footsteps of her predecessor. At the Dar es Salaam Primates’ meeting she agreed to a communiqué that called upon the Episcopal Church to halt the consecration of practicing homosexual bishops and blessing of same sex unions, to cease litigation against departing orthodox congregations, and to provide a pastoral scheme of alternative primatial oversight for disaffected orthodox dioceses and congregations in the Episcopal Church. One after another Presiding Bishop Schori has failed to comply with each particular to which she agreed.

At last month’s Executive Council meeting the Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor presented Schori’s plans to depose bishops who attempt to take their dioceses out of the Episcopal Church and to sue the deposed bishop and a “representative sampling” of departing congregations with the intention of discouraging other disaffected orthodox dioceses from placing themselves under the jurisdiction of another province. These plans included revisiting property settlements that had been already been made with departing congregations. The Presiding Bishop was insistent that no diocese should make any property settlement with a departing congregation that were asking another province to assume jurisdiction over them. Her Chancellor reported that the litigation would be costly and would take several years.

In its prevarications and half-measures the House of Bishops has not shown good faith in its dealings with the Primates. It has been contemptuous of the Primates and has not dealt forthrightly with them.

In the midst of all this unfaithfulness Bishop Duncan has taken a courageous stand in support of “the Faith once delivered to the saints” and of authentic, biblical Christianity. He has been true to the apostolic teaching that the founding fathers of the Episcopal Church committed the denomination to upholding and propagating. In this sense he has shown greater loyalty to the Episcopal Church than the denomination’s liberal leadership.

The Episcopal Church can neither expect nor demand faithfulness from orthodox clergy when a large segment of the denomination, including most of its leaders, is unfaithful to the teaching of the apostles and has adopted heretical beliefs in its place. Presiding Bishop Schori denies that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God and the universal Savior and holds that there are other ways to salvation than through faith in Christ. Indeed she might be viewed as a heresiarch except that she is not the originator of this heresy, which she apparently acquired in an Episcopal seminary, and reflects the influence of our post-Christian, post-modern culture upon the Episcopal Church. Her views are a blatant rejection of the teaching of the New Testament. The early Church declared such views to be heretical; the Church of England at the time of the Elizabethan Settlement in the 16th century reaffirmed them as being heretical. The Thirty Nine Articles of Religion of 1562, the Anglican confession of faith, affirms that no one may be saved except through faith in Christ. The Articles declare anathema, accursed by God and the Church, anyone who teaches what Presiding Bishop Schori has been propounding in her sermons and other public statements.

The 2003 General Convention failed to affirm core beliefs of the Christian Faith; the 2003 General Convention also broke with the teaching of the Bible and the Christian Church and confirmed the election of Gene Robinson as a bishop, precipitating a Communion-wide crisis. The 2006 General Convention refused to even consider a resolution that averred the New Testament doctrine of no salvation except through faith in Christ and proceeded to elect a Presiding Bishop who disavows the particularity of Christ and the Christian Faith. Despite the clearly heretical opinions expressed in the Presiding Bishop’s public statements the Episcopal House of Bishops, the members of which have a duty “to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word,” has been silent.

When apostasy and heresy is rampant in an ecclesiastical body, as it is in the Episcopal Church, orthodox clergy are dispensed from any obligation of loyalty to that body. Indeed, they have a new obligation—to lead their flock to the safety of an orthodox province.

Let us not deceive ourselves. The Episcopal Church is no longer a true church, as Anglicans have understood what comprises a true church. Due to the influence of the 19th century Oxford High Church Movement many Episcopalians think of apostolic succession in terms of an uninterrupted line of bishops going back to the apostles. No apostolic succession, no true church. The Elizabethan Settlement, however, endorsed the position articulated by Bishop John Jewel in Apology for the Church of England, which lays greater stress upon succession of doctrine. In this view an ecclesiastical body must preserve apostolic doctrine in order to be regarded a true church. Its bishops are successors to the apostles in so far as they teach what the apostles taught. The bishops of an ecclesiastical body might have an ancient pedigree, as the Pope claimed for the bishops of the Church of Rome and for himself as pontiff. However, if the ecclesiastical body had departed from the teaching of the apostles and had introduced innovations in doctrine and worship, as the Church of Rome had done, it had not retained the apostolic succession and therefore could not be regarded as a true church. It was no longer a part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Despite its claims in regards to the lineage of its bishops, it had lost its apostolicity. As Bishop Jewel drew to the attention of the Romanist critics of the Church of England, the Church of Rome’s abandonment of apostolic teaching and its adoption of doctrinal and worship innovations nullified its claims upon the loyalty and obedience of English clergy and laypersons. They were not bound by the claims of a heretical church.

Although Episcopal congregations may recite the Apostolic Creed and the Nicene Creed on Sundays and feast days and the Thirty-Nine Articles have not yet been dropped from the Episcopal Prayer Book, the actions of 2003 and 2006 General Conventions and the public statements of the Presiding Bishop and her liberal colleagues clearly show that the Episcopal Church has abandoned the teaching of the apostles. The Episcopal Church’s liberal bishops and the 2003 and 2006 General Conventions have sanctioned a number of theological and moral innovations. It is evident from the “working theology” heard and practiced in many Episcopal churches across the United States that the abandonment of apostolic teaching and adoption of such innovations is becoming increasingly wide spread at the local level. The Episcopal Church can no longer be regarded as a part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. It can no longer be considered a true church. No orthodox clergyperson or layperson need feel that he must remain or encourage others to remain a part of the Episcopal Church out of an obligation of loyalty to the denomination. He is under no such obligation. An obligation of loyalty to the Episcopal Church is not one of the considerations that he must weigh in deciding what he will do.

In the days ahead we are likely to hear more accusations of disloyalty to the Episcopal Church. Followers of Jesus Christ, however, have only one to whom they must be true in their allegiance above all else, that is their Lord himself. We must never let the Episcopal Church or any other organization or group take the place of the Lord in our hearts. This unfortunately has been a shortcoming to which Episcopalians are vulnerable due to the tendency of the Episcopal Church as a denomination to emphasize conversion to the church over conversion to Christ. There has also been a tendency to equate the church with Christ, and to see loyalty to the church as loyalty to Christ. However, the church is not Christ. When a church departs from the teaching of Christ, as has the Episcopal Church, our loyalty must be to Christ. As our Lord pointed to the attention of his disciples, a servant cannot serve two masters. The Episcopal Church has become so closely identified with our post-Christian, post-modern culture that the church is almost indistinguishable from the culture. Christ’s teaching, however, is counter-cultural. To serve the Episcopal Church, as Mr. Booker and others like him would have us do is to serve the culture. We would not be serving Christ. Bishop Duncan recognizes this truth. He has chosen to serve Christ.

2 comments:

ministry over theology said...

This is all so confusing for "a bear of very little brain" to quote the great British theologian A.A. Milne. So, Bp. Jewel said the Roman Catholics aren't a church. And now the Episcopal's aren't a church. Gee, who's left? Or should I say, who's right?

Let's get a good old fashioned seance going on and see what Bp. Jewel has to say about the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Primitive Baptists, Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ, Apostle Melinda's Church of God -- salvation guaranteed -- oh my, the list is just so long. I hope we can pay the roaming charges to chat with Bp. Jewel. He just knew everything!

I've just been sooooo busy with a bunch of other people feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving shelter to the homeless and just trying to make life bearable for a few people in the world that I just can't seem to understand the really important stuff that you people seem to know so much about.

Maybe someday, I'll be as smart as you. Until then, I'll just muddle through helping people -- may God forgive me for not keeping my eye on the 21st century version of how many pinheads can dance on an angel!

Robin G. Jordan said...

To A Bear of Little Brain

John has
Great Big
Waterproof
Boots on;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Hat;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Mackintosh—
And that
(Said John)
Is
That.

When We Were Very Young
A. A. Milne

I am glad to hear that a “bear of little brains” is doing something more worthwhile than gorging himself on honey and getting stuck in a rabbit hole, rolling in a puddle to disguise himself as a rain cloud, or following Piglet’s and his own footprints around a tree in the snow for the better part of the day. But I am surprised that someone who is “sooo busy” with so many good works has the time to read my commentary and to post a response.

I also wonder how you measure up to the rest of Jesus’ teachings. Do you believe that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God, as he claims? Have you put your faith in him, trusting in him and him alone for your salvation? Are you giving due regard to the Scriptures as the word of God as Jesus taught? Are you keeping to their teachings, not nullifying them for the sake of “the traditions of men”? Are you pursuing holiness and practicing godliness, seeking to be holy as your Father in heaven is holy? Are you going into the world and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus, making followers of Jesus, baptizing them and teaching them everything Jesus commanded? Are you bearing witness to Jesus in your community, in other communities, and to the ends of the earth?

Before I relocated to western Kentucky, I was a part of a small rural church in Louisiana. This church was barely two years old. It had begun as a Bible study in the home of one of the pastor’s neighbors. Its first worship service was held in a fire station. I became involved with the church while it was still worshiping at the fire station on Sunday mornings.

This church of 75 or more people seeks not only to serve others in its own rural community and neighboring communities but the inner city and in other countries, in Romania and Zimbabwe. The congregation is multi-ethnic and multi-racial—Black, Caucasian, and Hispanic. The church is a co-sponsor of a Black church in an adjoining community and supports a ministry to homeless men in New Orleans. The members of the congregation do home maintenance and repairs for elderly folk and others who are unable to do them for themselves. They provide cooked meals, clothing, and furniture to families who have lost their homes in fires. The church maintains a food pantry of its own as well as donates food to the local food bank. Members of the congregation teach illiterate adults to read and write, they tutor children who need special help, and conduct support groups for the victims of child sexual abuse. The church collects clothing, medical supplies, and Christmas gifts for orphans and street children in Rumania; the church also supports an orphanage in Harare, Zimbabwe. It has provided medical supplies and equipment for a clinic at the orphanage and water pumps for irrigation of the orphanage’s fields and gardens. The orphanage raises most of the food that the children eat. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the church provided food, bottled water, blankets, and cooked meals to families whom the hurricane had left homeless. Members of the congregation cut up and removed fallen trees and made temporary repairs to roofs. The church provided sleeping accommodations, cooked meals, and a base of operations to hurricane recovery teams from out of state. A number of the members of the congregation had themselves received serious hurricane damage to their homes but they still did all that they could to help others. This is just a small example of the good that the church has sought to do.

At the same time the church tries to follow all the teachings of Jesus. Its pastor and its members are not just satisfied to put into practice only one of his teachings and to persuade themselves that in doing so they are being faithful to Jesus in all things. They believe that God was in Jesus reconciling the world to himself. They look to Jesus for their salvation. Members of the congregation meet for Bible study and fellowship in each other’s homes and seek to apply to their lives what they learned from their study of the Bible. They try, with God’s help, to live according to New Testament standards of holiness and godliness. The real gospel is preached at worship services and not the “different gospel” that is preached in its place in the Episcopal Church. The church is very outward looking. Members of the congregation invite friends, relatives, neighbors, and colleagues to worship services and other church gatherings. They seek to share the good news with them in other ways. I was a part of an outreach to a local coffee house. The church supports missionaries in the United States and other countries. I cannot say that the church is perfect in everything it does. However, it makes a sincere effort to be faithful to Jesus in all things.

The church also takes to heart Jesus’ teaching not to do its “’acts of righteousness’ before men” and, when giving to the needy, not to let the right hand know what the left hand is doing (Matt. 6:1-4), and does not publicize a lot of the good that it is doing.

How many Episcopal churches do you know that are seeking to live all the teachings of Jesus that we have received through the apostles and which the Christian Church for the past 2000 years has regarded as authentic? (The mainstream of New Testament scholarship concurs with what the Church has believed for 2000 years. The real Jesus was pretty much as the New Testament has represented him.) I have not run across any in this part of country. This is also largely the case elsewhere in the United States from the reports that I have received. A church that is not true to all the teachings of Jesus cannot be regarded as his church. In the Gospel of John Jesus identifies as believers those who believe in him through the message of the apostles. He also tells us that those who love him obey all his commandments. One cannot pick and choose among Jesus’ teachings, single out one teaching, and then represent oneself as a follower of Jesus because one follows this teaching. One must follow all of Jesus’ teachings to be a genuine follower of his. Jesus makes this point himself.

At the heart of the Christian Faith is the conviction that one can enjoy a relationship with Jesus today as his followers enjoyed with him 2000 years ago. This relationship is personal, that is, it between persons. Jesus is Savior and Lord in relation to oneself. It is unique and different from any other relationship because Jesus is unique and different from any other Person. It has eternal consequences for oneself. It also has obligations on both Jesus’ and one’s own part.

This conviction, Jesus’ teachings, the apostles’ teachings about the relationship between Jesus and the believer, the relationship between the believers in a community of believers, and the relationship between believers and non-believers, and the obligations involved, is what is collectively known as the Christian Faith. It is what sets Christianity apart from Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and the other world religions. It also distinguishes the Christian Church from a social services agency, benevolence society or any other group or organization devoted to man’s welfare.

As estimable and deserving of our respect and worthy of our efforts as the cause of reducing poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and disease, O bear of little brains, is, it is not the center of the Christian Faith. Jesus is the center. When we make devotion to human interests the center, we no longer have Christianity. We have the Religion of Humanity, or humanism. A “church” whose faith centers upon devotion to human interests is not a Christian church. It is a humanist society. This is not to say that ministering to the poor and needy is not an integral part of the Christian Faith. It is, however, not the center of the Christian religion. This is why orthodox Anglicans say that the Episcopal Church is not just a “different church,” it is a “different religion.”

This brings us to the first main point of my commentary. Orthodox clergy no longer have any obligation of loyalty to the Episcopal Church because it has abandoned the Christian faith and espouses a version of the Religion of Humanity. It also brings us to the second main point. The Episcopal Church is not longer a true church and therefore can claim no obligation of loyalty from orthodox clergy. It has become something else. It has turned to a “different gospel,” that is, its message is no longer focused upon who Jesus is, what he has accomplished on the cross and the implications for us—the kerigma of the Gospel of Christ. Rather its message focuses upon radical inclusion. Its mission, as Presiding Bishop Schori has in a number of recent statements declared, is philanthropic, doing good to one’s fellow men.

I myself, however, question the genuineness of the Presiding Bishop’s commitment to this mission since she is willing to devote millions of dollars in lawsuits against departing congregations and dioceses, which may last several years instead using the money for relief and development, education, and medical care. These lawsuits are clearly retaliatory and are intended to exact a heavy retribution upon departing congregations and dioceses, hardly a sterling example of Christian charitableness. If the Presiding Bishop were truly committed to this mission, she would be willing to permit these congregations and dioceses to depart peacefully, taking church property and other assets with them. They themselves support a number of worthwhile charitable causes and their realignment with another province will not end this support. The high cost of protracted litigation, on the other hand, will limit what money, time, and effort they can give to these causes. Her willingness to go after departing congregations and dioceses with a vengeance contradicts everything that she says about focusing upon helping people. She may not see the contradiction but it is evident to others.

I hope that you see what I am getting at. However, if you are still struggling to grasp what I am saying, just trot down Wohl’s house like a good fellow. I am sure that he will explain thing to you. Oh, I would also cut down on the honey. You will think more clearly if you do.

Christopher Robin