Should SJD Affiliate with the AAC?

Digest of Parishioner Comments

I've reproduced excerpts from parishioner comments in the continuation of this posting - click below to continue reading. Most of the comments are from postings to this blog. The remainder, which are designated as "Anonymous" (along with some of the blog postings) are from emails I received. The excerpts are reproduced in alphabetical order of the authors' names, with anonymous postings last.

Homosexuality - Biology, or Choice?

One of the emails I received this past week said, in part:

[T]he idea of genetically linked homosexuality is nothing more than an "urban myth" begun in 1993, embellished by the press, and latched onto by the pro-homosexual movement. There is NO credible scientific evidence that homosexuality is genetically caused and therefore "people are born that way." I would challenge any of you to present any credible studies which support this claim.

The email went on to describe how one study (the Hamer study) was blown out of proportion by the press.

When I read the email, I remembered reading about other research in this area that indicated that there might be some biological component to homosexuality. A Google search yielded this December 2 article in the Boston Globe, surveying some of the recent research.

Dioceses Deny Joining "Network"

From the Thinking Anglicans blog:

Yesterday’s report in the New York Times that claimed 13 dioceses had joined the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes seems to have been inaccurate in various ways. I understand the basis of the report was an exclusive interview with Robert Duncan.

First, the St Petersburg Times reports Bishop denies intent to join splinter group (here’s the missing picture) and this is confirmed on the Southwest Florida diocese’s own website.

Second, as noted in that report, the Central Florida diocese has not joined either . . . .

Let's Agree to Disagree, and Get Back to Work

What if any position should SJD take, as a parish, concerning the current national-church controversies? My two cents worth is that we should do the following:

The AAC: Laying the Groundwork for Schism

At the Vestry meeting in late November, Larry announced that he intends to seek Vestry approval for the parish to join the American Anglican Council (AAC). The Vestry apparently will be voting on the matter at a meeting next Monday, December 22.

In my view, aligning with the AAC would be a bad idea, for reasons outlined below and in other postings (see the links at the right of this page). But before I vote one way or another at the December 22 Vestry meeting, I'd really like to hear from other parishioners.

I would also suggest that parishioners consider contacting Larry, the other clergy, and the Vestry, BEFORE next Monday, to make their views known and/or to ask any questions they might have.

Can Christianity Be Credible If Scripture Isn't Supreme? (Yes)

Many traditionalist Christians rely on the primacy of Scripture, and specifically of the New Testament, as the foundation of what they claim to be the historic apostolic faith. (To me, there's an issue how much of that faith was actually held by Jesus or his original followers -- Peter's speeches in Acts raise some interesting questions, especially in view of what he did not say -- but that's a topic for another day.)

Does it matter whether Scripture has primary authority in all circumstances and at all times? Would Christianity still be a credible basis for life without it?

Troubling Inconsistencies in the New Testament

The orthodox give a preemptive spiritual and moral authority to the books of the New Testament. But those books disagree with each other in a number of respects.

Some of the disagreements are trivial. Others, however, raise questions just how much the New Testament authors actually knew -- or even whether they were "spinning" their stories to promote some agenda.

The existence of these questions suggests that an overly-exalted view of the New Testament may not be wise.

L.A. Bishop's Speech

From a Los Angeles Times article:

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - In a ringing defense of an openly gay bishop and same-sex unions, Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno declared here that the Episcopal Church is "a roomy house" for all, and warned that those who leave would be leaving "the presence of God."

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"Our written Scriptures have limitations. They cannot be equivalent to the incarnate word of God in Jesus," Bruno said. "They convey God's word in a particular cultural and historical context. And these Scriptures are the word of God in the words of human beings."

Local color: Bishop Bruno is a former Burbank police officer who also used to play for the Denver Broncos.

Manuscript Reliability in the New Testament

We don't have an original copy of any book of Scripture. The surviving manuscripts of the New Testament contain significant differences in text. You can find references to such differences in the footnotes of any NT chapter of the New International Version or New Revised Standard Version.

These manuscript differences give rise to troubling questions about the theological trustworthiness of the New Testament versions that we use today. A few examples of such differences are listed below.

Tradition and Time Warps

This week's essay at my favorite Anglican Web site, Anglicans Online, is worth the read. It relates an example from San Francisco's Chinatown to gently warn about the dangers of getting stuck in a time warp in the name of tradition:

Revelation and "Sunrise"

Maybe God teaches the human race in something like the way our parents taught each of us -- gradually, in an on-going process.

Consider how, as children, we first learned about night and day. Adults, of course, know how that actually works: The earth rotates in space, and consequently any given area of the planet moves in and out of sunlight on a 24-hour cycle.

But is that what our parents first taught us when we were toddlers? I doubt it. No, our parents probably used more "developmentally appropriate" language -- they told us that the sun comes up in the morning and goes down at night. Then later, when we were more capable of understanding, our parents and teachers explained to us what really happens.

Authority in the Episcopal Church: One Priest's Perspective

From a sermon by the Rev. Rob Field, rector of St. Philip's Church in Brevard, North Carolina, February 2003 (paragraphing edited for readability):

[T]o be quite frank, I am convinced that some of the loudest voices in these debates have never arrived at a proper Anglican understanding of authority. Or, on one of my more cynical days, I might even go so far as to say that some of these louder voices actually do have a grasp of the classical Anglican approach, but they don’t like it. And, therefore, they are trying to undermine or change it — perhaps because they have come into our fold from another Christian tradition which does not understand authority in the same way.

So, I believe that we need to begin saying what we have often been too polite to say in the past: that Anglicanism does not need to be fixed by people who either don’t understand it, or don’t like what they do understand!

The Bible as a Library of Lab Notebooks

The Rev. Dr. Sir John Polkinghorne, a distinguished Cambridge University particle physicist turned Anglican priest, has said that:

Scripture is not an unchallengeable set of propositions demanding unquestioning assent, but it is evidence, the record of foundational spiritual experience, the laboratory notebooks of gifted observers of God's ways with men and women.

J.C. Polkinghorne, Faith, Science, and Understanding, Yale Nota Bene edition 2001, ch. 2, p. 37 (emphasis original).

What a marvelous metaphor! It's not perfect by any means, but it suggests some fascinating possibilities. It might help us find a way past some of the serious evidentiary difficulties of the various documents comprising the Bible (see, e.g., this posting and this one).

At the same time, just as scientists give primacy of place to real-world data, we can continue to give spiritual primacy to Scripture, in accordance with the classical Anglican view of authority -- while still recognizing that the map is not the territory and that new data may sometimes require a revisiting of old explanations.

Episcopalian, Not Anglican

Apropos of the recent controversies in the Anglican Communion, a friend and fellow parishioner said recently that he's not an Anglican, he's an Episcopalian. I feel the same way.

Scripture and Salvation: What the 39 Articles Don't Say

Article VI of the Episcopal Church's Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, adopted in 1801, states:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.

To me, what Article VI does not say is important. Its omissions leave room for each of us to be prayerfully judicious in the weight and importance we assign to different passages in Scripture.

Revelation: A Gradual Process

If we trust in God (see this posting), we won't shrink from the possibility that he might be revealing truth to us gradually over time.

Faith = Openness to Truth = Trust in God

I like one of the things that the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor had to say in a recent PBS interview. She's an Episcopal priest whom Baylor University named as one of the 12 most effective preachers in the English language. Here's her comment that struck me:

Having been brought up with a definition of faith as adherence to a set of beliefs, I have more and more begun to turn instead toward a definition of faith as openness to truth, whatever truth may turn out to be.

I would add that openness to truth goes hand in hand with trust in God. When we recite the Apostles' Creed or Nicene Creed, the very first thing we declare is our trust in God: "We believe in one God ...." If we trust in God, we won't shrink from truth, whatever it may turn out to be.

To make a comment, click on the link below.

--D. C.

Who Can Claim to be a Christian

Some people claim that to be a Christian, one must (for example):

• have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; or
  
• accept the supremacy, and perhaps even the inerrancy, of Scripture; or
  
• accept Jesus as your personal savior; or
  
• subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion; or
  
• invite Jesus into your life; or
  
• be baptized by immersion, as opposed to by sprinkling;
  
• etc., etc.

Scripture, Stonings, and Homosexuality

[Update 12/17: I posted a link to additional scriptural citations in a comment below]

Traditionalists often argue that homosexuality is supposedly condemned by the Bible, and that's that.

But it seems to me that, if the literal words of Scripture held the once-and-for-all answers to all moral questions, then we would still be stoning rebellious sons at the town gates, as commanded by Deut. 21:18-21.

(I mentioned the stoning business to my mother on the phone not long ago. No doubt remembering my adolescence, she laughed and responded, "so?")

Bibliolatry

To paraphrase the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, Scripture is an invaluable laboratory notebook, in which are recorded a multitude of data about God and man.

We can even make the judgment that everything we need for salvation has been recorded in that notebook.

But just as the map is not the territory, the lab notebook does not completely define the reality.

Scripture: Word, or Logos?

Scripture is often said to be the Word of God. I wonder whether that statement ought to be phrased a bit differently.

Schism and Morality

Doubtless there are moral issues that might justify schism in the Episcopal Church.

Slavery certainly would have been such an issue. It didn't cause a schism.

It's hard to understand how homosexuality could be any more schism-producing than slavery.

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To make a comment, click on the link below. You don't have to include your name or email address if you prefer not to.

--D. C.

Statements of Belief for Vestry Candidates

At the November Vestry meeting, one conservative Vestry member suggested that the Vestry nominating committee should require all potential Vestry candidates to sign a statement of "correct" theological beliefs. Then as she was leaving the meeting, she repeated her suggestion. [UPDATE: The Vestry member in question has read this posting and says she takes issue with it, because she doesn't remember saying "correct theology." She might not have used that exact phrase, but that was indisputably the impression I got from her remarks and from the ensuing discussion at the meeting. If other Vestry members remember it differently, feel free to comment below or to contact me directly.]

This Vestry member is a wonderful Christian woman and wants to do the right thing. But doing as she suggests would be a totally-inappropriate interference in the parish's electoral process. Whether she intended it or not, her proposal amounts to an effort by one faction of the parish to consolidate its control and to lock out people holding other points of view. [UPDATE: The Vestry member in question says that she wasn't proposing a lock-out. She suggests that a happy medium might be to ask each Vestry candidate to include in their biographical material a statement of their personal beliefs, so that parishioners would know more about whom they're voting for.]

Gene Robinson is Indeed a Bishop

Some traditionalists have reacted to the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson with outrage, announcing that they refuse to recognize him as a bishop.

Jesus said you will know them by their fruits. From everything I've read, Bishop Robinson is a good man and a fine priest; his fruits so far appear to be pretty good.

Like it or not, Gene Robinson was consecrated a bishop after having been duly elected and confirmed according to the canons. He is certainly no less a bishop than Bishops Chuck Murphy and John Rodgers of the Anglican Mission in America.

To make a comment, click on the link below.

--D. C.

It's Not a Numbers Game

In these days of church controversy, it's useful to know, and worth prayerfully considering, that millions of Anglicans in the "Global South" supposedly believe X, or Y, or Z. But that can never be dispositive.

Truth isn't a numbers game -- if it were, we'd all have to be Roman Catholics or Muslims. And if the vote had been taken 2,000 years ago, we'd likely all be pagans, or maybe Buddhists or Hindus.

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To make a comment, click on the link below. You don't have to include your name or email address if you prefer not to.

--D. C.