Friday Miscellany: Jack Spong, Lambeth, and Other Thoughts

In his column for this week, retired Episcopal Bishop Jack Spong offers a brief discussion of the General Epistles in the New Testament. I was amused to find, in his concluding paragraph, that the Bishop offered this assessment of the General Epistles:

"Not all parts of the Bible are equally holy. The General Epistles we have looked at in this column do not come close to some other parts of the New Testament in either integrity or power. They are, however, 'in the book' and so, to complete our journey through the Bible, I include them. I urge you to read them once. It will not take more than ten minutes. Then you will have done it and you will never have to do it again, for, some parts of the Bible, once is enough."

I can't help but wonder what Eusebius thought about these particular epistles when he compiled the current form of the Bible in 336 - and what the general consensus was at the Council of Nicaea on these texts. Did they, too, think that "once was enough"?

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While reading The Episcopal Church in Crisis, by Frank Kirkpatrick, I ran across the following quote first spoken by the Right Reverend Simon Chiwanga, retired Bishop of Mpwapwa Diocese in the Anglican Province of Tanzania: "Forcing your point of view by excluding from your circle those who disagree with you, or by compelling acceptance, is to usurp the place of God."

That line is worded in such a way as it could be used on both sides of the current debate within the Anglican Communion, but I can't help but wonder how many people in can honestly say they are taking those words to heart? Since 2003, how many people - particularly on the side of the more conservative folks who have broken away from the Episcopal Church and are now aligned with the Southern Cone bishops - have stopped for one moment to think that they are trying to stand in God's shoes?

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Conservative Anglicans are quick to claim that the rulings which come out of the once-a-decade Lambeth Conferences should be acknowledged as "law" by the 38 global provinces. The recommendations on such things as the prohibition on further consecration of gay or lesbian bishops should be viewed as gospel until such time as the entire Communion approves such moves, or only after consideration is given to the potential impact on the worldwide Church.

But are these conservatives being selective on which proclamations they accept? Shouldn't they take that same view on all statements coming from Lambeth? I'm convinced that they are.

In looking at some previous Lambeth and Anglican Consultative Council statements, I can't see where the entire Anglican Communion is living up to the statements to which many feel we should all strictly adhere. Some examples: (1) Lambeth 1948 - attendees affirmed that Scripture "should be continually interpreted in the context of the Church's life; (2) Lambeth 1988 - attendees reaffirmed the "historical position of respect for diocesan boundaries and the authority of bishops within those boundaries"; (3) Anglican Consultative Council 1993 - affirmed that it "would be inappropriate to any bishop to exercise episcopal authority within a diocese without first securing permission from the resident bishop." (The last quote is on page 47 of the Kirkpatrick book.

Today, I often hear that Scripture is set and shouldn't be interpreted in the context of the modern world. The move of the breakaway Episcopal congregations in the United States to invite the oversight of African bishops without the approval of their diocesan bishops (with, to my knowledge, the exception of the Dioceses of Forth Worth, Pittsburgh, and a few others, where the bishops did give approval for alternate Anglican involvement) flies in the face of the 1988 and 1993 statements.

So why the selectivity? I didn't realize this was an either-or set of circumstances when deciding which statements to adhere to and which to conveniently ignore or overlook.

Unrepeatable Moments

Recently, I found out that Bishop Jack Spong has a new book due to be released later this year entitled Eternal Life: Pious Dream or Realistic Hope? which I am really looking forward to reading. Have read several of Jack's previous works, I'm sure that he'll be expounding on several ideas and themes that have been covered in various forms in the past.

He actually used the debate over the title of his book - a debate held with his editors and publishers at Harper, no less - as the crux of his weekly column issue today, and provided a very interesting look at the way something as simple as the selection of a few words could cause so much disagreement. I don't know what I was expecting when I read the column, other than an outline of the debate, a brief recap of what the book will be covering, and a few other key themes.

As always, though, someone else had a different idea and decided to throw me a curve ball.

That curve came in the form of an otherwise obscure sentence on page two of the column, which read, "Death gives passion to life by making every moment unrepeatable and calls me to live life to its fullest."

Death gives passion to life by making every moment unrepeatable.

For whatever reason, that small sentence tucked in the middle of a huge paragraph reached out and tripped me as I went running by that portion of the article. I read it two, three, even four times.

Making every moment unrepeatable.

Everyone knows the saying about living life to the fullest, and to make the most of every moment. However, I've never seen it put in such an intriguing way - using a word like "passion" in explaining how to savor each moment. People think of passion in some pretty obvious ways: passion for a job, passion for a hobby, passion for a favorite sports team, passion in romance.

But passion being given to life because of death - that's something entirely new and different.

Being passionate about a moment, and death being a gift. Now I really can't wait to read what else he has in this book. I have a feeling I'll be tripping often.

Lambeth Conference is Just Around the Corner

The once-a-decade gathering of nearly 800 bishops of the Anglican Communion, the Lambeth Conference, is only about eight weeks away, and I've been thinking for many days now about how the global Anglican family will look at the end of the 14-day event. The picture I've chosen to include with today's post, a photo of several of the bishops in attendance at the 1998 conference, displays a great deal of warmth and good humor that I feel is going to be missing this year.

The biggest cause for concern for many, as I've touched on in a few posts over the past few years, is the 2003 election of Gene Robinson as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire (an election I supported of a priest that I support). Before that had even completely sunk in on folks, the Episcopal Church elected Katharine Jefferts Schori as the first female presiding bishop (another election and another priest I support). I've been very proud of the church for some of the actions it has taken in recent years, and in the process have discovered that have a much more moderate-to-liberal view of events in the ECUSA than I had ever realized -- something that I think would have shocked my late friend Sheldon Vanauaken, who once told me in a letter that had Jack Spong (another bishop who has opened my eyes to a lot in the church) been Catholic, he would have excommunicated. No telling what he would think of my opinion on recent events!

In looking at the official website for the Lambeth Conference, I was immediately struck by the opening paragraph on the main page: "The Lambeth Conference is one of the global Anglican Communion's Instruments of Communion. It takes place every ten years at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is the one occasion when all bishops can meet for worship, study and conversation. Archbishops, diocesan, assistant and suffragan bishops are invited." The implication here is that the Archbishop invites ALL bishops to attend every ten years for a variety of educational and spiritual events -- and yet this year, he has opted to dis-invite Gene because of the ongoing controversy resulting from his election. What he didn't do, however, is dis-invite anyone else involved in the dispute -- such as Archbishop Peter Akinola, head of the diocese that many of the breakaway parishes here in the U.S. have joined -- and will stand by and watch instead as Akinola and a group of other bishops stage a boycott of the conference.

So let's recap: Rowan Williams would rather keep one duly elected member of the House of Bishops away from a conference that by all rights associated with his position he should be able to attend, so that he can avoid a larger protest by a group of fringe bishops who are going to be boycotting Lambeth whether Gene is there or not.

And the logic in this would be where?

As I've heard Desmond Tutu say many times (and I've paraphrased here), it's astounding that the church has so completely lost sight of its mission in the world and is more concerned about who is living with who rather than who is feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and loving those who feel unloved and neglected. And in addition to all of this, what really pains me is the fact that I can no longer drive by some of the grand old parishes here in Northern Virginia and see what I used to see -- old, historic roots of the churh in this country; instead, I look at places like the Falls Church and only see a brick building that, instead of a church, is now merely an object in a court battle, and what was once a home to a great congregation that has now been torn apart at the seams.

In the all the reading I've done over the past several years as things within the Anglican Communion have gotten rockier, it seems that I've found that people are letting the media drive the story and overplay that we are all losing sight of the big goal of trying to keep the communion together. No, I'm not saying that folks are avoiding the issue; I know there are countless people who pray daily that a resolution can be found so that the church can be held together, or short of that at least be healed. Court battles, amicus briefs, and the "join this diocese -- our bishop isn't an abomination" statements are everywhere, and all I seem to see Rowan doing is trying to keep the extreme ends of the argument happy (or is the correct word pacified?) without paying much attention at all to what the middle wants: peace and unity.

Peace and unity -- two words that I fear won't be the end result of this conference. Gene will still be in England, preaching and lecturing in whatever churches welcome him; Spong and Tutu will be at Lambeth, fighting the good fight and working with their brother and sister bishops to keep the communion together.

And in the meantime, I'll continue driving by a church building that should be a welcoming sight, but right now comes more and more to represent intolerance, fear, and a judgemental attitude towards a group -- a bishop -- that they refuse to accept. I suppose the next step will be removing the sign that says "The Episcopal Church welcomes you;" for many, "This Episcopal Church may welcome some of you" is much more accurate.

Lambeth may end with a photograph of smiling bishops -- but will God be smiling?

Discerning My Path

Coming to a point - THE point - in your life where you begin to take a good, hard look at your faith and your beliefs is an overpowering and humbling experience. In recent months, I've realized that I am now at that point.

Truthfully, I've felt "nudges" for quite some time -- many of which seem to be directing me in what I think is a new direction in my life. But some of these "nudges" have caused me to take a closer-to-home look and reexamine the core of what I believe. I was talking to my wife last night about our experiences in Sunday school as a child, most of which sadly I don't remember. There are brief flashes of learning the creeds and the commandments, and of putting my nickle in the plate in the mini-service that our teachers had in the church undercroft on many Sundays. What I do remember from that point is that Christianity for me seemed to be very familiar and very comfortable -- Jesus healed the sick, Zacchaeus climbed the tree to get a better look at Jesus, Noah took the animals on the ark, etc.

I can even recall getting my first Bible from the church -- a small, black "Good News" edition that included some very simple sketches throughout of different scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and with my name embossed in gold on the front cover. The sketches were very basic and had no definition, something to which I never paid much attention.

In thinking about that one little point, though, in recent days, I don't half wonder if the fact that sketches had no faces and no set form could imply that they represent every man and every woman. It could have just as easily been one of us who was seeking to be healed, or one of us who was climbing a tree to get a better view of Jesus, or one of us who was watching as the ark was loaded. The lessons in the Bible can certainly apply to all of us.

One of the most challenging things about my personal examination, though, is that it's not limited to something as small as what a sketch means. The Spong lecture I discussed earlier, and a similar lecture by N.T. Wright which I attended last week at the National Cathedral, have made me realize that there are an infinite number of things to think about and pray about during this process: the literal versus the allegorical aspects of the scripture; the role of the church in the world; the influence of modernism and post-modernism on church development; the most effective way to pray -- the list is endless.

The sheer number of resources to use is nearly endless as well: Wright; Borg; Crossan; Pagels; Spong; Kung; Tillich; Ehrman -- and this is only touching on those I'm going through now. There are also numerous scholarly websites and journals to use. There are the works of the early church fathers and church historians. And there is the Bible itself.

As someone who loves to learn and loves the challenges of learning -- as well as the thought of having my childhood beliefs challenged -- this is a really exciting time. I look forward to going through this process and in sharing it with my family and friends.

Jack Spong at the National Cathedral

As many opportunities as there are in the D.C. area for great lectures, concerts, and other cultural events, it's not too often that I'm able to get out and enjoy any of them. However, I was able to go out last week and attend a lecture given by the Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Newark (NJ), which was hosted by the Cathedral College of Washington National Cathedral. He's definitely been a controversial figure, and I really wanted to take the chance to hear what he had to say. I didn't have any opinions already formed before I went, since I've read little of what Jack has written and only knew him from what my parents told me about him from his time as rector of St. John's in Lynchburg (VA).

There was a fairly sizeable crowd in attendance, and I was curious from the outset to see how folks would react to what he had to say. I sat next to a young, second-year seminarian from Virginia Theological Seminary with whom I had a very pleasant chat. While we agreed on much -- the importance of outreach in the life of Episcopal congregations being the largest topic of discussion -- I could tell that we had a difference of opinion regarding the recent ordination of Gene Robinson as Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. In fact, Jack's position on the ordination of gay and lesbian priests over the years has been the source of a great deal of controversy. I was pretty sure that some folks in the audience might seize on that when it came time for questions and answers at the end of the lecture.

I was amazed by Jack's lecture, the topic of which was billed as "The Promise of Jesus: Abundant Life for All." He had said that he was going to take examples from three of his books, but in fact he focused a lot on his life and on those points where he wondered whether the church was headed down the right path (points that he referred to as pebbles in his shoe). He definitely made some powerful points -- talking about how he was raised in a time and in a place where people were anti-Semitic, anti-women, homophobic, and racist. The "pebbles" to which he referred were points where he began to confront each of these -- both through incidents in his own life as well as in the life of the national Episcopal church.

I do have to agree, after having listened to him, that undoubtedly many of the folks who have criticized him over the years have never taken the time to read what he has written or listened to what he has to say. I've been prompted to buy several of his books (aside from the ones I already owned and which were sadly gathering dust on my shelves) and intend to read more fully his opinions on a variety of topics that I know are impacting the church. I may even decide to chat more about some of that in future posts. But there was one really powerful statement that I took away from all of this: "If truth can destroy faith, you never had any to begin with."