The Questioning Christian

To our radical-traditionalist cousins overseas

Predictably, some of the radical traditionalists in the Anglican Communion are upset about the House of Bishops' report this week.

Cousins, we love you, but: Butt out.

Just who is it that is "misinterpreting" the Bible?

From the Rev. Thomas B. Woodward:

... [T]o accuse us of “abandoning the Holy Scriptures” is to reveal a woeful ignorance of the Bible itself.

When asked about their claims regarding the Bible, invariably the “orthodox” turn to John 14.6, in which John quotes Jesus as saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” They take that verse of the Bible to have only one possible interpretation, which is – roughly – that it is only through repentance and belief in Jesus that anyone will be admitted to the Kingdom of God.

Unfortunately for those who want to use that verse to circumscribe religious reality, several reliable interpretations of that verse contradict theirs, especially when John 14.6 is seen in the context of the struggles between Christian and Jewish sects/communities of the time. [Ed.: For one of these interpretations, see I Am the Way and the Truth and the Life: Jesus Uses Familiar Metaphors to Support His "Sales Pitch"]

If that were not enough, the parables cited earlier and many of the healing stories (including, prominently, the child of the Syro-Phoenician woman) also contradict the "orthodox" interpretation of John 14.6. Jesus is constantly finding and affirming saving faith in those outside the community of faith. For him, that seems to be an occasion for rejoicing, not for hand-wringing.

St. Paul, himself, contradicts John 14.6 in his long and often overlooked argument in Romans 9-11, in which he states that the Jews remain the People of God, as God does not break promises.

In fact, as Paul notes, because the Christian community has been grafted into Jewish holy history, our relationship to the continuing Jewish community is one of dependence, not as replacements!

* * *

Here are some questions for anyone who wants to charge the leadership of the Episcopal Church with “abandoning the Bible” or failing to acknowledge the real authority of the Bible. I ask these questions not rhetorically, but out of genuine concern:

• Whom did Jesus heal – and which of the healing stories involve repentance or conversion?
• How did Jesus choose Levi, the tax collector, as disciple/apostle – apparently without evidence of personal belief or repentance?
• What do you make of the parables that speak so movingly about sufficient faith outside Jesus' faith community?
• What is the relationship between Jesus' community and the religious establishment?
• What is the relationship between Jesus’ community and the marginalized people of his time?
• Is there any group or class of people that Jesus excluded from his welcoming embrace?
• How was it, when scholars tell us that Jesus honored women completely, that our church was able to marginalize them for nineteen hundred years?
• Are there reasons we do not use the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-11) and Paul’s list of the indications that the Holy Spirit is present in individuals and groups (Galatians 5:22-23) as the basis for our moral judgments on committed human relationships rather than the regulations of the purity code that even Conservative and Reformed Jews have rejected?

These are not difficult questions. They are questions, though, that reveal the ignorance of the attacks of those who believe that the Episcopal Church does not concern itself with the authority of the Bible. I believe it is disgraceful to ignore the teachings, the parables, the healings, and the loving and affirming relationships of Jesus Christ while charging those who not only affirm, but also treasure those realities with disregard of the Bible.

(Via Episcopal Majority [extra paragraphing added]. It's a worthwhile read.)

How can people justify intellectual assent to the Trinity, Jesus' divinity, etc.? An email exchange with the Very Rev. Nick Knisely

[Here's an edited version of an email exchange I had this morning with the Very Rev. Nicholas Knisely, a priest and astronomer/physicist who hosts the blog Entangled States, reproduced here at his suggestion.]

Where's the supporting evidence for the Trinity, etc.?

Nick, I enjoyed your essay at The Daily Episcopalian. My attention was drawn to this statement:

Now, should the primatial authority of the Episcopal Church authorize a new Prayer Book that clearly and intentionally repudiates the sovereignty of Jesus, or denies the Doctrine of the Trinity or rejects the Creeds and other historic formulations of the universal Church, then I would agree that the Episcopal Church is no longer a church and that it has come time to leave for a place that is authentically Christian.

I’ve got a serious question that has troubled me for a long time:  How can people who seek to put God first – and, by corollary, to face the facts of the reality he created – justify giving intellectual assent to any of the foregoing?   

Let me borrow the Anglican Scotist’s labeling scheme: I’m sufficiently confident of two assertions, A1 and A2, that I’m willing to make Bet B1.  I won’t here go into why I have this confidence.

• A1:  A Creator exists.
  
• A2:  The Summary of the Law is an expression of two of the fundamental building-block processes by which the universe is being created.  

(I often paraphrase the SOTL as “[A] Face the facts — that is, live in the world God actually created, not in the one ‘created’ by your wishful thinking – and [B] seek the best for others as you do for yourself.”)

• B1: The SOTL is an appropriate guide to living one’s life.

I have no such confidence, however, about the Trinity (let’s call that A3), nor about the divinity of Jesus (A4), nor about any number of other received orthodox doctrines.  I simply don’t see how sufficient evidence exists to persuade reasonable people about these assertions. (I’ve explained my doubts in some detail on my own blog, The Questioning Christian.)

Sure, some of the church fathers apparently believed A3 and A4. But they also believed, for example, that the sun revolved around the earth; that illnesses were caused by evil spirits; and that Jesus would be returning Real Soon Now. The appeal to their authority is hardly persuasive.

In legal terms, the supporting evidence for A3 and A4 doesn’t even rise to the level of “substantial evidence” (i.e., evidence from which a reasonable person could draw the posited conclusion). It certainly doesn’t rise to the level of a preponderance of the evidence, and still less beyond a reasonable doubt.

To put it in scientific terms, A3 and A4 are no more supported by competent evidence than astrology, or the four-humours model of medicine, or cold fusion.

The various defenses I’ve read of A3 and A4 strike me as pure wishful thinking, the equivalent of the old economist joke whose punch line is “first, we’ll assume we have a can opener.”

--------------------------------------------

Now on to your statement about it being time to leave the church. Suppose that two successive General Conventions were to amend the canons and the BCP to declare that one need not profess belief in A3, A4, etc., to be considered a Christian in good standing, and that the Creeds, the Trinitarian formulae, and other language dependent on A3 and A4 could be omitted from the various BCP rites.

How could we, with any intellectual rigor, justify abandoning TEC on that basis? Doing so would seem to be acting on a whim, at least in the absence of modestly-persuasive evidence that A3, A4, etc., are in fact true.

Regards,

--D. C.

Nick's response: Some things have to be taken on faith

Thanks DC. 

Your question deserves more of an answer than I've got time... and for that I apologize. But I wanted to acknowledge it.

I do stand by what I wrote. The moment the Church acts to authoritatively deny the divinity of Jesus is the moment I'm out of here. But I don't know that such a statement is provable logically - rather it's one that has to be taken on faith. [Emphasis mine - DCT] 

What you seem to be arguing for is either a form of Unitarianism (as distinct from Unitarian Universalists) or a form of Arianism (though I'm not sure you'd give Jesus the sort of divine origin that Arius and his disciples gave to Jesus.)

Arianism is probably the more difficult to argue against - at least biblically. The Trinitarian belief that the Church holds is dependent on Arianism not being true - so if it wouldn't make sense to argue against the Trinitarian view if the Arian one hadn't been disproven.

How familiar are you with the patristic writer's arguments against Arianism?

(And I wonder if this is worth posting to a blog and having a more public discussion about?)

A reply: Acting on unsupported faith can be irrational and wrongful

[I didn't email this next part, but instead am posting it per Nick's suggestion.]

Nick, when you referred above to having to accept assertions A3 and A4 on faith, you put your finger on a fundamental issue.

My concern is not primarily whether someone believes Assertion A to be true purely on faith without supporting evidence. I think we have to recognize that we have little if any control over what we believe to be true or not true.

Suppose "Alice" happens to believe in astrology, and that our fates are influenced by the positions of the stars at our birth. I would probably think she's a bit nuts, but that she can't help what she believes. (She might think the same about me.) Without more, good manners would doubtless keep me from saying anything.

My concern comes when someone acts (or omits to act) solely on the basis of unsupported faith. It's one thing for Alice to believe in astrology; it'd be another thing entirely for her to urge others to shun "Bob" on grounds that he was born under the wrong astrological sign. If others were to follow Alice's urging, they would not only be acting irrationally, they would be doing a possibly-grievous wrong to Bob as well.

It's not hard to extend this line of argument to The Current Disputes.

The sinfulness of my blue-eyes/brown-eyes marriage

In an exchange of papers for the the Anglican Church of Canada, professor Robert Gagnon argues that: 

Same-sex intercourse radically offends against God’s intentional creation of humans as “male and female” (Gen 1:27) and the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24)." [Emphasis added] 

I’d previously been skeptical of this argument by Gagnon, but now he has convinced me. I’m slapping my palm against my forehead, wondering why I didn’t appreciate his brilliance before. 

To my eternal shame, I now know that by marrying and having children, my wife and I likewise radically offended against another aspect of “God’s intentional creation of humans" — as blue-eyed and brown-eyed. 

Wait, you say: Genesis says nothing about blue-eyed and brown-eyed people. Ah, but the answer’s apparent: There were no blue-eyed people around in the time and place where Genesis was written. This conclusively proves that God intended for his people to be separated into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups, and for each group to bear children of its own eye color. 

(How do I know there were no blue-eyed people around when- and where Genesis was written, and that this was part of God's plan to separate the eye colors? The same way the Genesis authors knew what happened at the dawn of humanity: through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who is protecting my thoughts and writings from error just as he did for theirs.) 

My wife will be as shamed as I am when I work up the nerve to tell her: Our mixed-eye-color marriage is a sin; our love is a lie; our children are the fruits of our wickedness. 

What should I do to atone for my sin? That’s a tough one.

The Bible clearly condones men having multiple wives. So I suppose I could take an additional, blue-eyed wife, and we could do as God manifestly intended for those of our eye color, which is to produce blue-eyed kids. (Unfortunately for my wife, she’s not allowed to produce more brown-eyed kids with a brown-eyed man — according to the Bible, she gets only one mate in this lifetime, unless I happen to die [which just might happen shortly after she reads this part] .)

But there’s an infelicitous catch: Even though I know it radically offends God’s intentional creation, I simply don’t want to . . . "be with" a blue-eyed woman; it’s my brown-eyed wife whom I sinfully desire. 

I guess my only choice is to live in celibacy, acknowledging the depravity of my love and my lust for someone of a forbidden eye color. And you other people in mixed-eye-color marriages had better go and do likewise . . . . 

[End Jonathan Swift mode.] 

As I said two and a half years ago, there may be valid arguments out there for prohibiting same-sex unions (I stress “may"). Gagnon’s isn’t one of them. 

(Hat tip: TitusOneNine)

What does being "in communion" mean, and how much is it really worth?

One of the root causes of The Current Disputes in the Anglican Communion is that we don't seem to agree on what it means to be "in communion." Worse, we don't even rationally explore the concept, or what trade-offs we're willing to accept to stay in communion. Instead, we just hurl anathemas at each other.

"Communion" can't mean "mutual submission" (not now)

Some think communion is a relationship of "mutual submission." But that's a pie-in-the-sky concept. It's not workable unless we can agree on rules for those occasions when simple mutual submission doesn't happen. Otherwise, we'll sometimes find ourselves giving in to whoever is the most implacable, whoever "needs" the relationship the least. 

Perhaps the Anglican Covenant drafting process will come up with some rules for this kind of situation that we can all agree to, and — more importantly — that everyone will in fact follow even when they don't like the results. (Personally, I'm not holding my breath.)

Communion does seem to entail a certain level of mutual acceptance, as with extended family

When my wife and I have attended services at CofE churches while traveling, it's been great to be accepted by the locals as "one of us." And on the occasions when we've hosted CofE people, they've automatically been "part of the family." 

(I've written before how I tend to think of "communion" as something like an extended-family relationship.)

But how much is that automatic acceptance worth? At what point does the cost become too much?

Communion isn't worth surrendering to bullies

• Suppose hypothetically that, at my maternal extended family's reunion next month, some of my cousins were to tell my wife and me that they gravely disapproved of our "letting" our son wear a beard and our daughter wear shorts. 

[I'm using a ridiculous example to illustrate the point. And my cousins wouldn't do this sort of thing anyway.]

[Another possible hypothetical example comes to mind: Almost everyone on my side of the family has blue eyes; I could hypothesize that some of my cousins demanded that my brown-eyed wife and kids wear tinted contact lenses, so that they'd "fit in" with the rest of the family. But that would surely lead to a satellite argument about whether or not homosexuality is genetic, like eye color, and we don't need that distraction here.]

My wife and I would certainly listen carefully to what those cousins had to say about our kids' sartorial habits. We don't claim to know everything, and sometimes what we think we know turns out to be wrong. 

• But now suppose that particular subset of cousins were to say to us, in no uncertain terms: "You either make your son shave, and your daughter stop wearing shorts, or you'll no longer be welcome at family reunions." 

[Our kids are both older teenagers, so naturally our ability to "control" them is not what it once was.]

I can't speak for my wife, but my response would be "I don't think so, guys; you worry about your own families, and leave ours to us." I'm not that fond of my son's beard, and sometimes my daughter's shorts are shorter than I'd like, but so far neither issue has been worth making a federal case about it.

• Now suppose those particular cousins declared: "If you don't make your kids change their sartorial ways — or kick them out of the house if they refuse — then we will no longer come to any family reunions where you're there."   

My response would be "we'll certainly miss you." 

• Finally, suppose some of the rest of the cousins agreed with my wife and me, but blamed us for not giving in so that we could all continue to enjoy our family vacations together.

My response to them would be "we're sorry it has to come to this, but our kids and their freedom are more important to us than our family vacations — especially if those vacations are now going to be dominated by bullies."

*  *  *

ADDED AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT: Let's change the hypothetical a little: Suppose that these particular cousins weren't objecting to our son's beard or our daughter's shorts. Suppose instead:

• that one of the kids was living with a fiancé(e) or other long-term partner without benefit of clergy, as they used to say [neither of our kids is doing so, but at least two of our younger relatives are];
• that my wife and I did not approve of the arrangement, and had made that known, but, in what we judged to be the long-term best interest of the family, we had welcomed the partner in our home anyway when the couple visited us [we've done pretty much just that with the two younger relatives and their partners]; and
• that was why my cousins were telling my wife and me we were no longer welcome at family reunions.

My response would be the same: You worry about your own family, Cuz, and let us deal with ours.

From where I sit, that's pretty much how The Current Disputes in the Anglican Communion look.

The Early Church's Teaching About Marriage Was: Don't?

Dale Rye, a frequent thoughful commenter at TitusOneNine, offers this summary of the early church's teachings on marriage, teachings which traditionalists often cite in criticizing same-sex unions:

If one were to ask the Greek and Latin Fathers to define “the Biblical truth as expressed about marriage,” they would quote Luke 20:35: “Those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.”

As St. Jerome put it (and he was not the most extreme of his contemporaries), “[I]n view of the purity of Christ, all sexual intercourse is unclean.”   Therefore, “If this is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (Matt. 18:20).

Paul agreed “It is well for a man not to touch a woman” (I Cor. 7:1).  As the Council of Trent put it, “If anyone says that the married state surpasses that of virginity or celibacy, and that it is not better and happier to remain in virginity or celibacy than to be united in matrimony, anathema sit.”

(Extra paragraphing added, emphasis edited.)

The early church's survival strongly suggests that its members did not slavishly follow those particular teachings on marriage.  One wonders, then, why some traditionalists insist that today's church must do so.

Sermon by Archbishop Ndungane of Southern Africa

Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, successor to Desmond Tutu, has several times taken exception to the hard-line traditionalist views of Nigeria's Peter Akinola and his allies.  This past Sunday he preached at Southwark Cathedral in England.  Excerpt:

We must learn to recognise God at work in people who are not ‘one of us.’

We must not be like Joshua, who can only accept those who are prophesying under Moses’ direct oversight. Rather, we should be like Moses, who sees that God is at work in Eldad and Medad, and generously says ‘Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets!’

It is not easy to live with a spectrum of perspectives – it is challenging even when we are fully confident we are all firmly within the Anglican heartlands.

But this wrestling together offers us the possibility of treasures that cannot be found in more monochrome approaches.

As individuals, congregations, Dioceses, Provinces, and as a Global Communion, we grow best when we have that level of complimentary difference which can indeed ‘provoke one another to love and to good deeds’ (Heb 10:24).

"This Isn't the Way to Ban Same-Sex Marriage"

"Without strong family structures, there will be no stable and healthy social order, and alternative marriage structures might weaken the sanction of law and custom necessary for human families to flourish and children to grow.  These are no small risks, and present trends are not often more sound than the cumulative wisdom of the centuries.  Is it too much to ask that judges and legislatures acknowledge the difficulty of this debate by leaving it to normal democratic processes?" 

- From Hands Off Constitutions: This Isn't the Way to Ban Same-Sex Marriage, by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Washington Post, Tues. Sept. 5, 2006, p. A19 (emphasis added).

The Michelson-Morley Experiment and the Experience of Gay and Lesbian Christians - Fr. Nick Knisely

Physicist-turned-priest Nick Knisely recalls that Einstein's attitude toward the the Michelson-Morley experiment's outlandish results was, in brief, to face the facts and deal with them.  He suggests that Einstein's example should inform the church's current struggles to deal with gay and lesbian Christians today. 

Excerpt:

Einstein started his thinking toward Special and General Relativity by postulating that each observer’s experience must be treated as valid.  By so doing, he constructed a physics that would require that the speed of light was exactly the same for all observers, whether they were moving or not.  Einstein then was able to suggest experiments that demonstrate that his ideas were correct.

But the key point in all this was that he accepted the experimental evidence of the Michelson-Morley experiment as valid, even though it seemed to make absolutely no sense within a Newtonian (and deterministic) framework.  Einstein decided to trust in the report of the observer and by making that decision he was able to gain a radical new insight into the nature of reality.

*  *  *

Gay and lesbian people report that they find themselves transformed by their encounters with the Risen Christ. But they do not uniformly find that their sexuality or sexual orientation is transformed.   If we believe this report, then what does this tell us about God's desires for them?

Entangled States: The Michelson-Morley Experiment and the Experience of Gay and Lesbian Christians.

Anglican Bus to "Canterbury" - Funny Satire

See here (hat tip: Drell's Descants).