“Those who are idle in the pursuit of righteousness count theological terminology as secondary...”
-Saint Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 1.2
-Saint Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 1.2
Words matter. Language matters. When Basil the Great defended the truth of the divinity of the Holy Spirit in the fourth century, he began by asking his opponents to listen closely to both scripture and tradition. He was insistent that both he and his opponents attend not only to every word of the Bible, but also the writings of the fathers, and even the words of the liturgy. In matters of theological controversy no syllable was insignificant. In Basil’s mind if a person spurned “fundamental elements as insignificant trifles,” then such a person would “never embrace the fullness of wisdom” (On the Holy Spirit 1.2). Quite simply, for the clarity of theology and the fidelity of the Church, words have always mattered. This was true in Basil’s time, and it is true for us today.
Words matter today, for we live in a shifting world wherein language and meaning transforms and changes with digital speed. Today the meanings of words and figures of speech slip through our hands. This has always been true of humanity since at least the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). As Christians, we need to recover the significance of our language. We need to scrutinize our words. We need to do this because, fundamentally, we are believers of the Word, and in the Word is truth.
To illustrate this need, all we have to do is read the present rhetoric of peace used by the leaders of the Episcopal Church. The Presiding Bishop, for example, gives a moving description of peace in her book A Wing and a Prayer which, like the will of the Father, dizzyingly invites everyone. For her, people of all races and classes and abilities are welcome into the peace of the Church, even those “who haven’t been baptized...Muslims and Hindus, pagans and practicers of voodoo” (p.90). For Schori, the Church is a place not only of radical inclusion but also mutual dependence, care, and respect. It is a “vision of the city of God on earth, a community where people are at peace with each other because each one has enough to eat, adequate shelter, medical care, and meaningful work” (p.33). For her, the “baptismal covenant does not distinguish between Christian and others...and it doesn’t say anything about religion, gender, age, sexuality, nationality, and so on and so forth” (p.34). This is indeed a vision of equality, cooperation, and respect remarkably exhaustive and demanding, all with an attractive sheen of the prophetic.
Many in the Episcopal Church share her vision. Gene Robinson, for one, thinks similarly. Yet, as Robinson’s argument in his book, In the Eye of the Storm, shows, peace thus described is determined by something other than Christ. For Robinson, peace is the product of secular politics determined by the alleged cultural majority. As he says, “if I argue for the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered people in society, I must do so on the merits of my argument, not on a claim that my understanding of God is right and true and compelling for everyone...not on any reading of a sacred text to which I subscribe (p. 27). Robinson is describing peace built on something other than Jesus as he is scripturally proclaimed in the Church. It is peace constructed on principles found elsewhere, vulnerable to the concocted desires of a superficial culture—such is perhaps the clue to Robinson’s summing up spirituality with the question, “What do you want?”(p.75) instead of the more theological “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). Schori secures her similar vision in something other than Jesus too. For her, “intellectual assent and belonging are vastly different things” (p.97). Peace, in this case, rests upon something imaginably larger than Jesus. For Schori and Robinson, traditional claims about the divinity of Jesus can still be spoken, but they sit in a rhetoric which subordinates Jesus to the service of a peace described by something else. This is evident in the way Robinson understands the interpretation of Scripture. He describes Scripture as the “primary source of our knowledge of how God works in the lives of human beings to bring them to abundant life and everlasting salvation” (p.75) but which always sits under the judgment of a rather curious selection of “tradition” and “reason” defined by Robinson as “the authority that presents itself in our own lives”(p.60). For him, reason is less akin to earlier classical conceptions as is it to the force of history and majority rule. Robinson asks, “Did God complete self-revelation in holy scripture, or does God continue to reveal God’s self, throughout history?” (p.58) His answer is clear: “God is still actively involved in ongoing revelation over time, even in our own day” (p.59). Revelation here is no longer identified with the Church but with the progress of history, conceived as the unfolding of an ideology revealed in the opinions of conventions. They can still talk about peace and Jesus, but it is clear that Jesus must fit within an idea of peace they have already constructed. Jesus must fit into their world.
This explains Schori’s “awfully small box” comment to Time in July 2006. Likewise, this gives context to Robinson’s slippery statements about the mediation of Jesus when he says, “While I believe Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, I don’t believe he is the sole revelation of God’s self to the world.” For him, peace determined by Jesus must be subordinated to some allegedly more universal notion of peace. “After all,” he concludes, “the challenge before us as citizens of democracies is to define our rights and responsibilities to one another no matter what our beliefs are (p.16).
Both Schori and Robinson still use the traditional language of christology, yet their use of this language sits within a different world all together. Jesus, for them, certainly is a way to the divine and to peace as it is defined by them, yet he is no longer the “all in all” mediation described in Ephesians 1:23. The inclusion and peace described by Robinson and Schori must not be founded “on any reading of a sacred text to which I subscribe” (p. 27). Rather, what matters, as Schori says, is sharing in a “vision of the dream of God” (p.97), a vision described by something other than Jesus and the Church, something, as Schori suggests, “embedded in the Millennium Development Goals...God’s vision of homecoming for all humanity” (p.165). Such is the mundane and Christ-less peace envisioned in much of the Episcopal Church, and this, above all wrangling over sexuality and ordination, is the fundamental heresy we are fighting.
Words matter today, for we live in a shifting world wherein language and meaning transforms and changes with digital speed. Today the meanings of words and figures of speech slip through our hands. This has always been true of humanity since at least the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). As Christians, we need to recover the significance of our language. We need to scrutinize our words. We need to do this because, fundamentally, we are believers of the Word, and in the Word is truth.
To illustrate this need, all we have to do is read the present rhetoric of peace used by the leaders of the Episcopal Church. The Presiding Bishop, for example, gives a moving description of peace in her book A Wing and a Prayer which, like the will of the Father, dizzyingly invites everyone. For her, people of all races and classes and abilities are welcome into the peace of the Church, even those “who haven’t been baptized...Muslims and Hindus, pagans and practicers of voodoo” (p.90). For Schori, the Church is a place not only of radical inclusion but also mutual dependence, care, and respect. It is a “vision of the city of God on earth, a community where people are at peace with each other because each one has enough to eat, adequate shelter, medical care, and meaningful work” (p.33). For her, the “baptismal covenant does not distinguish between Christian and others...and it doesn’t say anything about religion, gender, age, sexuality, nationality, and so on and so forth” (p.34). This is indeed a vision of equality, cooperation, and respect remarkably exhaustive and demanding, all with an attractive sheen of the prophetic.
Many in the Episcopal Church share her vision. Gene Robinson, for one, thinks similarly. Yet, as Robinson’s argument in his book, In the Eye of the Storm, shows, peace thus described is determined by something other than Christ. For Robinson, peace is the product of secular politics determined by the alleged cultural majority. As he says, “if I argue for the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered people in society, I must do so on the merits of my argument, not on a claim that my understanding of God is right and true and compelling for everyone...not on any reading of a sacred text to which I subscribe (p. 27). Robinson is describing peace built on something other than Jesus as he is scripturally proclaimed in the Church. It is peace constructed on principles found elsewhere, vulnerable to the concocted desires of a superficial culture—such is perhaps the clue to Robinson’s summing up spirituality with the question, “What do you want?”(p.75) instead of the more theological “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). Schori secures her similar vision in something other than Jesus too. For her, “intellectual assent and belonging are vastly different things” (p.97). Peace, in this case, rests upon something imaginably larger than Jesus. For Schori and Robinson, traditional claims about the divinity of Jesus can still be spoken, but they sit in a rhetoric which subordinates Jesus to the service of a peace described by something else. This is evident in the way Robinson understands the interpretation of Scripture. He describes Scripture as the “primary source of our knowledge of how God works in the lives of human beings to bring them to abundant life and everlasting salvation” (p.75) but which always sits under the judgment of a rather curious selection of “tradition” and “reason” defined by Robinson as “the authority that presents itself in our own lives”(p.60). For him, reason is less akin to earlier classical conceptions as is it to the force of history and majority rule. Robinson asks, “Did God complete self-revelation in holy scripture, or does God continue to reveal God’s self, throughout history?” (p.58) His answer is clear: “God is still actively involved in ongoing revelation over time, even in our own day” (p.59). Revelation here is no longer identified with the Church but with the progress of history, conceived as the unfolding of an ideology revealed in the opinions of conventions. They can still talk about peace and Jesus, but it is clear that Jesus must fit within an idea of peace they have already constructed. Jesus must fit into their world.
This explains Schori’s “awfully small box” comment to Time in July 2006. Likewise, this gives context to Robinson’s slippery statements about the mediation of Jesus when he says, “While I believe Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, I don’t believe he is the sole revelation of God’s self to the world.” For him, peace determined by Jesus must be subordinated to some allegedly more universal notion of peace. “After all,” he concludes, “the challenge before us as citizens of democracies is to define our rights and responsibilities to one another no matter what our beliefs are (p.16).
Both Schori and Robinson still use the traditional language of christology, yet their use of this language sits within a different world all together. Jesus, for them, certainly is a way to the divine and to peace as it is defined by them, yet he is no longer the “all in all” mediation described in Ephesians 1:23. The inclusion and peace described by Robinson and Schori must not be founded “on any reading of a sacred text to which I subscribe” (p. 27). Rather, what matters, as Schori says, is sharing in a “vision of the dream of God” (p.97), a vision described by something other than Jesus and the Church, something, as Schori suggests, “embedded in the Millennium Development Goals...God’s vision of homecoming for all humanity” (p.165). Such is the mundane and Christ-less peace envisioned in much of the Episcopal Church, and this, above all wrangling over sexuality and ordination, is the fundamental heresy we are fighting.
