Noting that today's Daily office lection includes Paul's justly famous support for mining the pagans, outsiders and 'heretics' for our own positions, "we take every thought captive to obey Christ." (1 Corinthians 10:5), let me simply add to our discussion with this remarkable passage from none other than Ephraim Radner, whose fascinating essay, "Bad Bishops: A Key to Anglican Ecclesiology" if full of insight, even if his conclusion is diametrically opposed to my own. But few are willing to argue against his robust sense of orthodoxy, including our current Archbishop of Canterbury, as I mentioned in the thread to which this one is linked.
Radner writes:

"Episcopal essence is usually identified in terms of this ideal, and the ideal itself takes the various forms of doctrinal integrity, personal moral integrity-the "wholesome" example for the flock--courageous opposition to spiritual error and ethical disease, and so on. By focusing on the question of the "bad bishop," I want us to ask if the essence of episcopacy-- which we claim is itself "essential" to the Church--is to be measured by the fulfillment of such ideals. The conclusion given here: probably not."

Let the theol-blogging games re-commence!

Tells all who might be bishop to stay off the internet.

Ann, right indeed. That's why I'm blogging like a fiend. So that my relentless and not so secretive ego needs for the purple are utterly extirpated by my verbal theo-diarrhea!

It is probably true that I have already said too much on this topic in the prior thread having posted two replies, but since I had the good fortune to be quoted in the follow up (Thanks Nicholas!), maybe I should "weigh in" at least on the secondary question as to "what does this mean for us?" (to paraphrase a certain catechism not of Anglican origin) in a broader sense.

I would certainly say that, in the right setting and done in the right way (as is the case here on Episcopal Cafe), the internet and blogosphere can be a valuable forum for discussion. It is quite simply the case that most of us will never attend a General Convention or other "forum" of that sort, and that Sunday morning is usually about "doing the prayerbook" and having some post-liturgical coffee (frankly folks, if we're real Episcopalians, shouldn't we approach the standing liturgy committee regarding the promulgation of an official "coffee rite," as there is a great deal of "experimenting" going on without authorization?). The internet allows many people on different schedules and in diverse locales to "converse" in a way that could never happen otherwise. As a physician, I am in the exam room and at my desk for 8-12 hours every day, and I would have little time otherwise for discourse of the sort that I find on The Cafe's website. I have certainly found my participation here in TEC (Am I the last to notice that The Episcopal Cafe and The Episcopal Church have the same first initials? OK, I'm a little slow, but I get it now) to be informative and enriching.

At the same time, less "open" and "transparent" online venues have certainly had some negative effects. There are certainly "distortionist" websites about The Rev. Forrester, that served only to inflame, not to inform or discuss. I would hope that a careful "attention to sources" might help, but not everyone is disposed to be discerning, and in an era of slick media, a lot of tripe can be very prettily packaged. Beware of the wolf in sheep's clothing!

As far as the Christological and Theological issues raised here, something not brought up explicitly but referred to repeatedly is the divide throughout the history of the Church, especially in the West, between dogmatic/doctrinal faith and mystical experience. A certain Episcopal Dean reminded me recently of the last "great" schism to affect TEC, namely the departure of the Methodists from our company. At its heart, it was a "mystical" experience/experiences that led to that schism, and perhaps the "rebirth" in North America and Western Europe of interest in mysticism as inspired by our dialogue with the great religions of the East may be doing some similar thing. Although as a "possibility," mystical experience has a firm home in Christianity, in the West particularly, it has been little practiced and assumed to be the province of the select few so inclined. Owing to the very nature of that type of experience, it is, at best, difficult to articulate and always, for that reason, at odds with the "logical" language of much of theology as we know it in the Western Catholic tradition.

In "post modern" times, when didactic, apologetic, and dogmatic language finds less sympathy than in former times, I would hope that the church could find some room for the mystical experience or the "direct" experience of the divine. In a more "mystical" theology, how we "define" Christ may be of less "use" to us than how we experience Christ. "He is the image (icon) of the invisible God" to quote the letter to the Colossians. Like painted icons, we are lead through contemplation of the "image" of Christ to the reality behind reality. If contemplation and meditation on the Creed leads to this type of experience, then this is a good thing. It does not necessarily mean that other ways of looking at the "image" or that other "images" may not have a similar result and hence also be "good" ways of living our faith.

I am very fond of the way Pseudodionysius puts it in "The Divine Names"

"Hence, with regard to the supra-essential being of God–transcendent Goodness transcendently there–no lover of the truth which is above all truth will seek to praise it as word or power or mind or life or being. No. It is at a total remove from every condition, movement, life, imagination, conjecture, name, discourse, thought, conception, being, rest, dwelling, unity, limit, infinity, the totality of existence. And yet, since it is the underpinning of goodness, and by merely being there is the cause of everything, to praise this divinely beneficent Providence, you must turn to all of creation. It is there at the center of everything, and everything has it for a destiny. It is there "before all things and in it all things hold together." Because it is there the world has come to be and exists. All things long for it. The intelligent and rational long for it by way of knowledge, the lower strata by way of perception, the remainder by way of the stirrings of being alive and in whatever fashion befits their condition."

I only hope that, in the name of doctrinal and liturgical uniformity and orthodoxy, we do not throw out some baby with the bath water here. I think that much of the world is hungry for the "experience" of God and the divine but is "fed up" with the church's doctrinal squabbles and power struggles. A friendly "discussion among friends" is one thing, a world class "smack down" is quite another, and will serve more to deter potential "incomers" than it does to keep the "already insiders" in the bounds of orthodoxy.

If only Thew Forrester were a heretic I would be very happy. But, alas, he is just as much into theology as the self-proclaimed orthodox crowd! It all seems to be much ado about nothing. His inability to get enough consents for his election as bishop says a lot about a denomination which has become increasingly irrelevant to a world in which grand narratives have thankfully collapsed. This is the same denomination which appoints secret commissions to figure out what to do with same-sex couples. I would have thought the more superstitious elements of religion were dying out. But instead they seem to have been buried alive. Absolute truth claims seem to have trumped pragmatism and common human decency.

A living tradition needs to offer space for liturgical experimentation. Small dioceses, as Louis Weil says, are ideal for this. But a small poor diocese is not to be allowed to experiment and find new ways of doing ministry.

Gary Paul Gilbert

But the grand narratives have not collapsed. The neoliberal, hypercapitalist story reigns supreme, to the point that no real political alternative exists in the U.S. The tortured victims in our prisons are but one example of the victory of this grand narrative, which is advertised in glittering lights by the full spectrum of our ever more pervasive media and advertising.

The biblical story, centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, provides a counternarrative. A Church that can share this story and live it out will have a reason to exist going forward. Such a Church is very necessary given the unholy alliance between some forms of Christianity and the regnant apotheosis of markets.

A living tradition needs some space for the liturgy to develop. This is different from experimentation without limit. A living tradition also needs boundaries, just as a living organism needs an immune system to recognize what is a threat to its own integrity.

There is only so far Christianity can walk with pragmatism, because we make a claim to public (and, indeed, universal) truth.

Nothing in common decency requires a community to raise up leaders that do not adhere to its most basic standards for itself. The Constitution and Canons, the Book of Common Prayer, the elements of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral--none of these os optional. There may be some latitude of interpretation, but there is not nearly as much as is practiced in some quarters of the Episcopal Church. This anything goes attitude is ultimately both consumerist and bourgeois. It will not survive the changes we are going through. It gives a bad name to the Broad Church, and it would make Maurice shudder.

What we are witnessing is the self-correcting character of Catholic and Reformed religion, recovering its spine and adhering to that "mere Christianity" which has been the genius of Anglicanism. I believe this is the Holy Spirit renewing the Church. As John Jewel said near the close of his apology in 1685, "we have searched out of the Holy Bible, which we are sure cannot deceive, one sure form of religion, and have returned again unto the primitive Church of the ancient fathers and Apostles; that is to say, to the first ground and beginning of things, as unto the very foundations and headsprings of Christ's Church." May we never seek to be other than this: the primitive Church of the ancient fathers (and mothers) and apostles, alive and ministering to the needs of the world in our own day.

I would like to add to what Bill Caroll has said in this way: DITTO, and AMEN.

Greg Jones

Bill writes:
"This anything goes attitude is ultimately both consumerist and bourgeois. It will not survive the changes we are going through. "

My first reaction to this post was, frankly, anger. I cannot think that any one of us, right/left/center/north/south/high/low/broad, can be pleased as having been characterized as "consumerist and bourgeois." Jesus, I humbly submit, however, had very negative things to say about being angry with one another, and after a bit of contemplation, I feel like I should just let this go. I have been called much worse in the past.

On the one hand, I am grateful that my feeble and faltering faith has found somewhat of a home in The Episcopal Church. Frankly, were it not for TEC, I would long ago have simply pitched all the bibles, liturgical, musical and theological books that fill my library into the trash, jumped off the nearest high building and ended it all. Yet it was not the orthodox and Nicene faith, but the openness to "other" ideas that brought me back "to life" as it were. When the God of supernatural theism in his majestic glory became too much for my poor mind and intellect to bear, I felt comforted to be able to lean on a less-wordy, more felt "presence" to experience "God" in prayer, meditation, song, poetry and the simple "community" of faith. If I could no longer bear to "define" God or the essentials of the faith so clearly, still, I felt that I could _experience_ it in a meaningful way.

As I consider, however, the "failing" status of TEC, I wonder if I and other "weak" brethren may not be doing significant harm to its survival? Has our "coming out" about our doubts and difficulties truly hurt the church? Would we be better off with a clear, complete and no-arguments message about the essentials of the Orthodox Christian faith as we have always practiced it? Would we fill our pews and churches and have Sunday schools full of children and couples and families living the life of a growing and confident faith that rejects subjectivism and holds to the essential and unalterable truths that we must of necessity confess?

In the face of so much argument on both "sides" about this, I do struggle with the effect that my pitiful religious beliefs may have on others. If I am causing my brothers and sisters to stumble and fall, then truly, I am the worst of sinners. Have we "liberals" had our say, and it is now time to tighten up and let "The Episcopal Majority" get back in control and set the house in order? Is the rejection of the Reverend Thew the first sign of hope that "all is not lost?"

Part of true "dialogue" is the willingness to consider the possibility that one's own beliefs are truly, utterly and entirely wrong. I am willing to consider this. If I accept this, where does it leave me? Perhaps it should be the case that, rather than forcing our more traditional brethren to have to play cross-continental episcopal chess, those of us who are on the "other end" need to "drop out" of the discussion, if not the church and keep our non-traditional ideas out of public view at the least, or perhaps out of the church entirely. It would be a sad day for me to leave the community of faith that I love, but if staying causes it harm, would it not be better, if I _truly_ love TEC, if I and those like me would, in humility, "bow out?"

Jeffrey,

Do you really believe in anything goes? That was the object of my "bourgeois and consumerist" remark. I believe that many Episcopal churches have settled for poor boundaries so as not to offend any customers. The Gospel is and always has been offensive. Dogma is meant to preserve the Gospel from dangerous distortion.

I am far more concerned with those who think that we should not have boundaries at all than with those who don't set them in the precise place I would like to. Though I think the historical case that the boundaries should be where I would set them is pretty persuasive.

I am concerned that the pressure not to have doctrinal boundaries leaves us at the mercy of other masters.

My goal isn't to drive anyone out. It is to be clear about what Christianity entails for us. There is a great deal of room for disagreement, but not all positions are recognizably Christian. I don't think I've stated anything more than the clear implications of the baptismal covenant. What does it mean to promise to continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers? At a minimum, not all positions are compatible with respect for legitimate pluralism. The apostles' teaching seems to be a higher standard. Both are implied in the phrase "generous orthodoxy."

Again, I'm honestly interested if you think that lines should never be drawn. (Huge self referential problems here.) Or if it should be drawn in a different place, where should it be drawn, and by whom?

As I read our church's early history, what i see is that Dr. Jeffrey Shy is defending ORTHODOXY and Kevin Thew Forrester is being condemned for his ORTHODOXY. Good people in this conversation protest when we call this an inquisition. I know they're good folk and that they're thinking. But you don't have to go too far beyond the Episcopal Cafe to find calls for Thew Forrester's deposition from the priesthood for his 'heresy,' and over in Christianity Today's in their online comments to an article on KTF someone along with frequent insistence that KTF is not a Christian and the Episcopal Church is too far gone for this to matter, one writer laments that we no longer burn heretics at the stake - we are no fooling playing with fire here.

Christian orthodoxy began as an insistent effort to include and embrace. Something terrible happened along the way. Martin of Tours could tell us part of that story - his effort to protect condemned heretics from execution by the state failed. When we quit trying to keep the breadth of God's work evident and tried to sharpen up our own sense of who was in and who was out, we made a nasty alliance with power and people died.

The original character of the embrace intended in the first series of efforts to put 'orthodoxy' into words is evident in the first seven ecumenical councils. Like Irenaeus, they're fighting to keep the whole of humanity included in God's embrace.

So now it appears that a majority of the Standing Committees of our Episcopal church have rejected the broad sweep of historical, orthodox Christian theology.

Incarnation is the single theme that unites Irenaeus and the seven councils, and as problematic as their involvement with imperial power was, those councils show a consistent effort to define a startling broad, inclusive and generous orthodoxy - that Christ assumed and recapitulated ALL of our nature to bring us into full communion with God; that incarnation, God's taking on the whole of our life and experience in Christ, accomplished union for us. Knowing Jesus divine work for us (a knowing (gnosis) available to the widest breadth of ordinary Christians) was true knowledge so spiritualized, dematerialized, un-incarnational doctrines of higher selves and escape from humanity and the flesh wouldn't cut it. The first two councils gave us what we now call the 'Nicene Creed' insisted on that central point point - that the Logos of God who existed from before time and forever assumed our full humanity to save it and bring it into communion with God (the language is there in Irenaeus and would eventually focus in the term "deification").

In the Second Council, we get a clear teaching of Trinity since the work of our deification by the Spirit is also (second council) wholly God with and for us (in the Spirit) and everywhere we know the Spirit's work - forgiveness of sins, communion of saints, resurrection of the dead, life everlasting.

The third council, making 'Theotokos' legitimate language in prayer (I note in passing that the Council was blessing an un-authorized popular liturgical innovation) said that the identity, the 'who' of Mary's child was God-with-us. She 'gave birth to God the word.'

The Fourth council, Chalcedon insisted on the full humanity of Christ, keeping the language of 'theotokos' and 'Christ our God' balanced with Irenaeus Incarnational principle, 'What he (the Logos) did not assume (take on in the Incarnation) he did not save.'

The fifth council, Constantinople II in 553 was confusing political battle and may be the exception in this list.

The Sixth council insisted Christ had a human and a divine will, both complete, and perfectly united - our will was not to be left out of the Incarnational work of salvation.

And the Seventh Council in 787 insisted that God-with-us meant that our icons of Christ were legitimate windows for prayer (even though the Old Testament texts forbade images).

The entire eight century effort to define 'orthodoxy' focused on the incarnation and God-with-us wholly in Christ as good news of salvation. It's a consistent embrace of full human experience and the the breadth of humanity.

Jesus' death figures in that history, but not in defining a doctrine of the atonement. 'For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven...' is not complete unless he also dies for us as he was born for us, a real death, assuming, sanctifying, taking into divinity even our death.

In the other thread I quoted Will Campbell, that the most radical passage in the whole Bible is, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to God's self, not counting human's faults against them, and God has entrusted to us the news that we are reconciled." That's radically incarnational theology, that God came to us in Christ to accomplish the reconciliation of all and that in Christ it's done. Gnostic? Do a word search and see how that word shows up in the letters of Paul and in the Johannine material. Knowledge, the real thing in New Testament terms, is union with God. Irenaeus calls those who teach esoteric, non-incarnational, 'higher' teachings, false gnostics. Their knowledge isn't the real thing.

Kevin Thew Forrester's offense is that he's read and embraced central (core?) teaching from the New Testament and early Christian teachers, not our neo-scholastic reframing of it, not a later sin-focused explanation of human existence, but the central current of what New Testament early Christian teachers were actually saying. Has he got the whole thing right? God no. None of us do. That's the point of historic orthodoxy, that our high-minded, short-sighted efforts to purify and regularize, and refine the teaching to cut out the messiness, the flesh and blood of incarnation, God's messy embrace of our whole selves and world won't cut it. We don't have answers. We have Jesus and each other.

Jeffrey, I hope you're staying. Your questions, the suffering you see as a neurologist, the fragile, human heart beat of a genuinely incarnational telling of God-with-us, confusing and unresolved as it is, is it. That's orthodoxy.

Somewhere a ways up in this, I thanked Christopher Evans for translating 'orthodoxy' as 'right praise,' and he replied:

'With regard to my use of "right praise" for orthodoxy, I would never pit praise against doctrine. In the early proper prefaces of the East, for example, was used "all the angels offer their undending theologies". Later this became doxologies--their glories. Doctrine is about Who it is we are in relationship and Who it is we can trust.'

I've been thinking about that. What's striking to me today is that the Eastern Church names three saints 'theologians,' John the Evangelist, Gregory Nazianzen and Symeon 'the New Theologian.' All three are poets. When the truth is in our flesh, the telling of it has got to be poetry.

I would like to pick up again on what Fr. Schell notes: What I think is an inaccurate pitting of portions against one another when together they maintain our genereous and wholesome faith.

Core doctrine (dogma, right thinking or rather Anglicanly, sufficient thinking or even better saving Relationship to the Persons to which these lead us) is not opposed to right praising, that is, our common praying. Doctrine is also not opposed to mysticism, that is interiority and contemplation--resting in God (to use St Gregory the Great's term and one I prefer).

The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (as Weil and Wainwright has rightly said, a piece of poetry in its own right, just like our Anaphorae) arises out of vigourous intellectual debates framed within the regular encounter of God in liturgy and in contemplation. St Athanasius, as with the Cappadocians, are rightly considered doctrinal (thinking), liturgical (praising), and mystical (contemplating).

Yes, it was also political, but just because politics were involved does not mean they aren't related to the things of God. On the contrary, God works through the dealings of the polis, through history, including the poor moments. This too is part of a full appreciation for the Incarnation.

I think we are unwisely conflating denial of consents to one whose theology is deemed problemtic with the burning of heretics. These are not in the same category of behavior or treatment. After all, that saint, James DeKoven, was denied consents more than once. He continued to teach and preach, perservering in God's steadfast love. We honor him today as an example to us. And he would wish us to be engaged in vigorous theological examination. To conflate denial of consents with witch hunts and inquisitions suggests to me that we want to stifle, even silence, any theological inquiry in relation to those who would be bishops. I notice around what Fr. Greg calls the "Establishment Left" a continued refusal to recognize that some of us also marked "Moderate-to-Left" had theological concerns rather than mere concerns about the process or his being a practitioner of Za-Zen.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't pause to self-examine, to be self-critical. I'm well aware of poor moments in the history of the Churches. As I wrote at Fr. Haller's recently: History cannot be disappeared by "the Church has always taught" or pointing to a few shining exemplars who stood contrary of the age (and to Church teaching of the time). Indeed, to ignore the failings of the Church, our errors, is to ignore precisely how it is that God brings us to better understanding--through life, politics, debate, conversation, i.e., History. To deny the poor moments of our history is to give up something of the Incarnation.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound as the saying goes...

Bill, I cannot say that I am a defender of "anything goes," and I'm not sure that any serious participant in this discussion would say that either. I cannot endorse the 20th century Nationalist Socialist ideals that led to the Holocaust. I cannot follow the teachings of the KKK and its message of hate and murder. I cannot follow any teaching that fails to follow the "Golden Rule." No, I do not think that "anything goes."

How then can we "decide" what is "too far" and "beyond the pale?" In my non-theologically trained and simplistic understanding, I have found a few principles to be "guiding lights." Oddly, some of them come from St. Paul, a fellow that I in many ways have difficulty liking very much. At his most inspired however, Paul's writings are at times, literally breathtaking. The ultimate "test," to my mind is not the "irreducible minimum" of the Nicene Creed or "mere Christianity" but is the "test of love/charity." Charity/Love is the sacred beating heart of the church and its only essential possession.

In the letter to the Romans, Paul writes:
"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

The second, I hardly need quote: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing..."

Finally, "by their fruits you shall know them..." If the "fruits" of faith, however explained or articulated in words, are love and charity, how can this faith be false? To the degree that _any_ religion, philosophy or orthodoxy puts love and compassion at the center and heart of what it teaches, I am prepared to affirm and endorse it. Yes, I am a pluralist.

My _personal_ problem with the supernatural theistic view of God is that it makes God, for me, into a monster. This is, again, the "problem" of theodicy. I cannot bear a God who is less loving than my own miserable self. The only way that the pain of existence and all the suffering that it entails makes any sense to me, is if the incarnation goes "all the way." God is not _just _ incarnate in Jesus, God is incarnate in the totality of existence. The "incarnation of God" was revealed to us in time in Jesus, but it is a reality that was "before all worlds." God did not only suffer for us in the crucifixion of his son, Jesus; God continues to suffer and is _present_ in and with each and every piece of all that is. God suffers in the grieving of the spouse who has lost her precious husband. God suffers in the kitten that is crushed by the careless driver. God suffers in the death of a star and the decay of an aging tree. In this same way, "creation" was the first "act" of incarnation. The "incarnation" is not something that we achieve like "knowledge" but the deepest of all realities that can only be revealed to and in us as an epiphany. For the church, Christ was/is the epiphany of the "presence" of God. Not the God who comes on clouds of judgement, but the God we can call Abba/Daddy. It is not a reality that we _create_ through self-development, but one to which we can awaken and respond. "Where shall we go to flee" from this miracle? We cannot go anywhere in the universe from the realms of the smallest subatomic particles to the most far quasar where God is "not." Nothing we do can stop the sun from shining, but we can choose to close our eyes to the light. We cannot "achieve" theosis, but can only experience and relate to it.

Will I live forever in "the world to come?" Will I be raised from the dead? Was Jesus bodily raised from the dead? Does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son or just the Father? I don't know. Does it matter? I don't know. I do have this "knowledge" and "hope" that "none of us lives alone, and none of us dies alone. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's."

As "trite" as they may seem to many, the words of Henry Lyte, written as he was dying of tuberculosis ring truer to me than many learned theological studies. It is a shame that we so often edit them down. Some of the best verses, I think, are those that did we rarely sing:

"Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
but as Thou dwell'st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea-
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph, still, if Thou abide with me. "

Our knowledge of "salvation" in the experience of the incarnation is not so much "buying us back from Satan" or "forgiveness of sins" but a "salve" that heals the woes of our existence, the medicine of the Great Physician. Only in "abiding" in Love itself can we know love and love one another. Heresy? I suppose so. I cannot condemn the beliefs of others who live lives of faith and love, however their way of explaining it may differ from my own. God help me, for the logs in my own theological eyes are far too large to allow me to pick the motes from the theological eyes of others. The only "line" that I can draw, is the line of love.

There is no empirical evidence that tightening theological standards for candidates for the episcopate will bring more customers to TEC. Pace Bill I deliberately use the language of consumerism, preferring it to the idol of Anglo-Catholic Marxism. Putting liberals into the closet would, however, match the current denominational desire to put LGBTs back into the closet. How charming! Would that candidates to the episcopate and the priesthood had more training in business, given that many clergy spend most of their time on business matters rather than supernatural stuff.

If to be Christian means to believe in the supernatural, then I reject Christianity. If the supernatural is abandoned to the more primitive fringes of the faith, then it is still possible to advocate a nonorthodox, postmodern Christianity, which has much in common with humanism.

If the words "Christian" and "Episcopal" mean only what certain dogmatic types insist it means, then so be it. I won't use those terms anymore. I am channeling moral philosopher R. M. Hare, who embraced much of the C of E minus the supernatural.

Faith as openness doesn't need content.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Gary,

Faith has always involved both trust and assent. Assent requires content, the so called fides quae creditur.

I am not basing my claims on empirical evidence. Nor am I really concerned with winning more customers for the Episcopal Church. Growth in numbers is at best a byproduct of faithfulness to the apostolic commission. There is plenty of evidence that churches with a firm sense of who they are can grow. This is best understood not as Drucker style, "who is our customer?" management. It is a question of being attractive because you have a secure sense of self, very much like in looking for a mate.

I agree with Ed Friedman who writes about how looking for more and more empirical data does little to change a system in decline. What is called for is recovery of nerve on the part of leaders.

In recent years, with the leadership of our Presiding Bishop, the Episcopal Church has begun to take seriously the threat posed by schismatics. For the good of the Body, sometimes it is necessary to say, you cannot behave that way and continue to be part of this community. As I read its recent history, the House of Bishops is emerging out of decades of dysfunction to deal with bishops who flout their ordination vows and fail to conform to the constitution and canons.

I would argue that with regard to Fr. Forrester, something similar is going on. The Church is also saying that we have doctrinal standards and that we want our leaders to conform to those standards. Will we consistently apply the standards? Probably not. We are still conflicted. I for one am rooting for those who are recovering their apostolic nerve. As I wrote before, there will not be massive Stalinist purges or witch trials. What we will see is the Body of Christ, through a messy process, asserting its own bodily integrity. This will come through countless small but important actions of saying yes to some things and no to others.

The last piece of unfinished business will have to do with the leadership of the Episcopal Church saying a firm "no," to every form of homophobia, living into the norms that we have set for ourselves in the baptismal covenant and the non-discrimination canons. It is here if anywhere that I would fault the recent leadership.

I am more than willing to accept the process, including the presence of persons with whom I disagree, and make the contributions I can to it. Are you?

Jeffrey,

I can certainly affirm most, if not all of what you affirm. My main quarrel is with those like Gary who hold to the incoherent idea of a faith without content. Apophasis and Kataphasis belong together.

One can find a similar critique of an inadequate view of God in Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation:

In all the situations of life the "will of God" comes to us not merely as an external dictate of impersonal law but above all as an interior invitation of personal love. Too often the conventional conception of "God's will" as a sphinx-like and arbitrary force bearing down on us with implacable hostility, leads men to lose faith in a God they cannot find it possible to love. Such a view of the divine will drives human weakness to despair and one wonders if it is not, itself, often the expression of despair too intolerable to be admitted to conscious consideration. These arbitrary "dictates" of a domineering and insensible Father are more often seeds of hatred than of love. If that is our concept of the will of God, we cannot possibly seek the obscure and intimate mystery of the encounter that takes place in contemplation. We will desire only to fly as far as possible from Him and hide from His Face forever. So much depends on our idea of God! Yet no idea of Him, however pure and perfect, is adequate to express Him as He really is. Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than Him.

I've got a question that connects the whole argument over the creeds with the argument about full inclusion.

What's y'all's strategy?

Are you trying to:

A) say that full inclusion is somehow alien to the Church's historic witness in the Scriptures and the creeds

or

B) say that full inclusion is part of the authentic Christian witness to the love of God revealed in Scripture and bounded by the creeds?

Myself, I'm all for B and think that trying to choose and argue A is a big step backwards...

B) Ruth, Isaiah, Acts, "for us and for our salvation."

"A" will lead us to be included in something without the kerygma, the saving relationship, and cut off from those gone before.

D,

B.

G

-- Greg Jones

Ay, Ay, Ay! What a headache!

Can we stay on topic? I see two main threads in this discussion: I will put them as questions.

1. Ecclesia semper reformanda: the Church is always being reformed. Like it or not. Thus the question is, How shall we engage this? We can:

a) Shut our eyes real tight and pretend we are still in living in Nicea and thinking in NeoPlatonic terms, ignoring contemporary philosophy of knowledge, ignoring the development of church teaching throughout history. modern and post modern ages. Ignoring the culturally conditioned nature of all statements. We will be calmer, safer, and deader.

b) We can chuck all that and just take what our own contemporary situation´s says to us about he Transcendent, and how to organize a community in response to it.

c) Or (I favor this one) we can do the very hard theological work of finding out what Nicea etc., meant in its context and "translating" it into today´s language.

I find it shocking to see otherwise liberal, thinking people in our Church stuck in a).

But neither is b) a good option. Without a grounding in and through history, we are just emoting, articulating what feel right to us here and now, and worse, out of conversation with the trans-historical church.

I am thus not advocating the collapse of boundaries or an "anything goes" attitude at all, but careful theological deconstruction and reconstruction in our own time and place. It seems to me KTF is being punished for attempting precisely this, however awkwardly he may have done it.

The second thread relates to liturgical change and development. Liturgia semper reformanda also, unless you want to pave the way for the resulting major upheavals in worship that would be required as a result merely to catch up.

That the Standing Commmission on Liturgy and Music seems unable to grapple with this challenge is a scandal. That our seminary professors of Liturgy and systematic theology can´t or won´t (pace Bill Richardson!) is an even greater scandal.

The question is thus not only whether KTF is orthodox. The question is about change, and yes, the closeted behavior of church leaders that want a don´t ask, don´t tell attitude about theological and theological reform.

My final question is, What have we learned from the experience of coming out of closets about the
a) evil of living in disguise
b) the torture of being one thing and saying another
c) the danger of"safety at all costs" thinking.

It seems increasingly to me that our Church is seriously infected by this dysfunctional inability to stand up for what it is, thinks and feels, --an inability based on fear, and worse, lacks the theological expertise to negotiate its way into the future.

Juan Oliver, Your characterization of a postmodern approach to religion oversimplifies: "b) We can chuck all that and just take what our own contemporary situation´s says to us about the Transcendent, and how to organize a community in response to it." Seems to me that muddling around with what one has today is what everybody is basically doing. The difference is postmodernism chucks the notion of the necessity of a foundation and even the transcendent, which never did any work anyway. Ethical consensus can change and one need not merely emote about intuitions. Moral philosophy can do very well with no appeal to any notion of the transcendent.

Position a, the absolutist, collapses into relativism because each group can claim it has direct access to the transcendent, either through scripture or a Romanticized reading of Nicaea. Position c continues absolutism in disguise because it assumes there is something to be translated into contemporary language, as if the content and the form of a message could be easily separated. I have sympathy for position c but it seems to be more more metaphysics disguised as modernism.

One can chuck the transcendent and lose nothing. An ethical church needn't bother with it.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Juan,

You'd have to specify what you mean by "the culturally conditioned nature of all statements" before I could tell what you mean by that. On some interpretations, this is obvious enough. On others, it is quite debatable.

I'm not at all sure that Nicaea is Platonist in any straightforward sense. We'd have to be far more precise about what is meant here.

Is this hermeneutic of translation really what is going on?

If this is "translation" then much of this approach seems to be the way books get "translated" into movies--retention of the title and maybe character names and that's about it...

I've done enough translating to know that the first step is thoroughly and accurately comprehending the source material on its own terms. Only then can it be faithfully rendered into another tongue. Is this step happening here?

Gary,
One can chuck the transcendent and lose nothing. Um, no, you lose the transcendent and the sense that anything exists and matters outside of yourself. An ethical church needn't bother with it. Ethics without transcendence has nothing to guide it but personal desires.

Things are as they are, whatever we think. If there is no transcendent realm, then we can chuck the idea and nothing really has changed. "The transcendent" is a narrative, a story, but it's not necessary to explain our experience in a world of biology and physics. The wind, not spirits, moves the trees, and consciousness is produced by our physical organism, no soul required. Yes, the transcendent story can express our wonder at existence and give poetic expression to experience of love and community, but things exist and matter outside of ones self, regardless.

I recommend a book by the former bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway -- Godless Morality published in 1999 by Canongate.The blurb: "The use of God in moral debate is so problematic as to be almost worthless. We can debate with one another as to whether this or that alleged claim genuinely emanated from God, but who can honestly adjudicate in such an Olympian debate? That is why it is better to leave God out of the argument and find good human reasons for supporting the system we advocate."

Murdoch Matthew

Richard Holloway is following Immanuel Kant in arguing that God adds nothing to ethics. The beauty of the categorical imperative is that it requires no belief but rather a commitment to ethical consistency. Moral philosopher R. M. Hare has argued likewise. Ethics is about prescribing only rules which can be applied consistently to everybody. A church which says that secret commissions are to be set up to study one class of person is deficient in moral consistency.

There is no need for any appeal to transcendence to argue rationally that secret commissions are wrong. A church without the transcendent might become more ethical.

Gary Paul Gilbert

I am not sure that I can find a terrible level of fault with a "godless" ethics. I would agree that one might find reasons for certain types of behavior based on considerations that involve no appeal to the "supernatural" as it were. As someone who has found supernatural theism problematic, I have "flirted" at times with a purely materialistic view of the world. Much of the world can be satisfactorily understood in purely logical and materialistic terms, but not clearly everything.

The "religious experience" perhaps might also be understood in purely mechanistic terms as central nervous system events as well, but this does not necessarily make it bad or wrong or primitive. There are a number of good books that summarize neuroscientific evidence about what religious practice, especially meditation and the like, does to our brains. Interestingly, there is no evidence that it has a bad effect, and much evidence that it has a good effect. Religious meditative practices, for example, increase activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. This has a secondary effect to decrease limbic system activity (crudely thought of as the reptilian emotional brain where feelings of anger and such arise). Also, interestingly, increased cingulate activity has the effect of improving our ability to communicate and relate with others and to feel compassion and empathy for others. In addition, focusing on negative aspects of self or life appears to have negative affects on brain function, serving to activate amygdalar circuitry leading to excessive fear and other adverse effects. While one can act contrary to one's emotional and mental state by sheer force of will, it would seem to be that it will be easier for us to be compassionate if we cultivate these beneficial aspects of our CNS function.

Interestingly, there are few studies about the negative personal risks of religion, but the _type_ of religious experience does appear to make a difference. For example, persons who feel that they are punished by God, possessed by demons or who experience religious and spiritual discontent have a shortened life expectancy. There is evidence that negative religious experience can result in general poor health and more depression. Persons who are "angry" at God have more medical problems and poorer recovery rates from illness and hospitalization. All of these are particularly seen in persons who have "fear-based" religious traditions.

Does this say anything about whether the supernatural or God "exists?" Of course not, but neither does it negate the possibility. I do not think of God in "personal" terms anymore. I do not expect "answers" to prayer. I do think that my religious _practice_ has improved my personal well-being and, rather than making me less compassionate and ethical, has made me _more_ patient and _more_ compassionate than when I was "merely" atheistic, and neuroscience would tend to suggest that I am right in my subjective opinion.

Would religion be "just as good" without the "supernatural" or at least non-ethical elements of religious practice? I am not sure that there is good evidence to say that this is the case.

Most "godless" ethical systems do have a belief in something transcending the self whether it be shared humanity, a love of virtue, or something else. No, it's needn't be Christian or theistic but it's still a belief in the transcendent.

I have a great regard for the Stoics but still see their ethics as based in a belief in transcendence.Gary and Murdoch seem to argue that even that should be disposed of...

Experience of the Transcendent is an interpretation of certain experience. If you reinterpret that experience, you haven't disposed of it, but understood it in a different way. We swim in a sea of language, which shapes our perceptions -- more than we realize. I don't believe in ghosts, but I can experience ghosts in a good story, a story that suggests it could happen. All things are possible in language, the real mystical realm, but interpretation of our physical experience must defer to evidence.

Your thoughts are real; they affect your actions; they flavor your days; but you can't stub your toe on them.

Murdoch Matthew