I stand, where I stand, until the Lord calls me from it. My misery or my happiness is not an issue. His will is. I have called upon the Lord to show me the path and help me to walk it. There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. I am walking the path, having to call on the Lord at every fork in the road. I know not where it leads; there are no hard and fast deadlines in time, but there is a hard and fast faith to which I cling.
If the Lord calls me to question most heartily the path you would lead the Episcopal Church down, so be it. If I am to be a witness against you, yours, and your agenda, so be it. If I, a cradle Episcopalian, stand against you who joined the church out of rebellion to your former churches, then that is my role. You have taken the freedom Anglicanism provides to a Christian and gone wacko with it. If you were a cradle Episcopalian (and I just have no explanation for Susan Russell), you might understand this. There were always bounds to that freedom; I pity you were never taught this, that what cannot be proved by scripture cannot be a part of the Church. There is still a valuable place for Anglican Christianity in the world. If TEC chooses to forfeit it, may others take up its cause, for it is worthy.
In other words, people need Jesus, not the Jesus seminar.
I wish I could say I wish peace upon your houses. But I wish Jesus upon your houses, despite the complications that brings.
Jan Nunley, the former head of communications for 815, wrote this commendable response:
I too stand where I stand, Brad, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and where I stand is not liberal or conservative: it is in joy and wonder at the empty tomb of Christ, with brothers and sisters all over the world, rejoicing in the power of His mighty Resurrection. "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow!"
I did not ask to be who and what I am, and neither who or what I am is defined by any single aspect of my life, save one: I am defined for eternity solely by what I have chosen to be--and that is a follower of the risen Jesus Christ.
I thank God that in mercy I was born in a time and place where I can be the beneficiary of the wrestling of faithful Christians with the perspectives and interpretations of other faithful Christians in ages past. Truly, "we feebly struggle, they in glory shine/But all are one in thee, for all are thine/Alleluia!"
Because I stand at an empty tomb, every other thing is relative to that fact. It is to the Risen Lord that I cling, not to particular dogmas or doctrines, creeds, canons or constitutions. These are guidelines, and in the main they are good ones: I study them gladly, and I follow them gratefully. But like you, Brad, I call on the Lord at every turn for guidance, and that may put me on a road less traveled by the rest of the world--and by you. My call is to be faithful; I leave it to God to be right.
I did not join the Episcopal Church out of rebellion, but in gratitude for the Anglican Way as I received it at a time when I most needed it: a Communion catholic, reformed and always reforming in the light which God gives her for the times...a place of common prayer and uncommon grace...a place where head and heart may be gladly joined, where "our selves, our souls and bodies" are offered daily for service, to the end that God's reign of justice and peace for all creation may be established "on earth as it is in heaven."
With Article VI, I agree that "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." It is for that reason that I contend with those who have essentially taken the position that heterosexuality, in orientation or practice, is necessary for salvation. (The story of the Incarnation, which we celebrate at the coming season of Christmas, should be enough to disabuse any Christian of such a notion--unless you disavow the Virgin Birth!)
I agree that "people need Jesus, not the Jesus seminar." And I would add that people need Jesus, not Alpha or any other program for reducing God to a slogan or a system.
I wish Jesus upon your house, and I do so not in spite of, but because of the complications that brings. Let us rejoice and be glad in them, for it is in experiencing uncertainty in our own human passions and designs that we are brought closer to the heart of God!
I have to say that I think Jan's answer is fantastic.
7 comments:
Jan's response speaks for me also, and not only am I a cradle Episcopalian, but my family have been Anglican in America since colonial times. The Episcopal Church has always found itself in new and evolving circumstances, and has always sought to bear faithful Christian witness to and within those circumstances.
Vicki McGrath+
As a cradle Episcopalian with priests and bishops in my family tree, I value the Anglican way, i.e., the continuing work of living out the Good News in each of our contexts. It has been my experience as a parish priest that it is often the cradle Episcopalians, and not those who joined the church more recently, who are more open to change, who are not likely to confuse what we have done for the past decade or so with sacred tradition.
I think that both Brad and Jan make important points.
I take issue with Jan, however, when she says: "I am defined for eternity solely by what I have chosen to be--and that is a follower of the risen Jesus Christ."
Instead, I would say: "I am defined for eternity solely by what God has done for me in Jesus Christ and which I have received through the grace of Holy Baptism. By God's grace, I am sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own forever."
The difference between a voluntarist understanding ("what I choose to do") and a sacramental understanding ("what God chooses to do by sure and certain means") of what defines us for eternity strikes me as deeply and substantively significant.
Bryan, good point there. I didn't catch it - and perhaps it wasn't meant as interpreted.
You could be right, Greg, that Jan did not mean it as interpreted. As stewards of "The Word," perhaps we all do well to be careful in choosing the words we use to say what we're trying to say about our faith. Words matter.
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