New Yorker
April 19, 2006, 2:53 pm
Posted by John McGreevy
I recommend the smart article by Peter Boyer in the current New Yorker on the continuing tension within the Episcopal church over the ordination of Eugene Robinson as a bishop. The piece is notable for its empathetic treatment of both Robinson and those American and African Anglicans convinced that ordination of practicing homosexuals not only violates scripture (although Boyer underplays, I think, the nuances on this issue offered in contemporary Biblical scholarship) but constitutes a Western intolerance of traditional Christian views, even an American-based “neo-imperialism.”
Thanks very much for the link to this article.
As a former Episcopalian, I think Boyer captured the discomfort Western Anglicans feel with “excesses” in their faith.
Griswold’s comments about African Anglicanism extolled the “energy” in those churches but not their understanding of Einstein and all that. The word “savage” kept coming to mind, even if Griswold didn’t say it.
But most Episcopalians feel equally uncomfortable with Spong’s in-your-face rejection of orthodox theology. Spong is a loose cannon, a Bishop James Pike waiting to happen.
In reality, most Episcopal parishes find their own theological “comfort zone” and, so long as they’re using the Book of Common Prayer and their priests and deacons are duly ordained, they remain largely unmolested by diocesan officials. The extent to which many parishes feel independent of the diocese, much less ECUSA, is amost congregational in nature.
However, what I find most notable about Boyer’s story are the final few paragraphs in which he reveals that Robinson has recently been treated for alcoholism.
How interesting that Robinson’s sexuality is considered a bigger impediment to fulfilling his episcopal functions than his drinking problem.
I’m curious about ranking Bishop Spong, whom I have to confess I regard as trivial at best, above the late Bishop Pike who seemed to my young self a competent and committed, if rather eccentric, bishop.
Spong may not be the thinker that Pike was, but the two have had similar effects on the Episcopal Church.
Rev. Pierre Whalon wrote a thoughtful article for anglicansonline a couple of years ago suggesting that the Pike affair and the bad press it garnered (a “heresy trial” in 1966 struck a lot of people as medieval and benighted) scared ECUSA away from coming up with theological resolutions to issues raised by Pike and those who came after him, notably Spong.
Whalon argues that theological resolution of these issues is necessary and can hardly fray ECUSA more than it is already. Read it here if you want:
http://anglicansonline.org/resources/essays/whalon/TheologyBishops.html
There might be a case against trivilizing Spong. It may not be that Spong is not the thinker Pike was. It may be that our ‘old’ self may not take to newness. Spong appears to appeal to some young people who otherwise are not being reached. If one reads Spong and perseveres through the antagonistic titles one may find that he is saying much the same as some contemporary theologians. For example Spong rambles on for pages about how prayer may not work because God works through the existing order. Then he admits after all those pages that he still prays because he has not found another way. Others like Schillibexx say that we used to have processions to protect us against lightening but now we get lightening rods etc. When all the nuances are sorted out there may not be many differences. So why antagonize everybody? We need to be shook up, but is that the only way?
We do need to find the common ground and separately work on the disagreements. The differences seem to predominate any way. Is it because there is more vested in the differences than the unity in truth?
Bill, you raise an interesting point: to what end does Spong provoke?
My guess is that Spong has tried to give voice to newer communicants in the Episcopal Church in the past 25 years.
Many Episcopal parishes in the 1980s tried to attract new members by presenting themselves as alternatives to Fundamentalist Christianity, which was viewed as uninformed, illogical, over-politicized and mean-spirited.
This certainly made the church attractive to me when I was trying to sort out my own beliefs and sought baptism. And it was also attractive to many homosexual Christians. Remember that this was when AIDS was still a “gay disease” and televangelists were asserting it was God’s judgment against homosexuality.
Numbers in the Episcopal Church didn’t grow in the 1980s and 90s. But the make-up of parishes changed radically in some places. In the three parishes I belonged to, you saw older, generally orthodox Episcopalians somewhat beseiged by younger seekers and converts from other religious traditions demanding that the church prove how un-Fundamentalist it really was.