The Ecstatic Heresy

Beneath the surface, a powerful heresy has taken hold of the Episcopal Church. The heresy is rarely articulated, but our leadership promotes aspects of it and many in the church resonate to its fundamental claims. For example, whenever you hear people saying that all language for God is symbolic, that the Spirit is guiding the church into new truths, or that our historical and cultural context goes beyond that of the biblical peoples, you could well be in the presence of heresy.

The essence of this heresy is to deny that God can miraculously act and speak. This denial takes many forms, but the first and still most potent form is the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 1834). Schleiermacher is the father of theological liberalism, and such theologians as MacQuarrie and Tillich continue his ideas. It is the theological perspective that has most affected the current leadership of the Episcopal Church. For the sake of a title, I would call this perspective the "ecstatic perspective," a name taken from theologian Paul Tillich. Essentially, this perspective claims that God is known in ecstasy, beyond the language of God's speech.

The ecstatic perspective does not deny the authority of Scripture, the Creeds, or the Prayer Book. These are readily accepted. What is at stake is how these documents are interpreted. Let me give an example, two different ways of interpreting Isaiah 6. One of them I consider orthodox, the other, the ecstatic approach.

Isaiah 6 is the account of Isaiah's call and his vision of God in the temple. While in the temple, Isaiah saw the Lord, "high and lifted up." He heard the Seraphim chanting "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." Then the Lord spoke to Isaiah, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Isaiah replied, "Here am I! Send me." Then the Lord spoke again, "Go and say to this people: Hear and hear, but do not understand; ..."

According to an orthodox understanding, Isaiah literally heard God speak. He understood what God meant when he said, "Whom shall I send?" As a result, Isaiah replied, "Send me." God spoke again, giving Isaiah a message that Isaiah then proclaimed to the people. In this event, there were things that went beyond Isaiah's literal understanding. He could not, for example, comprehend the intense holiness of God, so holy that the Seraphim hid their eyes and Isaiah cried out, "Woe is me! For I am lost ..." Even so, he heard the transcendent God speak. He received a message he could understand with his mind and proclaim to his people. He knew what God meant when he said, "Whom shall I send?"

According to the ecstatic perspective, Isaiah had an encounter with God, but he did not literally hear God speak. Rather than God speaking, Isaiah had a profound sense of God as the transcendent Holy One. Since human beings are irreducibly verbal, Isaiah had to express this ecstatic encounter in words. As a result, his imagination created a dialogue between himself and God. But this dialogue did not mean that God actually spoke. Rather, the statement, "Whom shall I send?" was the result of Isaiah expressing in his own words the power of an experience that made a claim upon him. As a result of this claim, Isaiah did go and proclaim a message to the people. The content of that message, however, was created by Isaiah in his historical and cultural context, while the ecstatic experience that led to the message came from a God whose glory cannot be captured in human words in any literal sense.

What is the critical difference between these two approaches? The critical difference is whether or not God actually spoke to Isaiah. In the orthodox view, God actually spoke. He uttered literal words that Isaiah could understand, and as he spoke, he also revealed himself as Holy and Transcendent. These two ways of being God, transcendent and holy yet present and speaking, correspond to Father and Word or Son, with God the Holy Spirit being that person of the Trinity that realizes the revelation of God's spoken Word in subsequent history.

By contrast, the ecstatic view believes that God is always beyond concepts and language. In this view, one encounters God, but only mystically, beyond the self and God as speaking to each other. From this perspective, God never says anything specific, objective, and concrete. Since God is beyond language, every attempt to verbalize God is partial and inadequate, with the result that differing partial truths, even when they contradict, can be harmonized at a higher level in God. This is why the Presiding Bishop will say,

How we all fit together, how our singularities are made sense of, how our divergent views and different understandings of God's intent are reconciled passes all understanding. All that we can do is to travel on in faith and trust, knowing that all contradictions and paradoxes and seemingly irreconcilable truths which seem both consistent and inconsistent with Scripture are brought together in the larger and all embracing truth of Christ, which, by Christ's own words, has yet to be fully drawn forth and known.(1)

The Presiding Bishop is not speaking in a vacuum. He belongs to a tradition, a powerful theological tradition that is taught in our universities, graduate schools of religion, and seminaries. It is the ecstatic tradition, and theologian George Lindbeck describes it with these words,

For nearly two hundred years this tradition has provided intellectually brilliant and empirically impressive accounts of the religious life that have been compatible with indeed, often at the heart of the romantic, idealistic, and phenomenological existential streams of thought that have dominated the humanistic side of Western culture, ever since Kant's revolutionary Copernican "turn to the subject."(2)

Schleiermacher is the father of this approach. He worked it out in terms of God as "object," and did so for three principle reasons. First, he accepted the conclusions of the philosopher Kant who claimed that God could not be conceived by the mind the way we understand objects. According to Kant objects have properties that we can understand and talk about, things such as color, taste, location in space and time. Further, objects affect us and we affect them. God, for Kant and then Schleiermacher, is never an object. He is not an electron, a tree, a cat, nor can his will be captured in words. He cannot directly affect us, nor us him. He is only present mystically. Secondly, Schleiermacher lived in a culture profoundly affected by science. Science deals with objects, how they affect each other in space and time. If God is never objective, if God never has effects on other objects, then science and faith would belong to two separate realms. Faith would be concerned with a non objective mystical experience, science with objects in space and time. They would never contradict. One result of this was that Schleiermacher did not believe that God did miracles. If God did miracles, this would make God like other objects, affecting things in space and time. Thirdly, historical studies were showing that all knowledge, including the knowledge of God, is relative to its cultural and historical context. Schleiermacher embraced this and claimed that the mystical experience of God was verbally expressed according to one's cultural and historical context. This lead to the possibility that all religions have the same mystical core, yet express it differently according to their differing cultural contexts.

By contrast, orthodoxy believes that God speaks, that he has miraculous effects in space and time, and that he has spoken words that hold in all cultural and historical contexts. This orthodox claim comes from the fact that God the Word became flesh, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1;14) By becoming flesh God lived, spoke eternal truths that are not historically relative, did miracles, was crucified, and was miraculously raised from the dead. As this happened, God the Son revealed the transcendent Father who cannot be known unless he speaks his Word Jesus Christ. Such ideas require a doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation, doctrines that were never developed by Schleiermacher in an orthodox fashion.

These two ways of understanding God, the ecstatic and the orthodox, underlie the theological division in the church today. These differences are not always clearly articulated, and many persons have vaguely adapted portions of each. When the matter is thought through, however, it can be seen that these two views differ in virtually every dimension of the Christian faith. I have prepared a comparative summary showing these differences. The ecstatic perspective is listed under "E," while the orthodox position is listed under "O." Here is the summary.

A Comparative Summary

E1. In the ecstatic view, God in himself or in revelation as Word is never objective. He is always transcendent.
O1. In the orthodox view, God is transcendent as Father, but God the Word becomes objectively present as the words and deeds of Jesus Christ.

E2. Theological statements use language and literal language refers only to objective realities. Therefore, in the ecstatic view, language applied to God is always symbolic since God is ineffable.
O2. In the orthodox view, theological statements can literally refer to God the Word who became objective. This body of knowledge is the "faith once for all delivered to the saints." Theological language can also contain symbolic aspects since the Word reveals God the Father who is holy and transcendent.

E3. In the ecstatic view, Scripture is the history of religious experience given objective content according to the social and historical forms of ancient Israel and the primitive church. Consequently, one must first hear the "Word within the biblical words" in order to sense the Divine that transcends all historical contexts. Then, once glimpsed, the Word within the biblical words is expressed in contemporary categories. The concept of "contemporary categories" allows experience to become a norm transforming Scripture.
O3. In the orthodox view, the biblical Word has objective content in union with the specific cultural context in which the Word is spoken. Therefore, there is no "Word within the biblical words," but the biblical words including their cultural forms are the Word written. The Holy Spirit reveals the meaning of this original objective Word in other cultural contexts, but never by detaching it from its original cultural context. Experience is not a norm alongside Scripture.

E4. In the ecstatic view, the task of theology is to reinterpret the faith as relevant to new cultural contexts. Faith is evolving since culture evolves.
O4. In the orthodox view, the task of theology is first and foremost to clarify and preserve the faith once delivered to the saints and to transfer it intact to each succeeding generation. Certain aspects of revelation never evolve.

E5. In the ecstatic view, God is not personal since personhood requires objectivity, a person over against us that we can see, hear, understand, and affect. Since God is never objective, God is never personal.
O5. In the orthodox view, God is personal, revealing his objective self in the Word, the Son who became incarnate in the man Jesus.

E6. In the ecstatic view, God does no miracles since God cannot objectively affect the world at particular points. Miracle working would make God an object and, as Tillich would claim, this is blasphemy.
O6. In the orthodox view, God does miracles when God becomes objective in the world of time and space. Every act of God is miraculous, including revelation in which God addresses the mind and will.

E7. In the ecstatic view, God never speaks a "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not" since this implies objectivity in God's Word. Therefore, ethics usually concerns a principle, love for example, which receives its concrete realization according to the forms of a given culture. Since cultures evolve, so do ethics.
O7. In the orthodox view, God speaks and his Word is the ethical command. Certain biblical commands are valid for all time.

E8. In the ecstatic view, the Holy Spirit guides the church as it reformulates the mystical sense of the divine in new theological and ethical categories according to new cultural contexts.
O8. In the objective view, the Holy Spirit witnesses to an objective and decisive revelation once and for all given in Jesus Christ and preserved in Scripture.

E9. In the ecstatic view, doctrines are secondary. Doctrines do not refer to God but to feeling, the depth of reality, the horizon of being. Therefore doctrines can be radically reinterpreted in terms of ecstatic categories.
O9. In the orthodox view, doctrines reveal God. They can be variously understood, they reveal mysteries, but they cannot be reinterpreted in terms of categories that have no objective reference to God.

E10. In the ecstatic view, the doctrine of the atonement loses its objective meaning since Jesus' act on the cross did not objectively change our relationship to God. Rather than altering our relation to God, Jesus is one who inspires us to encounter the "justifying holy" in our own experience and act accordingly.
O10. In the orthodox view, Jesus' atonement altered the world's objective relationship to God.

E11. In the ecstatic view, sacraments express the identity and on going life of the church.
O11. In the objective view, sacraments are the means of supernatural grace by which God changes people.

E12. In the ecstatic view, all religions are ultimately one since the faith of each is an expression of the holy or ineffable in the concrete forms of a particular culture.
O12. In the orthodox view, the particulars of a religion matter, and therefore, the religions are divided by their objective content.

E13. In the ecstatic view, the ascent to God is an ecstatic union beyond the objective boundary of self and God. At this highest level, dialogue, give and take with God, disappears. All is bliss.
O13. In the orthodox view, spirituality is an encounter with God, mediated by Word and Sacrament, in which God and the person know each other as distinct selves who speak to and affect each other.

E14. In the ecstatic view, those who affirm a particular piety or religious preference constitute the church. The ultimate sin is schism, to claim ultimacy for one's own objective beliefs while denying that the beliefs of others are equally expressive of the Ineffable.
O14. In the orthodox view, the church is constituted by those who have been called by the incarnate Jesus Christ and conformed to that Word by the Spirit. The ultimate sin is not schism, but heresy, deviation from an objectively revealed tradition.

E15. In the ecstatic view, science and faith can never be in conflict since each belongs to a distinct realm. Since God has no effect on objects, science can and does tell us whether such things as the empty tomb, bodily resurrection, and virgin birth really happened. Furthermore, since science can show how certain human behaviors are affected by prior causes, scientific inquiry is relevant for ethics.
O15. In the orthodox view, science cannot determine the content of faith, even in objective matters such as the empty tomb or the Virgin Birth. Nor can science specify behavior if it conflicts with revelation.

E16. In the ecstatic view, the mystical sense of God is given objective form by consciousness, which in turn is shaped by political, social, and economic factors. Therefore, the Infinite can be expressed in the various political and social movements of the day. As a result, the gospel is often turned into a political program championed by the church.
O16. In the orthodox view, the Kingdom of God has objective enduring significance that stands over against all contemporary social and political programs. Frequently, however, so called traditionalists do identify religion with political movements.

Prior to Kant, Schleiermacher, and the scientific revolution, all orthodox theologians believed in the bodily resurrection. All knew that God was transcendent, yet all held that God revealed supernatural, objective, saving knowledge in Jesus Christ. Suffice it to say, in light of the great theological tradition of the church, the ecstatic perspective is a heresy. It is a disease that has corrupted our church and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

The Necessity of Theology

Ecstatics do not deny the Scripture, the Creeds, or the great documents of our tradition. They do not throw them away. They love them. For them the Scriptures are the foundation of our faith, the liturgy resonates with the Ineffable, the Articles of Religion are a cultural treasure. They simply revise these sources along ecstatic lines. That is why it is appropriate to call them "revisionists." They revise Scripture, Creeds, and the faith from an alien non trinitarian perspective that has no sense of the incarnation.

For example, in the present conflict over sexual ethics, revisionists reduce the concrete particulars of biblical ethics to a general concept of love and reinterpret love according to changing cultural norms. They think they have the authority to do this because they consider the resurrection to be a symbol for the presence of the risen Christ in the Church. From there it is but a short step to believing that they are endowed with the qualities of his resurrected life, and therefore, qualified to speak Christ's new truth in new circumstances. And once these ecstatic assumptions are applied to Scripture, Scripture itself reveals the truth of these claims. I think of Hooker,

When they of the family of love have it once in their heads that Christ does not signify any one person but a quality whereof many are partakers; that to be raised is nothing else but to be regenerated or endowed with the said quality; and that when separation of them which have it from them which have it not is here made, this is judgment; how plainly do they imagine that the Scripture everywhere speaketh in the favour of that sect. (Hooker, Lawes, Preface, III, 9.)

Since the revisionists honor Scripture and tradition, they can worship, study, pray, teach, and promote their agenda shoulder to shoulder with the orthodox while holding utterly different conceptions of the faith. Only when we get to something practical, revision of our language for God, sexual norms, evangelism to those of other faiths, eucharistic hospitality, do we notice any real differences. As a result, it is not enough to simply say that Jesus called God "Father," or that Scripture condemns homosexuality, or that Jesus commands us to evangelize, or that the universal tradition of the church requires baptism prior to Eucharist. The revisionists know all this. They relativize these claims by viewing them as partial expressions of an evolving faith that progressively expresses the Indescribable. To effectively address their perspective, one must penetrate their often conflicting and hazy statements, articulate their critical theological assumptions, compare them with Scripture and the great theological tradition, and reach conclusions regarding truth and falsity, orthodoxy and heresy. Anything less, anything less than real theology, will fail.

Needless to say, real theology scarcely happens in the Episcopal Church today. How could it? Revisionists believe that theology and doctrine are secondary (see E9 above). Why do theology when the real truth is something we experience in the depths of ourselves, something beyond the particulars of our petty concerns? What matters is our sense of the Sublime. Given that fact, what should we do? Share. Share our experiences. Then, sooner or later, we'll come to the profound realization that our differences are merely semantic, that we really do love one another, and that we are all climbing up the same mountain. This will lead nowhere. Only if there is objective Truth can we make meaningful statements, go anywhere, do anything. Only if we see the present confusion as God's judgement upon us will we have a chance of repentance. Only if our seminaries, our bishops, clergy, and laity, understand our differences in light of Scripture and classical theological tradition is there any hope for us. Until then, our deliberations are like "springs without water and mists driven by a storm." 2 Pet 2:17

Endnotes

1. "Glimpses of the Eternal Design," The Presiding Bishop's Column, September, 1998.
2. George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984, p. 21.

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
March, 2003