An Egregious Theological Failure

An Egregious Theological Failure

Not long ago, the House of Bishop's Theology Committee gave their report on the thorny subject of homosexuality.(1) This report was the result of a call by the House of Bishops, issued at the last General Convention, to study the matter of human sexuality. As a result, a committee was formed, composed of "six bishops and seven academic theologians of the Episcopal Church who represent diverse theological viewpoints." Of the thirteen members, eight had earned a Ph.D., four had the D.D., and one a D. Min. In terms of education, this committee represents theology at the highest level within the Episcopal Church. The committee met for eighteen months before issuing their report that they had adopted unanimously.

This report was welcomed by at least two conservative groups within ECUSA, the American Anglican Council and Episcopalians United for Reformation, Renewal and Reformation. These organizations were thankful that the report asked that the matter of homosexuality not be legislated at the forthcoming National Convention. At the same time, however, it must be understood that the issue is not simply homosexuality, nor its legislation, but rather, fundamental theological divisions that now divide the Church. Unless these divisions are addressed, we will make little headway on homosexuality and a host of other issues. The report of the Bishop's Committee obscured rather than clarified the relevant theological issues. I shall now show this.

The report was divided into eight sections. It began with a Preface followed by the report's defining issue, the matter of homosexuality and the church's response. The third section affirmed the authority of Scripture and the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. It was noted that the Creeds "help us to interpret and live into the saving story of Scripture." The remaining sections present some general observations on sexuality, including one brief section that describes its purpose from a biblical point of view. Most of this material was descriptive, outlining the various positions on sexuality held in the church along with attendant questions. Finally, it was claimed that the question of homosexuality should not be settled by legislation at the present time.

In spite of the fact that this document was a report by a theological committee, the report contained very little in the way of real theology. A report with theological content would take the best representative samples of the positions alluded to in the report, lay bare their fundamental theological assumptions, compare them with each other, and measure them against Scripture and the theological tradition of the church. This did not occur. Further, although the report claimed Scripture and Creeds as ultimate norms, these had little relevance to the rest of the report. Scripture was occasionally proof-texted, but Scripture was never interpreted theologically in light of the Creeds. In short, this report by a theological committee was essentially devoid of theology.

There is nothing unusual about this. When it comes to sexuality, there simply isn't much theological analysis in the Episcopal Church today. Let me give some examples. In 1987, Timothy Sedgwick, presently a professor of ethics at Virginia Seminary, published a book on Sacramental Ethics. That text contained significant teaching on sexuality, but no awareness of how the doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation might have a bearing on sexual ethics. In 1991, the faculty of Virginia Seminary published a series of conservative essays entitled A Wholesome Example. It contained biblical, pastoral, and historical material relating to sexuality, but no theological section. In 1995, the House of Bishops published a pastoral study document on sexuality entitled Continuing the Dialogue. It contained no section on doctrine. The 1996 text, Our Selves, Our Souls and Bodies, promoted a revisionist view of sexuality. It had no sustained theological analysis. Prior to the last National Convention, the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music published a document favoring the development of liturgies for blessing same sex unions. It contained no theological section. The American Anglican Congress published a rebuttal to that report. It contained no theological analysis. Recently, the Diocese of New York published an essay on how to interpret Scripture, an essay designed to use Scripture to promote homosexual unions. Its underlying theology was never articulated in the context of orthodox doctrine. In short, the report of the Committee is of a piece with theology in the Episcopal Church. It was devoid of real theological content.

Although the Bishop's Theology Committee Report was essentially descriptive and non theological, it did make a few significant claims. One of the most important had to do with warrants for separating from the Church. After mentioning the foundational doctrines of Trinity and Christology, the committee states,

It is our conviction that only those issues that undermine these foundational doctrines and commitments should constitute grounds for separation within the Church.

We believe that disunity over issues of human sexuality in general, and homosexuality in particular, needs to be taken seriously by all members of the Church. And diverse opinion needs to be respected. But we do not believe these should be Church dividing issues.

Here we have the notion that division in the church would be warranted if there were fundamental disagreements concerning the "foundational doctrines" of Trinity and Christology, but no division is warranted over "human sexuality in general, and homosexuality in particular." This implies that differing views of human sexuality will not undermine foundational doctrines. This claim signals a failure to grasp the nature of theological truth. All doctrinal and moral issues are interrelated. It is frequently the case that error at some point of doctrine or morals will lead to error at the level of fundamental doctrine. Let me give some examples.

Not too long ago a committee of the Diocese of New York published a paper entitled "Let the Reader Understand." It claimed to show how one could believe in Scripture, Creeds, and tradition, and yet interpret these sources to allow homosexual unions. They did this by developing a picture of God which they used to interpret Scripture. According to this picture, God is "dynamic, vital and mobile," "free to descend upon and depart from the holy habitation as he chooses." This allowed the committee to assume that God was constantly and progressively revealing himself. Or, to state the matter negatively, God never became attached to any earthly reality in a final and definitive manner valid for all time. The committee needed this picture of God to claim that God was not bound by past revelation which might deny homosexual behavior. This would leave the church free to receive new revelations that would legitimate homosexual unions.

When this picture of God is applied to Jesus Christ, it implies that God was "mobile" in regard to Jesus Christ, "free to descend upon and depart" as God might will. The committee never really said this. They never really applied their picture of God to Jesus Christ. If they had, the implications of their perspective would have been obvious. That obvious implication is a heresy, the docetic heresy. The Docetists didn't believe that God became incarnate in the man Jesus. They believed in a "mobile" God, one that freely descended upon Christ at his baptism and departed prior to crucifixion. They abolished the truth that God had revealed himself absolutely and eternally in Jesus Christ. Further, since the New Testament plainly teaches that Christ is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, denying the eternal revelation in Christ undermines the Old Testament revelation as well. That clearly is what the New York Committee intends. They relativized the whole of Scripture, including the Old Testament moral legislation, leaving the Church free to receive a new revelation regarding homosexuality.

Further, it order to validate contemporary revelations, it was necessary for the New York Committee to claim that new revelations given by the Spirit to the Church have the same authority as the revelation of Jesus Christ given in Scripture. In their view, the revelation in Christ is nothing more than a moment in an evolving revelation given to the people of God first to Israel, then Christ, and now the Church. As a result, the work of God the Son in incarnation is blended with the work of the Spirit in the Church. What happened in Christ is simply prior to what happens in the Church, but not ultimately distinct from it. This is the modalistic impulse, a failure to distinguish between the external works of Father, Son, and Spirit, and by implication, the failure to distinguish between the Father, Son, and Spirit within God. In short, the New York Committee's need to validate homosexual unions took them rather quickly into theological deep waters, and once there, they covertly advanced trinitarian and christological heresy. In another essay, I have substantiated this claim in detail.

Timothy Sedgwick, professor of theological ethics at Virginia Seminary, also favors homosexual unions. Like the New York Committee, he also jettisons the essentials of the faith. I have discussed aspects of his work in an essay entitled, "It's Not Just Sex, It's Everything." There I showed that Sedgwick doesn't believe that God can speak. If he believed this, he would have to face the fact that God has spoken in Scripture and that Scripture prohibits homosexual actions. His denying God's speech, however, is another way of saying he doesn't really believe that God spoke his eternal Word in the words and deeds of Jesus Christ, which is tantamount to denying that God the Word became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Since he doesn't believe in Incarnation, he doesn't really believe the Father sent the Son, and therefore he has no use for the doctrine of the Trinity. In other words, his acceptance of homosexual unions is integrally related to his abandoning fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.

I could go on, but the point is clear: I have never read a single proponent of homosexual unions who, upon theologically justifying their position, did not also deny or ignore fundamental doctrines of the faith. I think, for example, of the Presiding Bishop, John Spong, William Countryman, Michael Johnston, and Carter Heyward.(2)
In light of the foregoing, there is good evidence for an intimate relation between fundamental doctrines and one's position on sexuality. If the Bishop's Committee wishes to demonstrate the contrary, they would need to start from an orthodox position and theologically develop it in two opposing directions, one affirming and another denying the validity of homosexual unions. They didn't do that in their report. Apparently they had the resources to do so. The committee represented a wide spectrum of beliefs on sexuality, from conservative to liberal, and presumably all of them were orthodox. Here is how Bishop Howe, a member of the committee, expressed the matter.

We're Christians we're Nicene Christians, we're creedal Christians, we're orthodox Christians it [the report] restates that and says, within that context, we hold really divergent opinions about matters of sexuality. Our present conclusion is that equally orthodox Christians who are equally committed to the Scripture can come to very different opinions about these matters.(3)

Another committee member, Bishop Catherine Roskam of New York made the following comment,

We understood that our paper would be read throughout the Anglican Communion, and it attempts to disabuse people of the notion that those people who support blessing of same sex unions don't believe in the Resurrection, don't use Scripture in other words, it was a statement that we're really all operating from the same foundation, and operating from the same foundation in good conscience, we end up in different places on this issue.(4)

In their report, the committee also stated,

Our present conclusion is that equally sincere Christians, equally committed to an orthodox understanding of the Faith we share, equally looking to Scripture for guidance on this issue, are deeply divided regarding questions with respect to homosexuality.

If these statements be true, if a commitment to orthodox doctrine and scriptural authority allows one to affirm or deny homosexual unions, then the morality of homosexual unions belongs to what Richard Hooker calls "things indifferent." According to Hooker, the Church has the right to legislate matters indifferent. Even so, the Bishop's Committee recommended that the "Episcopal Church refrain from any attempt to "'settle' the matter legislatively." Rather than legislation, the church must, "for a seasons at least," bear the pain of disagreement on this complex and unresolved issue. In time, however, if the Committee be true to its beliefs, it would need to legislatively affirm the right of all homosexuals to a blessing in the church for the committee has essentially claimed that neither doctrine nor Scripture convincingly deny it.

I do not personally know the theology of the different members of the bishop's Committee. If they are like many in our Church, they may well have been affected by what I call the ecstatic heresy. I discussed this heresy in a prior essay. There I claimed that the "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." In other words, those who believe in or resonate to ecstatic claims can be "equally sincere Christians, equally committed to an orthodox understanding of the Faith," and "equally looking to Scripture," yet operate with erroneous conceptions of God that drive them to conclusions that violate the faith. Whether that happened within the Bishop's Committee is unknown because the report doesn't articulate the fundamental theological assumptions that govern their interpretations of Scripture and doctrine.

As it stands, however, the report does present a number of ecstatic statements, statements the conservative members of the committee should never have approved. Chief among them are statements that promote the ecstatic perspective on ethics. Elsewhere, I described that perspective with these words,

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.

In line with the ecstatic perspective, the Bishop's Committee affirmed D039, a resolution of the recent General Convention. This resolution understands ethics in terms of abstract forms, such things as "fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication." Here is the Bishop's Committee, accepting D039 without criticism.

The Episcopal Church is committed "to support" those whose relationships of sexual intimacy are other than those of marriage. As noted above, it calls all such persons, whether heterosexual or homosexual, to standards of life long commitment, "characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication" and the kind of "holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God" (Resolution D039, from the 73rd General Convention). The question remains, does extending this support include pronouncing the Church's blessing on such relationships?

Ethics as abstract forms normally goes hand in glove with the notion that these abstractions are given particular content according to changing cultural conditions and new circumstances. The Bishop's Committee also makes those affirmations. They think there is a "new and emerging learning" about homosexuality. This claim easily leads to the notion that the Church can then fill the abstract forms with new content derived from the "new and emerging learning." These two moves, abstract ethical forms given content by new circumstances, are common in the revisionist literature. An appeal to the Spirit is also commonplace, for it is presumed that the Spirit leads the Church into a truth that moves beyond the gospel once and for all given to the saints. Consider the following quotations from the report.

In relation to new and emerging learning about the experience of homosexually oriented persons, our Church especially struggles with two related questions: ...

Our age has experienced new challenges in the understanding of the meaning of sexuality and its ordering for the good of persons and society.

The Christian community, from generation to generation, must address the new spiritual and moral concerns that emerge in the experience and understanding of God's people.

We offer this work to the House of Bishops and the Church, to the glory of God and in faith that, as our Lord promised, the Holy Spirit continues to guide the Church into all truth (John 16:13).

In regard to sexual ethics, it is debatable as to whether or not there is anything new. Hooker, for example, believed that the moral law, and this includes sexuality, was eternal, valid for all times and places. A similar perspective lies behind Article VII of the Articles of Religion, that the moral law of the Old Testament continues into the New, valid for all time. The conservatives should never have allowed the preceding statements to pass without challenge.

More examples of ecstatic content in the report could be given, but I will conclude with one additional quotation, the prayer given by the Bishop's Committee at the end of their report.

Guide us, O God, in our continuing consideration of human sexuality to be responsive to and respectful of all persons, their ideas and experience. Convert and empower us to listen penitently and, with humility, to speak honestly with one another. Set our disagreements within the mutual knowledge and love which we experience in you as Holy Trinity. Whenever we experience fear, anger, or mistrust with one another, give us new hope and consolation in your never failing love for your children. In all things, let us submit our ideas to your thoughts, our desires to your will, and our actions to your purpose. In our diversity as members of the Body of Christ, help us find our way, through Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer. Amen.

As much as anything, this is an ecstatic prayer. It does not address God as Father. It does not ask God to enable us to be obedient to his Word in Scripture, but rather, seeks God's guidance so that we may become "responsive to and respectful of all persons, their ideas and experience." The real emphasis here is community experience, not Scripture. We are not being asked to "listen penitently and, with humility," to God's Word, but to "one another." The Holy Trinity is mentioned, but we have no idea what that implies. It could mean what the Presiding Bishop calls an "unceasing circle dance," a concept that does not reflect an orthodox understanding of the Trinity.(5) As in the first sentence, that we listen to one another, the prayer also seeks God's help for our "fear, anger, or mistrust with one another." Again, the real emphasis is not Scripture, but community. This is a typical ecstatic move. How we are to know God's thoughts, will and purpose, is not mentioned, but community experience rather than Scripture is a likely possibility given the prior sentences. The prayer asks that God "help us find our way." This is a valid request, but for ecstatics, the "way" often means the path forward as the Church goes beyond Scripture with new revelation in the present. Finally, the prayer ends "through Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer." It is not clear that the Jesus named here is the one revealed in Scripture. It could be the ecstatic Jesus, the one who, to quote a typical ecstatic, "is ultimately assembled out of the lives and hopes of believing communities and faithful individuals."(6) An ecstatic Jesus would be more consistent with the prayer as a whole.

On the surface, the prayer seems innocent enough, and any believer could say it. But it is so constructed that an ecstatic believer could also say it, and give its words a meaning that is not at all orthodox. Given the emphasis of the prayer, the lack of theological awareness in the report as a whole, and the ecstatic assumptions prevalent in the Church, the prayer appears more ecstatic than orthodox. Everyone on the committee probably thought it perfectly orthodox, but the theological perspective that gave rise to the prayer may not be orthodox at all.

Finally, in spite of the fact that the Bishop's Committee recognized that the "Creeds and the great Ecumenical Councils of the Church thus help us to interpret and live into the saving story of Scripture," they did not apply the Creeds to an interpretation of Scripture. Even their appeal to the Creeds suggests an erroneous idea, that Scripture is primarily a "story" rather than the Word of God. How to interpret Scripture in light of the Creeds will be the subject of my next essay. Among others, I will draw on Irenaeus, one of the first to recognize that Scripture must be interpreted in light of the regula, the creedal formulation of orthodox doctrine.

In conclusion, the report of the House of Bishop's Theology Committee was essentially devoid of theological or biblical insight. In my view, this is symptomatic of the Episcopal Church as a whole. In response, the Episcopal Church needs to return to its sources, to the theological tradition of early Anglicanism, which was itself a call to renew the theology and practice of the ancient church.

Endnotes

1. The full text of report by the Bishop's Committee can be found on the Presiding Bishop's web page.Unless referenced otherwise, all quotations in this essay are from this report.
2. Nowhere have I read that Michael Johnston affirms homosexual unions, but after reading this book, Engaging the Word, it became obvious where he stood.
3. James Solheim and Jan Nunley, Episcopal News Service, "Bishops Receive Theology Committee's Report, 'Gift of Sexuality,'" March 20, 2003, www.dfms.org/ens/2003 064.html.
4. Solheim and Nunley, "Bishops Receive Theology Committee's Report, 'Gift of Sexuality.'"
5. The internal relations of the Trinity are mutual in regard to love, but they are not mutual in regard to the fundamental creedal categories of eternal generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit.
6. Michael Johnston, Engaging the Word. The New Church's Teaching Series, Volume 3. Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1998, p. 141.