Mystical Paganism

An Analysis of the Presiding Bishop's Public Statements

This essay is composed of two sections. The first section is a theological analysis of public statements made by the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. At the time of writing, the Rt. Rev. Frank Griswold was presiding bishop. I analyze these statements because his thought expresses what many people in the Episcopal Church actually think and feel. Therefore, to theologically uncover his real theology is to analyze an important aspect of ECUSA's corporate thought. My sources for the Presiding Bishop's underlying theology were the essays, sermons, and articles available in 1999 on the Episcopal Church web site. I have read a number of his statements since then. There is a consistent pattern throughout them all.

In the second section, I investigate one aspect of a literary analysis of the same public statements. It will be shown that the appeal of these public statements statements is not so much theological as emotional.

The Theological Analysis
The Foundation
Two concepts undergird the Presiding Bishop's thought, the risen Christ and the Spirit. Simply put, the risen Christ, by virtue of being risen, is available to and active in all things. Then, by the work of the Spirit, the Christian community recognizes the truth of the risen Christ as revealed in all things. As far as I know, the Presiding Bishop does not believe that the risen Christ is known in a special and normative way in Word and Sacraments as in classical Anglicanism. He does know, however, that Scripture and Sacrament are important. He deals with them by claiming that they reveal that the risen Christ is revealed in all things. I will first show this in regard to Scripture.

Scripture

One of the Presiding Bishop's most quoted texts is John 16:12.

Jesus also tells his disciples that he still has many things to say to them, but they cannot bear them now "(John 16:12). It will be the work of the Spirit to unfold in the life of the community what Christ has yet to reveal. In other words, discernment of truth is an ongoing process of communal discovery articulated by the Spirit who reveals not simply truth but the risen Christ who is truth, in and through the life we share with one another in virtue of the one baptism.(1)

The Presiding Bishop interprets this text to mean that revelation will continuously unfold in the church, "in and through the life we share with one another." From this perspective, the real locus of revelation is the church, rather than Scripture, and John 16:12 tells us this. As I shall show, this on going knowledge given to the church supersedes the knowledge given in Scripture.

In making this claim, the Presiding Bishop must counter those who hold to Scripture as their ultimate authority. He does this by claiming that Scripture itself claims experience as the final norm. Therefore, if Scripture is normative, it puts experience above itself. Consequently, Scripture isn't really normative.

He shows this in many ways. In his Ascension Day Sermon he describes three ways of knowing Christ. First, there is the historical Jesus known by the disciples. For many, this knowledge of Jesus Christ is given in the biblical revelation, but the Presiding Bishop thinks this knowledge is of limited significance.

Knowing Christ is not therefore confined to an encounter with the historical Jesus "If only I had been there and seen him and heard him speak!" but can occur anytime or in any place through the agency and quite unpredictable imagination of the Holy Spirit.(2)

Secondly, there was the encounter between Christ and the disciples after resurrection and before the ascension. This forty day period prepares the believer for the third and decisive stage, the period after the ascension where the risen Christ is revealed in experience. This is where the real revelation occurs.

What the Apostles perceived as Jesus leaving them once again, this time not by way of the cross but by way of ascension, was in fact a prelude to a deeper, fuller and more substantial knowing of the risen One mediated by the Spirit.(3)

The ascension spells the end of the Apostles' knowing Christ as a physical presence, a fixed object that they can "touch and handle." It leaves them on the threshold of a new kind of knowing in which Christ who is the Way, the Truth and the Life is known inwardly and with such force that they will, in time, be able with St. Paul to cry out, "The life I now live is not my own, but the life Christ lives in me."(4)

The logical conclusion of the foregoing is that the present experience of the church is "deeper, fuller and more substantial" than previous revelations since we belong to the time after the ascension. From this it follows that present revelation supersedes Scripture since Scripture was based on an earlier and more limited way of knowing. These deeper revelations are the additions referred to in John 16:12 14.

Further, the Presiding Bishop then claims that Scripture itself teaches that its revelation is only the first stage of an evolving on going revelation that continuously transforms and extends Scripture.

We see this in Scripture itself: Time and again historical circumstances provoked a fresh reading and new and usually more hospitable interpretations of the very texts and traditions by which the community of faith has previously understood itself. And so it is even unto our own day; and so it will be in the future, as God's boundless imagination continues to draw us into an ever unfolding future.(5)

The early Church with its Jewish heritage had to acknowledge the presence and activity of the Spirit of Christ in the lives of non observant Gentiles outside the community, and in so doing was obliged to reread its Scripture and reorder its inherited traditions of purity and impurity, of inclusion and exclusion.(6)

In other words, Scripture needs to be ever reinterpreted, reordered, with fresh readings that are "more hospitable" as "God's boundless imagination continues to draw us into an ever unfolding future."

Consider this statement.

Because Jesus Christ is the incarnate and glorified Word of God, fundamental to all spirituality is the capacity and willingness on the part of persons of faith to listen. "Oh that today you would hearken to his voice!" we are counseled in Psalm 95, which is used throughout the Anglican Communion as an Invitatory at Morning Prayer. As each day begins we are invited to listen to the words and events which lie ahead "as those who are taught." [Isaiah 50:4](7)

Since the risen Jesus is the "incarnate and glorified Word of God," he is available to all things. Therefore we must listen, but not to Scripture in any normative fashion. No, the Scriptures themselves, Psalm 95 and Isaiah 50, teach us to listen to the "words and events which lie ahead" of us each day. This theme, that the risen Christ is found in life, events, our lives, is a veritable leitmotif of the Presiding Bishop's thought. The following quotation is typical of many.

Listening to the Word who is Christ also involves listening to our lives, to the events and circumstances, momentous and ordinary. Each and all are shot through with meaning. We are required as well to listen to the continuously unfolding life and experience of our national churches and the larger Anglican and world communion of which we are a part.(8)

Consider another typical quotation.

In the Acts of the Apostles we are told how "the word of God "spread" and "grew mightily" [13:49; 19:20] and how the apostles safely circumscribed world of 1st century Judaism was turned upside down and inside out by manifestations of Christ and the Holy Spirit in "unlikely and highly problematical circumstances which defied all precedence and reduced the apostolic community to proclaiming, "for it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." "(Acts 15:28)(9)

From this perspective, Scripture is not content, but method. Scripture shows us how the biblical people knew God in their experience, and therefore how we should know God in our experience. In this way God is known: a) "in and through the life we share with one another in virtue of the one baptism," b) "anytime or in any place through the agency and quite unpredictable imagination of the Holy Spirit," c) inside oneself since the "life I now live is not my own, but the life Christ lives in me," d) in "words and events which lie ahead," e) in the "events and circumstances of our lives and experience," and finally, f) in "unlikely and highly problematical circumstances which [have] defied all precedence."

Since Scripture teaches us that revelation does not really occur in Scripture, but in life, events, inside us, and in the highly problematical, one does not read Scripture to discover the mind of God. Rather, one reads Scripture as the "prelude" to something "deeper, fuller and more substantial," that is, as a prelude to present experience. Since present experience is deeper and more substantial, one will have to "reread" and "reorder" Scripture. This entails a "fresh reading and new and usually more hospitable interpretations." This process of rereading and reordering will continue forever as "God's boundless imagination continues to draw us into an ever unfolding future." In this way, Scripture's real message is that Scripture is to give way to experience as the risen Christ makes himself known in the events and circumstances of life.

Sacraments

Just as Scripture was read to show that God is revealed in experience, the Sacraments reveal that the risen Christ is revealed in experience. Classically, Anglicanism has believed in some form of "real presence." The term "real presence" means that God is present in the Sacraments in a saving way that is different from his presence in general experience. The Presiding Bishop does not ostensible deny this. He never bluntly says, "I think Christ is present in Sacraments, but he is no more present there than anywhere else." Nevertheless, he covertly denies the real presence by implying that Sacraments reveal that Christ is revealed everywhere with as much authority as in the Sacraments themselves.

The eucharistic meal deepens and strengthens this fundamental and ever unfolding relationship, as Christ takes to himself all that we are and have yet to become, and makes our lives the medium of his ongoing self disclosure.(10)

If we make our homes in Christ just as Christ through Scripture and the Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, seeks to "dwell in us as we in him" then we will truly be disciples. That is, we will be teachable and available to the insistent motions of the Spirit who leads us and forms us over time through the events and experiences which accost us and demand to be lived.(11)

In other words, discernment of truth is an ongoing process of communal discovery articulated by the Spirit who reveals not simply truth but the risen Christ who is truth, in and through the life we share with one another in virtue of the one baptism.(12)

Or again, through baptism we become living stones "(1 Peter 2:4ff) integral to the building up of a spiritual temple not according to our own whims and fancies, but according to God's ever active and boundless imagination which, like the peace of God, passes all understanding. This communion, this spiritual fellowship, also makes us permeable to truth: truth which is discovered in a living way through the sharing of the truth which is embodied in each of us, in what might be called the scripture of our own lives.(13)

In other words, Sacraments represent the fact that our lives, the events and circumstances of life, become the medium of God revelation.

But the Presiding Bishop is not simply content to make our lives, the community, or events and circumstances, the only revelation. In the end, he wants everything to be revelatory, and this general revelation has the same status as Scripture, or tradition, or reason, or anything for that matter.

Anglican spirituality also involves a "graced pragmatism," a reasonableness conformed to the mind of Christ, a capacity for "testing the spirits" "(1 John 4:1) of our contemporary world and existence in order to hear and be faithful to Christ the Word who can speak and reveal himself in the scripture of our own lives and experience as well as the Bible, the sacraments, and the ongoing life of the Church.(14)

For it is the Spirit who works the presence of Christ in us using the events and circumstances of our lives and experience. And by virtue of the Spirit's driving yet subtle motion, we find ourselves caught up into what William Law, an 18th Century Anglican Mystic calls "the process of Christ."(15)

By means of all created things, without exception, the Divine assails us, penetrates us and molds us." This sentence from Teilhard de Chardin bears witness to the ever unfolding process of Christ unleashed by the Ascension and carried out unremittingly by the Spirit, in us, in others and in the whole of creation.(16)

In these quotations the Presiding Bishop lists the following as revelatory: the contemporary world, existence, the scripture of our lives, experience, the Bible, the church, events and circumstances, other people, and all created things. At no point, however, does the Presiding Bishop ever state which of all these sources of revelation has priority. Is the Bible supreme? is the Church? is it existence, the whole of creation, the world? Are all equal? Were he to tell us which if any of these sources has priority, his real theology would become evident. No, he simply blends them all together as revelatory forms, and thereby tacitly, he affirms them all equally.

Truth is Personal Not "Propositional"
Or
Persons Exist Beyond Language

Once the Presiding Bishop affirms that "truth" is given in experience as discerned by the Spirit in community, he must face the fact that different members of the community have different versions of truth. In classical Anglicanism, disagreements were settled by interpreting Scripture in the light of the great tradition. One can clearly see this in Hooker, for example. He disagreed with his Puritan opponents, but both he and they held to the priority of Scripture and therefore there was a basis for debate. If, however, the ultimate standard is the experience of community members, then there is nothing beyond the community to which one can appeal. Disagreements simply become "my truth" over against "your truth." Dialogue, sharing personal truth, and finally politics, are the way differences are "settled," rather than study, immersion in, and appeal to the tradition.

One way out of this impasse is to let truth be personal and not propositional. In this view, each person possesses a depth that refuses to be circumscribed by verbal description. This allows us to exist in harmonious relation as persons, even though we disagree in terms of how we each express our own personal truths.

This holds for Christ as well. According to the Presiding Bishop, the risen Jesus is a person who transcends all propositional formulations. Christ is beyond images and language, and therefore, knowledge of Christ becomes a continual process of breaking old images for the sake of new formulations, which in turn must give way to deeper revelations. This process ultimately culminates in personal identity with Christ beyond words, dogma, and propositions. Such a Christ is ideally suited to harmonize all contradictory and partial truths held by the baptized. These are received into a mystical whole since Christ transcends yet includes them all in his body the church. In this way, we can be mystically and personally one, even thought we may violently disagree over "details."

From this perspective, the real sin is not heresy but schism, refusal to recognize that all are one in Christ by virtue of our baptism. It enables all to believe as they wish yet be one, provided that all are engaged in the rigorous process of breaking stereotypes that exclude and divide.

What the Spirit takes from Christ is not information but life, life expressed as love and realized in the intimacy of communion whereby Christ dwells in us and we in him. In this way the Spirit works the "process of Christ" in us, not all at once but over time.(17)

The word isn't just what Jesus says, but the word signifies his whole person. If we make our homes in Christ just as Christ through Scripture and the Sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, seeks to "dwell in us as we in him" then we will truly be disciples. That is, we will be teachable and available to the insistent motions of the Spirit who leads us and forms us over time through the events and experiences which accost us and demand to be lived.

In this way, we will come to know the truth not as a series of propositions but as the inmost possession of our souls. And, in that process of knowing, we discover our freedom: freedom from our distortions, from fears, untruths, and "the dullness of our blinded sight," as the ancient hymn "Veni Creator" expresses it.(18)

Notice what these two quotations say. In the first, there is an implied contrast between "information" and "life." Information is expressed in language, but life is expressed personally. Knowledge of Christ, life in Christ, is not a matter of "information," but personal communion or even identity between Christ and the soul. This identity is beyond words since words only convey "information."

In the second quotation, the "word isn't just what Jesus says." Rather than words, the truth is simply defined as the person, the "whole person." Once again, knowing Christ is a personal encounter, given in experience, and this intimate personal knowledge is not "a series of propositions but as the inmost possession of our souls." In other words, truth is given through a spiritual process of inner discovery of one's depths. To see Christ in others and ourselves requires a process of purification so that we become free from "distortions," "fears" and "untruths." Let us consider another example.

For me, homosexuality is not primarily a cause or an issue: it is a matter of men and women I know, respect and love, and whose lives bear ample witness to the fruits of the Spirit as enumerated in Galatians 5:22. It is about people with whom I have shared ministry and friendship, whose many gifts have enriched my life and continue to bless and upbuild the Church.(19)

This paragraph contrasts two ways of understanding homosexuality. On one hand there are those who view homosexuality as a "cause or an issue." These two terms caricature the traditionalist belief that one can discover the morality of homosexual behavior by studying Scripture, or by an appeal to a form of knowledge that isn't "personal." On the other hand, the Presiding Bishop believes that truth is personal, more than language, more than biblical injunctions, more than the tradition of the church, but a "matter of men and women I know, respect and love." For the Presiding Bishop, this personal form of "truth" is the decisive form of knowing. It is one of the additions of John 16:12 14, given by the risen Christ in the personal truth of homosexual persons. Let us decode another statement.

Indeed the Bible broadly conceived is a sacrament: it is "alive and active, sharper than a two edged sword" because Christ is alive and active and truly present in the scriptural word. The risen One who opened the scriptures to his downcast disciples on the road to Emmaus "(Luke 24) continues to make our hearts burn within us as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, draws from what is Christ's "(John 16:14) and makes it known to us in the context of our own life and experience.(20)

What is being said here? On the surface, this statement seems innocuous enough. Christians believe that Christ is living and active and present in the scriptural word. In the light of the whole of the Presiding Bishop's writings, however, the terms "risen One" and "alive and active" are the Presiding Bishop's way of saying that Christ is personal and alive and that his life is distinct from the scriptural word. When the risen One enters our hearts and makes them burn, we discover that the biblical words have a meaning that lies beyond the biblical word, in our hearts where Christ burns. This deep truth is personal, something that can only be known in the personal "context of our own life and experiences." In other words, Christ reveals himself beyond Scripture as he "continues to make our hearts burn" in the personal lives of believers. Here is another typical statement.

Resurrection is not a theological proposition but a fact of life. For Mary Magdalene and the other women who came early to the tomb with their spices, resurrection was an assault upon everything they knew; it was the overturning of all order and predictability.(21)

In this statement, the Presiding Bishop contrasts "a theological proposition" with a "fact of life," with the obvious implication that life is more than theological propositions. In fact, life is "an assault upon everything" we know, the "overturning of all order and predictability." The purpose of these statements is to encourage the church to turn away from the predictable, the tradition we once learned from the church and Scripture, in order to discover the new revelation we find in the other.

All Contradictions Harmonized in the Risen Christ
Or
God Transcends All Differences

Since Christ is personal, since language never fully grasps personal reality, Christ can harmonize all contradictions since he lies beyond yet includes them all. One of the clearest expressions of this belief is the Presiding Bishop's article on Canterbury Cathedral. For him, it is an analogy of the church in Christ. Composed of architectural styles from many centuries, its columns and buttresses lean against and oppose each other, yet their very opposition contributes to the glory and unity of the overall design. "One portion has been added to another, and the ever expanding whole is bonded and knit together through a dynamic of stress and counterstress, by one stone pressing against another and thereby producing an overall state of equilibrium and concord."(22) Once the analogy is in place, he then comments,

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.

Meanwhile, in our desire for certitude, for answers to deliver us from the pain and uncertainty of living the questions, we declare that we have arrived at our destination the answer only to find that what we considered resolved and settled continues to present itself and refuses to go away until the Spirit of Truth, who draws all things from the mind and heart of the risen Christ, leads us "into all the truth," and we find that all the contradictions and divergent perspectives are reconciled in Christ who is the truth.(23)

How "different views and different understandings of God's intent" are reconciled "passes all understanding" since the truth of Christ is personal, mystical, harmonizing all paradoxes and contradictions, both "consistent and inconsistent with Scripture."

The quotation also contrasts its mystical way of knowing with truth that says yes and no, this but not that, right and wrong. The motivation for this form of truth is a "desire for certitude," a need for "answers," produced by an inability to take the "pain and uncertainty of living the questions." Once these spiritual obstacles are overcome, authentic lovers of Truth will discover that they are always in process as the Spirit enables them to arrive at the mystical vision in which all "contradictions and divergent perspectives are reconciled in Christ who is the truth." In short, truth is personal, not given in language. Consider this comment.

What would happen if instead of leading with our opinions fully formed and our conclusions smartly arrayed, we addressed one another as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, ... Are we afraid that if we asked such questions we might have to modify our position and make room for the ambiguity and paradox another person's truth might represent?(24)

This comment contrasts those who lead with "opinions fully formed," with conclusions "smartly arrayed," with those who grasp the fact that the risen Christ transcends all differences, and therefore, is able to include ambiguity and all sides of the paradoxical.

Another example, one of many, is the Presiding Bishop's sermon on ecumenism. Its primary theme is that authentic spirituality entails the progressive unification of humanity in Christ beyond all "disparities and seeming contradictions." Notice in the subsequent quotation how those who would draw lines, make boundaries, are considered pharisaical.

Was this an instance of the Divine imagination and fullness, able to embrace and enfold disparities and seeming contradictions, or was I seeing the shadow side of incarnation wherein the historical traditions which convey our various apprehensions of the Good News become fortresses of our own singularity and allow us to pray with the Pharisee in the Gospel of Luke, "God, I thank you that I am not like others?"(25)

Theologically, it is the incarnation, the fact that God can act and speak concretely, that makes the Christian faith a matter of words, doctrine, theological propositions. The Presiding Bishop does not acknowledge the "singularity" of Christian truth. Rather, he associates it with the "shadow side of incarnation." The Presiding Bishop's statements are so unequivocal on this matter that I will take leave of this subject and invite the reader to read the Presiding Bishop's writings for further references.

There is no Justification

Scripture presents Jesus as the one who died for our sins and thereby justified us before God. This important hope lies at the center of the Christian faith. This hope cannot be found in the writings of the Presiding Bishop, at least in the corpus I found electronically. How can we account for the omission of justification, and what are its pastoral implications?

Theologically, justification and sanctification can be distinguished because the Lord Jesus who died to justify us before God is distinct from yet related to the Spirit who sanctifies each person and the church. If however, Christ and the deep self are really one, then Christ's death on the cross is simply a symbol for something that occurs in us. His death does not set us right with God. Rather, it symbolizes our death to inadequate images and biases on the road to intimate communion with the other. That is the real meaning of the cross, not that Christ died for us, but rather, his death is a symbol of the spiritual death that each of us must embody as we become one with each other and with Christ in each other.

The Presiding Bishop interprets virtually every Christian concept prayer, Easter, baptism, the cross, ecumenism, eucharist, Advent as a call to ridding ourselves of our distorted images on the road to loving, accepting, and embracing the other. That is the real meaning of the cross. Here are only a few of many examples. In the context of Advent, he comments.

While these images may give us security, they also keep us from embracing the larger vision. They keep us from embracing the vision of wholeness and reconciliation which corresponds to God's unfolding fullness. They can blind us to how God continues to act in the world. They keep us from seeing the fullness of God which alone can heal and reconcile all things.(26)

The Spirit is connected with distorted images.

Discernment of the authentic motions of the Spirit involves all of us who have been baptized into Christ. It is always a corporate undertaking involving risk, struggle, dislocation, conflict, endurance, generosity of spirit, and, above all, continual repentance: turning away from our own limited perspectives and partial truths to the ever unfolding mystery of the truth as it is in Christ.(27)

Easter is connected to expanding our vision with these words.

The question I am then bidden to ask myself is, "How am I resisting Christ's grasp? In what ways do I prefer the security of my limited and constricted vision of life, of the Church, of my own place in the risen Christ's ever unfolding and all embracing ministry of reconciliation, reordering and making all things new? In what ways do I resist being forcibly pulled out of my places of confinement into the deathless freedom of Christ?"(28)

Baptism is connected with breaking down images.

The baptismal Covenant asks us to repent and return to God's love, to repent our judgements, our biases, our exclusions, our lack of imagination, our unwillingness to be loved and to love.(29)

Consider this final quotation.

What is a purified and transformed heart? St. Isaac of Nineveh, a witness from the 7th Century, gives us this answer: "It is a heart that burns with love for the whole of creation for humankind, for the birds, for the beasts, for the demons, for every creature ... for the reptiles too ..." It is a heart from which "a great compassion ... rises up endlessly." In more contemporary terms, it is a heart open the paradoxes and contradictions of life; it is a heart that can embrace and reconcile the birds and the beasts, as well as reptiles and demons, however we might define them. A transformed heart is a heart that has been cracked open by God's love ... A compassionate heart is a baptized, born again heart, a purified and transformed and discerning heart open to everyone and everything, a heart of communion that can embrace all sorts and conditions of humanity and the world around us, a heart that burns with God's own love for the whole mix and muddle of the world. It is a faithful heart capable of rebuilding the Church in the service of the Gospel for the sake of the world, over and over and over again.(30)

For orthodox thought, we are justified before God by Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is different from us, and did something for us that we could not do for ourselves. For the Presiding Bishop, however, Christ is really each of us in the depths of ourselves, felt when "our hearts burn within us." Therefore, each of us, not Christ for us, must be "open to everyone and everything." Everyone, not Christ the justifier, must "embrace and reconcile the birds and the beasts, as well as reptiles and demons." Each and every individual, not Christ their righteousness, must "embrace all sorts and conditions of humanity."

The pastoral consequences of this are horrendous. Human beings simply cannot do this. To do this is to open oneself up to every evil and contrary thing. There are no limits here. No boundaries. There is no thanksgiving for what Jesus did that no one else can do, but rather, everyone is called to what do Jesus did for everyone else. For the Presiding Bishop, Jesus did not die for all so that we might have peace with God and each other. No, he died that all might imitate him and thereby die for each other.

Of course, the church has always recognized that the Holy Spirit sanctifies the faithful. The Presiding Bishop is right to see this. But even here there are limits. There is what Jesus Christ did and does, justification, and there is what Christians do, sanctification as a work of the Spirit. The two are not the same. Jesus Christ is the reconciler of the world. The response of faith is to acknowledge what he did, proclaim it to all, and then only in a very limited and broken way, seek to love others as a reflection of his work. In the end, for the Presiding Bishop, Christ's death on the cross is simply a symbol for what each and every one of us must do for ourselves.

I would ask the reader to get hold of the Presiding Bishop's writings and read them. Whenever he speaks of Jesus' cross and resurrection, look to see if he speaks of justification or whether he uses Jesus' cross as a example or metaphor for what we ourselves must do.

Theological Analysis

Theologically, the Presiding Bishop cannot and does not distinguish between creation and incarnation. This follows logically from what we have shown before, namely, that by "means of all created things, without exception, the Divine assails us, penetrates us and molds us," that the events and circumstance of life have equal revelatory validity with Scripture, that Sacraments symbolize that the church and all of creation is revelatory, that the depths of our created selves are revelatory, and that the community focuses that universal revelation through its own personal encounters.

Since creation and incarnation are one, all things are equally revelatory and the experience of all created things gives truth. In this view, incarnation proclaims that all is revelatory, and therefore, the revealing power of incarnation is simply that of creation. This is a type of mystical paganism. All of creation becomes holy since the divine "(the risen Christ) is the ground of and revealed in all things. That is paganism. Secondly, the ground of all things, the risen Christ, is known mystically, beyond finite knowing since persons transcend language. That is the mystical aspect.

This mystical pagan vision has a "Christian" veneer due to the frequent use of the terms "Spirit," "risen Christ," "community," along with a number of other Christian terms such as "prayer," "baptism," and so forth. Theologically, however, these terms are reinterpreted in terms of the overall vision, that of the risen Christ as revelatory source with the Spirit enabling the community to see Christ in all things. Of course, the community itself is one thing among many revelatory things. The Presiding Bishop frequently speaks of the Spirit as revealing Christ in the community. At other times, he speaks of the Spirit revealing Christ in general experience.

That is, we will be teachable and available to the insistent motions of the Spirit who leads us and forms us over time through the events and experiences which accost us and demand to be lived. ... In this way, we will give room to the word of Christ who is the Word, and who continues to address us in the Spirit. The Spirit draws from what is Christ's and declares it to us "(John 16:13 14).(31)

What I am describing requires discernment and a testing of the spirits "(1 John 4:1). Continual discernment is necessary lest a personal or group agenda make us so zealous and single minded in the name of one cause that a sense of God's larger purpose is lost. Such zealousness renders us unable or unwilling to give room to what the Spirit of truth may be trying to declare through the voices and lived word of others who are also limbs through very different limbs of Christ's risen body the Church.(32)

In the first quotation, the Spirit comes from experience, events and circumstances which "demand to be lived." This "demand" is the Word, the risen Christ. In this way, experience becomes the voice of Christ, God speaking his Word to us. I recently asked a biblical scholar, Dr. Chris Seitz, if there was a single passage in Scripture which claimed that general experience was the Word of God, the Word that came to the prophets and became incarnate in Jesus Christ. His answer was "No." "The heavens declare the glory of God," "(Psalm 19:1), but the heavens do not say, "Thus saith the Lord," and then deliver his personal address to us.

In the second quotation, the Spirit is revealed "through the voices and lived word of others who are also limbs through very different limbs of Christ's risen body the Church." Those who don't see this, who think there are boundaries and limits, are labeled "single minded in the name of one cause." Their "zealousness" prevents them from hearing the "voices and lived word of others" who are "different." These persons lose the "larger purpose," namely that the risen Christ is large enough to include and reconcile all differences.

In one sense, this picture doesn't correspond neatly to any of the ancient heresies, although it is certainly heretical. Perhaps it can be characterized as a modification of the modalist heresy. The modalist heresy claimed that the distinctions between the Father, Son, and Spirit were only appearances. In the final analysis, all three persons of the Trinity were really one divine ground. The Presiding Bishop shares critical aspects of his heresy. Within God, he cannot distinguish the Father who creates from the Son who became incarnate since he cannot distinguish between creation and incarnation.

On the other hand, he puts a rather unusual spin on things by distinguishing between the risen Christ and the Spirit. The risen Christ is the cosmic ground or "sky" who reconciles all things, but the Spirit is the one who actualizes this ultimate harmony through an on going process of shattering images on the way to the sublime. As a result, his theology has an historical or eschatological component. Ultimately, however, by feel and sense, all things are one, and this modalistic aspect will often come to the fore.

Christ's going away does not stand on its own; it is part of the larger reality of resurrection whereby all things, including our lives in their complexity and ambiguity, are caught up into Christ. Rising from the dead, ascending to the Father and sending the Holy Spirit are all one continuous act of being present to, with, and through the apostles. And it is as Christ's disciples live out Christ's command to 'Feed my sheep' that they, in the very act of speaking or acting in Christ's name, know that Christ is with them and that they are in Christ.(33)

Here the Father is associated with Christ and the Spirit as the one transcendent reality available to all things as they are "caught up into Christ." In this view, there is only one divine reality, the risen Christ who underlies and is revealed in all things. It is a matter of indifference whether one calls this ultimate reality God, the risen Christ, the Father, the Spirit, all three names, or whatever. There is only one final undifferentiated reality because all three persons of the Trinity are "one continuous act of being present to, with, and through the apostles."

This differs from the Creed, which understands human beings as created by the Father, saved by the Son, and formed into the church by the Spirit. For orthodoxy, the persons of the Trinity are distinguished because they do distinct yet related things. For the Presiding Bishop, however, all "three" persons of the Trinity do one thing: they are the exalted source of all things, including the apostles, "present to, with, and through" them. This is modalism. Consider this.

Love in this context is not a feeling, but a capacity for relationship, a relationship of mutuality and self giving which has its perfect expression in the inner life of the Trinity in which Father, Son and Holy Spirit give and receive from one another in an unceasing circle dance of dispossession. To be baptized is to be drawn into this circle and to find that our life is no longer our own, not because it has been taken away, but because it has been taken up into Christ through the Holy Spirit, the minister of communion and relationship, who actualizes the love of God in our hearts understood as the core and center of our being.(34)

This is an interesting quotation. Here baptism draws one into the "circle dance" of the Trinity which is equivalent to being "taken up into Christ through the Holy Spirit." The two realities, the circle dance of the Trinity and the risen Christ, are essentially one thing the final reality of God. This is modalism, the sense that Christ and the other persons of the Trinity are not distinct from each other.

But unlike modalism, and inconsistently, the quotation distinguishes between the Spirit and the risen Christ. This is because the Spirit is the "minister of communion and relationship," which, in light of the whole of the Presiding Bishop's thought, means the process of breaking images on the way to mystical union with Christ and the other. In this way one enters the triune dance, or equivalently, the risen Christ.

Except for a few common terms, this perspective has little or nothing to do with the orthodoxy of the Creed. According to the Creed, the persons of the Trinity are not mutually related in a circle dance. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, not vice versa. The Spirit proceeds from both, never the other way around. Rather than a circle dance, the relations between the persons of the Trinity are unequal because each person of the Trinity does different yet related things. The Father is pure origin, the creator of the universe, the One who eternally begets the Son. The Son is begotten, the one who redeems a corrupted creation. The Spirit proceeds from both, creates the church, and will bring the life of the world to come.

In the above quotation, however, all inner triune relations are mutual in the circle dance. This reflects the Presiding Bishop's feeling for harmony in which all things are reconciled and all distinctions fade away. This is the modalistic instinct.

In sum, the Presiding Bishop's thinking is essentially modalistic, but not consistently. He erases the difference between Father and Son, yet distinguishes between the risen Christ and the Spirit. Nevertheless, his feeling that all things are ultimately reconciled, all paradoxes included, all differences harmonized by something that transcends them, means that real differences between the persons of the Godhead cannot ultimately exist in God. This is modalism.

This heresy is fatal because it denies that the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct from each other. If this be true, if God's acts in creation, incarnation, and world to come are not distinct from each other, then God did nothing unique and distinctive in Jesus Christ.

Nor can the Presiding Bishop have any true doctrine of incarnation. The doctrine of the incarnation, the two fold nature of Jesus Christ, depends upon Father and Son both being God and both being distinct as persons within God. Once that claim was established in the battle against Arius, the question arose as to how the Son or Word who is God could be incarnate in the man Jesus.

For the Presiding Bishop, however, Father and Son, creation and incarnation, are essentially one. Or, to put it another way, the only unique thing about God's presence in Christ is to tell us that God is present in everything. In other words, Jesus is really nothing more than a symbol for God's general presence. The Presiding Bishop calls his perspective "profoundly incarnational." By this he means that there is no real difference between God's presence in Word and Sacrament which reflect incarnation, and God's general presence in creation, in the "events and circumstances" of life.

Anglican spirituality is a fruit of our profoundly incarnational theology, and has to do with what the 18th century priest mystic, William Law, calls "the process of Christ." Through daily encounters with the risen One in word and sacrament, and in the events and circumstances that challenge and mold us, we are transformed and conformed to the pattern of Christ.(35)

Further, in biblical thought, a person is known by their words and deeds. A person's word is simply the person in another form, but made public, available for knowing. This applies to God as well. God is known by his Word that became incarnate in Jesus Christ. This incarnate Word was Jesus' words and deeds, and by means of this Word God was known.

Suppose that truth is personal and not "propositional." Then, if Christ is not given in his words, but only as our "hearts burn within us," then the real Christ is a mystic reality beyond his words and deeds. Or, to put it another way, God is not really present in his Word, but beyond his Word in a union that leaves his Word behind.

There are several ways to characterize this non verbal way of understanding God. It could perhaps be seen as a form of Arianism in which the "Word" of God is simply a creature, outside of God, so that human words and deeds, including those of Jesus, do not really reveal God. This would enable all human opinions and words to be in final harmony with each other since God lies beyond the finite contraries of language. Or, perhaps it is a form of modalism in which terms like "Father," "Son," and "Spirit" cannot ultimately be defined over against each other since all differences fade away in the mystic One beyond personal distinctions.

The Consequences

What are the consequences of this theological perspective? I will enumerate a few of them.

First, those who follow this vision will lose the Lord Jesus known in Word and Sacrament. Jesus Christ is not ourselves in the depth of ourselves. He is not a product of experience. He is not a general feature of the created world. Incarnation is not creation. Jesus Christ is Lord, and he can only be Lord if he is different from us and different from the rest of creation. When Jesus Christ is ourselves in the depths of ourselves, we become the Lord and Christ is lost. That is the first and most horrible casualty of the Presiding Bishop's doctrine.

Secondly, there is no salvation. The Christian faith depends upon God doing something unique in Jesus Christ. In Christ he does something he does nowhere else not in creation, not in the depths of ourselves, not in other great figures. In Jesus Christ, God saves. If creation is incarnation, then Jesus Christ is like all others and we have no savior.

Thirdly, there are no limits. The only limit is to draw limits. I will not spell out the consequences of life without boundaries. They should be obvious. In the end, the church will be incapable of protecting itself from every strange and contrary doctrine, every sinful and evil act, since all of these must be included the birds, the beasts, the demons, and the reptiles into the Christian fold.

Fourth, in spite of language to the contrary, we can never know a personal God. To be a person in relation implies that the other is objectively distinct from us, over against us, different from us. For the Presiding Bishop, the risen Christ is simply ourselves in the depths of ourselves.

Fifth, God can never speak a "Thou Shalt" or "Thou shalt not" since this would imply that God is something other than ourselves in the depths of ourselves. Even more, an ethical command from God would have verbal content. Nevertheless, if God is beyond propositional limitations, then God cannot really say anything to us, not even something as simple as "I love you."

Sixth, real sin is denied since behavior will inevitably be judged by the "scripture of our own lives" rather than the living Word of the Bible.

Finally, since truth is really community experience, there are no objective standards outside the community itself. As a result, disagreements cannot be settled by an analysis of external standards such as Scripture interpreted by the tradition. No, disagreements can only be settled by politics, by resolutions that embody more or less what the majority more or less think. When this happens, and apparently it happened at the last General Convention, certain persons will, in spite of the Presiding Bishop's claim to the contrary, be excluded. Or, to put it another way, this so called inclusive vision will end by being as rigid and exclusive as the "isms" it seeks to deny.

In this regard, I am in favor of boundaries and of exclusion. But only the right sort of exclusion. For the Presiding Bishop, there is no recourse for the excluded, no foundation upon which to stand. They cannot claim Scripture, or tradition, or reason, or anything, as their hope or guide, for the only truth is community. Once excluded by the community, such persons have no standards by which to seek appeal, since the only court of appeal has denied them. The Presiding Bishop's vision will not reconcile us in Christ beyond all contradiction. Instead, it will only lead to division with no viable way of reconciliation.

How could it be that this teaching could actually claim the allegiance of so many in the church, including a great many bishops and priests who should have some minimum of theological insight? That question, of course, can be answered from many angles. One important response would be to analyze the role of theological education in the church today. From that viewpoint, I would claim that much of the church has been led astray by a false theology that has been around since Schleiermacher, one that is taught in most of our Episcopal seminaries.

There are, however, other reasons for the Presiding Bishop's prominence. Our culture, our church, has lost the ability to think theologically, critically, and prayerfully. Image, style, and feeling are what resonate and create success, whether in the church or in the world. I will address that matter in another essay, an essay on the concept of "voice" in the writings of the Presiding Bishop. For now, however, it must be said that if the Presiding Bishop's theological perspective is accepted and implemented, it will be the ruin of the church.

Endnotes

1. "Ecumenism" William Reed Huntington Memorial Sermon, September 30, 1998.
2. Ascension Day Sermon.
3. Ascension Day Sermon.
4. Ascension Day Sermon.
5. 17 August 1998, Letter to the editor: The New York Times.
6. 17 August 1998, Letter to the editor: The Wall Street Journal.
7. Essay on Anglican Spirituality.
8. Essay on Anglican Spirituality.
9. Essay on Anglican Spirituality.
10. Ascension Day Sermon, May 21, 1998, Trinity Church, Wall Street.
11. Reflections on the Season of Advent.
12. "Ecumenism" William Reed Huntington Memorial Sermon, September 30, 1998.
13. Sermon at the Service of Investiture of the XXV Presiding Bishop.
14. Essay on Anglican Spirituality.
15. Ascension Day Sermon.
16. Ascension Day Sermon.
17. Ascension Day Sermon, May 21, 1998, Trinity Church, Wall Street.
18. Reflections on the Season of Advent.
19. Canterbury Cathedral, A letter to the Episcopal Church, August 14, 1998.
20. Essay on Anglican Spirituality.
21. Easter Message from the Presiding Bishop.
22. Glimpses of the Eternal Design.
23. Glimpses of the Eternal Design, The Presiding Bishop's Column, September, 1998.
24. Sermon at the Service of Investiture of the XXV Presiding Bishop, Washington National Cathedral, January 10, 1998.
25. "Ecumenism" William Reed Huntington Memorial Sermon Reed Huntington Memorial Sermon, September 30, 1998, Grace Church, New York City.
26. Reflections on the Season of Advent.
27. Reflections on the Season of Advent.
28. The Presiding Bishop's Easter Season Message, Eastertide 1998.
29. 10 January 1999 Washington National Cathedral Sermon.
30. Sermon at the Service of Investiture of the XXV Presiding Bishop.
31. Reflections on the Season of Advent.
32. Reflections on the Season of Advent.
33. Ascension Day Sermon.
34. 10 January 1999 Washington National Cathedral Sermon.
35. Essay on Anglican Spirituality.

Voice, a Literary Analysis

Introduction

In the previous section I analyzed the Presiding Bishop's theology as revealed in his public statements. It was shown that his real theology was a distortion, a distortion so severe that its adoption will lead to the death of the church. This raises a question, How could it be that his teaching could actually claim the allegiance of so many in the church, including a great many bishops and priests who should have some minimum of theological insight? That question, of course, can be answered from many angles. One important response would be to analyze the role of theological education in the church today. From that viewpoint, I would claim that much of the church has been led astray by a false theology that has been around since Schleiermacher, one that is taught in most of our Episcopal seminaries.

There are, however, other reasons for the Presiding Bishop's prominence. Our culture, our church, has lost the ability to think theologically, critically, and prayerfully. Image, style, and feeling are what resonate and create success, whether in the church or in the world. Keeping in mind that our Presiding Bishop was elected by people who listened to him, I shall show this by considering the concept of "voice."

All texts have literary characteristics. Matters such as voice, mood, character development, plot, pace, and other factors are critical for meaning. Students of literature know that texts not only communicate by presenting content, but also communicate by how the content is presented.

The Presiding Bishop's public statements are not literary fiction, and such matters as character development or plot are not relevant to his written works. Nevertheless, there is one aspect of a literary analysis that can shed light on the Presiding Bishop's public statements. This is the concept of "voice."

The voice of a text is the persona or the personality of the narrator of a text. Normally, authors adopt voices that are not themselves. For example, a middle aged woman may write a story as narrated by a male adolescent, or an author can assume the voice of a dispassionate and omniscience observer who sees and knows all. But let us consider the voice of the Presiding Bishop's public statements by taking a sample essay, the Presiding Bishop's message on Anglican spirituality. Here is the opening paragraph.

We experience around us a yearning for meaning in the face of life's precariousness. The signs are everywhere. This yearning is variously addressed in ways both healthy and unhealthy, more and less effective. Attention to the life of the spirit is among them. Unfortunately, some of this attention is in the nature of a passing fancy, unmoored from the received tradition or the wisdom of the ages. Our Anglican heritage is a rich treasure for us in these times, to take ever more deeply to ourselves, and to share with a searching world.(1)

The voice speaks to us. It begins with the word "We." We are together. We are Anglicans. It is "our" Anglican heritage that is a treasure for "us," and we experience around "us" a yearning for meaning. The voice assumes that we belong to the same spiritual community and includes us in that assumption. Further, the voice has lived. It has experienced things. It knows the "precariousness" of life. It senses the "yearning," it recognizes the "searching world." It knows the "signs" that "are everywhere." It speaks wisdom. It is wise because it can make value judgments on significant matters. It knows that our heritage is not just a treasure, but a "rich treasure." It knows when something is "rich." It can distinguish between yearnings that are "healthy and unhealthy, more and less effective." It is able to discern when a spirituality is "unmoored from the received tradition or wisdom of the ages." This implies that it knows the "received tradition," the "wisdom of the ages," and can discern when something deviates from that tradition. It can distinguish between a "passing fancy" and the real thing. It even knows the depths of the self, because it has traveled "ever more deeply to ourselves." In short, this voice is spiritually wise.

The voice does not say, "I have studied spirituality for years and these are my best judgments. Here are the authors I have read; this is why I affirm these concepts and not others. Here are the names of those who would disagree with me." That would raise the matter of sources and fallible judgments. The voice, however, does not do this. Nor does the voice overtly proclaim that "I am competent to know spiritual truth and the value of the heritage." Nor does it say "I can distinguish between passing fancies and the real thing," nor does it proclaim that its experience is broad enough to know the "yearning" and "searching" of the world." Nor does it say "I have taken the rich treasure of Anglicanism into my own depths."

Had the voice explicitly expressed itself in this way, it would have called the reader to examine norms and alternatives. Direct statements such as "I am spiritually wise," raise at once the possibility that perhaps the voice is not wise. Then further questions arise. What is spiritual wisdom? How do we know it? What constitutes evidence that a particular person really possesses wisdom?

The voice, however, takes a different approach. It claims wisdom, but indirectly, implicitly not explicitly. Since it is implicit rather than explicit, the reader hears or reads the words without fully thinking. The reader will, however, sense or feel that the one who discerns the richness of the heritage, who grasps the difference between effective and non effective, between a passing fancy and real thing, is a wise person. In other words, the voice does not ask its audience to measure, think, discern, or weigh evidence regarding spiritual wisdom. Rather, the voice simply addresses the heart, without the consent of the will and intellect, claiming that it is wise.

Nor does the voice asks the reader whether or not he or she wishes to be a part of the "we," the "our" and the "us." The reader is simply taken aboard, made one with the voice from the very first word, "We." The voice could have used the term "I," indicating that it is expressing its views and that these views may not be the views of its audience. If the voice were to use the word "I," then questions would arise. The reader would know that the views of the voice belonged to the author, that the author may or may not reflect the reader's own views. The reader might then ask, How are my views different? Do I really believe this? And if so, Why? The voice does not ask these questions. It simply defines Anglican spirituality, and as it does so, it includes the reader as one who believes, thinks, and feels just as the voice believes, thinks, and feels. By doing this, it defines the reader without directly asking the reader to make a reasoned, prayerful search as to the truth of its definitions. Further, by using the terms "we," "us," and "our" the voice allows the reader or listener to participate in its wisdom. The voice becomes the spokesperson for the community, stroking its members with ideas that place it and they in a distinguished position. Subtly, yet in a real way, the audience knows that it belongs to a community whose heritage is rich, whose spiritualities are not passing fancies, whose members can take their treasure "ever more deeply to ourselves." The voice invites the listener to be flattered.

It may seem that the above conclusions have exceeded the evidence. As one hears or reads a text, however, impressions are instantly formed. To read the paragraph quoted above is to sense at once that the voice is spiritually wise, although the voice never once asks that anyone judge the matter in any specific fashion. How can one say that "Unfortunately, some of this attention is in the nature of a passing fancy, unmoored from the received tradition or the wisdom of the ages," without an implicit claim to wisdom? The impression of spiritual wisdom, tacitly received, may be fleeting, but it is real, and it will be fortified over and over again as the text continues.

Once the voice has introduced itself, brought the reader into the community, and established its authority as spiritually wise, the voice begins to paint a picture. As the picture unfolds, however, the voice constantly reminds the listener that he or she is one with the voice. The text is laced with "our," "we," and "us." Out of 39 sentences in this essay, these three words occur 46 times.

Nor is the audience ever allowed to forget that the voice knows the tradition. The second paragraph quotes William Law, an "18th century priest mystic." It notes that Anglican spirituality is not just incarnational, but "profoundly" incarnational. The voice is attuned to the "profound." In the third paragraph, the voice alludes to one of the rich treasures of the prayer book, its attention to time. The prayer book doesn't just attend to time, it attends "carefully" to time, and the voice is astute enough to recognize when time is treated "carefully." Paragraph four quotes Augustine and Ephesians, paragraph five quotes Psalm 95. Successive paragraphs follow the same pattern. This is wisdom, a voice that knows the tradition in depth and can quote it. The text unfolds in exactly this fashion.

As the essay continues, a picture emerges. Theologically, the picture is the one that I have presented in the first part of this essay. But the picture is never explicitly described. In fact, I write this essay so the Presiding Bishop's covert perspective can be clearly seen and recognized. Nor does the voice contrast its picture with alternative positions. Just as the reader was not asked to question the wisdom of the voice, nor its being one with the voice, the reader is never invited to compare and judge between the picture of the voice and other pictures that might have claims to truth. Rather, the picture is simply painted in words that can resonate in the soul. Here is another typical paragraph.

Because Jesus Christ is the incarnate and glorified Word of God, fundamental to all spirituality is the capacity and willingness on the part of persons of faith to listen. "Oh that today you would hearken to his voice!" we are counseled in Psalm 95, which is used throughout the Anglican Communion as an Invitatory at Morning Prayer. As each day begins we are invited to listen to the words and events which lie ahead "as those who are taught." [Isaiah 50:4](2)

When most people think of the "incarnate and glorified Word," they think of Jesus of Nazareth, the person they learned about in the Bible. The voice has different ideas. It is not referring to the revelation in Jesus of Nazareth as attested in Scripture. Rather, the text claims that Jesus Christ is incarnate in the "words and events which lie ahead." These "words and events" are the experiences of daily life. Since Jesus is the "glorified Word of God," he is available to all events, able to speak in any and all of them including those that "lie ahead." The voice does not say, "I believe there was an incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth 2,000 years ago, but the real purpose of that incarnation and glorification was to teach us that the risen Christ is incarnate in everything. Therefore, we must attend to our own experience as the source of revelation today. In fact, I have decided that this revelation goes beyond Scripture and in some cases is even 'inconsistent with Scripture.'" Further, the voice could have said, "There are those who disagree with me. This is the essence of their argument and I disagree with them for these particular reasons." Then the reasons could have been given. This approach would challenge the audience to investigate the matter for themselves and reach an opinion based on study and prayer.

The voice doesn't do that. It carries the reader into specific points of view without alerting the reader as to the real content of its perspective. It simply claims that God speaks in the "words and events that lie ahead." This, of course, begs the question as to how revelation in daily life is related to God's revelation in Scripture, or tradition, or reason, or any other source that one might happen to think revelatory. Since real alternatives are passed over in silence, the mind arrives without impediment at the real intent of the words: experience is the way God speaks, and if we listen, we will know that.

In this way, a picture is painted, the reader is drawn into the picture, and thereby defined as one who believes as the voice believes, that experience is the norm for faith. Once again, the voice seeks to bypass the intellect and will, simply content to paint a picture that resonates in the soul of its audience. Further, the voice is consistent with the Presiding Bishop's theological perspective. In his view, we are all one in the risen Christ. In Christ, all differences fade away. Therefore, to erect boundaries, to ask his readers to be for or against his persuasions, to deny the "us," the "we," and the "our," is to deny our unity in Christ. It would be divisive. The Presiding Bishop is inclusive, not divisive. Therefore, he will not define himself over against his readers but include the from the very first word.

Nor does the voice present any evidence from known biblical scholars validating its interpretation of Psalm 95 and Isaiah 50:4. I looked these up in my best commentaries. Psalm 95 is a call to heed the Word of the Lord given in Israel's worship. This Word is the "proclamation of God's commandments as the order of his covenant..."(3) Psalm 95 does not refer to the "words and events which lie ahead," rather, it refers to God reciting in worship his past saving deeds. Isaiah 50:4 refers to the call of the prophet, to one taught by the Word.(4) The prophetic Word was then proclaimed to the community. That same prophetic Word became incarnate in Jesus Christ and spoke to the apostles. If each and every Christian believes they can supersede the biblical witness of prophets, Christ, and apostles by hearing that Word directly in the events and circumstances of life, then each and every Christian is equivalent to Jesus Christ, the apostles, and the prophets.

This raises a question that goes to the heart of the Presiding Bishop's covert theology. Is Jesus Christ attested in Scripture the prophetic Word one must hear and obey, or is Scripture simply a record of how Jesus and the prophets heard the Word in their lives, showing us how to hear a very different Word in our day as we listen to the events and circumstances of life? Or, is Jesus a symbol for who we are, our own interpreters of truth, our own justifiers, and our own mediators, or is he our truth, our justifier, and our mediator? Is he us? or is he not us?

More could be said on the voice, although the conclusion is clear enough. The voice never directly exposes its own claims to wisdom. It does not ask if the reader wants to be united with the voice and its conclusions. It never contrasts its truth with other alternatives. It avoids conscious choices for its audience. It only enchants and seduces, seeking to bypass the intellect and will, giving only immediate impressions and appealing only to feeling. In short, it is insidious.

Where did all this come from? Where will it go? How could we let ourselves be led away to such an ignominious end? The Episcopal Church has been, and is, a church that is proud of its learning, its culture, and its wisdom. For years we have felt superior to our "morally rigid" brothers and sisters. We take pride in our religion of good taste. We look down on those who proselytize. We scorn the happy clappy. We are sophisticated. We are educated. We are not ignorant and foolish. As a result, God has allowed us, steadily, surely, and without recompense, to remake ourselves in the image of our disdain.

Endnotes

1. Essay on Anglican Spirituality.
2. Essay on Anglican Spirituality.
3. Arthur Weiser, The Psalms. A Commentary. Translated from the German by Herbert Hartwell. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962, p. 627.
4. Westermann, Claus. ISAIAH 40 66. The Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969, p. 229.

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
January, 2002