The Truth of Community

Historically, Anglicanism has maintained the primacy of Scriptures as God's revelation of Divine Truth. In a pluralistic culture, however, the idea can easily arise that divine revelation is not primarily Scripture, but rather, the "truth of community." This truth is discovered through dialogue, a dialogue which weaves together our partial individual truths into an inclusive divine whole. Scripture can still have authority, but its authority is not so much content as relationship. It shows how Israel and the early church found their truth in relationships and how we today can find our different truth by relating to God and each other. Such a view entails a shift from the Word of God in Scripture to dialogue in community, from biblical interpretation to a sharing of life's experiences, from boundaries and limits to a unity in diversity which honors all opinions equally. A good example of this view is the new presiding bishop's sermon at his consecration. In what follows, all quotations are from this sermon.

The sermon does not call us to begin with the incarnate Word revealed in Scripture, but rather, our relation to God "finds expression and is made incarnate--is earthed and given flesh--in our communion, our fellowship, with one another." In this context, the real scripture is us, revealed when we share the truth "which is embodied in each of us, in what might be called the scripture of our own lives." As we share this living scripture we discover that we make a "unique contribution to the ever expanding mystery of communion." Then our minds will be renewed, not by obedience to the biblical Word, but rather, through a "communal enterprise whereby your truth and my truth address one another and give room to one another." In this process we "make room for the ambiguity and paradox" of each person's understanding of Christ. This requires a transformed heart and it isn't easy. Such a heart is open to "to everyone and everything," and able to "embrace all sorts and conditions of humanity" to such an extent that our hearts burn "with God's own love for the whole mix and muddle of the world."

The advantages of this perspective are obvious. Everyone has a place at the table. It honors everyone, rejects none, fosters community, and appears loving. The disadvantages are fatal. I will name only one. If truth is a communal process in which the "diverse and the disparate, the contradictory and the paradoxical are woven together in the risen Christ," than this process includes beliefs about Jesus -- Jesus the Galilean revolutionary, Jesus the archetype of wholeness, Jesus the peripatetic sage, Jesus the illegitimate son of a prostitute, Jesus the mother earth, Jesus the Buddha, Jesus who did no miracles, who never instituted the Holy Communion, who did not atone for sin, who rotted in the tomb, Jesus this, that, everything. Opinions like these can be found in the church. Some of them deny the faith. They can never never be "woven together in the risen Christ." If harmonized, it can only be in favor of a higher mystical truth devoid of content. If we accept this we have nothing, no Lord Jesus, no Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, no Spirit, no church, no hope, nothing.

Regardless of what we may believe intellectually, if we live as if truth were community we will suffer and suffer badly. First of all, our church cannot long sustain this vain dream of fundamental differences forever held in tension. Secondly, we will deny our Anglican heritage, a heritage which sees Scripture not community as the norm of faith. Finally, worst of all, truth as community will inevitably lead to community as incarnate Truth. As that happens, we will deny Jesus as Lord for he and he alone is Truth Incarnate. (Plenteous Harvest, July, 1998.)

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The Truth of Community

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