Suspicions
“Of course I am a liberal” “Yes, I’d figured that out”. The first statement was mine. The reply came from a lovely older man at St. David’s in Englewood.
We were chatting this morning over coffee at the 8:00 a.m. service. He is from Newton, MA. His wife is from New Bedford, MA. They lived in Holliston, MA, and were founder members of the Episcopal Church there. But there hearts were, and are, at the Church of the Advent in Boston, a bastion of Anglo-Catholic worship and practice, “smells, bells and all”.
I preached there on Ascension Day a couple of years ago, and I was happy to tell them that the parish is flourishing and healthy. They told me of their hay-days at Advent when Whitney Hale was Rector. I never knew Whitney, but I met his matrician wife “Bootsy” in her later years, and I knew Whitney and Bootsy’s son Sam and daughter Margee. This couple were shocked when I told them that both Sam and Margee had passed from this life. They remembered Sam and Margee as young people.
As I drove home I pondered “but what did I mean when I said that I am a liberal?” The contest was the Church and not politics, though in many ways there is a seamless robe.
The word which came to me is “suspicion”. My understandings of Christianity are filtered through the spectacles of suspicion. I always ask the question “what is going on here?” And I ask this question about scripture, dogma and the Church.
Scripture. What is going on here?
Take, for example, the two stories of Creation in Genesis. Yes, there are two, each coming from a different source. I ask: “Why are the stories there? What gave rise to them? How have they been viewed through the Centuries? What do the two stories have in common, and where do they differ?”
The recognition that they are wonderfully evocative stories which feature a wonderful Creator and rather stupid human beings leads me to understand that they are not to be understood literally, but rather poetically and mythically. This understanding is congruent with the wisdom of the scientific approach which posits an old earth. It flies in the face of Christian conservatives who insist on a young earth, created in a literal six days.
They are there to help us encounter the Universe with awe (which scientists do!), and to ponder the mystery of our humanity (which psychologists do!).
And I believe that the bible is filled with similar stories, myths, dubious histories and tales which are to be viewed with suspicion, but from which we may hear (at a distance) the Word of God.
(And I worry about a Presidential candidate who believes in a literal six day creation. How will his religious views influence his funding of science?)
Dogma I have a deep suspicion about any dogma which is deemed essential. I ask “who insisted on this dogma, and why?”
Soon, in Church we shall hear tales from the Gospels of the Virgin Birth (more correctly “Virginal conception“) of Jesus. Matthew and Luke have concerns about this, but is does not seem to have been that important to St. Paul.
Matthew, quoting Isaiah, says “behold a virgin shall conceive”. But the Hebrew of Isaiah merely says “a young woman shall conceive”. And Luke seems to be more concerned with Mary’s chastity than her virginity.
So my suspicious mind asks “why did the Virgin birth become a dogma?”
Was it because of an odd idea that original sin was transmitted in semen?
And I ask: “or was it because the early Church valued virginity in the face of the belief that Jesus would soon return to earth?”.
And my political mind asks “how many human lives have been destroyed because of a suspicious dogma of Virgin birth” “Has this dogma skewed our understanding of human sexuality?” “Are our public policies rooted in a somewhat suspect dogma?”
My religious mind tells me that Jesus could be the Incarnate Word of God without the insistence on this dogma.
I have a similar suspicion about the Nicene Creed. I always ask “how did it develop?”; “why did it develop?”; “under what circumstances was it adopted?”
And having delved into those questions there are two others.
First “Is the Nicene Creed a statement of the winners in a religio-political battle, and if so: how and why did they ‘win’?”
Second “what is the cash value of the Nicene Creed?” Is it a weapon against heretics, or a dim but lovely insight into the mind and reality of God?
The Church
Thank God for the Church, it pays my pension.
But I have long since rejected the Roman Catholic claim to be the “true Church” as a legacy of Roman Imperialism.
And I have rejected the Fundamentalists’ claims to be “the true Church” on the grounds of “which one?” (Should I toss many coins?)
And I have rejected those claims on political grounds because of my fear of autocratic rule in the world ( I am an heir to the glorious English tradition of Parliamentary Rule),
On religious grounds, I do not believe that an autocratic Pope, or an autocratic Pastor is likely to understand the Jesus who claimed to be no more than a servant.
Now, having rejected Papist and Puritan claims, I find myself in conflict with that which I loved: The Anglican Communion.
We are being led in the direction of rules and regulations which would lead us to becoming “papists with an English accent” , or “fundamentalists with a good liturgy”.
Our good Archbishop of Canterbury has issued an Advent letter which is gracious, well written, finely nuanced, and ecclesiastically profound.
But it is very “theological” and very “English”. It does not speak to “Tillie” in Topeka, or “Nathaniel” in Nairobi. And although ++Rowan Williams is a good and holy man, it implies a centralization of power and authority which most Anglicans have never known.
I am very suspicious of even benign rule. It inevitably leads to autocratic rule.
So there are my suspicions. Do you share them? Have you thought about them or others?
I told the good couple in Englewood that I was a “liberal”. Truth to tell, I am an agnostic in the Christian tradition.
We were chatting this morning over coffee at the 8:00 a.m. service. He is from Newton, MA. His wife is from New Bedford, MA. They lived in Holliston, MA, and were founder members of the Episcopal Church there. But there hearts were, and are, at the Church of the Advent in Boston, a bastion of Anglo-Catholic worship and practice, “smells, bells and all”.
I preached there on Ascension Day a couple of years ago, and I was happy to tell them that the parish is flourishing and healthy. They told me of their hay-days at Advent when Whitney Hale was Rector. I never knew Whitney, but I met his matrician wife “Bootsy” in her later years, and I knew Whitney and Bootsy’s son Sam and daughter Margee. This couple were shocked when I told them that both Sam and Margee had passed from this life. They remembered Sam and Margee as young people.
As I drove home I pondered “but what did I mean when I said that I am a liberal?” The contest was the Church and not politics, though in many ways there is a seamless robe.
The word which came to me is “suspicion”. My understandings of Christianity are filtered through the spectacles of suspicion. I always ask the question “what is going on here?” And I ask this question about scripture, dogma and the Church.
Scripture. What is going on here?
Take, for example, the two stories of Creation in Genesis. Yes, there are two, each coming from a different source. I ask: “Why are the stories there? What gave rise to them? How have they been viewed through the Centuries? What do the two stories have in common, and where do they differ?”
The recognition that they are wonderfully evocative stories which feature a wonderful Creator and rather stupid human beings leads me to understand that they are not to be understood literally, but rather poetically and mythically. This understanding is congruent with the wisdom of the scientific approach which posits an old earth. It flies in the face of Christian conservatives who insist on a young earth, created in a literal six days.
They are there to help us encounter the Universe with awe (which scientists do!), and to ponder the mystery of our humanity (which psychologists do!).
And I believe that the bible is filled with similar stories, myths, dubious histories and tales which are to be viewed with suspicion, but from which we may hear (at a distance) the Word of God.
(And I worry about a Presidential candidate who believes in a literal six day creation. How will his religious views influence his funding of science?)
Dogma I have a deep suspicion about any dogma which is deemed essential. I ask “who insisted on this dogma, and why?”
Soon, in Church we shall hear tales from the Gospels of the Virgin Birth (more correctly “Virginal conception“) of Jesus. Matthew and Luke have concerns about this, but is does not seem to have been that important to St. Paul.
Matthew, quoting Isaiah, says “behold a virgin shall conceive”. But the Hebrew of Isaiah merely says “a young woman shall conceive”. And Luke seems to be more concerned with Mary’s chastity than her virginity.
So my suspicious mind asks “why did the Virgin birth become a dogma?”
Was it because of an odd idea that original sin was transmitted in semen?
And I ask: “or was it because the early Church valued virginity in the face of the belief that Jesus would soon return to earth?”.
And my political mind asks “how many human lives have been destroyed because of a suspicious dogma of Virgin birth” “Has this dogma skewed our understanding of human sexuality?” “Are our public policies rooted in a somewhat suspect dogma?”
My religious mind tells me that Jesus could be the Incarnate Word of God without the insistence on this dogma.
I have a similar suspicion about the Nicene Creed. I always ask “how did it develop?”; “why did it develop?”; “under what circumstances was it adopted?”
And having delved into those questions there are two others.
First “Is the Nicene Creed a statement of the winners in a religio-political battle, and if so: how and why did they ‘win’?”
Second “what is the cash value of the Nicene Creed?” Is it a weapon against heretics, or a dim but lovely insight into the mind and reality of God?
The Church
Thank God for the Church, it pays my pension.
But I have long since rejected the Roman Catholic claim to be the “true Church” as a legacy of Roman Imperialism.
And I have rejected the Fundamentalists’ claims to be “the true Church” on the grounds of “which one?” (Should I toss many coins?)
And I have rejected those claims on political grounds because of my fear of autocratic rule in the world ( I am an heir to the glorious English tradition of Parliamentary Rule),
On religious grounds, I do not believe that an autocratic Pope, or an autocratic Pastor is likely to understand the Jesus who claimed to be no more than a servant.
Now, having rejected Papist and Puritan claims, I find myself in conflict with that which I loved: The Anglican Communion.
We are being led in the direction of rules and regulations which would lead us to becoming “papists with an English accent” , or “fundamentalists with a good liturgy”.
Our good Archbishop of Canterbury has issued an Advent letter which is gracious, well written, finely nuanced, and ecclesiastically profound.
But it is very “theological” and very “English”. It does not speak to “Tillie” in Topeka, or “Nathaniel” in Nairobi. And although ++Rowan Williams is a good and holy man, it implies a centralization of power and authority which most Anglicans have never known.
I am very suspicious of even benign rule. It inevitably leads to autocratic rule.
So there are my suspicions. Do you share them? Have you thought about them or others?
I told the good couple in Englewood that I was a “liberal”. Truth to tell, I am an agnostic in the Christian tradition.
Yes.
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