The election will be over this evening, and its results will be settled within a few months. That leaves two main topics for commentary: (a) my cold, and (b) Episcopal church politics.
Regarding (a), I must first stipulate that I’m a terrible convalescent. Any cold I endure is much less severe than my complaining would indicate. That being said, I don’t recall ever having had a cold in which my eyes and lips felt quite so miserable. My stuffed sinuses follow the pattern of typical colds, though since this one is my cold, I’m sure they’re more stuffy than usual. My neck is stiff, and there’s no comfortable position for it. I had to drop Margaret at Midway this morning, and on the way back I inadvertently cut off another driver on Lake Shore Drive. He honked, and I wished that David Weinberger’s apology gesture were more generally recognized. Then, on Sheridan in Rogers Park, the driver behind me rear-ended me (she must have been going 10 mph at least); the Subaru showed no damage, and I felt sympathetic for her, and the collar prodded me, so I shrugged it off and sent her away. But that didn’t help my sore neck or headache.
Okay, enough about my ephemeral minor cold. What about the politics in the Episcopal Church?
First, I’m not worried about the Druidic clergy in the Diocese of Pennsylvania — not because I think there’s any rationale for their behavior, but because Anglicans have always harbored oddball clergy. Anyone who’s surprised that a couple of crypto-Druids turned up among Anglican clergy hasn’t been paying enough attention to history.
I don’t condone their muddle-headed theology; it’s wrong, and there’s an end on it. I hope that Bishop Bennison deals more rigorously with clergy who depart from Christian faith than he does those whose adherence to traditional theology renders them intractable relative to the direction of the rest of the diocese. On the other hand, I don’t see this as a shocking novelty; it’s a perennial manifestation of the genius of Anglican ecclesiology, that we endure crackpots in the interest of avoiding inquisitions.
I don’t disrespect Druids and pagans, either (though I probably show attenuated patience for “neo”-pagans) — I respect Druidic and pagan belief and practice enough to insist that its divergence from Christian teaching be fully observed and not trivialized. Druids died for their opposition to Christianity; who would presume to minimize the meaning of their deaths, in the interest of propounding a facile reconciliation of contrary faiths? Out of full respect for the divergent beliefs of pagans, I think they ought to pursue their Druidic convictions apart from the antithetical teaching and practice of the Episcopal Church.
So I would comfortably exclude neo-semi-Druids from the Episcopal priesthood. I would not, though, endorse the vigilant homogeneous orthodoxy that some spokespeople for The Tradition endorse. Just when would that have characterized the best face of Anglican tradition? Probably not right around the Reformation, when Protestants and Catholics were burning one another at the stake. Probably not in the seventeenth century, when Puritans and Cavaliers, Laudians and Presbyterians were ready to execute one another. Who represent the homogeneous core theologians of this tradition? Hooker and Cranmer only? What about Maurice, Temple, Newman, Wilberforce, Gore, Farrar, Mascall? Do they all count — and if some don’t, who decided who was in and who was out?
So far as I can tell, the strength of the Anglican Tradition lies precisely in its willingness not to permit its decisions to be shaped by panic over heterodoxy— in its confidence that the Truth will always prevail in the long run, and in the humble awareness that churches and councils err, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith. In that confidence, and in the privilege of serving a church that observes its own limitations, I cling to the truth handed down to me by the saints, I repudiate those teachings and practices that contradict that truth, and pray that all people (Anglicans especially included) come to understand the truth in its fullness — which full understanding none of us can with integrity yet claim.
Posted by AKMA at November 2, 2004 10:45 AM | TrackBackWatching this as a non-Anglican, I've been wondering if there can't be a third option after a) persecuting heretics or b) doing nothing. I like a lot of things about the ECUSA, but I haven't signed on because it seems to be polarized in that fashion (and not just about this but about a lot of things). And what about the church's responsibility to this rector's flock? What are they learning about what Christianity is? It's one thing to say the church has room for all kinds of people, it's another when all kinds of people have authority over others.
Posted by: Camassia at November 2, 2004 11:29 AMCamassia, you make a number of valuable points —though in response to your opening words, I wonder where anyone has talked about “presecuting heretics.” In any given vocation, there are liable to be actions contrary to the nature of the job: for a police officer to participate in crime, for a coach to try to make her team lose, for a teacher to inculcate information he knows to be untrue. I take it that advocating Druidic theology departs from the expectations of an Episcopal priest, hence I think a bishop justified who might depose them from their ministry.
Does that constitute “persecution”? I suppose that in a strained sense of the word it might. The characterization of “dismissal for cause” seems more apt, though.
What of the congregations? The diocese should act quickly to find agreeable and pastorally-sensitive clergy leadership for these parishes, albeit clergy who know the difference between the Christian faith and organized paganism.
Posted by: AKMA at November 2, 2004 12:45 PMI don't think that's persecution, but that's my point: it seems like most of liberal Episcopal bloggers I know are calling the conservative reaction to this a "witch hunt." And many conservatives are obliging them with some over-the-top rhetoric. I suppose that's what I get for getting a lot of my info about this stuff from blogs, but I wish I could find more voices as reasonable as yours is.
Posted by: Camassia at November 2, 2004 01:49 PMNobody seems to see the humour of Bennison urging avoidance of a "witch hunt" on actual witches, even if the witches in question have adopted a cartoonish (and quite new) version of what they perceive to be witchcraft, e.g. Wicca.
I also don't notice anyone adhering to traditional orthodoxy (at least not in blogdom) panicking. The only sound I hear is a loud and intractable yawn. That was my reaction as well. For a long time the Episcopal Church has been the laughinstock of American religion, with good reason.
Posted by: Daniel Nathan Stoddart at November 2, 2004 04:40 PMOne of the ironies that has been overlooked in this discussion is that modern Druidism is intimately connected to the Episcopal church. The midwestern college students who founded the Reformed Druids in 1963 (the group to which most current Druid movements trace their origins) were mostly Episcopalians, and several of them went on to become (mostly orthodox) priests. The original Druidic liturgies drew heavily from the 1928 BCP; in some cases they were wholly lifted with only the diety's name changed.
Now it seems we have come full circle, with the fruits of those early experiments returning to the tradition that unwittingly gave them birth. We should perhaps be more amused than shocked.
Posted by: Francis at November 3, 2004 09:18 AMI don't know how trackback and pinging work yet, but I'd like to refer you to a follow-up on this post at http://www.soc-ssbj.org/wordpress/index.php?p=39.
Thanks!
Posted by: PJ Johnston at November 4, 2004 03:21 PM