Naïve Triumphalism

There is in Church Growth circles a naïve triumphalism.  A number of years ago Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral was the model for Church Growth, and Robert Schuller’s Credo was the Church Growth cheer, "If you can dream it, you can do it."   The BHAG business goal became the directive for the Church Growth movement.  Do you remember BHAG?  Dream Big Hairy Audacious Goals?  There is a difference between enthusiasm and being filled with the Spirit.  Clergy all over the land were invited to Dream Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

Following that Credo mega-churches were spawned across the land, but the question that needs to be raised is “Is that the model God intends for his Church?”  The Crystal Cathedral dream went into bankruptcy, the building was sold and was purchased by the Roman Catholic Church and renamed Christ Cathedral.  Perhaps that’s what it should have been named from the beginning.  You won’t find the Crystal Cathedral model in Scripture or in the Early Church for the very simple reason that it isn’t there.

It is hard to sort out our faith from the culture in which it has been, by necessity, incarnated.  We are a race of entrepreneurs finding our affirmation in our successes, treasuring our individuality, seeking self-actualization; none of which are biblical values.  What Jesus actually said was, “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33), and St. John comments, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him” (I John 2:15).  Having known that for some time doesn’t ward off our sense of mild surprise and disappointment when we discover that love, hard work, and enthusiasm can’t fix everything.

That is not to say that evangelism is not the primary mission of the Church.  Of course it is.  Jesus commanded us saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).  But that is quite different from the BHAG model.

We have the models for Church Growth readily at hand; they just don’t match our cultural presuppositions.  They don’t look like what we call success.   It has taken hundreds of years and thousands of martyrs for the Church universal to grow, and most of that growth follows the models of the early churches in Derbe, Iconium, Antioch, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, and finally in Rome.  What we want is instant mega success, but I suspect that God doesn’t want us to have it because it probably isn’t good for us. 

LGBT and Liberation Theology

I have recently read a response from a defender of LGBT committed relationships in which he referred to Liberation Theology as the most adequate response to the their situations.  This is my response:

From Gutierrez in “We drink from our own wells”:  “For those who are located within a particular spiritual tradition, entry into the experience of the LGBT means taking that tradition with them. . . . Advantage must rather be taken of that tradition in order to enrich the contemporary spiritual experience of the LGBT.  The refusal thus to enrich the LGBT would betray a kind of avarice in the area of spirituality.  Furthermore, such avarice turns against the distrustful owner: their spiritual riches spoil and lose their value when kept “under the mattress.”

The faith and hope in the God of life that provide a shelter in the situation of death and struggle for life in which the LGBT and the oppressed of Latin American are now living—they are the well from which we must drink if we want to be faithful to Jesus.”

I have substituted LGBT for the word “LGBT” to throw into sharp relief what Gutierrez is saying.  Far from abandoning tradition, he drinks from the well of tradition.  You seem to drinking from the well of accommodation to the pains and misery of the LGBT and importing that into your research seeking to justify their claims.  What is at issue is that obedience to the plain teaching of scripture and tradition brings life, and the refutation of the plain teaching of scripture and tradition is ultimately a ministry of death.

I have long agreed with the central tenet of Latin American Liberation Theology.  In the words of Obispo Adrian Caceres, “Learn to read the bible with the eyes los pobres.”  That did not mean that one abandoned either scripture or tradition, far from it, and it terms of basic morality there was no departure from scripture and tradition, and no demythologization of scripture and tradition in dealing with the death dealing immorality in the experience of the poor, or for that matter of the LGBT.  If in your attempt to apply your heuristic / hermeneutic questions you end up rejecting tradition in favor of your reworking of tradition you are making an error.  For Liberation Theology experience was not a substitute for scripture and tradition.

Ivory Tower Gnosticism

When I was a new Christian I was invited to preach at a youth event along with another young man named John who was a seminary student.  I said what I knew, and I knew Jesus.  After the event John informed me that it was not possible for me to understand Scripture because I was not in seminary.  Of course, being a seminary student, he had superior knowledge.

This is what I refer to as Ivory Tower Gnosticism; common people cannot understand Scripture, only Ivory Tower scholars can.  I recently received the same put-down from an old friend who is one of the more intelligent men I know.  Make no mistake, it is a put-down, and not only a put-down but a heresy common to Ivory Tower scholars; its intent is to invalidate the ability of the common man or woman to understand Scripture. 

The context was his justification of the current trend in the Church to approve of the marriage of same sex persons.  He was driven to pursue this course because of compassion, but that is not quite the same thing as being driven by a quest for truth. He bases his justification, not on a clear understanding of Scripture, but on his own research into social history that flies in the face of the witness of the larger Church.  Missing was a grasp of the ramification of the fall of humankind on social mores and customs.  In contrast, it really doesn’t matter what your sexual orientation is, all of us are fallen and there is no reality in the claim that we were created this way; therefore it’s justified.

Gnosticism is roughly salvation by special knowledge.  If you are not an initiate in the mysteries of special knowledge you are unenlightened.  The current flavor of Ivory Tower Gnosticism is a version of the Sophia Myth, where the goddess Sophia represents the female principle where it manifests itself in the defense of alternate life styles that are characterized by sexual identity confusion.

The real problem is the not so subtle inference that the common man or woman cannot understand the teaching of Holy Scripture, only the Initiates can.  It is true that much study may give you “special knowledge.”  But the danger comes when you fancy that special knowledge can replace the plain teaching of Scripture and Tradition.

The truth of Scripture must remain plain and simple so that he who runs may read it, understand it, and be called to the challenge to surrender to the voice of God speaking through the words of Scripture.  John Donne understood it correctly, ‘“The Scriptures are Gods Voyce; The Church is His eccho.”  When we forget that simple principle, trouble arises.

One of the wisest of men observed, “The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd.  My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh” (Ecclesiastes 12:11-12).   

Why Do the Heathen So Furiously Rage?

“O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.”[i] ~ T. S. Eliot

            We are drawing close to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and there is an ongoing furious debate in the church.  The debate is not about sexuality, but about the nature of authority in the church.

            The Psalmist asks, “Why do the heathen rage?”[ii]  It is a rhetorical question, but the answer is implicit in the response of the heathen.  “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his anointed, saying, "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us."[iii]  The problem that the world has with the Lord and his Anointed is authority.  The world cries out, “I am my own!”

            The world is in the Church and it loves to call the things of the Church its own.[iv]  The world within the Church rages against the authority of God and his Messiah and that raging takes the form of mocking denial of the authority of God’s anointed Word as He speaks in Holy Scripture.

            The problem is not intellectual or a matter of scholarship.  It is a matter of the heart.  It is painful to be told that the things that you are doing, the things that are closest to your heart, are sinful. The issue is not over one’s orientation.  The issue is lust.  What an awkward and condemning word that is!  It is so unlike the loving projection of God from the humanist heart of the world.  God is not a humanist.  He does not center the first principle of all things in the desperately wicked human heart,[v] but in himself.

            The argument could be over almost anything that the human heart holds dear.  More subtle are the hidden passions of intellectual snobbery, or human pride, or the self-assumed fundamental right of human beings to be self-determining; the right to say with Eve and Adam, “I am my own.  I want to do it my way.”  But be aware that in practice that self-assumed fundamental right means the right of the children of the world to mold everyone else in their image.

            That of course is the issue.  It is not just that the world within the Church seeks acceptance.  It is not just that the world within the Church seeks approval.  There is a difference between accepting people and approving their actions.  The world within the Church seeks something else.  Ultimately the world with the Church seeks your participation in its lusts.  That is the final approval.

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[i] T. S. Eliot, Chorus from the Rock

[ii] Psalm 2:1

[iii] Psalm 2:2-3  

[iv] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall

[v] Jeremiah 17:9

Under the Rainbow Bridge: A Family Tragedy

Late in 1941 three things came together: the new Mustang, the newly constructed Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls, and a young fly-boy named Nelson Purdue.  The Mustang was a small fighter plane that out performed the Spitfire and was destined to take a major role in the war.  The Rainbow Bridge had some strong romantic connections as the replacement for the Honeymoon Bridge, which collapsed due to an ice jam in the Niagara River. The new bridge had a marvelous view of Horseshoe Falls.  Put those two tempting items together with the newly engaged Nelson Purdue and a sunny day in the fall of 1941 and you have the stuff of family legends.  The tragedy is that Nelson was lost somewhere over Germany later in the war, leaving only the sparse legend surrounding his name. My aunt, who died several years ago, lost the most, and the event colored her life for some time to follow.  The rest of the family barely knew him.  I never met him.  Now sixty-five years later I know only the brief legend which was always told with joyful admiration, “Nelson flew under the Rainbow Bridge!”

What comes to mind is the admonition of a 8^th Century Saint, John of Damaskos, “All human affairs, all that does not exist after death is vanity.  Riches vanish, glory leaves us… every man born of the earth troubles himself in vain… by the time we have gained the whole word we shall be in the grave, where king and pauper are one.”[1]

What is truly important?  What is it that exists after death?  Certainly if God is our one true Love, all other loves and relationships will exist in him.  Here I want to raise a very important question for those of us in The Episcopal Church today.  Sixty-five years from now what will remain of the conflicts, vested interests, and personalities of the crisis within the church today?  The simple answer is not much!

In 1771 conflict arouse in the Church of England.  250 clergy who were deeply affected by the spread of Unitarianism submitted a petition to parliament.  British Statesman Edmund Burke responded: "These gentlemen complain of hardships: let us examine a little what that hardship is. They want to be honored as clergymen of the Church of England … but their consciences will not allow them to conform to the doctrines and practices of that Church. That is, they want to be teachers in a Church to which they apparently no longer belong; and that is an odd sort of hardship. They want to be paid for teaching one set of doctrines, while they are teaching another."[2]  Today’s conflict is only a variant of an ongoing debate between the orthodox and those who, like the second century heretic Marcion, refused the authority of Scripture and the Church wherever either disagreed with him. 

Marcion we know because the theologian Tertullian named him, but who are the 250 clergy who petitioned Parliament in 1771?  Their names are lost to posterity and they are only an obscure footnote in the history of the Church.  At least my family remembers that it was Nelson Purdue who flew under the Rainbow Bridge.  Karl Barth said something to the effect that it is one of God’s miracles that the Church still exists.  For twenty centuries, battered and bruised, the Church, the Bride of Christ rises from the ashes of conflict and opens the door to Salvation, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

From the perspective of history, there is nothing novel, or particularly earth shaking in the current attempts to deny the authority of Scripture in faith and practice.  Roseanne Roseannadanna was right, “it just goes to show you, it's always something! If it's not one thing, it's another!”  Of course it is.  St. Paul clearly warns us, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.”[3]  So what’s new?

Conflict within the Anglican Church is like waves crashing against the beach.  No matter how many times they come in, they always recede again.  In the meantime, what are we to do?  First, and it ought to be obvious, don’t build your house on the sand.  Build your house on the rock!  This is precisely where Jesus presents a stiff challenge to today’s Church.   What is the rock?  The One whom we call the Rock says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”[4]  The rock, very simply is the self-revelation of God in Holy Scripture itself.  

By definition, “In the name of Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.”[5]  The poet John Donne said it very nicely, “The Scriptures are God’s Voice.  The Church is His Echo.”[6]  I am well aware that not everybody wants that to be the solution for the painful stresses within the Church today, but I’m afraid that it is, and I don’t see away around the rock except by walking on the sand.  Stability in times of distress is a matter of basic principles firmly held.  I have always enjoyed the seashore, but for some reasons which should be obvious, I wouldn’t insist on building my house on the sand.

The second thing we are to do is follow the advice of Jesus who said “Fear not!”[7] and “Love one another!”[8]  Instead of worrying over things that are out of your control, put your trust in Him who is our steadfast love[9] and do the amazing thing he told you to do, and “love one another.”  That’s a whole lot better than pushing and shoving and saying uncharitable things.

The third thing we are supposed to do you already know.  Jesus said, “"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.   ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."[10]  He didn’t mean for you to do it only on mild sunny days, but in all kinds of weather, even when it’s stormy.  The secret of Church Growth is this: Go and make disciples!  That is as simple as inviting people to Church.  How do I know?  Because that is the way most of us came to faith in the first place, somebody invited us.

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[1] John of Damaskos, quoted by St. Peter of Damaskos in “The Fifth Stage of Contemplation” in the Philokalia, Vol.3

[2] Alfred Plummer, The Church of England in the Eighteenth Century, (London: Methuen, 1910), edited in contemporary English, Rob Smith 2006, p. 168

[3] Acts 20:28-31 ESV

[4] Matthew 7:24

[5] The Articles of Religion, BCP, p. 868

[6] John Donne, Sermons VI. 5-7

[7] Many places in the gospels, but for a helpful verse look up Psalm 64:1b

[8] John 15:12 etc.

[9] Psalm 144:2

[10] Matthew 28:18-20

Purple Fever: A Retrospect

The honour I never almost had:

Purple Fever is an awful disease, it was candidate’s night, and the next day was the election of a Bishop.  I who was never nominated, and did not desire to be nominated, am somewhat chagrined that not only will I not be elected, but I will not even have bragging rights of saying; “Back in two thousand and something I was nominated for Bishop.”  Even the possibility of a small self-glorifying exaggeration is clean cut off, I fortunately can’t even say, “I was almost elected.”

I looked over the slate of candidates.  There were two obviously good men who were willing to let themselves be lured into a greater suffering on behalf of the church.  Of the others, two had been afflicted with purple fever.  One of them eventually would end up in legal problems, the other was just a sad individual.  At least they had bragging rights.   Come to think about it, at an earlier election one devout and holy candidate, or so we were told, was eventually defrocked for child abuse.  Purple fever can, and does, infect the most unsuitable candidates.

This purple fever is an insidious disease that has led some to leave The Episcopal Church in their lust to become bishops.  I know one “bishop” duly consecrated by somebody, somewhere, who has no diocese, no churches, no priests, and worked as a gardener, and another who admitted to having only 12 people in his congregation, and six similar sized congregations under his shepherding care; but he’s a bishop and he holds wonderful ordinations for his poorly trained disciples.  I know another who left The Episcopal Church with great fanfare and great expectancy hoping to become a bishop in one of the African dioceses, only to discover too late that they don’t consecrate divorced men as bishops.

It’s a terrible thing, this irony of not being nominated for a job I wouldn’t want and wasn’t even nominated for. It’s somewhat akin to being a guardian cherub desiring ultimate enthronement and then being summarily forced out of heaven by those insufferable angels.  “I, the Morning Star, I have fashioned for myself a coat of many colours, I do not have to dress in white.  I do not want to be dressed in white kowtowing to His royal goodness YHWH.  I almost seized the heavenly throne; a throne I could have had, if only, so at least I have bragging rights.”

The great mistake in all this is the attempt to affirm one’s value by seizing power and becoming a human doing instead of accepting the humiliation of being a human being.  In this unrestrained ambition the greater the doing, the greater the power, the emptier the soul!  The truth is that it is a fatal error to say, “I do, therefore I am,” and perhaps René Descartes missed the truth, “Je pense donc je suis,” “I think, therefore I am.”  It is closer to the mark to say, “I love, therefore I am.”  Ultimately our human identity is defined by our relationships.

Hierarchy and the Dance of Life

Some people are destined for misery, it can be no other way. Their problem is not understanding their place in the dance of life. For a start they do not know, or choose not to know, that there is a natural hierarchy in the created order simply because there is a Creator, and all else by very nature is creation. In the dance of life He leads and all the rest of us are feminine in contrast to his overwhelming masculinity.

This is very difficult both for men and “liberated” women. It is not easy even for women who profess that their husbands are the head of the house and say in the same breath, “But, I’m the neck that turns the head.” Unlike their unfortunate husbands God cannot be manipulated no matter how lovingly.

Hierarchy is the principle of organization for creation and for every human society, even the Church. Remember that Christ Jesus is the Head and we are his body. That is reflected in the four orders of ministry; bishops, priests, deacons and laity. The bishop who said that he was the servant of the servants of the servants of God spoke only a partial truth, and we all know that a partial truth is a heresy. This particular heresy is endemic in the American Church where those who proclaim it most loudly discover that they have lost their authority (how odd?) and end up having to go to the secular courts to sue their brothers over property. Here the problem is the disconnected hierarchy of the American Church that refuses to acknowledge any authority greater than itself. Where is no hierarchy there is no dance of life.

Surrender to the reality of hierarchy is surrender to an hierarchical order that is by nature an authority structure. That should be too obvious to bear mention, but it’s not. The only other alternative is chaos. Dare I mention an unpardonable word? Obey! Dare I interject that word into our understanding of the hierarchical order of bishops, priests, deacons and laity? Humility is understanding and accepting your place in God’s created order. The kingdom of God is not a democracy, and where it attempts to be a democracy it fails to be a kingdom. In a kingdom one reverently obeys the King. One also obeys his delegated officers and ministers. In American democratic fantasy people fancy that they decide things by a popular vote. That is idealized in the Town Meeting system that has the unique characteristic of not working very well, which is why we elect temporary rulers to argue and vote among themselves while the rest of us are just expected to obey. Now my remarks about hierarchy may not seem very American or democratic, but that is because my allegiance is to a kingdom with another King.


Not all are comfortable with the idea of kingdom because the notions of hierarchy and obedience cut cross grain across self-centered human nature and leave them feeling that their freedom of choice is impaired, that their rights are being trampled on. St. Paul points out an uncomfortable reality. We are slaves of sin or we are slaves of righteousness. There is no middle ground. We will end up obeying one or the other. The only alternative to God’s hierarchy, its obedience, order and joy; is chaos, desolation and misery. The reason why some will live in misery is that they do not know that the truth will set them free, and that freedom is of necessity freedom from the tyranny of self, and sin, and freedom from isolation from the dance of life.