Why Struggle On? by: The Rt. Rev Robert Duncan AND
Bishop Duncan Gets it Wrong Again by: Nigel J. Taber-Hamilton
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“Why Struggle On?” BY THE RT. REV. ROBERT WM. DUNCAN, BISHOP OF PITTSBURGH 2 TRINITY MARCH - APRIL 2006 Beloved in the Lord: At a recent clergy day I was asked if I would put into writing a response I made to a question posed to me by one of our rectors. As I reflected on the request, I thought my TRINITY column might be a good place to give everyone in our diocese opportunity to consider what I had been asked to put into print. The context of the question was a presentation I had been making to various gatherings of diocesan leaders throughout the month of January. I had shared my sense that the battle in which we are engaged in the Episcopal Church will go on for a very long time, that there were unlikely to be any “quick-fixes” or decisive actions either at the General Convention or in the systems of the Anglican Communion, and that our best course forward, remained a relentless and unyielding focus on the mission of our congregations, on our mission together as a diocese and on are missionary partnerships worldwide. If our situation is not going to be “fixed” tomorrow, why hang on? Why struggle on? Why endure? The answer has to do with the magnitude of the reformation and the scope of the transformation now underway. The answer has to do not only with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, but with all the “mainline” churches and all of Western Christianity. (The writings of one no less than Joseph Ratzinger, now His Holiness Benedict XVI, share this assessment.) The theological issues and social forces that are tearing the Episcopal Church apart are at play across the whole Christian spectrum in the churches of Europe, North America and Australia/New Zealand. The Episcopal Church happens to be on the ”sword’s point”. I want to offer three contemporary appeals as to why the faithful of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh should “hold on” – “stand fast” - through the very long season of global reformation of Christ’s Church into which we have entered. First, we are on the “sword’s point.”. I cannot count the number of times my ecumenical colleagues -- whether Presbyterian or Methodist or Lutheran or “free church” or Roman Catholic - have thanked me (and us) for standing as we have as Orthodox Anglicans. Their consistent observation is that we are the leaders in a battle in which they, too, are engaged and cannot escape. They pray for us and for our success, because in our efforts are their futures, too. Second, Western society is disconnecting from its Christian foundation. We Episcopalians, as much as any Western denomination, are inheritors of a “state-church” mentality. State-churches are tied to their cultures. The present reforma- tion of Christianity in the West requires that the Church become counter-cultural, rather than chaplains to the culture. This very fact points to why the Episcopal Church (and Church of England) are so compromised, so divided, and so much at the center of the very thing God is intending to change among Christians in the West. Few of us want to be at the center of this battle for the soul of the Church in the West, but that is precisely where God has put the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Given the toughest assignment on the battlefield, will we as Pittsburghers shrink back? Like our Steelers, we may be sixth-seeded in the contest, but that is the kind of position from which our God always selects those whom He intends to use for His purposes. Third, Christianity’s center is shifting South. As Philip Jenkins so well documented in his revolutionary analysis of the future of Global Christianity entitled The Next Christendom, the engine, the heart and the model of 21st century Christianity is shifting to Latin America, Africa and Asia. Few Anglican dioceses are better positioned to help our fellow countrymen and fellow Christians understand and embrace this change. This is an epochal shift in Christian history, one for which God has called us faithful Episcopalians in South- western Pennsylvania to be ambassadors. Would we shrink from this privilege? Some years ago, a book appeared entitled Will our Children have Faith? Not only will our children have faith, but they will have the Faith. God always reforms His Church. We stray and He redeems. We sin and He saves. Proclaiming Jesus Christ - the same yesterday, today and forever - is the rock of faith against which even the gates of hell cannot prevail. It is time to accept our vocation as “soldiers of Christ” once again. We are in a very tough fight, not with those who disagree with us, but with the “world, the flesh, and the devil.” Jesus had the courage to go to the cross. Courage breeds courage. Let’s get on with it, difficult as it may be, not in our own strength, but in His. Faithfully your Bishop, +Bob Pittsburgh
"Bishop Duncan gets it wrong again." by Nigel J. Taber-Hamilton In a recent letter to his diocese, titled "Why Struggle on?" Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh used the word "Reformation" to describe the "theological issues and social forces that are tearing the Episcopal Church apart", further indicating that it is exactly these issues that "are at play across the whole Christian spectrum in the churches of Europe, North America and Australia/New Zealand. " But Bishop Duncan sees the struggle as between secular humanism and religion - particularly Christianity. To support his claim he mentions Phillip Jenkins' analysis suggesting that "Christianity's center is shifting South" Jenkins analysis is more subtle, and the reality open to a radically different interpretation. ONE form of Christianity is shifting its center South. And - Bishop Duncan take note - it is not that part that represents a reformation, but rather a counter-reformation. Bishop Duncan's form of Christianity is largely informed by a pre-Enlightenment vision of reality and faith, and it is rooted in a return to the tradition, hierarchy, authority and supernaturalism characteristic of the church of the Middle Ages. Jenkins says as much in his seminal article in Atlantic Monthly ("The Next Christianity", October 2002). Such a brand of Christianity is much more attractive in the Global South, for it validates these cultures' contemporary societal institutions, rather than challenging the Status Quo. This is, of course, to flip the identity of one Jesus of Nazareth, prophet and reformer, on its head. The genuine Reformation in Christian faith is the same one that began with those movements epitomized by the first reformers: in continental Europe by Huss, Luther, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Muntzer, Calvin, and, in England, Wycliffe, Tyndale, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer - a Reformation whose history has spanned half a millennia and only now begins to come to its peak. The ways that this Reformation understands its faith and its sacred texts are being transformed. For instance, modern New Testament-era study has revealed a much more diverse and inclusive Christianity, lost from human knowledge for the last 1600 years. This new understanding questions and redefines old notions of biblical truth through the creation of a renewed story of Christian faith, challenging the pre-Enlightenment worldview. Our societal understanding has also grown. This is reflected in the emerging social values of the North Atlantic community that allow for greater tolerance and acceptance of individual differences. Such a shift is perfectly reflected within the north American Roman Catholic Church. As Jenkins has noted, "in the wake of the priestly child abuse scandals, many liberal, affluent American Catholic parishes have criticized the church for its "primitive doctrines" and have called for Catholicism "to become much more inclusive and tolerant, less judgmental, and more willing to accept secular attitudes towards sexuality and gender roles." ("Is God Going South?" from "On Campus" Penn. State, May 2005), though Jenkins fails to see how deeply connected with developing North Atlantic Christian identity these 'secular' attitudes actually are. Because these changes point toward a new way of understanding ourselves and our universe as Christians that incorporate the post-Enlightenment advances in science, philosophy, behavioral studies and human communication. Our Christian worldview is being transformed in remarkable, life-changing ways. And so the struggle is not between the Religious and the Secular, as Duncan mistakenly claims, but between two different Christian world-views, two different Christian cosmologies - a struggle that has given rise to two different paradigms of biblical interpretation, of Christian identity and of faithful response. These two Christian cosmologies - Christian worldviews - are currently engaged in a wrestling match to determine which worldview will define religious reality for Christian worshipers. We are all familiar with this struggle, which is being played out so visibly in the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, United Methodist and - to some extent - Roman Catholic Churches in North America. This is not a new struggle, therefore - it is the same struggle that led Luther, on April 18, 1521, to cry defiantly to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me! Amen." As the Global South's rising tide of Pharisaic Neo-Puritanism seeks to
wash
away its opponents in a flood of vitriolic scapegoating such a cry is
echoed
from the lips of many in the North Atlantic Community.
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