A Rejoinder on the Essential Catholicity of the Episcopal Church, and the Importance of Relationships

While searching, out of curiosity, for Episcopal Church parishes that have altars set against the east wall, I stumbled upon an Orthodox blog post regarding an event about which I previously wrote (here). The event served as an opportunity for that blogger to opine that "the Episcopal 'Church' is simply apostate," that ecumenical dialogue between Orthodox and Episcopalians should cease, and that Orthodox jurisdictions should no longer recognize Episcopal sacraments, including baptism. Further elaboration followed in the comments. Given that opening volley, and considering the premium that I place upon incarnate relationships (according to which, I often question the value of relatively impersonal conversations online), I'm not sure that I had any real cause to comment; for whatever reason, I felt compelled to do so.

My response became too extensive for a mere comment, so I have posted my thoughts here (with an invitation, of course, to the originator of the criticisms to read them and respond, if he is so inclined). I offer them without animosity as the reflections of one who desires greater understanding, charity, and unity among Christians of varying traditions.

The assertions with which I must contend, and my responses:

"The simple truth is we have no idea what is happening in (Episcopal) baptisms. We don't know what is being said, what is being intended, and so on. In theory they are bound by the Book of Common Prayer. In practice this is often not the case."
I should begin by saying that I view adherence to the BCP as of utmost importance, and while it's true that we have priests who don't do this as strictly as they should (and as they are bound by their ordination vows to do), it must be said that such aberrations are exceptions, despite the press they receive. I think this is even truer with regards to the baptismal rite; as a lifelong Episcopalian, I've witnessed a fair number of baptisms, and I've never seen (or heard of) one that would be considered invalid according to the doctrine and practice set forth in the BCP. At a minimum, the baptism must be "with water, 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit' (which are the essential parts of Baptism)" (1979 BCP, 313). Any baptism meeting this basic criteria is recognized as valid by the Episcopal Church as constituting "full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ's Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble" (BCP, 298). Accordingly, the Episcopal Church does not re-baptize, and firmly argues against a theological understanding of baptism which would necessitate such a practice.
     As for baptisms administered in the Episcopal Church, in addition to meeting the above essentials, they are normatively in accordance with the full baptismal rite contained in the Prayer Book. In that rite, the candidate renounces Satan, evil, and sin, and affirms Jesus Christ as Savior, Lord, and the one upon whom all hope is cast. The candidate proceeds, with the whole assembly, to affirm the faith in the words of the Apostles' Creed. After prayers, the candidate is baptized in the Triune Name, and anointed with Chrism ("you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ's own forever"). Then the newly baptized is charged by the whole assembled household of God to "Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood." (BCP, 301-308). One may dispute the finer points of the BCP rite itself, but I must contend that it is simply unjustified to state that "we have no idea what is happening" in Episcopal baptisms--what is happening, with near if not actual universality in such baptisms, is the rite as contained in the authorized liturgy of the Episcopal Church.

"There is no real article of faith to which one must subscribe to be (an Episcopalian)."
See above. To me, this criticism sounds like a stereotypical Roman Catholic (or generally Western) criticism of Eastern Orthodoxy: "How can anyone be sure what those Orthodox really believe? They have no Pope! They have no systematic catechism! They are so enamored of divine mystery! It's just too messy!" It can indeed be messy, but that by no means negates the deep substance to be found in a tradition. To be baptized or received into the Episcopal Church is to affirm the ancient Creeds, and to submit to be continually formed by the liturgy of the Church as authorized in the BCP, which is the clearest and most authoritative source of "the doctrine and discipline" of the Episcopal Church. If one has questions about the faith professed by the Episcopal Church, read the BCP. Again, one may quibble over various details, but I don't see how anyone could claim that the BCP as a whole is not a formulary that is elegantly and powerfully catholic and reformed, solidly orthodox, and unambiguously Trinitarian. (And it's so handy, too!)

"Are there Christians in TEC? Certainly. But the organization itself is not Christian . . ."
Again, see above. This reminds me of conversations in my younger days among evangelical Protestant friends:
"So, do you think it's possible for a Roman Catholic to be a Christian?"
"Well, I guess so, if they have accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. But I don't know why they would continue to stay in that pagan, idolatrous 'church.' They should find a real church that's Bible-based."
"So, do you know many Roman Catholics?"
"Well, not really. But I just read this book by a former Catholic who got saved, all about what Catholics really believe . . ."

Lastly,
"And of course the few who are as a matter of personal faith still Christian are in full communion with the likes of Jack Spong. You are who you are in communion with."
To begin with, I should say that I'm no fan of John S. Spong. I tend to be pretty generous, but having read some of his stuff, I honestly don't know how (or why) he maintains a Christian self-identity. I should also note that some of his ablest critics have been his fellow Anglicans, including the recent Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams (he truly took him to task for his "12 Points"--look it up for a good read). There are still Episcopalians who seem interested in what he writes, but in my experience they are generally older and of decreasing number (i.e. Spong's heyday, to the extent that he had one, has come and gone). But more to the point, I would speak to the claim that "you are who you are in communion with." If that is how communion works (i.e. negatively, the "worst" of us infecting the "best" of us), then no doubt we are all, in every tradition, hopelessly lost. But there is a sense in which I agree--I believe that by God's grace in the sacraments (particularly Baptism and Eucharist), Christians are brought into union with one another in ways no less real for our inadequacy to describe the mystery. I would not say, though, that "I am who I am in communion with"; rather, I would assert that I am becoming, that I am being transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ, and into greater union with God and God's people.

To conclude, I would reiterate that I think relationships are key--if a Christian from a different tradition finds it inconceivable that an Episcopalian could be both sincere and well-grounded in his personal Christian faith and also convinced of the essential catholicity of the Episcopal Church, I would encourage such a one to seek to develop some relationships with some actual Episcopalians. I myself have been greatly blessed by my involvement in the Eighth Day Institute, a local ecumenical endeavor founded by a devout Orthodox layman and supported by the local Orthodox Cathedral of St. George (Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America). It is a truly remarkable and wonderful source of Christian fellowship and education.

Ephesians 4:1-6
Pax Christi.

Williams: Mary, Type of the Holy

Father in heaven, by your grace the virgin mother of your incarnate Son was blessed in bearing him, but still more blessed in keeping your word:  Grant us who honor the exaltation of her lowliness to follow the example of her devotion to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

~ Collect for the Feast of The Visitation (BCP pg. 240)

The LORD is high above all nations,
     and his glory above the heavens.
Who is like the LORD our God, who sits enthroned on high,
    but stoops to behold the heavens and the earth?
~Psalm 113:4-5

Rowan Williams, from Ponder These Things: Praying with Icons of the Virgin:

“What we call holy in the world – a person, a place, a set of words or pictures – is so because it is a transitional place, a borderland, where the completely foreign is brought together with the familiar.  Here is somewhere that looks as if it belongs within the world we are at home in, but in fact it leads directly into strangeness … most importantly, there is the person who stands on the frontier between promise and fulfillment, between earth and heaven, between the two Testaments: Mary.  That she can be represented in so many ways, thought about and imagined in so many forms, is an indication of how deeply she speaks to us about the hope for the world’s transfiguration through Jesus; how she stands for the making strange of what is familiar and the homeliness of what is strange.  After all, it is she who literally makes a home for the Creator of all things, the strangest reality we can conceive, in her own body and in her own house, she whom we meet again and again in the Gospels struggling with the strangeness of her son, from the finding in the Temple to the station at the cross.”

Alleluia.  The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us: Come let us adore him.  Alleluia.

The Shaping Quality of Our Every Moment

Meanwhile, we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.  For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.    ~ II Corinthians 5:2-4

And that long record of our choices -- your
every choice -- is itself the final
body, the eternal dress.
~Scott Cairns, Disciplinary Treatises: 12. The End of Heaven and the End of Hell 


There are those passages of literature or philosophy that have stuck with me, as I make a conscious decision to turn them over in my mind, recognizing their value and wishing to internalize them. One such passage is in Mere Christianity, where C. S. Lewis speaks of our every decision as moving us in one of two directions, shaping us into a creature either more heavenly or more hellish.  It's a passage which first made an impact on me, I suppose, because I took it to express a deep truth that I needed to hear, an articulation of a difficult reality that helped me by encouraging me to face and understand that reality.  It seems I have need to be reminded again.

It is, after all, rather hard to accept; that our every decision is weighed, so to speak.  We are constantly either doing right or wrong, and there is no middle ground, no standing still.  Talk about pressure.  Talk about moralistic legalism.  It reminds me of George Harrison's song "Rising Sun":

On the street of villains taken for a ride
You can have the devil as a guide
Crippled by the boundaries, programmed into guilt
Til your nervous system starts to tilt
In a room of mirrors you can see for miles
But everything that's there is in disguise
Every word you've uttered and every thought you've had
Is all inside your file the good and the bad

But in the rising sun you can feel your life begin...

On the avenue of sinners I have been employed
Working there til I was near destroyed
I was almost a statistic inside a doctor's case
When I heard the messenger from inner space...

Much as I love George (and no matter how good the song), I know I shouldn't be looking to him for theological instruction; other numbers from that same album, his last, Brainwashed, include "Any Road (Will Get You There)" and "P2 Vatican Blues".  The source notwithstanding, isn't it just this kind of slavery that Jesus came to free us from?  To liberate us from the strictures of a moral law that we bent creatures are incapable of keeping?  Thank God for grace, right!  No more pressure, no sweating the small stuff (or any stuff, really), because God has done it all.  We've been justified by faith, and the work is done.  Man, that was, well ... really easy, actually.  (What's that?  Cheap grace?  Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about ...)

The problem is, there's enough truth in that thinking to make it truly dangerous.  Jesus's death and resurrection did indeed free us from the tyrannical impossibility of attempting to justify ourselves before God.  It is through Christ alone that we are justified, restored to right relationship with God.  But grace is not cheap.  The Christian life is not easy.  And with the turning of the soul to God through Christ, the work of sanctification is just begun.  It is the work of being made holy, 'fit for heaven'.  It is a work in which the Holy Spirit leads, but we must choose daily to follow.  It is a work which continues for a lifetime (and I am inclined to believe it may well continue after this mortal life, as well).

It's easy to rationalize away that kind of hard belief when I'm faced with some temptation, some self-serving desire.  After all, I've been forgiven already, right?  It's not like I'm really harming anyone.  Getting so hung up on doing the right or wrong thing -- isn't that like 'works righteousness', or something?

It's interesting how the Holy Spirit draws to our attention those things we need to hear.  I'm a reader, so the Spirit often moves through books to get to me.  It seems I can't pick up a book these days without hearing this theme.  Here's a passage from a sermon by E. B. Pusey:

"Everything may, and does, minister to heaven or hell ... We are, day by day, and hour by hour, influenced by everything around us; rising or falling, sinking or recovering, receiving impressions which are to last forever; taking our colour and mould from everything which passes around us and in us, and not the less unperceived; each touch slight, as impressed by a single spiritual hand, but, in itself, not the less, rather the more lasting, since what we are yielding ourselves to is, in the end, the finger of God or the touch of Satan ... we are receiving moment by moment the hallowed impress of the heavenly hand, conforming our lineaments one by one, each faculty of our spirit, and this poor earthly tenement of our body itself, to the image of God wherein we were re-created, or we are gradually being dried up and withered by the blasting burning torch of the arch-fiend; each touch is of fire,  burning out our proud rebellious flesh, or searing our life; some more miserable falls sink us deeper; some more difficult victories, won by God's help over ourselves, the flesh, the world, and Satan, raise us on the heavenward path; but each sense, at every avenue, each thought, each word, each act, is in its degree doing that endless work; every evil thought, every idle word, and still more, each wilful act, is stamping upon men the mark of the beast; each slightest deed of faith is tracing deeper the seal of God upon their forehead."  

As Pusey describes it, there is a war on for our souls at any given moment, in which we take part, living our lives in such a way as yielding either to "the hallowed impress of the heavenly hand" or else to the "blasting burning torch of the arch-fiend."  No doubt many today (even some in the Church) would find such language dated, superstitious.  But the truth asserted here (and I do believe it so) may be  presented without such stark and colorful religious language.  Thomas Merton said, "A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire."  Where Pusey presents to us the unseen spiritual realities, Merton presents the same principle in a manner more pragmatic and observable.  Even someone who is not religious would, I believe, acknowledge that we are shaped by what we desire, what we live for.

In his book Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, Rowan Williams uses the articles of the Creed as a framework for exploring the Christian faith.  The final chapter, then, addresses what Christians believe about 'the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come'.  He writes:

"Death is a nakedness to which we must all come, a spiritual stripping, as we are confronted by God.  The identities we have made, that we have pulled around ourselves like a comfortable dressing gown or a smart suit will dissolve, and what is deepest in us, what we most want, what we most care about, will be laid bare.  We are right to feel apprehensive about that, and we are wrong to brush away the sense of proper fear before God's judgment, however much we dislike the extravagant or hysterical expressions of it that have characterized some ages of Christian history.  To the degree to which we don't know ourselves -- a pretty high degree for nearly all of us -- we are bound to think very soberly indeed of this moment of truth."

However, the great and terrible Day of the LORD, "this moment of truth", is not simply a moment at the end of time, however near or distant that may be.  It is every moment of every day that we submit ourselves to the judgment of Christ; and the way I daily choose to live may be an indicator of the extent to which I am aware of this truth.  Williams continues:

"The coming judgment of Christ is something we have to be aware of day by day, not a remote or mythical prospect in the future.  Every day we have to become accustomed to the truth.  And what happens when all our defenses against the truth are finally taken away? When we have to come to terms with God in some unimaginable dimension where our usual strategies of hiding from ourselves and the rest of reality are not available?  How shall we manage being exposed to God and to our own consciousness as we really are?  The New Testament already speaks of this in terms of 'stripping away' -- St Paul can talk of our final destiny both as a frightening levelling of all we thought we had built or achieved (1 Corinthians 3.11-15, 2 Corinthians 5.1-5), and as a being clothed with a new 'covering' which is Christ's life (1 Corinthians 15. 53-4, and the same passage from 2 Corinthians).  Death means that something is removed that stands between us and God.  But the hope is that if we have accustomed ourselves to living with Christ in this life something has been 'constructed' that allows us to survive the terror of meeting the truth face to face: the truth has come to be, in some degree, 'in us', to use the language of St John's first letter.  At one level, we are left naked and undefended, with nothing of our own to appeal to or hide behind; yet we trust that we are gifted with the clothing, the defense we need."

One effect of all this is the belief that there is no moment or aspect of human life, no matter how fleeting or small, that is insignificant.  Human life truly matters, every bit of it, all the time.  I think this is an incredibly positive realization, and one that cannot but have a profound impact on the way we live our lives and how we relate to every man, woman, and child.  But I can and may still receive all this as a burden, a suffocating mentality in which I never have a moment's rest.  It need not be so.  To say that every moment of my life is shaping me for eternity in one way or another does not mean that I must be constantly and actively engaged in good works (that would not be possible, after all; and, not incidentally, there is an ancient tradition in the Church that regards Christians as called to lives of action, or contemplation, or both; but it is contemplation that is the higher calling).  The key is that, whether active or at rest, in every moment I am with Christ; I have been clothed with Him, have put my trust in Him.  As Williams says elsewhere, "God is at work in the continuing fellowship of flesh and blood human beings who have received Jesus' breath in themselves -- even at the (frequent) moments when they are not doing anything specifically Christlike..."  This is not 'works righteousness', at least not our works; it is the work of God, molding us when we choose to be with Christ.  Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.  Several translations render this verse 'that you believe in him', which unfortunately can give an impression of intellectual assent (even the devils believe) rather than whole-hearted trusting in God, believing Him to be trustworthy.  And so, at the last, because "we are gifted with the clothing ... we need", even Christ Himself, who has been working in us all our lives through to fit us for heaven, we may approach the throne of grace with confidence.  The One we see at the last Day will be our friend, and not a stranger.

I'll close now where I started. Having already considerably wrestled with the issue, I finally grabbed my copy of Mere Christianity and flipped through it until I found the desired passage. As he often does, the sage Lewis spoke to my heart and put the wrestling to rest; or was that You?

"People often think of Christianity as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't, I'll do the other thing.'  I do not think that is the best way of looking at it.  I would much rather say that every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what is was before.  And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is at harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself.  To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power.  To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness.  Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other."

O God, the protector of all who put their trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.
~ BCP, Collect for the Season after Pentecost, Proper 12

Williams: The Breath of Jesus and the Sheer Thereness of the Christian Community

From Rowan Williams' Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief :

"According to John's Gospel, (Jesus) 'breathes into' his disciples his 'spirit', the breath of his life, so that they become equipped to do what he does and to speak with his voice to God and to the world.  By breathing into the disciples, he sets up a chain of human contact coming down to our own day, a chain of voices and faces in which Jesus is active.  The personal and direct contact with Jesus that is there before the crucifixion is renewed in the resurrection; and it is then taken to a new level as Jesus equips his friends to take responsibility for him and his Father, to be his body in the world.  It is the great new metaphor of the New Testament.  Contact with human beings who have received the breath of Jesus' life is contact with Jesus, as specific human beings pass on the mystery of God to each other across the ages.  To meet a Christian in whom this spirit is working is to be contemporary with Jesus.

Remember, Christianity is a contact before it is a message.  God is at work, God is communicating himself in flesh and blood, from the first moment Mary embraces her child.  God is at work in this presence even when Jesus is saying nothing in particular and doing nothing in particular.  And now God is at work in the continuing fellowship of flesh and blood human beings who have received Jesus' breath in themselves -- even at the (frequent) moments when they are not doing anything specifically Christlike, there is something to be touched and sensed in the sheer thereness of the Christian community.  If the risen Jesus is not an idea or an image but a living person, we meet him in the persons we have touched, the persons who, whatever their individual failings and fears, have been equipped to take responsibility for his tangible presence in the world."

Quite a daunting task, to "take responsibility for" God in the world; but I do believe that is an accurate description of the work of the Church, and of each individual Christian.  All we do has the potential to draw others closer to God or to push them further away.  This life in Christ is not a thing to be embarked upon lightly; thank God we have the "breath of Jesus" to equip and sustain us, and even to work within us and through us when we "are not doing anything specifically Christlike."

I love Rowan Williams.  I would love his writing in any event, but it's an added bonus that I can't help but read him without hearing his gently eloquent, sonorous voice, like he's sitting in my living room speaking with me.

Peace of Christ.

Trinity, Gender, and the Oneness of God

And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.  
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.
~ from the Creed of Saint Athanasius

Yesterday was Trinity Sunday, one of the principal feasts of the Church year, in which the Church gives thanks to God for the grace to hold to "the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity" (from the collect for Trinity Sunday, BCP).  The doctrine of the Trinity is truly foundational to the way the Church understands the nature of God; it is also truly difficult to understand (indeed, it is actually not something that can be understood rationally, but is a divine mystery), and can therefore sometimes be a source of controversy.

Another, not entirely unrelated, source of potential controversy has to do with the way the Church understands and speaks of God in relation to human concepts of gender.  In the Christian tradition, God has generally (though not absolutely) been spoken of using masculine terminology, even as most would acknowledge that God is neither male nor female (though, of course, God was incarnate in the man Jesus, who is truly God).  Both sexes have their origin in God, and both reflect the Divine Image, as the Genesis account asserts, "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."  Throughout the Scriptures (and the Christian tradition) one can find images of God that are decidedly masculine, others that are decidedly feminine, and others that transcend gender; note the response to Moses' question about God's identity: "And God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM'" - God cannot be contained within our human categorizations.  In light of this, it is understandable that the Church has in recent years been exploring ways to understand and speak about God that are more gender inclusive.  I think this is a conversation that the Church can and should have, reasonably and prayerfully.  Which is to say the conversation should be within the Church, working from the Scriptures and tradition as they have been revealed to us, out of a desire for truth in our ever seeking for a greater understanding of God (i.e. the motivation should not be from a secular pressure to 'get with the program and join the 21st century', and all the sexual politics and tensions that entails).

Much could be said on this topic, of course, but I would simply offer one brief thought at a point where this discussion intersects with Trinitarian doctrine.  The doctrine of the Trinity is, admittedly, quite masculine.  And for a host of theological reasons, which I won't go into right now, the matter is not so easy as simply 'switching genders' and speaking interchangeably of God as Mother, Daughter, and Spirit.  One seemingly less controversial approach which seems to have gained some traction has been to speak of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier (or some similar language).  This is fine in one sense, as God is indeed all of these.  The problem lies with identifying God in Trinity as defined by what God does, rather than who God is.  In other words, using such language specifically as an expression of the Trinity does precisely what the Church in the first few centuries went to such great lengths to prevent - it results in 'dividing the Substance' of God, implying that 'this part' or person of God creates, and another redeems, and another sanctifies.  But God, as the creeds and traditions assert, is 'one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity', Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; this mystery is lost in such a formulation as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, which is functional, rather than relational.  And at the heart of the doctrine of the Trinity is the revelation that God is Love, a continuous and perfect outpouring of love in the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit.  And this is indeed a truth and a mystery that we do not want to lose sight of through an attempt, however well intentioned, to speak more inclusively about God.

A few apropos thoughts from minds far greater than yours truly.

Saint Athanasius, from his Epistle I to Serapion:

"And so the Trinity, which is recognized in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is holy and perfect, and has no adulteration of that which is foreign or external.  Nor is it compounded of creator and created matter, but it is endowed with the complete power of creating and energizing; its nature also is consistent with itself and undivided, and its energy and activity is one."       

Rowan Williams, reflecting over the Rublev Trinity icon (the Hospitality of Abraham); from his The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ:

"But it is, as I have already hinted, very important in the interpretation of the story that it shows three agents acting as one - not a sort of divine drama with different characters.  At a time when the theology of the Trinity sometimes sounds as though we are talking about three 'personalities' collaborating in a project, it is good to be reminded forcefully that all that God does is done by the whole Trinity equally, and that to talk of three divine persons must not mislead us into thinking of human patterns of relationship and cooperation."

Williams continues with a thought about how sound doctrine does not hinder, but rather facilitates inclusivity and welcome:

  "The doctrines of Christ and of the Trinity can seem remarkably remote and theoretical to most people these days; what we seem to forget is that they were designed in order not only to tell us the truth about God but to make us live that truth.  They are invitations, ways of passing on Jesus' invitation to be changed, to repent and trust him, to walk with him ... Accepting the invitation, going through the gate into the new territory of Jesus' life (and it is worth noting how often we come back to open doors of one kind and another in thinking about icons of Christ), is the essence of orthodoxy; the teachings of classical theology are there to reinforce and expound the divine welcome."

Peace.

       

Williams: 'Around him the whole universe reorganizes itself'

(this post is part 3 of a series - part 1,  part 2)

A final reflection on and  excerpt from Rowan Williams’ book The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ.

As has been seen, Adam and Eve figure prominently in the icon of the resurrection.  Of course, Adam and Eve, and the opening chapters of Genesis, have become increasingly controversial in the modern era, with its scientific advances and theories about the origins of life and so forth.  I recall a conversation I had with a friend, in which he made a comment about doubting whether the doctrine of the Fall made any sense in light of theories about the biological evolution of humanity.  In his words, “What was there for us to fall from?”  I found a reasonable answer to that question provided by John Polkinghorne (the esteemed quantum physicist and Anglican priest).  He was actually responding to the question, ‘do you think Adam and Eve actually existed?’ which he answered thusly (I’m paraphrasing him): If we accept that there was a point in time when a man and a woman became spiritually conscious, that is, aware of God, then it is perfectly reasonable to assert that ‘Adam and Eve’ existed.  And it is also sadly probable that these first true humans were also the first to consciously turn away from God. 

In the excerpt below, Williams echoes this understanding of the Genesis narrative.  “Adam and Eve stand for wherever it is in the human story that fear and refusal of God began”.  And the good news, the gospel, is that Christ has been there, and has redeemed that moment.  But it is not only this particular fall that is redeemed, it is the Fall, the curse under which all of humanity and all of creation has groaned, the brokenness that afflicts our world.  All is bound up and brought together in wholeness by the victorious work of God in the resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, “the one in whose company we come fully to life.”

Peace, and happy Eastertide!

   

“What Christ does and suffers affects all things, all areas of human experience and so all aspects of human relation, including relation with what is not human.  Around him the whole universe reorganizes itself, just as human history reorganizes itself around this new centre which is at the same time the ancient and unchangeable centre of God’s glory.  Once again, the Jesus who lived and died as a particular human being ‘opens out’ upon the glory of God.  And that glory is here visually brought down into the middle of the realm of death so that death may be swallowed up.

“As his hand grasps the hands of Adam and Eve, Jesus goes back to embrace the first imaginable moment of rebellion and false direction in human life – as in the icons and liturgy of the transfiguration we are reminded that he goes fully into the depths of human agony.  He reaches back to and beyond where human memory begins: ‘Adam and Eve’ stand for wherever it is in the human story that fear and refusal of God began – not a moment we can date in ordinary history, any more than we can date in the history of each one of us where we began to forget God.  But we are always dealing with the after-effects of that moment, both as a human race and as particular persons.  The icon declares that wherever that lost moment is or was, Christ has been there, to implant the possibility, never destroyed, of another turning, another future; in his resurrection, he brings all those possibilities to reality. 

“Looking at this, then, we can first of all be sure that Christ has chosen to accompany us from the first point at which we began to lose our faithfulness to God; that he has been there at the roots of whatever sin and self-destructiveness we have been involved in; and that he has already sown in us the seeds that will come to new life.  How they do depends on whether we are willing to put our trust in him as the one in whose company we come fully to life.”

~ Rowan Williams, The Dwelling of the Light

Williams: 'That wholeness given by Christ's resurrection'

(this post is part 2 of a series - part 1,  part 3)

Having sketched how the icon of the resurrection points to Christ’s healing of divisions, even those between the living and the dead, Williams continues by noting that this brings critical insight into how Christians read the Scriptures. The Biblical figures, the patriarchs, prophets, and saints, are our contemporaries (the communion of saints) precisely because of Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus is the center upon which all else turns, in whom all things hold together. The Church Fathers were well aware of this; I love how they are able to see Christ in all the Scriptures, from Genesis right down to Revelation. Sometimes, I think, the Fathers may be justly criticized for overly stretching a text to read into it a Christian meaning, or going a bit overboard with an allegory. Certainly, it is important to understand the historical and cultural contexts in which a passage emerged. But even in these ‘creative’ cases, I find myself inspired by the Fathers’ interpretations, longing myself to be so soaked in the ever-present Christ that I cannot help but find Him everywhere I turn. And I do agree with Williams that ‘a proper Christian reading of the Bible’ must always be in the light of Christ and His work, or else ‘we shall read inadequately.’

“The Bible is not a human record from the distant past, full of a mixture of inspiring and not-so-inspiring stories or thoughts; nor is it a sort of magical oracle, dictated by God. It is rather, the utterances and records of human beings who have been employed by God to witness to his action in the world, now given to us by God so that we may learn who he is and what he does; and the ‘giving’ by God is by means of the resurrection of Jesus. The risen Jesus takes hold of the history of God’s people from its remotest beginnings, lifts it out of death by bringing it to completeness, and presents it to us as his word, his communication to us here and now. Because we live in the power of the risen Christ, we can hear and understand this history, since it is made contemporary with us; in the risen Christ, David and Solomon, Abraham and Moses, stand in the middle of our assembly, our present community, speaking to us about the God who spoke with them in their lifetimes in such a way that we can see how their encounter with God leads towards and is completed in Jesus. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus speaks of Abraham being glad to see his coming (John 8.56); this is the thought that the icon represents. Just as Jesus reintroduces Adam and Eve as he takes each of them by the hand, so he takes Abraham and ourselves by the hand and introduces us to each other. And from Abraham we learn something decisive about faith, about looking to an unseen future and about trusting that the unseen future has the face of Christ. Thus a proper Christian reading of the Bible is always a reading that looks and listens for that wholeness given by Christ’s resurrection; if we try to read any passage without being aware of the light of the resurrection, we shall read inadequately.”   ~ Rowan Williams, The Dwelling of the Light