Walter Russell Mead, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, speaks truth to purple:

In the mainline churches, which is what I know best, the political views leaders express are generally those of what could be called the “foundation left” — emotionally grounded in concern for the poor and development, historically linked to the “new left” mix of economic and social concerns as developed in the 1960’s, shaped by an atmosphere of privilege and entitlement that reflects the upper middle class background of the educated professionals who run these institutions. … I am of course speaking very generally here and there are lots of individual exceptions, but many of these folks are generally tolerant of theological differences and rigidly intolerant when it comes to political differences: they care nothing at all about doctrines like predestination but get very angry with people who disagree with them about issues like global warming or immigration reform. Theological heresy is a matter for courtesy and silence, but political heretics fill them with bile.

... Now it’s my view that in the long run as the church reflects on the issue of homosexuality, it should and will come to a place closer to that of the American Episcopal mainstream than to that of the Nigerians. But this process of reflection and debate will take more time than the Americans want to give it, and it will take some theological procedures very different from those that are currently fashionable in the American Episcopal church.

Be that as it may, it’s clear that if there is a secret to managing respectful North-South relations in the 21st century, the American Episcopal bishops don’t have it. African church leaders compare their American counterparts to George W. Bush: arrogantly unilateral, deaf to other points of view, seeking to impose a uniquely American agenda on those who do not agree. That’s not entirely fair, but there’s enough truth in it that when it comes to America’s place in the world, the Episcopal church should listen as others speak. Who knows — maybe we’ll learn something.

View the original post

I posted this (below) at Titusonenine:  I am sure that the writer and I come from different places, however I like him, his style and the challenge he makes.  I am one of those who believes that bishops should be of the bene esse of the Church and so would want to dispose of many who lead in TEC and would prefer none in their place if none could be found other than the bunch displaced.  I was especially interested in this article having just read the report of the press conference after the TEC EC meeting.  Anyway - a great challenge and I hope a provoking one.

I like this writer and particularly was struck with the following:

  African church leaders compare their American counterparts to George W. Bush: arrogantly unilateral, deaf to other points of view, seeking to impose a uniquely American agenda on those who do not agree.

  To mistake an ideology or a social model for the transcendent and always surprising (and irritating!) Kingdom of God is, technically speaking, the sin of idolatry.  It is to worship the work of our own hands.  What makes it worse is that to some degree in the mainline churches we have replaced faith in the scripturally based and historically rooted doctrines and values of the Christian heritage with faith in progressive social thought.
  Instead of proclaiming a gospel of salvation that still brings lost sinners streaming through the doors (ask the Pentecostals and evangelicals who have continued to grow even as we shrink) we issue statements urging the federal government to fulfill its contributions to the Millennium Development Goals and to raise the minimum wage.

This is exactly what we can learn from the Global South leaders.  Although they are like us far from perfect they are committed to spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ with a view to conversion, making disciples and changing society through releasing Biblically formed Christians into society.  They have a vision for robust, spirit led, biblically literate churches.  Their vision is spiritual and transformational.  The political results are a result of spiritual change.  In the end who do we follow the spirit of the age or the Holy Spirit.  It is this choice that makes the difference.  The spirit of the age is an idol and TEC is reaping the whirlwind for having chosen this idol.

Let me end with Oswald Chambers’ meditation for today which I found so helpful -

“The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Matthew 20:28

Paul’s idea of service is the same as Our Lord’s: “I am among you as He that serveth;” “ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.” We have the idea that a man called to the ministry is called to be a different kind of being from other men. According to Jesus Christ, he is called to be the “door-mat” of other men; their spiritual leader, but never their superior. “I know how to be abased,” says Paul. This is Paul’s idea of service - “I will spend myself to the last ebb for you; you may give me praise or give me blame, it will make no difference.” So long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor to serve him until he does. The mainspring of Paul’s service is not love for men, but love for Jesus Christ. If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men.

Paul’s realization of how Jesus Christ had dealt with him is the secret of his determination to serve others. “I was before a perjurer, a blasphemer, an injurious person” - no matter how men may treat me, they will never treat me with the spite and hatred with which I treated Jesus Christ. When we realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.

Mead’s point is well taken and would have been better put if he’d resisted the urge to take a pot shot at the alcoholic bishop. It is this urge towards ad hom. comment which paints us all as angry old men and perhaps women.

On the one hand, yes, I agree - ad hominem, especially with something as tragic as alcoholism, should be avoided.  Yet, at the same time, the very fact that this bishop was able to retain his ministry for so long highlights some rather basic facts: lack of vision, lack of discipline, lack of integrity, juxtaposed with our church’s toleration of “prophetic” bishops.  The long-standing career of a loud, alcoholic bishop testifies not just to a profound level of moral indifference, but administrative foolishness in the highest degree on the part of the Episcopal Church’s hierarchy.  I didn’t find his comments offensive or ad hominem, so much as observant.

On a broader level, there is a problem of culture here - that is, in the classic sense, there is a problem in our way of life.  The seminary system in ECUSA says it all: honorary doctorate degrees given by largely third-rate educational institutions to bishops simply because they are bishops!  And what is worse, these same seminaries dole out degrees to those bishops who support whatever church party happens to control a seminary!  Thus, not only are we dealing with a highly self-congratulatory yet academically weak institution, but we are also dealing with factions - each of whom is indeed both self-congratulatory and academically weak.  Supposedly “conservative” or “orthodox” seminaries are just as poor on the academic front as their “liberal” counterparts.  Trinity School of Ministry has never had any academic output; Paul Zahl’s books, however much they might appeal to a contingent within the Anglican Communion, have never been taken seriously be professional academics (which highlights a point: we need academic accountability.  Seminary professors who use their academic positions to preach academic tripe ought to be disciplined.)  Nashotah House has been academically lax for decades.  Where is the accountability?  The only bright lights on the North American horizon are Wycliffe in Toronto and Sewanee in Tennessee; Duke is up and coming, but very much in need of a strong Anglican theological presence at the school, not just a study track with the name.

I digress.  The institution is corrupt not because it is an institution, but because the high ideals and administrative wisdom necessary to sustain it are fundamentally absent on all sides.  I see no difference between the administratively corrupt, academically weak conservative and the administratively corrupt, academically weak liberal.  They are one and the same, not least because they have made themselves accountable only to their own factions.  And that is why our church suffers as it does.

Yours,
Cicero

Thanks Benjamin for this digression and I think it is worthy of another thread.  The question of the relationship of Seminaries/Theological Colleges and the Academy.  More below:

On a broader level, there is a problem of culture here - that is, in the classic sense, there is a problem in our way of life.  The seminary system in ECUSA says it all: honorary doctorate degrees given by largely third-rate educational institutions to bishops simply because they are bishops!  And what is worse, these same seminaries dole out degrees to those bishops who support whatever church party happens to control a seminary!  Thus, not only are we dealing with a highly self-congratulatory yet academically weak institution, but we are also dealing with factions - each of whom is indeed both self-congratulatory and academically weak.  Supposedly “conservative” or “orthodox” seminaries are just as poor on the academic front as their “liberal” counterparts.  Trinity School of Ministry has never had any academic output; Paul Zahl’s books, however much they might appeal to a contingent within the Anglican Communion, have never been taken seriously be professional academics (which highlights a point: we need academic accountability.  Seminary professors who use their academic positions to preach academic tripe ought to be disciplined.)  Nashotah House has been academically lax for decades.  Where is the accountability?  The only bright lights on the North American horizon are Wycliffe in Toronto and Sewanee in Tennessee; Duke is up and coming, but very much in need of a strong Anglican theological presence at the school, not just a study track with the name.

I have always - coming from the Church of England - regarded seminary as chiefly a training/formation institution for future clergy and then as an academic institution derivatively.  Indeed I have seen these institutions produce terrible clergy when they lose their chief focus.  That is not to in any way ask them to diminish their academic standards, or the requirement of academic rigor.  It is a question of priorities.

Meanwhile the theological qualities and qualifications, that we see in TEC bishops is deplorable.  We used to joke the DD = donated dignity!  While I was training in England in the early seventies we received several PECUSA seminarians who were seeking Oxford (and Cambridge) degrees.  These were not given by the theological college in which they lived and studied, but by the university after the same rigorous standards were applied to them as were to other students in examinations.  The reason their US bishop/s would send them to us was the deplorably standards of US seminaries at that time.  I am not sure if there is improvement. 

I do want to say that I believe that Nashotah House and TSM do prepare excellent clergy, pastorally and theologically.  I have links to both.  Meanwhile I have sent two seminarians to Sewanee over the last ten years and they were excellently trained.  None of the clergy that I have sent - on average it has been one every two years or so - would claim to be an “academic.”  On the other hand they have mostly turned into great clergy, preachers and pastors.  That is what I want from a seminary/theological college.  Meanwhile so many dressed in purple seem to delight in pretending to be academically trained and informed when in fact they are the opposite.

Dear Ben (Cicero):

It would have been perfectly possible to criticise Standing Committees for failing in their job to manage the matter of bishops whose lifestyles compromise their duty without resorting to ad hom. remarks. What the academic proficiency of seminaries has to do with the practice, dating from the inception of seminaries over here to award hon. doctorates to alumni bishops has to do with the subject at hand is beyond me. They were merely copying the English practice, now discontinued, in automatically awarding diocesan bishops Lambeth DDs.

If we want to discuss seminary education today, I think that would be an interesting subject. It is obviously less and less possible for a small jurisdiction like TEC to raise up and employ a sufficient number of well-educated seminary teachers to staff the number of seminaries still in business. Accreditation requirements, which are intended to monitor standards have instead encouraged the replacement of Anglican studies with generic mainstream protestant curricula. Again it seems impossible for TEC to undertake a review of seminary standards and curricula without being guided by outmoded “liberal” approaches to parish life and mission. We are so used to using the term “progressive” for the powers that be that we often forget that their theology and post-millenium world view is frightfully old-fashioned. At every level the church is bedeviled by reactively conservative liberalism.

Tony

Mead’s point about political differences reminds me of a story that Lewis Mudge told in a sermon. A Presbyterian minister in the South became active in the civil rights movement in the 1950s much to the consternation of the leaders of his congregation. Heresy charges were made against him and he was deposed for being a unitarian. The congregation had had, Mudge pointed out, no problem with his unitarian theology during his many years there. As Mudge put it, theology is only theology, but race is race.

Daniel, one does not want to speak too ill of the non-present, but that anecdote smells of sermon legend, right down to its FOAF-ish origins. One should be suspicious of stories which so neatly ratify one’s own prejudices.

Charles Wingate - 05 March 2010 03:16 PM

Daniel, one does not want to speak too ill of the non-present, but that anecdote smells of sermon legend, right down to its FOAF-ish origins. One should be suspicious of stories which so neatly ratify one’s own prejudices.

Charles,

Take Dr. Mudge’s story as you wish. He was a distinguished thelogian and a Presbyterian minister. I doubt neither his truthfulness nor my memory. If you are not familiar with Dr. Mudge,you can read Obituary Notice for Lewis S.Mudge. I can only dream of doing as much good as he did.

Daniel

Lambeth DD’s are very much alive. A former bishop with little or no parish experience who became a leading figure in another field had to resign, eventually over charges that he had dealt inadequately with issues of sexual abuse whilst a bishop. He received a Lambeth DD and still uses the label “Dr.” All Australian bishops still collect an internally awarded ThD or similar so that they can wear that red whatnot.

In discussing clerical performance, be it parochial or episcopal, it is perhaps important to recall the Article of Religion and the point about those who minister unworthily. The validity of sacraments (not much preaching back then) was not affected. I worked for some years as a lay pastor with a seriously flawed clergyman. I never had cause to doubt his inner sincerity or love of Christ, as much as I was saddened by the difficulties he created for himself. He was one of those who landed on DDay, saw the bodies piled high, and committed himself to Christ as a result. Life pressed in down the years and his difficulties grew. Rather than condemn such men it is often better to find ways to lessen their burdens and try to spread responsibilities to limit, if not entirely contain the problems. Obviously there should be mechanisms to encourage sick people to resign or retire but the processes of achieving that are not always straight-forward or even honest.

As I conclude, I am again minded of Jesus’ remark, “Let him that is without sin…”