FROM THE BOUNDARY: Quo vadis? – Part four
Reformation obviously presupposes there’s something that recognisably needs reforming. Some may need glasses. Others may need the miracle of sight. It also presupposes that reformation is possible. You can’t reform a corpse. We’ll need a positive answer to the Holy Spirit’s question in Ezekiel (37:3): “Son of man, can these bones live?” Can this Church of ours possibly be the carrier of new life, or is it stuck in cement, archaic, isolated, irrational, irrelevant? Can it still open our hearts to everything that’s good, true, and beautiful?
Think of the classical doctrines of the Church – the creation stories (which all religions have), predestination, the Trinity, angels and devils, heaven and hell, the last judgement, the second coming – that kind of thing. Are they still meaningful to us, or is it all lip service? Isn’t it time to confess that we really don’t have answers to so many of these things, that most of it is just officially sanctioned wishful thinking? Do we really need all this baggage to be a ‘Christian’ – like saying you really don’t need circumcision for salvation? Right: then let’s shake the foundations and move out of the ice age.
For sure, the streams of renewal have been many over the past 60 years or so – liturgical, biblical, theological, ecumenical – and in much of it God has lagged behind Caesar. It’s been as if the angel at the pool of Bethesda has troubled the waters. And that’s the point, really. Reformation isn’t a policy or programme. It’s a response to the motion of the Holy Spirit, the SPIRIT WHO SPEAKS, who releases Life and power which can’t be captured and subdued in a net. So OK: if we say the Spirit was present at the election of Bishop Michael of Barbados, how can we say He wasn’t present at the election of the gay bishop, Gene Robinson, of New Hampshire? The wind blows where it wills, and no man, whether in the name of scripture – words written in a book – or conventional morality, or doctrine, can prevent it. It’s God’s world. So of course it’s right to question what we have NOW, to articulate our perplexities, fears and doubts, and make them part of the ferment in the Church. How else will the dry bones burgeon into life?
There ARE things which are absolutely essential to our faith – that God IS as He was in Jesus, that in Jesus the fullness of God coheres, dwells, and that through him we know our relationship with God is real, living, creative. And we know too that our Gospel is a gospel of love and reconciliation with all things and all men, that it’s not about rules and regulations, fear and greed. The question for us is how we apply these things to the issues of the day. How real is our commitment to love, to reconciliation? And the rest? Well, they’re non-essentials, adiophora, things indifferent. In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, love – the love which transcends everything.
As I think of the issues which beset us here, frankly I see very little charity but a lot of shallow judgmentalism in which men’s minds masquerade as the mind of God. No thanks. Keep your parody of Christianity. Some years ago, Archbishop Eames of Armagh in Northern Ireland expressed, I think, the way forward. “I think God is prompting us in a wonderful way to look again at what diversity means. The kingdom of God is made up of many parts [it’s all creation, isn’t it?]. I believe God is saying to us, ‘You’ve got to look afresh at what it means to be witnesses in my world.’” He was referring, of course, to the US Episcopal Church ordaining Gene Robinson as bishop. Compare his approach with that of the then Archbishop of Lagos. The US Church, he said, had “sought to subvert the Christian faith”. And then the Archbishop of Kaduna: “If the lifestyle of a practising homosexual is affirmed, what difference has the gospel made?” Eh? Which gospel is he talking about? Think about it. Did the electors of Bishop Robinson act lightly? Was their decision not a prayerful one? Could their decision have been made without a sense that the SPIRIT WHO SPEAKS had spoken?
Well, is it a civil war to the death, a white rose or a red? Not to worry, perhaps. In a pluralist, rather sad and divided world there’ll always be argument, and in times of reformation it’ll always be couched in very strong language. It’s not necessarily unhealthy, and from it all new truths will doubtless emerge. If they don’t, we’re spiritually dead. So yes, let the tree tops rustle as God calls us to action (2 Sam 5:24). In 20, or 40, or 50 years or whenever, in God’s time all will be still again. For now, the Holy Spirit is about His business and the Lord of Hosts is with us. Remember – with everything there is a season … a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to keep silent and a time to speak.” So let’s get on with it.
Go safely, then – until the next time.
No surrender, from the boundary: “We have been chosen for love and this is our identity… If we do not believe this … we do not understand the Gospel” (Pope Francis).