Tom Wright weighs in on the American Episcopal decision

I must apologize for my misrepresentation of V. G. Robinson's heterodoxy. Here is a quote from an interview:

Gunn : Tell me a little about your own journey into the Episcopal Church. What appealed to you about the Episcopal Church expression of faith?

Robinson : “I grew up in the Disciples of Christ denomination in a very, very religious family. [It was a] fairly fundamentalist congregation of the Disciples Church – although as a national denomination, it is not fundamentalist. I took Jesus Christ as my personal savior when I was 12 or 13 and was baptized. Yet, by the time I graduated from high school, I had begun to question the narrowness I had experienced.

“By the time I went to college [at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.], I found that not only were my questions tolerated, but applauded. I was generously and hospitably welcomed into the religious community there and helped with my journey. I had an assistant chaplain there who, when I was ranting and raving about how much of the Nicene Creed I didn't believe, encouraged me to just drop out when I got to a phrase that I didn't believe. And participate in however much of it I did feel comfortable with.

“And I [thought], a religion that can be that undefensive about itself is the place for me. I gradually said more and more of the Nicene Creed until I did believe it. I found [the Episcopal Church] to be this amazing community where people were not afraid to use their minds, where people were not afraid to read and believe the scriptures, and did not seem to be forcing on anyone else its own beliefs in the way that I felt the religion that I grew up with had been doing.

“By the end of my time at Sewanee, I felt a calling to the priesthood and went on to [General Theological Seminary in New York, N.Y.] from college.”

Gunn : How much of the Nicene Creed do you believe today?

Robinson : “I believe all of it. The two things that the Episcopal Church gave me that I did not have in my former denomination were history and liturgy. One of the reasons I love all the historic creeds is that it ties me to believers who lived so many centuries ago. While I have no doubt that I might articulate the meaning of the Nicene Creed differently than would have been explained 1,000 years ago or 1,700 years ago, saying those same words connects me with this whole company of the faithful who have experienced God and believed that Jesus Christ was his very incarnation on this earth. So I love saying those ancient words because it connects me with all of those people who have been faithful throughout the years.

“And, of course, the liturgy: The thing I loved about the ‘new' prayer book in 1979, which is now 25 years old, is that it's not so much new as it was ancient. While it was new to our ears, most of the Eucharistic liturgies were older than what we had been using. I find it thrilling to say the words that have been said for countless centuries by other believing Christians.”

As a former Episcopalian now Anglican, the ECUSA vote didn't surprise me. I sat in diocesan meetings in the 90's and early 2000's where the strategy was being laid for this to be the end result and disagreement with the party line risked one's being ostracized as a fundamentalist. One church leader said "The fundamentalists have to realize that they can't keep their head in the sand. People are already out there living in all kinds of unions other than heterosexual marriage and if we don't find a way to bless those unions we will become irrelevant." I kind of thought she was missing the point as far as what the criteria should be for whether the church blesses something or not.

I welcome Bp. Wright's forthrightness. The revisionists in the EC have been working in this direction for a long time, but this particular issue is just one hot-button symptom of a deeper and more important division.

RG in comment #22 makes what I think is a pretty important point. Tom Wright isn't a culture warrior but rather a bishop and highly respected NT scholar. He is trying to be faithful to his Lord and the church. He has no political axe to grind.

On Jesus' implicit condemnation of homosexuality: Wright makes a point that is too often ignored when people say Jesus never spoke on the issue of homosexuality. Speaking to a Jewish audience, he condemns "porneia." Any Jew of that time hearing that term (or any Jew - like Jesus - who used the term) would understand it as referring to the OT teaching on sexuality and what constitutes sexual sin. In that context the porneia that Jesus speaks against includes homosexual sex, as well as various other expressions of sexuality outside the bonds of heterosexual marriage. There wasn't a need to single out each of the specific acts.

Patrick,

Is it wrong to condemn the breaking of the bonds of communion? Is it wrong to get upset at Americans being utterly "American", and doing whatever they want regardless of the feelings and convictions of people elsewhere? Is it wrong to protest an anthropology that rests largely upon biology and psychology and ignores theology? Someone needs to tell the TEC that heaven and earth could be quite different than the way they perceive it. Who should that be? Who will they or you listen to if not the ABC or Wright, two men who combine faith and scholarship in a manner that is unequaled anywhere in the Anglican world?