Thursday, March 8, 2012

Yesterday's Message


I wanted to post this yesterday, but was OBE (overtaken by events).  This was the reading from 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 from the Daily Office yesterday:   

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!

It brought to mind the scandal of Christians and churches who sue each other.  What is the witness to the wider world that we offer when we go to the secular courts to redress our “wrongs”.  I am not talking here of criminal cases, but civil ones.  That term in itself is interesting, as I have yet to meet parties to a civil case who were actually civil to each other, but I digress.

In The Episcopal Church we are suing congregations, and dioceses, that have decided to opt out of our denomination.  Some have been asking for an accounting of how much money we have spent on these legal proceedings, and while no official document has been released, the consensus is that it is in the millions of dollars. Frankly, I find this to be an embarrassment.  Suing for property, why not rather be wronged?  That would have been a better witness to the world.  Besides, in a time of budget crunches, and I believe the proposed triennial budget forecasts further cuts (including youth and young adult ministries, is this wise stewardship?  Doesn’t it take funds away from mission, including the vaunted Millennium Development Goals that the Presiding Bishop called us to focus on during this Lent?  Could we not negotiate?

Lest one think I am not even handed, I ask the same question of those who departed.  How many millions have been spent in counter suits and responding to the current lawsuits?  How many churches could have been replanted, how many youth sent on mission, how many projects started to help brothers and sisters in the 2/3s world?  Why not rather be defrauded?

My guess is that old human problem, one of the seven deadlies, and a temptation for all of us, even me as I write this post:  PRIDE.

On another note, I often hear that The Episcopal Church is democratic, and then I turn around and hear we are hierarchical.  Which one is it?  Is democracy only at the General Convention level? Is it only at the Diocesan level?  Is it only for church governing elections?  How are we both?  If we are democratic in our governance, tell me why 51% majority at General Convention for anything trumps a 51% majority in the local congregation for affiliation?  If we are hierarchical, why do we vote at all?  Seriously, these are not “gotcha” questions, I am asking for help to discern the balance.

4 comments:

  1. I share your frustration over such issues. The traditional readings for Lent I about the temptations of our Lord in the wilderness speak of temptation by bodily needs and wants, temptation to immortality (or even eternal youth), and finally temptation to power and wealth. Perhaps the third really has overtaken the church in this age of institutional decline and redefinition. Regarding Democracy, it is a shame that majority rule has relpaced godly concensus and prayerful concilliar life together. Perhaps we should have left our political solutions out of the church constitution in the late 1780's and sought a more ancient ecclesial pattern. I recently heard that the earliest ordination of the church was that of the deacons. I came away with the distinct idea that the point of the discussion was to support the increase of some democratic forms in the American church. Funny, all these years, I thought the first ordinations were those of the Apostles by our Lord to the episcopacy. I guess I was just wrong! Perhpas the radical reformers were right. What a shame it is I wasted all that money going to seminary when I could just as well have read my Bible and waited for my neighbors to lay hands on me (or not.)

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  2. In trying to discern the balance between hierarchy and democracy, I have only been able to see when things are out of balance, as your examples illustrate.

    Historically speaking, it is rare to find enough examples of long term successful, "godly concensus and prayerful concilliar life together" systems (ignoring certain monastic traditions) to be able to discern how to achieve the balance we desire. Even concilliar structures are often governed more by politics and machinations than prayer and examination of the scriptures.

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  3. Perhaps that is why so many of us are drawn to those "certain monastic traditions" as imperfect icons of the heavenly city, or at least of the godly commonwealth. Without doubt, my concerns about democracy as it currently exists in the Episcopal Church grow from a certain levelling populism whereby those least acquainted with the beliefs and practices of the historic church tend to legislate dogma and practice by voice vote, and by the tendency to downplay the inspired nature of scripture, understood through the lenses of holy tradition and broadly defined reason. In a sense, the current situation in the Episcopal Church, and in much of mainline protestantism, seems to me to be related to a general acceptance of a sort of spin off of liberation theology, whereby praxis (itself problematic in my view) is replaced by personal experience. I suppose this is an inevitable outgrowth of Wesley's decision to add experience to Hooker's Scripture understood via tradition and reason. Certainly, conciliar structures are usually governed by politics, as our Orthodox friends demonstrate regularly, but it does seem to me that a culture of conciliarism would tend to lead to concensus model at the local level, which is much healthier and less mean-spirited than our current majority-rules culture which is so quick to litigate and push out minority groups. All of this is theory of course.

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  4. Pride is probably an issue in church v. church litigation, but it's also about justice. It's easier to see this from the perspective of parishes leaving ECUSA than from the NY ECUSA mothership or the diocesan offices. Yet I suspect that there are feelings of betrayal on both sides and therefore a quest for justice. If you can't find justice in the church, where do you look next? In the secular legal system, apparently.

    Also, it seems to me that the hierarchical / democratic conundrum of ECUSA allows the church at all levels to skirt justice. It can be democratic when it is convenient, and it can be hierarchical when democracy doesn't strengthen the grip of the empowered party. Sometimes canons are enforced and followed; sometimes they're not. And the thinly-veiled love of power that fuels this system is an embarrassment to the Christian faith. The legal battles are a symptom of the illness, not the illness itself.

    Catherine Alexander

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