Time’s Jeff Chu asked the Presiding Bishop-elect of The Episcopal Church ten questions about her view of the church’s mission, the relationship between religion and science and the exclusivity of Christianity. While the quality of her answers will be the subject of debate, I think he used a great — and simple — technique for getting information out of Katharine Jefferts Schori. And her answers are fascinating, I think. For instance, she says this about what the focus of the church should be:
Our focus needs to be on feeding people who go to bed hungry, on providing primary education to girls and boys, on healing people with AIDS, on addressing tuberculosis and malaria, on sustainable development. That ought to be the primary focus.
Jefferts Schori is more direct about her theological views than her predecessor, which may turn out to be a blessing or a curse. But it’s so nice that Chu just asks the questions and gives us her answers. That way we can compare her words with those of Nigerian bishop Peter Akinola in a letter from April 2005:
I am also thankful that while we are all engaged in many different expressions of practical concern for the poor and the oppressed at home and abroad we share a common commitment to the primary mission of the Church, which is to proclaim redemption from sin and the promise of life eternal through faith in Jesus Christ.
You see that? While so many reporters take the easy route and frame the debate in the Anglican Communion as centering on gay sex and female ordination, the issues are much deeper. The bigger questions are what the very mission of the church is. Is it to care for the temporal needs of humanity or the eternal? The physical or the spiritual? Is it, again, to proclaim Christ?
Jefferts Schori answers a Chu question about whether Jesus is the only way to heaven by saying that believing that way would “put God in an awfully small box.” Those are some pretty serious doctrinal divides that cross the Atlantic. Not that Jefferts Schori wants to talk doctrine. In one of her answers to Chu’s questions, she pooh-poohed doctrinal discussions, deriding them as bickering.
Other reporters might want to press Jefferts Schori on that last point, asking her which, if any, doctrinal points are worth debating and why. And whatever else can be said, I’m sure she would answer in a straightforward manner.
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Comments (21) |
July 11, 2006, at 8:15 am
This is a false dichotomy. Both are the mission of the Church.
The sticking point is that the most heroic Christian workers for the temporal needs of humanity have been those for whom God and the Great Commission were paramount. I’m thinking of, for example, Mother Theresa, Gladys Aylward, Francis of Assisi.
July 11, 2006, at 8:39 am
Of course that’s true, that the mission of the church is both. However, many other civic organizations and even individuals share the mission of caring for temporal, physical needs. What makes the Christian Church unique is its proclamation of Christ as Lord. And if that is no longer primary for Jefferts Schori and the rest of the Episcopal Church leadership, then the Episcopal Church is no longer a church—and no different from any number of other non-religious bodies which seek to care for the poor.
For many Episcopalians (myself included) this unwillingness to put Christ first in the witness of the Church, is the primary crisis facing us—not issues of sex. But what the church says about sex, and what it says about marriage, and what it says about life issues and any other number of issues, all point to the central failure of the Episcopal Church (and other mainline churches as well)—the failure of the church to be, uniquely and powerfully, the Church of Jesus Christ.
Liberals will object to this characterization, I know. But it has become clear that whatever Christ they believe in and give witness to, it is not the Christ of the ancient Christian tradition—that is, if any of these liberals can agree to what Christ is or means at all.
July 11, 2006, at 8:53 am
Did I miss a link to the Time article?
July 11, 2006, at 9:04 am
The TIME link
July 11, 2006, at 9:28 am
Sorry — I added the TIME link. On that note, the formatting of the TIME article was a bit confusing. Just be forewarned.
July 11, 2006, at 9:48 am
If we don’t agree on what the Good News actually is, whether it’s redemption from sin and freedom from ultimate death, or just a program to feed and clothe people, I’d say that’s not just a “fine point.” Ask the risk of being called a fundamentalist, it’s fundamental.
I’d say she’s confusing “young earth” creationism with Intelligent Design, which is what all the evolutionists do, deliberately. Meanwhile, evolution as taught in public schools (as a doctrine, about which we can bicker), pretty much undercuts not only the Christian message, but also any secular rationale for “feeding people who go to bed hungry.” And if you believe in population control (including abortion), as I suspect she does, then you’d be better off not feeding them anyway.
The contrast between Jefferts Schori and, say, recent Popes, just couldn’t be greater.
July 11, 2006, at 10:34 am
“This is a false dichotomy. Both are the mission of the Church.”
The question Schori was asked was what is the PRIMARY mission of the Church. It is not a false dichotomy to say that one is primary and that others are and should be secondary and natural extensions of the primary mission.
I agree that the “ten question” format has given us some clarity (sorry, Susan Russell — that’s not an idol) about what our new PB’s views are. And, unlike Frank Griswold, at least Schori’s honest — the key word there being “least.”
July 11, 2006, at 10:35 am
And once one defines the mission of the church as being temporal works of mercy, there is no longer any way to answer someone who demands “So why do we need TheChurch for that?”
Not to mention those who (as I seem to recall being quoted in a past post) dismiss these as “things TheGovernment should be doing anyway.”
July 11, 2006, at 12:06 pm
You’re right Mollie. The divides in much greater than gay marriage and women’s ordination.
On the other hand, it’s really unfortunate that many liberal Christians fail to frame their mission by drawing on the rich resources of Scripture.
Suppose Jefferts Schori had started out by saying, “Our focus needs to be on the things Jesus told his disciples to do in Matthew 25” and framed the mission in terms of the parable of the sheep and goats. That changes the whole focus, putting it on obedience to Christ.
Jefferts Schori is straightforward and clear in her comments, and that is a welcome relief. If she could learn to speak in the language of more traditional Christians she’d be way ahead of her predecessor.
July 11, 2006, at 12:21 pm
I wonder what value it is for her to “speak the language of more traditional Christians,” except that they learn how deeply she disagrees with them?
But good set of questions by the Time reporter. A reader may learn all he cares to about her theology from that. Most significantly, her use of scripture—when it reinforces her priorities (the Church as agent of social change) it’s to be read as “literalistically” as you please, and when not, it’s ignored (the centrality of Christ).
As a side note, she seems the least theologically interested (educated?) bishop of prominence I’ve ever noted. That could well be due to my limited experience. However, it occurs to me that even Spong thinks theology very much worth talking about. How would one engage a person who thinks theology irrelevant?
July 11, 2006, at 1:17 pm
Hm. Popes and evolution. Here’s JPII from Oct. 1996:
“Before offering you several reflections that more specifically concern the subject of the origin of life and its evolution, I would like to remind you that the magisterium of the Church has already made pronouncements on these matters within the framework of her own competence. I will cite here two interventions.
In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII had already stated that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith about man and his vocation, on condition that one did not lose sight of several indisputable points. …
Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. [Aujourdhui, près dun demi-siècle après la parution de l’encyclique, de nouvelles connaissances conduisent à reconnaitre dans la théorie de l’évolution plus qu’une hypothèse.] It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.”
Plus lots of nuance, of cource. But they have to do with the spiritual dimension of man, not the biological…Point being that man is more than *only* an evolutionary biological construct.
http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_jp02tc.htm
July 11, 2006, at 2:45 pm
The money sentence:
It’s hard for anyone who followed the failure of Resolution A161 and the dueling bishops’ statements two days later to read this as anything but a weasel-worded victory statement for the liberals. Events have already passed such a statement by.
My cranky comments concerning her earlier statements along the same line can be found here.
July 11, 2006, at 4:45 pm
Allow me to proffer an interpretation of the new PB’s position: TEC should primarily be a social-service organization that eschews theology except in utter capitulation to today’s secular-humanistic zeitgeist.
How close is that?
July 12, 2006, at 1:32 am
Here are three questions to which I wish the press would find answers:
1.Why is the primate of the Episcopal Church called ‘presiding bishop’ instead of ‘archbishop’, as are other primates in the Anglican Communion?
2. Is she the only one who is not called archbishop?
3. Are there any archbishops in the anglican communion who are not also primates?
July 12, 2006, at 6:55 am
“The world can do almost anything as well or better than the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.”
—Gordon McDonald
July 12, 2006, at 11:28 pm
I sure am glad St. Francis (Preach the gospel at all times, use words if necessary) of Assisi lived long before the age of the internet.
Surely he’s just a godless liberal who doesn’t completely get the primacy of Christ and how the mission of the church should be centered around making sure the lost understand they are damned to hell if they don’t accept Jesus.
July 13, 2006, at 11:11 am
Style point:
In the first sentence you need to put “Katharine Jefferts Schori” after “Presiding Bishop” or else put “the” in front of “Presiding Bishop.”
Matt: Archbishops are forever. The post of “Presiding Bishop” is for a limited term. And, I believe that the Archbishop of York is not a primate; Canterbury takes that job for England.
July 13, 2006, at 11:48 am
Thank you Stolzi. I fixed it.
July 14, 2006, at 9:20 am
Stolzi: Canterbury and York are BOTH “Primates of England”. Canterbury is in addition “Primate of ALL England”. Now, write that a hundred times!
Canada and Australia have “Presiding Bishops” because there are archbishops of the individual provinces/states. Something similar in Ireland, where there are two archbishops.
The chief executive of the Episcopal Church in Scotland is the “Primus”.
July 14, 2006, at 12:51 pm
Just a clarification about the situation in Canada.
Will is right that there are archbishops other than the primate. (These folks are called metropolitans and there are four of them each for one of the four ecclesiastical provinces in Canada. I should point out, though, that these provinces have nothing to do with our political jurisdictions, also called provinces, of which we have 10 [and three territories].)
But, although Andrew Hutchison is a presiding bishop (lower case), in the sense that he presides over various bodies in the church structure, he is not called a Presiding Bishop (upper case). His is our primate.
July 15, 2006, at 7:13 pm
What are the things that “ONLY the church can do?”
I guarantee you, caring for AIDS victims isn’t one of them.