Under the
Wing
Readings from Why Christianity Must Change or Die; letters to and
from Bishop Spong.
These
readings raise the possibility of something I had pretty much given up on,
namely a reentry to the Christian tradition. If, like Jesus calling the
fisherman to discipleship, Bishop Spong is calling us to join him in the
church of the exile, should we? This morning I want to explore a few
factors that incline me toward accepting his offer. In all this, I would
like you to consider whether an entry of the Grail into the Episcopalian
communion is a viable idea. Is it desirable? Is it possible? And what if
anything would change? Is there some change you would like, that joining
with the Episcopal Church would make possible?
First, what inclines me
in the direction of Exilic Episcopalianism? Three things. The first, I
suppose, is a sort of cognitive dissonance reduction. I have for years
predicated my personal and professional life on the study of the Bible,
theology, and religion. Since I have lost my faith and my Christian
identity, I am left holding the bag, stranded in absurdity, not unlike
Sisyphus. I still know the lore of the Bible, and I still like to preach
from it, but this only highlights the pathetic position in which I find
myself. Among my Secular Humanist buddies, my religious knowledge is
appreciated as a means to demystify religion and reorient the
ex-believers. But I feel like Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, reduced to a party
clown, able to do tricks for the entertainment of the jaded. If we were
able to recover some continuity with the Christian tradition, this part of
me would feel useful again, and at home. But for the rest of me to feel at
home, it would have to be a radically left-wing, demythologized, non-supernaturalist,
dogma-free Episcopalianism.
Second, I was an
Episcopalian lay preacher and chalice bearer for three years in North
Carolina, and I loved it! But as I drifted ever leftward, the false claims
of the liturgy (that stuff about God intervening to save the poor, for
example), as well as the bowing and scraping it required, alienated me. I
could no longer join in. I was a spectator only. And yet I still feel
great nostalgia for the parish life, the colorful and quaint traditions of
Episcopalianism, the bells and smoke, the stained glass and the drama. And
you know why. I have often spoken of religion as being essentially
esthetic in nature. The only faith required to play the game is
Coleridge's "poetic faith," the "temporary willing suspension of
disbelief." We may be stimulated, even transformed, by our imaginative
participation in liturgy, if, that is, we can find one we do not choke on
repeating. For instance, I'm not sure I could even "sing" the Nicene
Creed, as Niebuhr suggested, much less say it straight as propositional
prose. But then, Bishop Spong's "Exilopalianism" does include liturgical
revision. For the record, let me note that I think such revision could be
quite effective and avoid both Unitarian Newspeak and Vatican II
primer-language. All that is needed is to say whatever noble and
progressive things you want to say in the diction of poetry and
stateliness. Go beyond the 1979 Prayerbook in theology but back toward the
1928 book in terms of language. "It don't mean a thing if you ain't got
that swing."
I am thinking here of a
religion of nostalgia, to borrow Don Cupitt's term for what he rejects
and to apply it to what he practices. In the foreground we would place a
spirituality of inquiry, as we have always done at the Grail. But in the
background, still plainly visible, would be the color and comfort of the
Episcopal tradition. I think here of Cupitt's formula: "Traditional
Christianity is our Old Testament." That means transcendence, not
rejection.
By the same token, the
Grail, even as an Exilopalian congregation, would continue as a model of
what I believe is the way of the future in spiritual communities: a
community of seekers for each of whom his or her personal religious
background has come to function as equivalent to an ethnic background: a
cherished definer of one's identity, but not the last word in spirituality
or belief. Such diversity profoundly enriches a congregation. To have a
Zen Stoic like Roman, a Jew like Robert, a theological chameleon like Dow,
and so on, gives a breadth and scope of spiritual resources such as few
congregations either have or have the opportunity to actualize.
Third, to me, the Secular
Humanists, Atheists, and Freethinkers have a tin ear, a blind eye, when it
comes to the magic of life. I find their negative fixation, even when they
recognize this as a problem, to be absolutely sterile and stifling. They
are, in my opinion, a prime example of the problem Tillich pinpointed: you
cannot speak of the Absolute without the aid of artistic and poetic
symbols. This is just what Unitarianism and Secular Humanism try to do. I
still make the brief for plain old Secularists, people who just stay home
and read the newspaper on Sunday mornings. They can have a genuine
spiritual life through music, art, literature. But when one tries to
organize a quasi-religion around the lack of religion, the result has been
thus far a total disaster. And it will continue to be.
Seeking a link with the
Episcopalian tradition would reintegrate us, potentially, into that
symbolic stream of rites of initiation and passage, of color and wonder.
I'm not sure how much of that we could accommodate here in the Grail
meetings, but that is something we could discuss.
As an Exilopalian, I
would employ the gospel tradition in the manner I am now accustomed to:
treating Jesus as a mythic figure, a figure of great power for certain
purposes, as the literary use of the Christ figure over the centuries has
shown, and as a collective name for the wisdom tradition collected under
that name in the gospels. A kind of Q-Christianity.
And the name. The name. I
still cannot cough up the self-designation "Christian." I don't want to be
under the same insane asylum roof as Falwell and Cardinal O'Connor. I
don't want to confuse the issue by entering public debates with the
stratagem that "my view, too, is a Christian view, so Christians ought to
take it seriously." We're past that. Our thinking must draw on all
potential sources and must not seek undeserved clout by the imposition of
a theological label. Only so can any view we hold deserve a hearing in a
public, non-sectarian conversation. But I would be willing to go this far:
I could call myself an Episcopalian, even if not a Christian. How about
you?
Copyright©2009 by Robert
M Price
Spirit of
Carolina Web Design