Jesus' True Teachings Could be Good Politics

Here I am in a “Disciples” class a few years back trying to explain grace and why it’s so superior to “reaching God” through the law and by avoiding all those naughty things named in the 10 Commandments and other parts of "the Book." A friend in the class, a school teacher and all around pretty bright woman, was scratching her head over the idea of grace and salvation coming as a gift through Christ’s sacrifice. It seemed just too mechanical. She felt there had be another way, a fresh way, to talk about what it means to be Christian.

Maybe she's right. Maybe we’re balled up like a sweaty sheet from theological tossing and turning over how obedience to the law fits with God’s grace. She steps in, smart but no trained theologian, and sees there has to a third way.

I was reminded of her resistance to my “grace formulations” by Judith Warner’s opinion piece titled “Holier Than They” in Thursday’s NY Times. She takes a lay person’s peek at the faith and wonders why the core concerns people on the street would call “Christian” seem to be missing:

“These days … for all the talk of religion, there is little public soul-searching about the absence of care and compassion, love, acceptance and inclusion – the things that many consider to be the essence of Christianity – in the words of our purported Christian leaders.”

And while she sees what we’ve previously pointed out in this space -- cracks in the conservative movement’s solid wall of propaganda, she wonders if it may be too late:

“The Christian conservative vote is, apparently, splintering. Younger evangelicals are increasingly said to be interested in putting their faith to greater use than bashing gays, promoting guns and putting God on the presidential ticket. That would seem to indicate that we’re facing a moment of opportunity: a chance to expand and amplify the reach of the voice of religious moderation. The silence I’m hearing makes me think, though, that as a society we’ve come to accept the slippage of prejudicial and hateful attitudes into religious doctrine as somehow normal.”

That slippage, while deplorable, is facilitated by ordinary means. Most of us are set up for it the first time we write a research paper in high school or college. You propose an idea and then look for a “proof passage” in the literature. Too much of that approach in studying the Bible can obscure scripture’s true essence and open the door to deceivers. My Disciple class friend was suggesting a little less theology and a little more ardent application of the KIS theory. If we’re ready to defend the soul of Jesus’ message -- that we love God and our neighbor as ourselves -- it’ll be harder for the haters to play their game.

Warner borrows a phrase from a Times editorial condemning “Islam’s silent moderates” for inaction in the “appalling, brutal and bigoted” case of a Saudi woman sentenced to prison for being gang raped, and asks when Christian moderates will end their silence:

“It would be nice today to hear a candidate step up and oppose all that is ‘appalling, brutal and bigoted’ in the limited religious views that substitute for spirituality in American politics today. Who knows — it might even be good politics.”

Why Did Break Away Diocese Choose This Fight?

I grew up in a blue collar place where almost every male learned to fight. It was a matter of survival. Some liked to fight for the fun of it and I was one of those. There was something very exhilarating about feeling your blood boil.

As I matured and my horizons began to expand, physical fighting lost its appeal, but the desire to feel my blood boil didn’t. I found I was pretty good at rhetorical nose punching, so the intellectual argument took the place of flying fists. Politics, sports, you name it, I was a ready teddy. But as I moved further along in my evolution, I began to realize the wisdom of choosing your fights. You can tell a lot about a person by the fights they choose.

This week an Episcopal diocese in California chose to fight over whether homosexuals can be as fully Christian as heterosexuals. That’s probably not how they would phrase it, but that’s really what is shrinks down to. The Episcopal Church in the U.S. is part of a worldwide Anglican fellowship that traces its roots back to the Church of England.

Over the weekend delegates at the annual convention of the San Joaquin diocese voted to secede from the national Episcopal Church. Clergy and lay delegates alike voted in large majorities to secede in objection to the right of partnered gay and lesbian believers to serve as Episcopal ministers. The move is likely to have dire spiritual and legal consequences. History says the parent church will fight to retain the property of individual parishes within the diocese. It’s not a small fight and choosing it speaks volumes about who these people are.

Let’s be up front; there are a few verses sprinkled through scripture that speak against homosexuality. Most are set in a historical context quite different from our contemporary context of gays and lesbians in committed and monogamous relationships -- the type of sexual relationship we generally find acceptable for heterosexual clergy. But the passages are there. The question is, when did perfect compliance with all scripture become a prerequisite for being Christian? The church, after all, is often described as a club for sinners. Admitting you are one is the price of admission.

Why have they chosen this fight rather than, say, Jesus’ frequent admonition against lives devoted to the accumulation of wealth? Their choice speaks to who they are and, while I could guess what it says, in their own hearts they know and I’m afraid it ain’t pretty. One thing it might say is they’re not fully committed to believing God’s grace is the umbrella under which all Christians stand.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, elected last year as the first woman to lead the U.S. Episcopal Church, had warned San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield against voting to break away from the denomination but did not threaten specific consequences. Jefferts Schori supports ordaining partnered gays and lesbians.

"We deeply regret their unwillingness or inability to live within the historical Anglican understanding of comprehensiveness," she said in a statement after the vote. "We wish them to know of our prayers for them and their journey."