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Open Letter (Radner) |
by The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner Church of the Ascension Pueblo, Colorado Why I Am Writing I am hesitant to publicize these reflections so openly and at such length. However, the integrity of our Christian lives is at stake in how we face the present challenges to our common life, and none of us, including myself, can afford to duck the responsibility of responding honestly in humble faith and prayerful reflection. If what follows seems too convoluted, I apologize. But I ask your patience in reading this, if only because we must be willing to engage our contested faith in ways that go beyond the "manifesto" and the "dispatch". This letter is primarily addressed to those clergy who share with me a commitment to the traditional and orthodox Christian faith our church has generally upheld for centuries; but I share this letter with all my colleagues because the matter at hand is intrinsically about our life together, and we need to know where each of us stands and what we hope for from one another. My main desire is to explain why theological conservatives like myself would not only wish to remain working within the bounds and communion of the U.S. Episcopal Church, but also why I believe it is an evangelical imperative that we do so. My role as a regional missioner has already placed me in the awkward position of furthering the order of the institutional denomination in the face of conservative questionings with which I sympathize. Although this brings pain, I would not continue in this awkward role, were I not convinced that, at root, it bears a necessary witness to a divinely inevitable vocation. The crisis is real I do not for a moment minimize the seriousness of the challenge, now mounted in many quarters within our denomination, to the Gospel as it has been handed down to us. I have heard the query raised by exasperated revisionists, "why is the sexuality issue one that seems to have broken the camel's back? didn't we survive civil rights, women's ordination, Prayer Book revision? Why are you conservatives so adamant on this topic?" It's a good question, but also one that is straightforwardly answered. I would start with three responses. First, the extreme novelty of recent revisionary teachings on sexual behavior is unique in our church's development, and more than anything else offers up a seemingly culturally-driven rejection of Scriptural authority that has no precedents. This strikes at the core of our Biblical faith. Secondly, the kinds of reasonings that seem to lie behind the revisionary trend in our denomination -- reasonings based on controlling definitions of "justice" and "love" and "inclusion" and so on -- are so distant from the particularistic and defined words and actions of Jesus and the Christian tradition's acknowledgment of His person, that the revealed Christ appears to have become the servant of a greater principle that stands beyond Him. This contemporary and perhaps only implicit form of the ancient Arian heresy strikes at the core of our catholic confession of Christ. Thirdly, so many other Christians around the world perceive this threat clearly, and yet a significant and powerful part of our denomination seems oblivious to and even unconcerned at their pleas and warnings. This evidences a chilling lack of charity that strikes at the core of Christian communion. Or so it seems to me. And therefore the question that some people ask conservatives, "why would you get so upset at all this as even to think of leaving the church?" can be equally forthrightly answered: many of the habits of the Episcopal church, and not a few of the articulate teachings and examples now being promoted in our denomination are so obviously contrary to the Christian principles this church has consistently upheld until only recently that, simply put, the church to which many of us made ordination vows no longer in many important respects informs the church we serve. It is not only plausible, it is absolutely necessary under the circumstances, that we now reconsider what the nature of those vows might be. I am puzzled by those who accuse conservative proposals to leave the diocese or to join some other "Anglican" church as somehow succumbing to a new "congregationalism". If anything smacks of congregationalism, it is the ecclesial style of so much flaunting of traditional Christian teaching and behavior over the past few years on the part of parishes disinterested in the commitments of the larger church. No, the issue at stake has nothing to do with how we think of the "connectional church". It has to do with whether the church exists as a divine body at all, and if so, where it might be and how it might survive with the integrity of witness to Christ's Gospel that is its reason for being. These are not light matters, and they are matters very much up for grabs in our denomination at this time. Any one who dismisses the necessity and profundity of this struggle that conservatives now experience within the church is merely skating on the surface of the Gospel. go to next page ~ Radner pg.2 | |
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