Rev. P. Joshua Griffin
In the wake of General Convention’s adaptation of liturgy for same-sex blessings, electronland has been abuzz with opinion pieces about the future of mainline Christianity in the United States. The New York Times, in particular, provoked some controversy July 14 with Ross Douthat’s piece “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?” in which he ties declining Sunday attendance in the Episcopal Church to the erosion of “traditional” Christianity, as apparently evidenced by our continued recognition of gay and lesbian people as people.
Showing little understanding of historical Anglicanism, Douthat writes that the Episcopal Church “still has priests and bishops, altars and stained-glass windows. But it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.” The problems with Douthat’s analysis, as put forth here by Diana Butler Bass, range from false causal assumptions and factual inaccuracies, to a lack of understanding about just what Anglicanism is—a nondogmatic tradition of common prayer.
Writing in the Huffington Post, the Rev. Winnie Varghese, of New York City, penned one of the best replies to the Times piece, writing that “liberal and progressive Christians believe…[that] those liberation movements from the 1960s on… were right, and [that] our church should change in response to that revelation.” Rev. Varghese is right: the movement of God is towards the elimination of social domination and toward a leveling of hierarchical categories of human identity—that much is clear in the arc of the Biblical narrative. God’s Spirit, we believe, erodes all formulations that hold some people at the margins so as to benefit the few.
We would do far better if we thought of the church as a movement, not an institution or even a non-profit organization. But we don’t always recognize it when the Spirit moves to challenge and overturn long-standing hierarchies of domination. The Episcopal Church still has a long way to go. “We have been a denomination of privilege,” writes Varghase, “but we are working on that.”
Yet, Douthat’s editorial may be correct in this one regard. If, as Douthat claims, “the Episcopal Church and similar bodies… don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism,” then we have a huge problem on our hands. It’s just an entirely different problem than he has in mind.
In his stunning 2010 book, “The Death of the Liberal Class,” the seminary-trained journalist, Chris Hedges observes that for the most part, the institutions which have been pillars of liberalism, including the media, the university, the arts, the unions, the Democratic party, and the mainline churches have bought into the neoliberal ideology of corporate-capitalism, which revolves around the mythology of growth at the expense of human and nonhuman wellbeing, thriving, and increasingly, life itself.
In a word, political liberals talk a good talk but (just like political conservatives) have sold out people at the bottom and the planet. A splintering of “causes” and the reduction of politics to “issues” has left the liberal class “obsolete” and clinging “to its positions of privilege within liberal institutions.” And “[l]iberal religious institutions,” writes Hedges, “which should concern themselves with justice, embrace a cloying personal piety… and small, self-righteous acts of publicly conspicuous charity.”
If Hedges is correct, then Douthat is also correct about one thing: the Church should split from the secular liberal class. We should split from those who talk a good game but make peace with all manner of corporations whose time has frankly come.
We might start by challenging the power of coal, oil, and gas industries and the big banks that fund them, as has been prophetically suggested by Bill McKibben, a lay-Methodist, in this disturbing new piece in Rolling Stone. Thankfully, resistance of this sort is now official church policy since Resolution B023 on climate justice was adopted by this year’s General Convention.
In theological terms, we are tasked with affirming life in this moment of planetary exhaustion and pervasive social death. Ours are the works of resistance and restoration, of resurrection and reconciliation. Such works require us, always, to undertake some risk.
This post was first published by Episcopal News Service.
The Rev. P. Joshua Griffin, priest Associate at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church in Portland, Oregon. “Griff” received his M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School in 2009 and is a doctoral student in cultural and environmental anthropology at the University of Washington. He has recently started blogging at therevgriff.blogspot.com. You may also follow Griff on Twitter @therevgriff.
Again Pharo hardened his heart – To secure his domanance – again through history – again they have hardened their hearts against GOD’S PROFITS – For their own eartly salvations – At what point does one lose their soul over eartly goods???
Er…”GOD’S PROFITS”?
Seriously, though, a good and thoughtful article.
Progressive Christianity, if it is to survive and flourish, needs to go deeper, and to make people(especially powerful people)MORE uncomfortable.
Ultimately, it needs to challenge all the modern philosophical and theological successors to the old “Will of God” theory…the notion that power derives from divine authority(and that, therefore, it could be assumed that whatever power does is what the Godhead wants done).
It needs to get back to something like the rebel sensibility the original Apostles held…before Paul began the process of making accomodations with Roman and gentile power structures.
That is risky, but the church has survived worse. It will survive that if it is meant to.
Bravo Griff,
This is the point entirely. Bageant’s ‘Deer Hunting with Jesus’ exposes the impotence of liberalism in the face of such Machiavellian mendacity of the Right. The social isssues are used as smokescreens to carry out the support and maintenance of rapacious capitalism. This is the point. McKibben’s article for Rolling Stone just underscores the precariousness of humanity’s situation on the planet Earth. Scientists worldwide have already classified this as the Anthrolpocene Epoch and we are in the midst of the 7th Anthropocene Mass Extinction event from anthropogenic global climatological supergreenhouse effect in-progress as we speak. Capitalism is the prime suspect in this evolution of events over the last 250 years. The social issues are extremely smallball distractions from far more important matters — such as the continuance of human life and frankly all life for that matter. Well there’s plenty of evidence in the fossil record that planet earth will be quite fine. It’s regenerated 6 previous times from near-total biogenic collapse. It will again because it has become most efficient at doing this. The only question is will human being survive? The question of the church’s survivability is moot, quite frankly.
I am not sure the mainline church can or should survive- we are dealing with institutions put together in the wake of Reformation liturgies and theology, most of which now need to be transcended. If the drastic changes we need are implemented- and the glacial speed of transformation may not pick up into time to save already bloated institutions collapsing under their own weight [especially the massive building costs ] Will what is left be the mainline church in any definable way_ im not sure- but we need to support the good work they do as long as we can while affirming that the construction of a vibrant, open hearted, progressive, liturgically innovative and deeply ecumenical Christian space in this country that can indeed answer the larger spiritual issues we face, is so much more important than institutional survival. Forms change. But nothing will change unless America undergoes a spiritual rebirth, and this cannot happen when the principle religious resource for the struggles ahead, the poisoned well of Christianity that is the root spiritual inheritance of most of Her citizens, remains as part of the problem rather than the solution
Griff’s and Josh’s tacks point us in a direction that is inevitable and already (the future is now). And I don’t think it’s anything to be afraid of. Whatever is done in the identifiable “mainline” congregations and denominations, the tangle of ironies and contradictions is destined to persist. We’ll always be involved in tensions and ambiguities. This is true for all the identifiable religions and traditions. Those things, symbols, themes, stories, songs–the lore–that are substantial and consequential for human health and strength–for the common good–will be rediscovered by some among us and then begin to pulse with the new energy that is needed for the nourishment of all. At this moment none of us knows with certainty either which ones will be crucial or how they will be identified and refashioned. A lot of experimenting is going on. None of the labels can suffice, even though some of the elements themselves may serve new purposes.
Some of us believe that we discover ourselves anew and participate in this process as members of communities of journeying people. “Movement” does indeed make more sense–pilgrims, even. Some institutional sources seem to be helpful from time to time, as are artistic ones, but none of the present boundaries and exclusions hold sway anymore. So there’ll be a lot more messiness. This shouldn’t overwhelm us, because just as basically creative activity is confusing it’s also enlivening. So there’ll be a lot of dying off but there’ll also be quickening and birthing.
What bugs most folks–and makes them frightened and resistant to change–is the authority problem. Who will have power and control? We know what the answer is: probably no one center will have authority and certainly not the centers of authority that still try to function as such. But as long as we keep in touch with each other, in honesty and integrity, in compassion and truth, we’ll find what we need–or, rather, through the transitional communities we belong to it’ll find us.
Speaking of control, I look forward to the day when Christians once again take the Eucharistic elements into their own hands, as they did at the beginning, alternating the role of the presider, and with joy celebrate God’s extravagant feast in a high Christological way, analogous to the egalitarian way Shabbat dinners are celebrated in Jewish households. The central act of Christian worship celebrated in such a way (with Grandma uttering “the gifts of God for the people of God in her apron at a (real) table )would signal an end to the ability of institutions to (pretend to) dominate God’s sacramental universe and would suggest that clergy are to facilitators and servant leaders, which the best of clergy already recognize themselves to be.
Thank you, Josh! That’s exactly it, and I’ve done that and it’s fantastic! I’m an Episcopal clergy (retired) who’s working on this just as you suggest. It’ll be good for us all to clear the decks.