Soft Talk: Conditioning People to Reject Orthodoxy

This article was originally published on the Stand Firm in Faith website

I’ve been brooding over the loss of Rio Grande as stalwart conservative diocese. I became an aspirant for Holy Orders in the Diocese of Texas in 1997. At that time, Rio Grande, West Texas, Texas, Dallas, and Ft. Worth formed a kind of orthodox phalanx. There were wobbly bishops among them, Claude Payne for example—my bishop—was an institutionalist’s institutionalist, but the dioceses themselves appeared solid. I never would have imagined circumstances would devolve so quickly.

By my estimate Rio Grande is as good as lost. Texas is sinking fast both by virtue of an unfortunate bishop’s election and by an unfortunate willingness to compromise on the part of leading conservative rectors. Dallas is solidly led at the moment by Bishop Stanton but given some of the internal pressures in that diocese, I worry about the next bishop’s election. Fort Worth is gone. West Texas is perhaps in the best shape. She has recently elected able conservative leadership in Bishop Lillibridge and there seem to be far more conservative rectors than liberal ones but I fear the problem I discuss below may also be her undoing. In the last 13 years, the State of Texas has lost or is in the process of losing 3 out of 5 of her conservative dioceses. And I fear the remaining two are within a bishop’s election of falling. 

I was going to write simply about Texas but the situation in Texas is not unique. It is rather symbolic of the conservative plight across the scorched husk of the Episcopal Church. I cannot think of a single remaining diocese, save perhaps South Carolina, that is not more than one bishop’s election away from disaster.

The reasons for these losses are myriad—willful neglect of parish and diocesan politics; a reticence to teach doctrine and point out error; simple laziness…but lately my focus has been arrested by a rhetorical tactic that seems particularly characteristic of conservative Episcopalian bishops (with notable exceptions).

Describing their differences with revisionists to the people in their dioceses, these bishops will write something like this:

“I personally believe that the bible/tradition does not permit same sex blessings and/or the consecration of non-celibate homosexuals to holy orders and so I will not allow same sex blessings in this diocese. At the same time I recognize that many sincere Episcopalians disagree with my position and I am well aware that there are many faithful people in this diocese who either struggle with questions of with sexual identity or who live in committed relationships with partners of the same sex. I am committed to engaging in conversation with my brothers and sisters who disagree with me on these matters and to be your bishop/pastor despite our differences.”

That was not taken from any real letter but was rather an imaginary example cobbled up from my own experience reading many such letters.

The aim seems to be twofold: 1. To honestly express ones own opinion on the matter of human sexuality and 2. To reduce the necessity for true conflict between those who differ on the question by acknowledging the sincerity and faithfulness of both positions.

Here is a real example of such a letter from the Bishop of Northern Indiana:

“It is not the case, in the Episcopal Church or in any other, that you’ve got believers on one side and heretics (or apostates) on the other. I know many in my church who love Jesus, confess him as Lord and Savior, believe the articles of the Christian faith as summarized in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, and seek to follow Jesus in costly ways – and who, at the same time, affirm the decisions of the 2003 General Convention. As a matter of principle, when people claim to be disciples of Jesus, I will treat them as brothers and sisters in Christ, Bishop Gene Robinson among them. He is not only a colleague; I count him as friend and fellow pilgrim. I will commit myself to him, and to them, even when I am convinced that they are wrong. I will seek to manifest a godly forbearance, and ask that they do the same toward me.”

This is a very nice sounding letter. I don’t know when it was written but I am sure it won Bishop Little the applause of polite Episcopalians everywhere. I have no doubt the bishop believes every word of it.

But here is what that message communicates to uninformed, theologically uneducated or otherwise undecided people in the pews (the majority I think):

1. Those who teach that sexual relationships between people of the same sex are legitimate stand fully within the bounds of of the Church. We certainly disagree about certain details of the gospel…but not the gospel itself.

2. Those leaders who claim to be followers of Christ and are able to profess basic creedal propositions must be accepted as brothers and sisters even when the content of their teaching belies their profession. 

So when the next rector search or bishop election comes along and two candidates who differ on this particular question are set side by side, the lay person/clergy who has been conditioned to see the controversy over same sex behavior as a debate “within” the Church rather than an attack against it will be willing to consider each candidate using technocratic measures like “experience” or “qualifications” rather than measures like, “does this person’s life and doctrine measure up to that which is given as a requirement in scripture?”

So Gene Robinson is just as much a Christian brother as Ed Little because he says the Creeds with sincerity and confesses that Jesus is “Lord and Savior.”

So, four years down the line, when Ed Little or a bishop like him, calls for a coadjutor and a bishop is elected who carries a great deal of experience and promises to ordain clergy living in same sex relationships and to allow same sex blessings and the predictable hue and cry arises from the conservative side and perhaps Ed Little himself is disappointed, whole swaths of people conditioned to will stare blankly like cows at a new fence and wonder aloud and to themselves “what all the fuss is about?”

Because over time whole dioceses are being conditioned to view the question of human sexuality as if it is adiaphoral fodder that various huffy people get upset about but that really doesn’t matter so long as we all gather round the altar and stand and move our lips together when the Creed is said.

Rhetorical softness pays immediate dividends in the sense that it fosters peaceful coexistence and makes one’s episcopal tenure more pleasant than it otherwise could be but at least among Anglicans once an issue is relegated to ‘non-essential’ status it is generally deemed “unimportant” and if the culture is moving firmly to one side of the “unimportant issue” there is no reason for the church to be a stick in the mud and resist.

For that reason, I think it inevitable that in every presently conservative diocese where this rhetorical tactic is used, there will, ultimately, be a revisionist bishop elected.

Those of us who regularly use the word “heretic” or apostate to describe an ordained leader who has publicly departed from biblical standards and is teaching other to do the same are often roundly criticised for our rudeness. And sometimes we deserve it. But I use the words not only because they are accurate (which in itself would not be reason enough—there are after all many accurate and true things we should not say about other people) but because I do not want my readers or the people I lead in my parish to confuse the two very different gospels that are presently at war in the Anglican world.

I want people to examine my life, words, and teachings and those of the leaders who will come after me by biblical standards and if that means conflict and contention then so be it. I think it is a good thing for people in a church or diocese to be suspicious enough of wolves that they look very carefully at the cut of the wool.

The way to condition them to do that, I think, is to define truth clearly, point out error definitively, and identify those who propound it by name. Rhetorical softness will only lead to conditioned complacency and, ultimately, to the loss of orthodoxy. It is happening before our eyes. 

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