As our attention turns to
General Convention 2015, I am thinking of another ecclesiastical gathering
1,690 years ago, the Council of Nicaea. The story of Nicaea and its conciliar
echoes raises questions about how we might best proceed in Salt Lake City this
summer.
We will face divisive issues.
We always face divisive issues. In my darker moments, I have thought that the
real purpose of General Convention is to prove two things--God’s power and
God’s love for the Church. They are proven thus: Every three years we do our
utmost to kill the Church and yet she lives. This year, as always, we will face
divisive issues.
I think back to Nicaea (325
C.E.), the first general council called to overcome divisions and unify the
Church. For the first three centuries of Christianity, we had never felt the
necessity of such a comprehensive, hegemonic uniformity, making sure we all
thought and behaved in the same way. No member of the Christian Church called
for the Council of Nicaea. We were summoned by the as yet unbaptized Emperor
Constantine one year after he became the sole Emperor of the entire Roman
Empire. He wanted a lock-step uniformity of religion to buttress the lock-step
uniformity of his freshly united Empire. Before we were so fondly embraced in
the death grip of the Empire, we humanly squabbled. We enjoyed more diversity
and less uniformity. Historians, writing of the 2nd Century for
example, refer to Christianities
(like those of Antioch and Alexandria which were quite different from each
other) instead of a mythically monolithic Christianity. The differences were
deep and concerned indisputably fundamental matters. But we managed to muddle
along until the Empire insisted that we come to an agreement.
In 2015, we will find a lot
we could fight about. A contender for the most hot-button issue will be same-gender
marriage[i].
To put my cards on the table, I am for same-gender marriage. I am a card-carrying
member of Freedom Nevada, which advocates for marriage equality under civil
law. But my opinion aside, here I want to consider how history might inform our
approach to this issue at General Convention. This summer our discussion will
consider two substantive aspects of same gender marriage.[ii]
This first is whether to authorize a shift in the liturgy. We have already
approved the blessing of same gender unions. We have already allowed bishops to
tweak that rite for use in states that allow same gender marriage. The proposed
change in liturgy will just make our celebration of marriages in those states
more coherent. The second is whether to impose this new rule in all dioceses –
that is to say requiring the same rule in such diverse diocesan situations as
California and the Dominican Republic. The other option would be to allow
dioceses to have different policies; for example, some parishes in Nevada have same-gender
marriage while others do not.
Back to Nicaea, 325 C.E.: There
were a lot of issues on their table, but only one was fundamental to the faith.
It was about the relationship of the Father and the Son. The historian Edward
Gibbon later observed that the whole fight turned on a single diphthong in a
single word. But it was a huge deal to the way people understood the faith. They
felt that the possibility of salvation depended on it. Did the Father create
the Son out of nothing, so that “there was a time when he was not,” or was he
co-eternal with the Father? Arius said that the Son was created. Athanasius
said that he was co-eternal. The Council, under some Imperial pressure, resolved
the big issue: the Father and the Son are co-eternal. Athanasius up and Arius
down. But on the issues that were not so central to the faith, they left room
for some diversity of practice. Even where issues were supposedly ruled upon
once and for all, beliefs and practices continued to vary. The theological
legacy of Nicaea is, in my view, a good thing. But the power process legacy is
not. In fact, Nicaea 1 may have been the ecclesiastical Fall into the Original
Sin of up-down, win-lose votes as a futile attempt to avoid the hard work of
prayerful conversation while living with difference.
The first point to consider
for 2015: We are not the established Church. We do not exist to buttress the
uniformity of a dictatorial Empire. Our situation is far more akin to 2nd
Century Syria and Egypt than to Nicaea in 325. There is less urgency to coerce
agreement.
The second point: Nicaea
insisted on uniformity about a matter central to the faith, the full divinity
of Jesus. We do not have any such core issues of faith, anything rising to the
level of Creed, on the table. We have issues on which we disagree. On some of
these issues we have strong feelings -- for some of us, very strong feelings
indeed. Political dramas (like the abominable Indiana legislation) and legal
dramas (like the coming Supreme Court ruling on same-gender marriage) are sure
to stir our passions and color our process. But our issues are not about the
core of the faith embodied in the Creeds. Where the issue is not about the Creedal
Core of our faith, where reasonable Christians of good faith hold differing
views, might there be even more room for diversity? In the past, the Church
hegemonically forbade same-gender marriage in all dioceses. That did not work
well. I earnestly hope we will not go back to that. But will it work any better
to compel uniformity of practice in the opposite direction?
Nicaea teaches us a further
lesson if we read the rest of the story. Yes, Nicaea definitively decided the
big issue. Athanasius won. Arius lost. But Athanasius was deposed and exiled
several times after that. And Arianism? After it was condemned as a heresy, it
just got stronger and stronger. St. Gregory of Nyssa said that 50 years later
you could not buy a loaf of bread without the baker telling you that “the Son
was created out of nothing and there was a time when he was not.” Not only did Arianism
spread, it morphed. It became something so extreme that even Arius would not
have recognized it. Let me say with a
strong emphatic voice that I am with Athanasius and against Arius one hundred
percent. But some commentators on contemporary religion say that many mainline
Christians (that would be us, my fellow Episcopalians) are super-Arians. My
point is this: Matters of faith and of the spirit do not lend themselves to
formal, legalistic, parliamentary solutions. They emerge organically through
relationships and conversation. Conversations do not include motions, seconds,
motions to amend, motions to table, etc.
Conversations do not conclude with up-down votes but rather with prayers
and plans to meet again soon.
So what might all that mean
for our approach to same-gender marriage at Salt Lake City in 2015? The
proponents of same-gender marriage are not asking for much. It is a bit like
the diphthong they were fighting over at Nicaea (only not in the Creed!). Those
of us who bless same-gender unions are already using that rite in same-gender marriages
where such marriages are legal. We are already tweaking the language of the
Rite to acknowledge that this union is a marriage under the laws of the state.
Any change in the blessing from what we are already doing will be subtle
indeed. CNN and Fox News may make a to-do over it. It may leave us with some
pastoral work to do back home with those who dissent. But the truth is, this
isn’t a big step beyond where we have already come. My plea is that the opponents
of same-gender marriage, although they dissent passionately, will live with the
decision graciously.
On the other hand, the
opponents of same-gender marriage, while wishing none of us were doing it, are
chiefly concerned that the Church not compel them to do something contrary to
their conscience. Since the days of Elizabeth I, we have in principle been
committed to doing Church as a big tent that holds people with very different
views in relationship. But Anglicanism, for all our claimed tolerance and
inclusivity, has had a spotty record of making room for conscientious dissent. As
far back as the 17th century, Archbishop Laud was said to cut the
ears off of Puritans.[iii]
But our spotty record is not
uniformly bad. Take for example the Non-Juriing Bishops in Scotland. The Church
muddled its way along for a century while some bishops declined to swear
allegiance to the monarch even in an established Church. Had those Non-Juring
Bishops not been there to afford the same dispensation to Samuel Seabury, there
would be no Episcopal Church in this hemisphere.
Joshua Villines, theology
professor friend of mine, has a helpful perspective on the Church’s current
wrangling around sexuality. Ne says, “When a married couple fight over the cap
being left off the toothpaste, it isn’t really about toothpaste.” Maybe this
isn’t even about sex. Prof. Villines maintains that there are other issues,
other social divisions, and other churning feelings agitating the sexuality
wars. So here’s my question: Is it possible to allow LGBTQ inclusion and
equality to advance while we continue to hold the space for those issues to be
processed pastorally and relationally in parts of the Church that have not yet
come to the same point of acceptance where the majority of us now stand? Must
the rule and the practice be precisely the same in rural Haiti as in urban
Washington? In my experience, when people who oppose LGBTQ inclusion become
friends with LGBTQ people, those relationships transform and convert the people
involved. I want to protect the relational environment for such conversion,
just as one might protect the Amazon rainforest.
The argument against
tolerating this diversity is that members of the LGBTQ community who live in
the few dissenting dioceses (I am guessing we can count the ones in the US on
one hand) pay the price for it. I do not feel remotely comfortable with that
and to those who raise this objection I can only say I respect their position
completely and concede I may well be wrong. From the standpoint of justice and
the standpoint of being right, that argument persuades me. It is offensive that
in a few dioceses – a very few dioceses – same gender couples would have to go
to a neighboring diocese to solemnize their vows. But the overwhelming majority
of the LGBTQ community would get the benefit of the change. As for those who
are not fully made whole yet, the reason they might be patient with “the law’s
delay” is that it would preserve the relational environment for conversion
a/k/a the Body of Christ. It would be like Paul’s plea to the Corinthians to
accommodate their brothers and sisters who objected to eating meat that had
been sacrificed to idols. Paul told the meat-eaters they were right but asked
them to make a concession out of love. 1 Cor. 8. The LGBTQ community has been
patient with the Church beyond anything we have a right to ask. But love and
wisdom might move the LGBTQ community to make such a concession while we
continue the process of conversation and conversion. I have seen those
conversations. God as my witness, they do happen when we keep people at the
table.
Allow me to look back at
history just once more. Although Nicaea supposedly resolved the Arian
Controversy, the same dispute was still going on at the Council of
Constantinople, so we condemned Arianism again 56 years later. But that time we
went on to condemn Apollinarius as well, for explaining the incarnation in a
different way from Gregory of Nazianzus. Problem solved? No, we had to condemn
him again 50 years later at Ephesus. But then we went on to disavow Nestorius
for using different language about Jesus than Cyril of Alexandria did. Solved?
No, Nestorianism went right on and had to be condemned again 122 years later.
Along the way, poor old Nestorius was deposed and exiled. Without going into
the intricate details of Christology, what Nestorius said about Jesus was a
whole lot closer to what Cyril and the Church defined as orthodoxy than what
Paul, Mark, and John said about Jesus. So if Paul, Mark, and John had been
around, we would have had to chase them out too. At what point does the tent
get too small to hold the fullness of the gospel?
As we struggle to answer that
question in applying theology to our marriage practices, it may help to
remember what holds us together. Our mission, the Catechism reminds us, is “to
restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” In Christ –
not in the same opinion about marriage, sexuality, politics, or liturgy. In Christ! For those of us who love
Jesus, for those of us whose lives have been saved by his mercy and who are
counting on him and him alone to deliver us for eternity, the object of the
game is reconciliation with each other at the altar rail in our common
salvation in Jesus. It takes some patience, some forbearance, some respect in
spite of disagreement, to be “reconciled in
Christ” – to love one another as he has loved us.
[i]
Personally, I would use the more commonly accepted term “same sex,” but the
Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, based on good input from others,
believes “Same Gender” to be more apt.
[ii]
There will also be procedural issues as to how we go about doing this
Constitutionally. I don’t mean to suggest those issues are not important. I am
just not a canon lawyer and do not have an opinion about them yet.
[iii]
We probably did not amputate that many ears. But we did drive our some
noteworthy clergy. The Clarendon Code and general exclusion of non-conformists
cost us the nature mystic and aesthetic theologian Jonathan Edwards (who was
actually a genius despite that awful sermon 7
th graders have to
read) and Roger Williams the legal scholar, theologian, and champion of Native
rights and freedom of religion.