I just finished reading David Gortner’s book Evangelism and was delighted to at long last discover something written with an understanding of the life-long aversion that most Episcopalians have against the word. Everything he recommended was eminently doable by the ordinary pew sitting church goer, but for one thing. It all required the discipline and commitment to actually do something, and that cannot happen without decisive, competent and willing leadership. Sadly, his current research suggests that most clergy are ill equipped by training or nature or both to provide that leadership. Nor are they very good at creating the conditions under which alternative lay leadership can be discerned, raised up, equipped and empowered. It appears that we have become quite adept at using the language without actually doing the work. So where do we go from here? This Sunday is Trinity Sunday, and for most of us that means a recitation of The Great Commission. What does that mean for Episcopalians? And, if you are going to offer some answers, please don’t ramble on with the same old platitudes of excuse that have been lolling around for years sipping tea (or gin) and harrumphing. We’ve developed that to a fine art of evasion.
Tag: Evangelism
The Question of Holy Orders
Of late the church has been doing what it can to bring the ministry of all baptized to the forefront. We are, after all, members of a priesthood of all believers, something we reaffirm in each recitation of the baptismal covenant. It is important and nothing good can come of evangelism or discipleship without it. But in so doing the term Holy Orders seems to have been discarded with a goodbye note of disregard and near disrespect. I want to take issue with that. There is something extraordinary about being called by God out of the community and into a particular role received through a life profession, the laying on of hands and Spiritual anointing, which, by our tradition, places us into a line of direct physical contact with all the generations that preceded us and all the generations that will follow.
None of that means a retreat to the so-called Father Knows Best practices of former decades. What it means is that there is something of the holy that marks the ordained priesthood in a way that is not present in other offices of ministry, and that it is to be respected and honored as one sign of God’s presence among us. It also means that, whether you like it or not, ordained priests are called to be leaders in the church, and are accountable for successes and failures. Within the institution of the church, as is the case with all true leadership, it requires an ability to create conditions in which others have the greatest possible opportunity for success in their own ministries. It’s not a top-down sort of thing. It’s all about providing the knowledge, skills training, information, resources and support that others need to do well in whatever they are doing.
Suppose, for instance, that Joseph’s carpentry business grew large enough to employ a handful of others but there were no gifted craftsmen available. Could he, as leader, get quality production out of new employees who were given no training, not provided with quality tools, told to go out and get their own wood, given no information about what was happening, nor told much about whether their work was any good but always told about how bad it was? Could he make things better by “motivating” his people with slogans and nifty videos? How about some punishment? Would his situation improve if he announced that leadership obviously did not work so from now on everyone would be a leader and he would just be another carpenter, albeit one who specialized in altars, cups and plates?
Think about it.
Let’s Finish With Hagee Before Moving On
I just returned from a clergy conference where David Gortner of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) conducted a very worthwhile workshop on evangelism. Sooner or later we Episcopalians have got to get with the program in a way that suits our theology. More on that later, but I want to finish up with the John Hagee question.
What discourages me about the lack of response to the Hagee endorsement of McCain is the strong implication that it is not news because it is not threatening to a majority of white Americans. It stuns me that for all his bombastic preaching filled with hatred and threatening God’s wrath on anyone who is not an ultra-conservative Christian, Hagee is not controversial. To the contrary, he is popular enough to be on daily national television, and it appears to me that he, and others like him, are understood to represent Christianity at its nationalistic best. His damnation of those who are not of his brand of highly politicized evangelicalism is not seen as an abomination but as a proclamation of the core self-identities of good, white, conservative Americans sheathed in the name of Christ. His is the voice of a nation acting out of fear, and a nation that acts out of fear is a nation in decline with little hope for the future. That really bothers me and leaves me deeply troubled about the future of our nation. Now I’ve got a treasured friend, a wheat farmer east of town, who will go ballistic if he reads this, but I also know he will think about it, and that’s all I ask.
Evangelize or go to Hell?
I’m not sure why we make such a big deal out of evangelism. On the one hand we joke about it as if a slight but knowing chuckle absolves Episcopalians of getting anywhere near it. On the other hand we write book upon book about how to do it that no one reads and issue training materials ad nausium that no one uses. If the point is pressed, our fall back position is that we don’t know how and don’t want to look stupid or be humiliated in trying.
Being Anglicans we also have a third hand, and that is our theology which points in the direction of universalism, and therefore we are not personally responsible for seeing that the “unsaved” come to know Jesus. That’s a real handicap. Conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists are generally of a mind that unless they aggressively witness to the Lord Jesus Christ among those who are not saved they will be called to account for the lives damned to eternal hell because of their inaction. A local preacher whose services are broadcast each Sunday recently announced the several hundred thousand souls that had been saved through the efforts of their missionaries in Mexico City among the unsaved, damned Roman Catholics. Another local pastor explained to me that he needed to make an annual tally of the souls saved through his ministry for his superiors. My friends, that is heavy business. If you buy it you become responsible not only for your own eternal life, but for the lives of countless others as well. You had better get busy or risk burning in hell.
Guilt and threats of eternal punishment make damn good sticks, and the promise of a heavenly eternal life dangling out in front makes a divine carrot. We Episcopalians don’t buy that theology and don’t have those tools to work with, but we are very good at sitting back on our fat butts to observe and criticize. What we can do, what we should do, and what is consistent with our theology is to listen and invite. Listen and invite will be subjects of a post to come, and perhaps you would like to offer your ideas about that now.
Neither Lost nor Prodigal, but Coming Home Just the Same
In many parts of the country those who left the Episcopal Church in anger over the homosexual issue are trickling back into their beloved parishes to discover that: 1) they are warmly welcomed and no one expects any explanation; 2) most in the congregation never felt they left, they were just absent for a season of healing; 3) apart from the gay issue, almost everything the returning expatriates had been told about the “direction of the Church” and the horrible things it was teaching were either an outright lie or a gross distortion of the truth; 4) we can tolerate a wide range of comfort and discomfort on the gay issue and still be faithful followers of Christ and friends with each other.
It appears that no matter what, the separatists are going their own way to form a new denomination that will be almost fundamentalist in dogma and hierarchically authoritarian in polity. Now it is time for those of us who continue in the Anglican traditions of our Episcopal Church to stop being so defensive and begin celebrating the joy we share with each other as followers of Jesus Christ in God’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. It is only through that enthusiastic celebration of joy with each other that we can become a bright beacon of light for others and bearers of the Good News. Of course that means evangelism, and that will be the subject of another post – or two. But I’ll give you a hint. I’m tired of wimpy Episcopalians who run from the “E” word or equate it with television, street corner and weird sect hucksters. My prescription: You’re grownups; get over it and get on with it. Quit making excuses.”
Dark Thoughts after Ash Wednesday on a Sunny Day in Maui
Exploring the dimensions of discipleship has been a constant theme in my sermons for the last several years. The emphasis has been on the idea that we are being, and have been, prepared to go out and do the work that God in Christ has given us to do. I have encouraged any who would listen to be like the sower in the parable who promiscuously tossed out valuable seed as if there was no end to the supply and without care as to where it landed. I would not say that I have had a lot of takers. There are many and complicated reasons for that, and among them is a truth that dawns slowly and grows brighter as one matures in discipleship as expressed through our Anglican traditions: our God and our Anglican ways do not make much sense, especially when the world and most lives appear out of control. So exactly how does one go about being a sower without looking stupid or end up imitating those bible thumpers we all detest? After all, what good is a God who will not correct the obvious problems in the world and in our lives, and who allows such horrible, tragic injustices to take place day after day? And what good is a religion whose rites do not result in any tangible change in our environment? What are we if not a bunch of wannabe wizards who flunked out of Hogwarts?
The idea that, in Christ, our humiliated human bodies and human condition will be conformed to the glory of Christ’s resurrection body (see Philippians 3) doesn’t have much currency in a world where decay, corruption and death rule. More helpful by far is a regimen of diet, exercise and the attentive care of a good cosmetic surgeon. The preposterous idea that we should “let go and let God” seems like the last desperate hope of a loser, which is precisely why it is the centerpiece of AA and other twelve step programs. As for the world at large, better to be a Machiavelli than a Gandhi or King, Jr. Why mess around seeking peace when it is a more sure bet to be safe and rich by making others weak and poor?
So I suspect that we, as Christian disciples in the Anglican tradition, will continue being a rather small group. With Habakkuk we will continue to foolishly rejoice in the light of God’s presence even amidst destruction and chaos. And I also believe, perhaps foolishly, that, in time, there will be many others who will see and wonder about the light we appear to walk in a light that seems to come from somewhere else and that reflects through us into the world about us and want to know how they can walk in that light too. It’s a sort of passive evangelism that would appall our conservative evangelical friends but I like it. In the meantime, I believe that we are also called to work tirelessly for the good of societies through policies that reflect the teachings of God in Christ, and for my thoughts on that you can check out my brief essays on judging candidates and platforms among the older posts on this site.