Musings on being Schismatic

I am sitting here in a state of dazedness, having survived yet another diocesan convention. I have never enjoyed conventions, and for me each year they become more and more of a pain and a burden. To some, they seem to be meat and drink -- but not me, rather they are something to be endured.

I was privileged to be re-elected to Bishop and Council for the Diocese of Tennessee, although I would prefer the privilege to the work that goes with it. I have found myself wondering in the last 24 hours whether this is the last elected office for which I will ever run and be elected. We will see. Now in our diocese we move on to the electing convention for a new bishop in seven weeks -- which will probably be even less "fun" than the annual gathering we have just endured.

While there were positive things that happened as far as the faithful in the diocese are concerned, the memory that I take away from this particular is the constant drip, drip, drip of misrepresentation and disinformation about the orthodox within the diocese and the wider church. Overtly, covertly, and snidely, the accusation was constantly made that to be orthodox is by definition to be schismatic, bent on destruction of the Episcopal Church. This has been going on for months now, with the Anglican Communion Network being elevated to the level of beast in Revelation in the minds of some, without them ever necessarily even talking to those who are part of the Network to see whether their perception is correct.

It does not seem to matter how many times and how forthrightly those being accused refute such charges, back they come. The refutation of charges has neither been heard, nor listened to. I suspect the rationale behind this is that if you keep throwing enough mud, eventually some is bound to stick. Meanwhile, the fact that we were sitting in that same room participating actively in the affairs of the church would seem to be evidence contrary to these assertions.

Out of curiosity this afternoon I looked up various definitions of a schismatic. One good one read that "schismatic as a noun denotes a person who creates or incites schism in a church or is a member of a splinter church, and schismatic as an adjective refers to ideas and things that are thought to lead towards or promote schism." Other definitions were more or less of the same flavor.

Now consider carefully the definition that a schismatic is someone who creates or incites schism; the adjective is about ideas that promote division. The divisive circumstances in which we find ourselves were certainly not created by those of us who affirm biblical orthodoxy, on the contrary, we pleaded that the actions which have led to our unhappy state would not be taken because we feared turmoil as a result. We were not listened to, and innovations quite contrary to historic Christianity were introduced into the life of the Episcopal Church -- turmoil ensued.

I have said to those of my colleagues who have thrown these words at me and then at least been prepared to hear my response, "Explain to me, please, how I am a schismatic because I am neither believing nor acting in any way differently than I have in the 37 years that I have been ordained. I affirm the same faith and essentially the same moral and ethical values that I did when I was ordained; that was not only perfectly acceptable when the bishop laid hands on me, but, indeed, back then such belief and values were required of me."

I have gone on, "My understanding of that faith has grown, matured and developed, but the substance is essentially the same. When the church acted in a manner which was contrary to how Christians have believed for two millennia then I disassociated myself from its actions. I continue to oppose them for the good of the church. In this I am merely keeping the vow that I made when I knelt before the Bishop of London in St. Paul's Cathedral, that I would be ready, 'with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous doctrines contrary to God's word.' What has happened is contrary to God's word."

Thus, I have told them, that within the context of the church I am not a schismatic, but am being the opposition, the loyal opposition, because I am loyal to what God has revealed and what the church has always held. Indeed, we are not the ones dividing the church with novel ideas, that has been done by those who adhere to what Paul calls "another gospel." All I am doing is defending the church from its own foolishness and unwillingness to live within the parameters that God has set, and its own formularies. My question then is, "How does this make me a schismatic?"

What often follows is usually some flim-flam of the we-know-better-today flavor, etc., etc. I can honestly say that I have yet to received a well-argued theological and philosophical refutation of what I have said, just as I have yet to read a well-argued theological defense of these actions that have divided us. This leaves me wondering why I should believe that an elistist little Protestant sect in North America knows better than the Communion of Saints down through the ages? Such is stance that the likes of C. S. Lewis described as chronological arrogance.

Sometimes when I have had such conversations, there is no attempt at all to answer what I have said, just the sense that I must be some kind of poor, benighted, unthinking, uneducated idiot who is caught in some kind of time warp. What is a medieval like me doing living in the postmodern world? In short, I lack enlightenment, I lack illumination, and I'm not really much of an Anglican!

The truth is that it is because I am a committed Anglican Christian that I wish to be part of the Anglican Communion, rather than be isolated from that Communion, and therefore the whole global ecumenical venture just because I affirm the peculiarities of the Episcopal Church of the USA. As Article XXI of that very Anglican document to which I assented at my ordination, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, asserts, that councils "may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God." Right now we are living with the consequence of a council having erred big time, and then the supporters of that action then turn round and call those of us who stand four-square where the church has stood for centuries schismatics. Something is not right here.

This is nothing other than the total deconstruction of language, which is making the words we use mean what we, the users, want them to mean. It seems to me that we need to keep calling our erring colleagues on this one.

Inciting the unhappy division that is now rending us is the action of those who have stepped aside from what the church has always believed, and how the church has always behaved, in favor of something that is now, fashionable, and in tune with a prevailing culture that has all but shed its Christian clothing. This is not prophetic, it actually has more of the flavor of syncretism. The challenge before us in these circumstances is how to be loving, caring, pastoral, and truth-full all at the same time. This is a huge task, and we haven't even started to go there yet.