That We All May Be One

“A wise magistrate educates (the ) people, and the rule of an intelligent person is well-ordered. As the people’s judge is, so are (the) officials; as the ruler of the city is, so are all its inhabitants. An undisciplined king ruins his people, but a city becomes fit to live in through the understanding of its rulers.

The government of the earth is in the hand of the Lord, and over it he will raise up the right leader for the right time. Human success is in the hand of the Lord, and it is he who confers honor upon the lawgiver. Do not get angry with your neighbor for every injury, and do not resort to acts of insolence. Arrogance is hateful to the Lord and to mortals, and injustice is outrageous to both.

Sovereignty passes from nation to nation on account of injustice and insolence and wealth.”

(Ecclesiasticus 10:1-8)

Hear what the Spirit is saying to God’s people!

I was one of the half-dozen or so who watched the vice presidential debate last night. It was, from my perspective, a mixed bag at best. I was disappointed in Tim Kaine who has been declared the loser of this match-up largely because he came out uncharacteristically aggressive and repeatedly interrupted his opponent a la Donald Trump.

This tactic, brought unhelpfully into the debate from his attack-dog role on the campaign trail, began the unedifying spectacle of two white men talking over one another, and the female moderator (whose questions were actually quite good) to such an extent that few, if any, could understand what they were saying for the first half of the contest.

Things settled down in the second half, but again, Tim Kaine spent most of his time quoting Donald Trump, and Mike Pence spent most of his time saying that Trump could not possibly have said, or at least meant, that! No surprise there; it is what the Donald’s surrogates have been doing since the campaign began. I had hoped for better.

For these are two pretty articulate spokesmen for their parties’ positions. They clearly have respect for one another, if not for their opponent’s choice for president, and could have used the debate to articulate those differences. Had they actually tried to answer the questions CBS moderator Elaine Quijano asked, rather than use them as launching pads for sound bites, and had they listened to, rather than talked over, one another, those stark differences might have been highlighted for all to see.

The one shining moment, I thought, was when Quijano asked Tim Kaine and then Mike Pence, when — as people of faith — they had been tested to square those commitments with their lives as politicians. Kaine answered immediately, “That’s an easy one,” and described his personal struggles as a Roman Catholic who opposes the death penalty having to enforce it as Governor of Virginia when he could not persuade the people through its legislature to change the laws.

His defense was much the same as John Kennedy’s all those years ago who made it clear that his personal beliefs, and the doctrines of his church, could not override his sworn oath to uphold the laws of this country in the administration of his duties as chief executive. In the land of separation of church and state, this is the only way to govern.

Mike Pence was not as forthcoming with times there may have been a conflict between the tenants of his faith and his duties as a government official, but I thought he was sincere and articulate about his right-to-life stand. And he actually complimented Kaine for being a person of deep faith and lauded his courageous decision to vote for a ban on so-called “partial birth abortions” even though that flew in the face of his party’s and his President’s position.

I thought that was a moment of honesty and candor in a debate which largely lacked both. However one expects Tim Kaine to walk the tightrope between his own, fairly conservative position on abortion with Hillary Clinton’s much more pro choice stand, one must at least applaud his “consistent ethic of life” balanced by a deep commitment for a woman’s right to choose in her reproductive life.

And, however one may disagree with Mike Pence’s stated goal to work to repeal Roe v Wade, one must at least acknowledge his commitment to adoption as an alternative to abortion and his rejection of Trump’s desire to “punish” women and/or doctors deciding for abortion. I believe the vast majority of the country will come down on the side of the Democrats’ pro choice platform, provided its goal remains, in the words of Bill Clinton, “to make abortion safe, legal, and rare.”

So, in an otherwise disappointing debate, it was refreshing to see faith discussed in an open, honest, and ecumenical way. It was the one thing I could believe, coming from both men.

The presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, has begun describing the mission of our branch of the “Jesus Movement” as “loving, liberating, and life-giving.” This alliterative summary of the qualities desired of Christians will prove, I believe, very helpful. Just as it was recently when Bishop Curry said, in a not-so-veiled reference to the current climate of the presidential election process,”If it’s not about love, it’s not about God!” Just so.

The First Letter of John is the New Testament says that “God is love” and an ancient, but familiar Christian chant reads, “Ubi caritas et amor; ubi caritas Deus ibi est.” Where love and charity are, there is God. The Jews have always known that they were recipients of the love of God and even a cursory read through the four Gospels will reveal their central figure, Jesus of Nazareth, as one motivated by love of God and love of other people. This can be seen in his words and in his actions…which were often one and the same.

Liberation, of course, is a theme throughout the entire Bible. From the people of Israel being led out of slavery into freedom to Jesus’ non-violent resistance to the Roman occupation of Palestine and his own peoples’ leaders as complicit in their own oppression, to Paul’s dramatic statement in Galatians that “there is longer  Jew nor Greek, no longer slave nor free, there is not longer male and female; for all of your are one in Christ Jesus.”

And the giving of life is likewise a dominant biblical category. The ancient creation story speaks of God breathing life into humankind. The prophet Ezekiel has a vision of God’s spirit breathing new life into the dry bones of Israel. And, according to Christian teaching, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead becomes a kind of “first fruits” of the general resurrection awaiting all of us on the last, great day.

Love, liberation, and the giving of life. Qualities of the Jesus Movement articulated by our presiding bishop.

There is another bishop of The Episcopal Church who has reached a similar conclusion albeit by a somewhat different path. John Shelby Spong (happily now recovering from a recent severe stroke during a preaching mission to the Diocese of Norther Michigan) has been pilloried for years by many inside and outside The Episcopal Church for his controversial positions on many issues.

Most shocking to many has been his call for a fundamental rethinking of Christian belief away from certain traditional doctrines. He has even posted, in Martin Luther fashion, “Twelve Points for Reform” which shake traditionalists to their core (and go considerably father than I myself am willing to go, while recognizing the legitimacy of many of his observations).

Nonetheless, Spong has mellowed somewhat over the years and, in any case, has been proven to be on the side of the angels in most of the controversies which have faced our church over the last decades from civil rights to the ordination of women to, famously, his early advocacy for the equal place of gays and lesbians in the church. In his recent books, Spong returns again and again to his own tripartite  summary of Christianity at its best.

He often writes, “If God is the Source of Life, we should live fully each day. If God is the Source of Love, we should love wastefully each day. If God is the Ground of our Being, we should strive to be all that we can be each day.” Life…Love…Being all that we can be. Sound familiar? While in a different order, I believe they line up pretty well with Michael Curry’s contemporary challenge:

Curry: Loving             Spong: Love Wastefully

Curry: Liberating       Spong: Be all that you can be

Curry: Life-Giving      Spong: Live fully

Two bishops. Each seeing themselves as “evangelists” to today’s culture. Formed in the same generous Anglican tradition. Different in so many ways. United in the important ones.

According to the former editor of the official journal of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Moscow Patriarchate, “the church has become an instrument of the Russian state. It is used to extend and legitimize the interests of the Kremlin.”

And the Russian Orthodox Archbishop of Maldova “has warned worshipers that new biometric passports, required by the European Union in return for visa-free access to Europe, were ‘satanic’ because they contained a 13-digit number. He also tried to torpedo legislation extending protection against the discrimination in the workplace to gay people, warning that this would draw God’s wrath and sunder relations with ‘Mother Russia.'” (The New York Times, September 14)

This sad state of affairs is not news to those of us deeply involved in ecumenical relations and certainly not Episcopalians so involved. In the 1980s and 90s our church had extremely good relations with the Russian Orthodox Church. In fact, when the Soviet Union dissolved and, along with it, the officially atheistic stance of the Russian government, we were contacted to have our Bishop of the Armed Forces and Federal Chaplaincies assist in advising the Russian government about how a military chaplaincy might work in their new context. The Episcopal Church happily complied.

About midway through my time as ecumenical officer for our church, I assembled a small delegation to continue our warm relations  by engaging in informal dialogue in Moscow with the Russian branch of the Eastern Orthodox Church and — while we were there — to check on the status of an ambulance provided by Episcopal Relief and Development for one of their medical facilities. We had pictures taken with “our” ambulance and conversation in formal meetings and over festival meals with lots of ice-cold vodka!

We had always known that the Russian Church had been largely silent and complicit in the days of Communist rule. But we had cut them some slack, knowing just how risky resistance and protest might have been and realizing that, sometimes, under such circumstances, the best Christians can do under oppression is to hunker down, go underground, and preserve the Faith until better days arrive.

That appeared to have been a successful strategy in the early days of their relative freedom. When we were there, the churches were full as were monasteries and theological seminaries. However, with the rise of Vladimir Putin, the dark underbelly of such cozy relations between church and state began to be made clear. It used to be an embarrassment to Russian Orthodox Christians that some of their bishops were actually members of the KGB. Today, that appears to be more and more accepted.

The all-but-dictator Putin has embraced the ultra-conservative moral posturing of his church and made life extremely difficult if not dangerous for the LGBT community in Russia and wherever their church makes its witness. “A fervent foe of homosexuality and any attempt to put individual rights above those of family, community, or nation, the Russian Orthodox Church helps project Russia as the natural ally of all those who pine for a more secure, illiberal world free from the tradition-crushing rush of globalization, multiculturalism and women’s and gay rights.” (today’s Times article)

The Episcopal Church may well have served as the canary in the coal mine, had anyone been paying attention. Our embrace of women’s ordination and equal rights for gay and lesbian persons in the life of the church and world led to our “fall” from a most-favored-status in ecumenical relations with the Russian church to a pariah! I once witnessed one of their leading ecumenical voices, one Father Chaplin, on the floor of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches question whether or not the Episcopal Church could even be considered Christian anymore because of our decisions on these issues of human sexuality.

This kind of ignorance and bias is tragic enough when the field of play is within one faith community and involves their relationships one with another. When such intolerance becomes the official policy of a re-emerging world power, wrapping itself in the gorgeous vestments of its puppet-like state church, everyone has something not only to regret…but to fear.