Apostosy in the Church

In response to a post on the other blog, Father Charles wrote the following:
Thanks for pointing out the pithy paragraph in the newsletter. I had skimmed the article and missed that point. The Episcopal Church leadership is oblivious to the problems they have created. They are convinced of their rightness - believing the rest of us are unenlightened. So convinced of their rightness, they believe the world will be a kinder and gentler place when everyone accepts the sexual orientation and practices of gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgendered persons as God-given and blessed gifts from heaven.

These people are so crazy, they think our brothers and sisters in the Global South are really the problem - and not the Muslims who are persecuting the Church in locales like Nigeria. Since the revisionists are universalists, they couldn't care less about hindering the gospel witness in Africa. They will just keep loving and accepting everyone - except those who disagree with them - until we all just learn to get along. They actually believe radical Muslims who are working to impose Sharia law on the entire world will eventually be won over by their love and open-mindedness. Love will win out in the end.

It just boggles my mind. When I try to intellectually understand how they think, it still comes down to a strong delusion. No amount of evidence reaches them. A friend from seminary - and lesbian priest - told me with resignation, "We gays are going to the Cross for the rest of you. We have to bear the suffering of Christ to open up the Church - to make it safe for everyone. The Church will never be a safe place for anyone until it is a safe place for us." There you have it in a nutshell.

While I was attending GTS in NYC, Archbishop George Carey visited the campus. He briefly greeted our student body in the Refectory. We were thrilled to lay eyes on the Archbishop of Canterbury - all except for the gay students who hated him for his public statements supporting the historic Christian position on sexuality. One gay student - who was living in student housing with his life partner - whispered to a few of us close to him, "That vitriolic old man!!! I'd like to spit on him!!!" Well, so much for light, love, and tolerance. This gay couple "divorced" about graduation time. I never heard the details - but at least no one spit on the ABC that day.
Even when I want to get angry with the revisionists, I step back and realize they are not actually the problem. They are at least true to their confused convictions. The real culprits are the many people on the pews who are content with a watered-down substitute gospel that has no life-transforming power. The abandonment of apostolic faith is masked by beautiful liturgies and prayers - mostly reinterpreted to mean something other than what they say. This slide into apostasy didn't happen suddenly with the election of a gay bishop. In humility, I have to remember how much truth I was willing to compromise in order to "fit in.” I repeatedly hear priests who have left The Episcopal Church talk about the sudden sense of freedom - as though their minds were out from under a cloud. What they are describing is more than resolved emotional tension. We have stepped out of a demonically inspired system that exerted a constant spiritual pressure against the truth of God's word. You can't tell how oppressed and compromised you have been until you step out from under that spiritual force. Then you realize how much you were impacted by it.
Some traditional strands of Anglicanism fool themselves into blaming prayerbook revisions for the slide away from the truth. In their minds, if we would just get back to the Elizabethan BCP, there wouldn't be any room for these heresies. I have to wonder, what planet do these people live on? As beautiful as these liturgies are, they contain a fatal flaw–high liturgies developed out of a Church that had abandoned apostolic power. The ancient fourfold order of the liturgy comes from the glory days of the Church in the book of Acts. But the complex liturgies - built around a model of priests offering Mass as a sacrifice on behalf of the Church - substituted for the manifested power and presence of the Holy Spirit in and through the gathered people of God.

It is difficult to lead a fully charismatic Mass because the set forms of liturgies were designed in a vacuum of spiritual power. These forms become the norm of Christian worship when no one expected the manifested power of God to show up. Think about the great church in Byzantium - now a mosque - with the huge image of Christ Pantocrator enthroned in glory - dispassionate like a lofty Roman emperor - seated above mundane things - looking out in dispassionate judgment over the affairs of the empire. It is all about images of transcendence and other-worldliness - while wrapping up Christ in imperial garb to undergird the divine right of the Roman emperor to rule over the affairs of Church and State. In these images, God is beyond human feelings. Lip-service is given to the Incarnation. Where is the Christ touched by the feelings of our infirmities - the merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God? Church councils and theologians had replaced miracle-workers and prophets.

Back when the power of God was actively manifest in the Church, the bishop simply stood at the holy table and prayed from his heart - as he was moved by the Spirit. The fourfold order of gathering, hearing and responding to the word of God, breaking bread, and being sent out into the world - that was there - but not the elaborate prayers and forms that make us think God is dynamically at work while nothing much ever happens - except for an occasional mystical experience. It appears to me that God likes the messiness of charismatic expression. God has hidden stuff from the wise and prudent - and revealed it to babe. I can't think of a high-impact revival that didn't offend someone's sensibilities. The Episcopal Church - like most mainline denominations - has lost its way because they have never had their world-view impacted by biblical truth. They have interpreted the bible in light of their own experience of divine absence instead of Real Presence. If we don't press through into the grace of God - and begin to manifest the kingdom of God in power - then there will be no revival in the land - just occasional mystical experiences. But the culture will remain untouched.