Category Image Schizophrenia


Over at GetReligion, TMatt continues in his Quixotic (in the idealist sense of the word) quest for journalists to actually get the timeline of events leading to the current crisis in the ECUSA correct. I actually applaud his efforts to do so, as I'm always quite interested in root cause (interesting typo - I almost wrote rot cause, which in this case might be more appropriate) analysis.

I think the timeline is particularly instructive, and the errors of the LA times most egregious. Especially regarding Spong. It is quite instructive that Spong has been denying Christianity for a very long time, and the ECUSA as well as the Anglican Communion have effectively done nothing about it. Now, Spong is at best a spiritual child of Pike (I had to link this Time story again! ), and perhaps we can hope for him to arrange a visit to Israel sometime soon. Seriously, though, what would be best would be for Spong to repent and demonstrate to his fan club that he was really wrong all this time. So, if it is the case that the problems in the ECUSA predate 2003 a bit (and I'd refer you to this Newsweek column, written in 2003, for more evidence), exactly how far back does it go? Is it back to Spong, or Pike? Or is it further back than that.

I think the aforementioned Newsweek column, with its Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: "The gospel it preaches is, ‘By taste are ye saved’... It is not inquisitorial, not even inquisitive, is perfectly well-bred, and can shut its eyes on all proper occasions..." is probably quite accurate. While Anglicanism doesn't much like change, it will shut its eyes, and over time tolerate more and more. This leads to the sort of schizophrenia I referred to in the last entry. In response to this, I was asked if I felt that the "schizophrenia" I cited was something that would be noticeable in an stalwart conservative Anglican diocese like San Joaquin . A brief survey of the parishes of the diocese would be in order, but unfortunately, most of the parishes do not appear to have websites, which make such investigations difficult.

One parish I looked at was St. Paul's , Bakersfield. This is an interesting parish. If I had to peg it, I'd say traditonal, high church Anglican. They are decidedly not AngloCatholic. Why do I say this? Well, there are a variety of clues, but the killer is this statement, "five optional sacramental rites of Confirmation, Ordination, Unction, Confession, and Holy Matrimony." Now, I agree that not everyone should be married, nor is everyone called to the priesthood, but declaring Confession, in particular, to be an optional rite wouldn't sit well with most AngloCatholics I know. Now, certainly, this may not be the sort of doctrinal dispute you would expect to divide a Church (as opposed to the real presence, Eucharistic sacrifice vs. symbolic only, no sacrifice debate), but Confession and one's view of it, tends to go to the whole notion of being prepared to receive properly. So, at the very least, if there is a parish that firmly believes in Confession in this diocese, you have the beginning of a fault line.

There are any number of parishes like St. John's in Lodi. Again, they come across sort of High Church Anglican. Except that all of the critical doctrinal issues that are driving San Joaquin to consider leaving the ECUSA, are apparently not nearly as important to these parishes, as they are having meetings with the president of the House of Deputies to discuss how they can continue in the ECUSA.

So, I think there may be some element of schizophrenia in that diocese - especially between the should we stay and the should we go crowd. I was looking for a solid, somewhat spikey AngloCatholic parish , but with the dearth of websites to explore, just couldn't. At the same time, I didn't see any overtly liberal parishes either. So, it could well be that the potential confession conflict I listed above may not exist. Even if there were a solid AngloCatholic parish like St. Mary's which I linked to, where they find Confession "formative in Anglo-Catholic identify and spirituality", my finding a conflict may be more imagined than real.

So, its hard to say. I suspect that with just a superficial look at a limited number of parishes, that there is some potential for significant conflicts and significant diversity in doctrinal views. At the same time, without more data, it also may be the Bp. Schofield is doing his job well (which wouldn't be terribly surprising) by maintaining a significant degree of doctrinal unity within his diocese. Perhaps if people more familiar with the diocese wander by here, they can chime in. Perhaps there are no serious Anglo-Catholics, and perhaps no serious low-church Evangelicals who can't stand all of the talk of Masses and Sacrifice. If that is the case, there would be a model for a unified Church. I could debate doctrine endlessly with such a Church, but at least you would know what you were debating against. As I said long ago , it is very hard to determine what passes for doctrine in the ECUSA, and I think that same problem exists in the continuing churches and various breakaways as well.

I should note that at first I had listed San Joaquin as an AngloCatholic diocese. It may well be - its just a bit hard to tell from the websites visited. Especially when there are such things as Charismatic services being held at the Cathedral on a weekly basis. However, it may also be that I had developed an increasingly Romish view of what AngoCatholicism should be, so my opinions may not count. So, I relabeled it above as a conservative Anglican diocese.

Posted: Monday - February 05, 2007 at 12:24 PM          

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