Anatomy of a Twitter Beef
1. The Spark: On Saturday afternoon, I got home to find this on my Twitter feed.
In context, it should also be said that Rev. Howard Merritt certainly seemed to be subtweeting Ben Crosby, an Episcopalian divinity student who has taken the position online that if one doesn't or can't affirm the Nicene Creed, then one should not be ordained, or allowed to be ordained. Crosby, and others, pushed back.
In the interests of full disclosure, perhaps unwisely I participated in the thread in a modest way. But the thing I didn't push back on directly, but to me was much more significant than the original shot, was this post from Diana Butler Bass, a well known Episcopalian author and speaker.
There is more to this, which I will get to in due course, but that lays out the metes and bounds of the beef. Let's now turn to the merits.
2. The Merits: Back when this issue flared up in April, I wrote that I think it is completely sensible to revere the moral and ethical teachings of Jesus of Nazareth without embracing any of the claims regarding his resurrection. I also said in that post that I think the question of who is or is not a "Christian" is one that produces more heat than light. Having said that, if the question is "can you be faithful to the teachings of the Christian church as handed down through history and reject the bodily resurrection of Jesus?" my answer is a clear and unambiguous "no." While it is coherent to simply believe that Jesus is a teacher and thinker to emulate, and nothing more, that is not the message of the Christian church. The message of the Christian church is Jesus crucified and raised, in body. Insofar as you are saying something different from that, you are doing a different thing.
Now, I get that the people in the thread and others with a similar view would disagree, and would say that Christianity is a "big enough tent" to include their views. I want to talk about inclusion/exclusion next, but sticking to the merits, the real issue here is whether the Christian concept of "resurrection" is expansive enough to include the notion of some non-physical resurrection. I have talked about my views on Rev. Serene Jones's framing here, so I won't repeat that. But I want to talk about a post I found buried in the thread, by Rev. Dwight Welch, which I think does a good job both of laying out the best presentation of the position, and why I think it is still insufficient. Rev. Welch offers 18 theses, but they can be condensed down to 2: (1) we can't really believe in a bodily resurrection because science says that it is impossible; and (2) Jesus is resurrected insofar as He remains alive and active in our individual and collective memories.
As to the first, it is unquestionably the case that the bodily resurrection of Jesus cannot be explained scientifically. I would challenge the idea that somehow the bodily resurrection is substantially more unbelievable now that it was in early periods (especially among educated folks)--Roman anti-Christian propaganda usually led with how dumb the idea of a bodily resurrection was as its first talking point. But, for me, the real issue is the fact that Jesus's bodily resurrection is counter to scientific laws is the point. The resurrection of Jesus is meaningful precisely in that it shows us that the realities of the world (scientific, political, economic, social) are not the ultimate horizon of possibility. A New Heaven and a New Earth is out there, and we know this because Jesus brought a sliver of that reality to break into the mundanity of 1st Century Palestine. That New Heaven and New Earth is not simply a marginal improvement on the reality we deal with, but a radical reconfiguration of all of existence. It is precisely that horizon that is lost through the denial of the bodily resurrection, and indeed, as shown by Rev. Welch, is part of the point of those who deny it.
As to the second point, it is unquestionably true that the people who we keep in our minds and our hearts have a kind of life after death. But, to the extent that paradigm is applied to Jesus, I see no way to affirm any sort of uniqueness about the person of Jesus. I hold my grandmother in my heart, as well as my friend Jimmy who was killed when I was eight. Jesus, under Rev. Welch's framing, is not really any different from Grandma and Jimmy, except in the sense that many more people hold Jesus's memory than do Grandma or Jimmy. But under the Creedal view, Jesus is utterly and completely unique in world history, as the Word of God made flesh. If one can't say that Jesus is resurrected in a way that is wholly unique, different from the other people alive in our heart, it seems like you are in a kind of functional Arianism, without any particular claims as to the nature of Jesus. For this reason, I think the non-bodily resurrection position ultimately collapses back into Jesus as moral teacher--Jesus is the guru that you happen to follow, for whatever set of reasons, out of all the other gurus one could follow.
3. Inclusion: Fine, they will say. You believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. But why must you assert that other people have to believe it? Why must you be "exclusive" of different points of view? Why can't we all just get along?
It's important to notice that no one, at any point in this discussion, was calling for examinations or litmus tests of folks in the pews, or folks walking through the door. Crosby's original point had to do with ministers, people who volunteer to be the official representatives of a particular organization. Nor was anyone suggesting that someone who periodically struggles or doubts these claims should be beyond the pale, but only those who are sure they don't believe in those claims. Finally, it is crucial to keep in mind here that we are not talking about some obscure point of technical theology on which there has been wide disagreement throughout history. We are talking about a first order theological question, indeed the central theological question.
More to the point, a body of any kind that has truly no principle other than inclusion is not really an organization at all. And I think the folks pushing "inclusion" here know that. I doubt very seriously that many of the folks mad at the "fundamentalist Episcopalians" would be OK with a full-throated defense of Trump's migrant detention policies from a Christian minister. So the Christianity for which they advocate has doctrine, or at the very least some measure of necessary praxis. Inclusivity is not an absolute principle.
So, the discussion of inclusion is ultimately the fight over the merits in a different key. Is Jesus simply a guru that we should emulate, or is there some ontological reality at stake here? To say, "hey, why should we fight over the resurrection?" is to accept the framing that what real matters is what Jesus said, and only what He said, not any of the questions about who He was. Because if belief in the bodily resurrection is not a sufficient basis for drawing a bright-line, then nothing that cannot immediately be reduced to praxis can be sufficient, either. And the claim that Christianity stands for nothing other than how you live your life is one that is not going to be enough for many people, including many people who agree with the first group on how you are supposed to live your life.
Saying that there is a real dispute here does not mean that we must throw stones at each other. But it does raise the issue of whether the folks on each side are meaningfully part of the same category, doing the same thing. As we have seen with things like the Moral Majority movement, people of radically different faith traditions can gather around political and social causes. But no one would suggest that, because Jews and Muslims and Christians all oppose migrant detention that they should all be treated as the same thing, let alone criticize members of those groups who seek to maintain their theological distinctives. This is not about whether folks would be happy to have Rev. Howard Merritt walk along side them at a march, but rather whether they would want her pastoring their church.
4. The Opposition: It's really, really important to point out that, among the folks who are pushing back against Rev. Howard Merritt et al., people like me are the distinct minority. See, it would be easy, and satisfying for many, to lump all of this push-back to yet another set of asshole old white, straight dudes trying to assert their control over theological discourse. But if you look at who is at the forefront, it is a cadre of younger (mid 20s/early 30s) folks, the majority of whom are either women, LGBT, or both. Indeed, Sharon Kuruvilla summarized the dispute (perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, but perhaps not) as:
Moreover, these folks are not Southern Baptists or trad Catholics in disguise. The overwhelming majority of the folks in this group are supporters of marriage equality in the church. Essentially all of them support the ordination of women. You are not going to find many Trump fans among this group. I mean, Rev. Kira Austin-Young wrote a book defending being pro-choice and Christian. No fundamentalist or conservative American Christian would recognize or see any kinship with these folks. They are progressives.
But, they are not progressives in the way "progressive" has been defined and understood, at least since the middle of the 20th Century, in Christian spaces. And the biggest difference, from where I sit, is that they have a completely different relationship to the "tradition of the church," defined broadly. The old model saw the tradition of the church as something to be overcome, an obstacle and opponent to moving forward in the modern world. The new group has a much less confrontational relationship with the tradition. Anthony Peter expressed what I think is the core sentiment behind this resistance in a beautiful way:
So, yes, the starting point for the theological program on embodied with these "fundamentalist Episcopalians" is that the traditional positions of the Christian church, especially the core traditional positions of the Christian church, are correct unless shown to be otherwise. And that most certainly includes such foundational principles as the bodily resurrection of Jesus. You can say that this is retrograde if you would like. You can say it doesn't work--the conservatives certainly do! But it is where these folks are coming from. And, these folks are not going away.
5. The True Heart of the Beef: On Sunday, Rev. Howard Merritt sent this Tweet.
Others said it, and I agree--this is gaslighting. You pick a fight out of the blue, you call a bunch of folks (younger folks, many of whom are in vulnerable and precarious places socially and culturally) fundamentalists and responsible for all of the problems in America, you cheer when prominent people swoop in and call your targets feebleminded idiots. Then, when faced with push-back, you retreat into passive-aggressive, insincere hand-wringing, and when that doesn't work, you pull the trump card of blaming them for harassment, a move that you know is going to get everyone to come out of the woodwork and wag their fingers sternly and decry the state of The Discourse and The Kids These Days.
And, truthfully? The folks pushing back here deal with this all the time. To be an Episcopalian seminarian or young clergy person in 2019 means you have at some point run a gauntlet of people like Rev. Howard Merritt and Butler Bass who have sneered at them, dismissed them as children for actually taking seriously the historical Christian faith, and cloaked all of it in fake wokeness and condescension. Everyone I know who is a young clergyperson in the Episcopal Church has a story or set of stories like this. Supposedly "LGBT supportive" and "enlightened" older priests have made jokes, in earshot, about male members of my religious community being cross-dressers for wearing habits. And, if you complain, these folks who have most of the power in denominations like the Episcopal Church will not hesitate to cut you off at the knees and sink your professional and personal goals and aspirations, all in the name of "inclusion," of course.
So, yeah, the "fundamentalist Episcopalians" are a little bit snippy. They are snippy because they have had to smile and swallow all of this for a while now, and they are sick of it. They are sick of the condescension, sick of the smarter-and-more-enlightened-than-thou attitude, sick of being told by the folks that should be allies in their work and ministry that their work is indistinguishable from Franklin Graham's, and that they are part of the problem.
But, I gotta tell you. I think the days of these folks smiling and swallowing all of this are rapidly coming to an end. Because, whether or not they are willing to say it out loud or not, the "fundamentalist Episcopalians" that I have encountered online and in person all more or less believe that they and their fellow travelers are the future of the Episcopal Church and other similar denominations. Amid the incessant crepe-hanging and hand-wringing about decline by the old-guard, especially the older generations, these folks are excited and energetic about the future. It's a group that is starting to find a voice, especially in online spaces.
So, this beef is not over. It was on display at the Episcopal Church's General Convention in 2018, and it's going to be loud in 2021 as well (especially over the Prayer Book and its revisions). You are going to see younger people, women, LGBT people standing up and loudly and unapologetically defending these traditional doctrines and pushing for a church that speaks with that voice.
More to come.
Prior to seeing this tweet, I had no idea who Carol Howard Merritt was. As it turns out, she is a Presbyterian minister and author, but I didn't know that until later. All I knew from reading this is, according to her (1) everyone who believes that one must affirm the (her terminology) "literal bodily resurrection" are fundamentalists; and (2) those same folks are responsible for what is wrong in American religion.I suppose that’s why religion in the US is such a mess right now...— Carol Howard Merritt (@CarolHoward) August 10, 2019
In context, it should also be said that Rev. Howard Merritt certainly seemed to be subtweeting Ben Crosby, an Episcopalian divinity student who has taken the position online that if one doesn't or can't affirm the Nicene Creed, then one should not be ordained, or allowed to be ordained. Crosby, and others, pushed back.
In the interests of full disclosure, perhaps unwisely I participated in the thread in a modest way. But the thing I didn't push back on directly, but to me was much more significant than the original shot, was this post from Diana Butler Bass, a well known Episcopalian author and speaker.
I don't think there is any way to interpret the citation to this chart except as an assertion that people who believe in, and insist on, the "literal bodily resurrection" of Jesus are not only fundamentalists and responsible for the ills of American religion, but also developmentally deficient, at least in a spiritual way. Perhaps some day, says Butler Bass, those poor benighted souls who are in the remedial classes will be able to move beyond the need to hold fast to specific doctrines, and join the rest of us in the enlightened, sunlit uplands.Much of Twitter "theology" seems right here: pic.twitter.com/Eitkj8sAdr— Diana Butler Bass (@dianabutlerbass) August 10, 2019
There is more to this, which I will get to in due course, but that lays out the metes and bounds of the beef. Let's now turn to the merits.
2. The Merits: Back when this issue flared up in April, I wrote that I think it is completely sensible to revere the moral and ethical teachings of Jesus of Nazareth without embracing any of the claims regarding his resurrection. I also said in that post that I think the question of who is or is not a "Christian" is one that produces more heat than light. Having said that, if the question is "can you be faithful to the teachings of the Christian church as handed down through history and reject the bodily resurrection of Jesus?" my answer is a clear and unambiguous "no." While it is coherent to simply believe that Jesus is a teacher and thinker to emulate, and nothing more, that is not the message of the Christian church. The message of the Christian church is Jesus crucified and raised, in body. Insofar as you are saying something different from that, you are doing a different thing.
Now, I get that the people in the thread and others with a similar view would disagree, and would say that Christianity is a "big enough tent" to include their views. I want to talk about inclusion/exclusion next, but sticking to the merits, the real issue here is whether the Christian concept of "resurrection" is expansive enough to include the notion of some non-physical resurrection. I have talked about my views on Rev. Serene Jones's framing here, so I won't repeat that. But I want to talk about a post I found buried in the thread, by Rev. Dwight Welch, which I think does a good job both of laying out the best presentation of the position, and why I think it is still insufficient. Rev. Welch offers 18 theses, but they can be condensed down to 2: (1) we can't really believe in a bodily resurrection because science says that it is impossible; and (2) Jesus is resurrected insofar as He remains alive and active in our individual and collective memories.
As to the first, it is unquestionably the case that the bodily resurrection of Jesus cannot be explained scientifically. I would challenge the idea that somehow the bodily resurrection is substantially more unbelievable now that it was in early periods (especially among educated folks)--Roman anti-Christian propaganda usually led with how dumb the idea of a bodily resurrection was as its first talking point. But, for me, the real issue is the fact that Jesus's bodily resurrection is counter to scientific laws is the point. The resurrection of Jesus is meaningful precisely in that it shows us that the realities of the world (scientific, political, economic, social) are not the ultimate horizon of possibility. A New Heaven and a New Earth is out there, and we know this because Jesus brought a sliver of that reality to break into the mundanity of 1st Century Palestine. That New Heaven and New Earth is not simply a marginal improvement on the reality we deal with, but a radical reconfiguration of all of existence. It is precisely that horizon that is lost through the denial of the bodily resurrection, and indeed, as shown by Rev. Welch, is part of the point of those who deny it.
As to the second point, it is unquestionably true that the people who we keep in our minds and our hearts have a kind of life after death. But, to the extent that paradigm is applied to Jesus, I see no way to affirm any sort of uniqueness about the person of Jesus. I hold my grandmother in my heart, as well as my friend Jimmy who was killed when I was eight. Jesus, under Rev. Welch's framing, is not really any different from Grandma and Jimmy, except in the sense that many more people hold Jesus's memory than do Grandma or Jimmy. But under the Creedal view, Jesus is utterly and completely unique in world history, as the Word of God made flesh. If one can't say that Jesus is resurrected in a way that is wholly unique, different from the other people alive in our heart, it seems like you are in a kind of functional Arianism, without any particular claims as to the nature of Jesus. For this reason, I think the non-bodily resurrection position ultimately collapses back into Jesus as moral teacher--Jesus is the guru that you happen to follow, for whatever set of reasons, out of all the other gurus one could follow.
3. Inclusion: Fine, they will say. You believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. But why must you assert that other people have to believe it? Why must you be "exclusive" of different points of view? Why can't we all just get along?
It's important to notice that no one, at any point in this discussion, was calling for examinations or litmus tests of folks in the pews, or folks walking through the door. Crosby's original point had to do with ministers, people who volunteer to be the official representatives of a particular organization. Nor was anyone suggesting that someone who periodically struggles or doubts these claims should be beyond the pale, but only those who are sure they don't believe in those claims. Finally, it is crucial to keep in mind here that we are not talking about some obscure point of technical theology on which there has been wide disagreement throughout history. We are talking about a first order theological question, indeed the central theological question.
More to the point, a body of any kind that has truly no principle other than inclusion is not really an organization at all. And I think the folks pushing "inclusion" here know that. I doubt very seriously that many of the folks mad at the "fundamentalist Episcopalians" would be OK with a full-throated defense of Trump's migrant detention policies from a Christian minister. So the Christianity for which they advocate has doctrine, or at the very least some measure of necessary praxis. Inclusivity is not an absolute principle.
So, the discussion of inclusion is ultimately the fight over the merits in a different key. Is Jesus simply a guru that we should emulate, or is there some ontological reality at stake here? To say, "hey, why should we fight over the resurrection?" is to accept the framing that what real matters is what Jesus said, and only what He said, not any of the questions about who He was. Because if belief in the bodily resurrection is not a sufficient basis for drawing a bright-line, then nothing that cannot immediately be reduced to praxis can be sufficient, either. And the claim that Christianity stands for nothing other than how you live your life is one that is not going to be enough for many people, including many people who agree with the first group on how you are supposed to live your life.
Saying that there is a real dispute here does not mean that we must throw stones at each other. But it does raise the issue of whether the folks on each side are meaningfully part of the same category, doing the same thing. As we have seen with things like the Moral Majority movement, people of radically different faith traditions can gather around political and social causes. But no one would suggest that, because Jews and Muslims and Christians all oppose migrant detention that they should all be treated as the same thing, let alone criticize members of those groups who seek to maintain their theological distinctives. This is not about whether folks would be happy to have Rev. Howard Merritt walk along side them at a march, but rather whether they would want her pastoring their church.
4. The Opposition: It's really, really important to point out that, among the folks who are pushing back against Rev. Howard Merritt et al., people like me are the distinct minority. See, it would be easy, and satisfying for many, to lump all of this push-back to yet another set of asshole old white, straight dudes trying to assert their control over theological discourse. But if you look at who is at the forefront, it is a cadre of younger (mid 20s/early 30s) folks, the majority of whom are either women, LGBT, or both. Indeed, Sharon Kuruvilla summarized the dispute (perhaps a bit tongue in cheek, but perhaps not) as:
I understand that this was not how this was supposed to go down. As the folks at Virginia Theological Seminary point out, bringing in openly LGBT folks and women into the public leadership of Christian churches was supposed to be the final victory for liberal and deconstructionist theology, as surely these "newcomers" would be full-throated advocates for those views. But, while certainly there are some folks in those categories who feel that way, the "newcomers," especially the Millennials in that group, have proven to be far more traditional than I think anyone, and certainly the older generation, expected. VTS's survey showed that the LGBT-identifying seminarians are, as to the core "Creedal" claims, overwhelmingly traditional in their basic world-view. And this is mirrored, albeit anecdotally as I have not seen any similar surveys, with many young or younger women in seminary formation and in ordained work.Orthodox gays mad at theological liberal cishets— North East Coast Anglican (Sharon Kuruvilla) (@Sharon_Kuruvila) August 10, 2019
Moreover, these folks are not Southern Baptists or trad Catholics in disguise. The overwhelming majority of the folks in this group are supporters of marriage equality in the church. Essentially all of them support the ordination of women. You are not going to find many Trump fans among this group. I mean, Rev. Kira Austin-Young wrote a book defending being pro-choice and Christian. No fundamentalist or conservative American Christian would recognize or see any kinship with these folks. They are progressives.
But, they are not progressives in the way "progressive" has been defined and understood, at least since the middle of the 20th Century, in Christian spaces. And the biggest difference, from where I sit, is that they have a completely different relationship to the "tradition of the church," defined broadly. The old model saw the tradition of the church as something to be overcome, an obstacle and opponent to moving forward in the modern world. The new group has a much less confrontational relationship with the tradition. Anthony Peter expressed what I think is the core sentiment behind this resistance in a beautiful way:
The claim here is that one doesn't need to war with, and reject, the tradition in order to find a theology and world view that is life-affirming, and more concretely affirming of women and LGBT people. The foundation and the structure of that theology is already there, in the tradition of the church. Yes, work needs to be done to get all the way there (as described, once again beautifully, in Peter's thread), but it can be done.I’m in this weird place where I know affirmation of women’s ordination, universal salvation, and same-sex marriage are considered “liberal” but I also believe that these are logical conclusions of Scripture Christology, and the teachings of the Church Fathers and Mothers.— Anthony Peter (@LiturgicalQueer) August 10, 2019
So, yes, the starting point for the theological program on embodied with these "fundamentalist Episcopalians" is that the traditional positions of the Christian church, especially the core traditional positions of the Christian church, are correct unless shown to be otherwise. And that most certainly includes such foundational principles as the bodily resurrection of Jesus. You can say that this is retrograde if you would like. You can say it doesn't work--the conservatives certainly do! But it is where these folks are coming from. And, these folks are not going away.
5. The True Heart of the Beef: On Sunday, Rev. Howard Merritt sent this Tweet.
That was followed up today by this:So... I guess a lot of Episcopalians don't believe that I'm a Christian... that makes me sad. Personally, and for the church. I grew up a fundamentalist, so I expected it from them, but not from denominations.— Carol Howard Merritt (@CarolHoward) August 11, 2019
It should go without saying that rape and death threats are not acceptable. But no where in any of the threads I saw I could find any such threats made by the people responding to her post. And, if there are no such posts, then the argument must be that, by pushing back on her theological claims (claims that she made, unprompted), this disagreement results in some inchoate way in other, unrelated people making threats. In other words, simply disagreeing is unacceptable because someone somewhere might make a threat.Dear all (especially priests & Rev’s), please know when you attack me, it has real consequences. People begin to send me rape & death threats. They threaten my family. The office manager at our church has already had to go to the police with threats & I’ve only been here a month.— Carol Howard Merritt (@CarolHoward) August 11, 2019
Others said it, and I agree--this is gaslighting. You pick a fight out of the blue, you call a bunch of folks (younger folks, many of whom are in vulnerable and precarious places socially and culturally) fundamentalists and responsible for all of the problems in America, you cheer when prominent people swoop in and call your targets feebleminded idiots. Then, when faced with push-back, you retreat into passive-aggressive, insincere hand-wringing, and when that doesn't work, you pull the trump card of blaming them for harassment, a move that you know is going to get everyone to come out of the woodwork and wag their fingers sternly and decry the state of The Discourse and The Kids These Days.
And, truthfully? The folks pushing back here deal with this all the time. To be an Episcopalian seminarian or young clergy person in 2019 means you have at some point run a gauntlet of people like Rev. Howard Merritt and Butler Bass who have sneered at them, dismissed them as children for actually taking seriously the historical Christian faith, and cloaked all of it in fake wokeness and condescension. Everyone I know who is a young clergyperson in the Episcopal Church has a story or set of stories like this. Supposedly "LGBT supportive" and "enlightened" older priests have made jokes, in earshot, about male members of my religious community being cross-dressers for wearing habits. And, if you complain, these folks who have most of the power in denominations like the Episcopal Church will not hesitate to cut you off at the knees and sink your professional and personal goals and aspirations, all in the name of "inclusion," of course.
So, yeah, the "fundamentalist Episcopalians" are a little bit snippy. They are snippy because they have had to smile and swallow all of this for a while now, and they are sick of it. They are sick of the condescension, sick of the smarter-and-more-enlightened-than-thou attitude, sick of being told by the folks that should be allies in their work and ministry that their work is indistinguishable from Franklin Graham's, and that they are part of the problem.
But, I gotta tell you. I think the days of these folks smiling and swallowing all of this are rapidly coming to an end. Because, whether or not they are willing to say it out loud or not, the "fundamentalist Episcopalians" that I have encountered online and in person all more or less believe that they and their fellow travelers are the future of the Episcopal Church and other similar denominations. Amid the incessant crepe-hanging and hand-wringing about decline by the old-guard, especially the older generations, these folks are excited and energetic about the future. It's a group that is starting to find a voice, especially in online spaces.
So, this beef is not over. It was on display at the Episcopal Church's General Convention in 2018, and it's going to be loud in 2021 as well (especially over the Prayer Book and its revisions). You are going to see younger people, women, LGBT people standing up and loudly and unapologetically defending these traditional doctrines and pushing for a church that speaks with that voice.
More to come.
Comments
What's abundantly clear from your interactions is that none of this anger has anything to legitimately do with Rev. Merritt. It's really unfortunate that you've felt the need to drag her while working out whatever issues you are working out for yourself.
As far as this all being in my head--tell that to the half-dozen people the folks on your side of this dispute have run off of social media, or had their supervising authorities contacted to stir up trouble, in the last 24 hours. Or the dozen emails in my inbox from people with stories just like this one.