On Naming the Fear

This weekend, there was a dust up on so-called Weird Anglican Twitter, or WAT.  The question was whether clergy (in this case, in the Episcopal Church) should be required to "really believe in" the Creeds.  As a matter of doctrine, this is not a disputed issue--the answer is an unambiguous "yes."  But one will find those in the Episcopal Church, including clergy, who think that this should not be the case, and that the Creeds are either optional or even an affirmative impediment.

I had, and have, Thoughts about this question.  And, indeed, I had a whole post drafted weighing in on the topic.  But then, last night, I saw a Tweet from Mother Joyce, who is a wonderful presence on WAT and Twitter generally.  I would really encourage you to read the whole thread, but the sum of the idea is captured in the first line.

something that I think is interesting is, in general when we have these awful fights, how scared everybody clearly is that the thing they feel is of utmost importance is going to be taken away from them

— a bruised reed he shall not break (@MtrKDJoyce) July 31, 2022

After reading her thread, I deleted what I had drafted.  She's right--what I had written is not helpful, to anyone.  So instead I would like to try something different, something that I hope is actually helpful and constructive.  I would like to try to articulate what the fear is that I have in these discussions, what it is that I am afraid is going to be taken away from me.  In doing so, I necessarily only speak for myself, though in my conversations with others I have a good sense that what I have to say is going to have some resonance with many of the folks who are on the "pro-Creed" side of the equation.  My hope is that in articulating the fear in more detailed terms, with some context, it may be easier to understand, and thus less threatening to those with a different point of view.

Let me begin with an attempt to lay one particular fear to rest.  I have no interest whatsoever in some sort of inquisition among the folks in the pews to search out doctrinal deviations.  I am a firm believer in the idea that anyone who wants to walk through the doors of (in this case) the Episcopal Church, for whatever set of seemingly idiosyncratic reasons, should be welcome.  People will find their own place and their own reasons for being here, and that's great.  My concerns exclusively have to do with the clergy, the folks that have voluntarily chosen to take on a leadership role and speak on behalf of the Episcopal Church.

So, what is that concern?  It's not, as a first order matter, about the Creeds themselves, though I will say, unapologetically, that I think that the clergy of the Episcopal Church should consist of those who affirm the Creeds.  But it is more than that.  And it is best expressed by two Tweets that I saw yesterday morning.  I hesitate a little bit to reproduce them, because it feels like I am calling them out, which is not my intention.  Still, I think it is the only way to set up what I want to say:

I'm concerned that TEC seminarians and younger priests place too much emphasis on doctrinal purity and not enough on equipping people to love God and creation and to take risks for that love.

We're in about 50 kinds of emergency and the creeds aren't going to solve any of them.

— Kellyann 🐺 (@Green_Mt_Girl) July 30, 2022

but how is the niceen creed impacting climate change, police violence, governemnet taking away ght rights of women and LGBTQ+ people, etc... I'm all for the creeds (diff reason than you've stated) but we need a practice to lead us forward, not a statement.

— Aaron J Smith (@CulturalSavage) July 30, 2022

The individuals making these statements are not, as best as I can tell, clergy.  They are, however, consistent with what I have heard from many clergy in the Episcopal Church.  And I can say, genuinely and without irony, that these sorts of statements are a bit triggering for me, as they go right to the heart of the fear I have about the Episcopal Church.  And that fear has two related parts.

First, at the risk of criticizing other people's motivations for going to church, I don't go to church to be "equipped" to act for creation, or police violence, or women's rights, or LGBT rights.  Not because I don't believe in those things, because I do.  No, I don't go to church for those things because I don't need church for those things.  Secular tools--law, politics, sociology, physical sciences, etc.--do all of the equipping to work on those tasks, with more specificity and precision in most cases than churches and theology do.

No, I go to church to worship God, understood through the lens of the historical Christian presentation and formulation of God.  Unlike creation care and LGBT rights, I can't get that anywhere else but through church, especially if one believes (as I do) that you cannot really worship God except through the vehicle of an embodied community of believers.  I believe that the proper worship of God will flow into a set of commitments about the concrete state of our world, but at the end of the day that is a second order concern.  God is the primary concern.

This dovetails with the second part.  I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church.  I even spent a few years studying to be a priest.  To be completely honest, 85% of Roman Catholicism I loved, and still love, unreservedly.  I loved the liturgy and the theology and the devotional life.  The problem is that the remaining 15%, the politics and the social structure, really sucked.  I hated the way they treated women and LGBT people, I hated the way the American hierarchy basically pimped out the folks in the pews on behalf of the Republican Party, I hated having no voice in anything, I hated the glacial way in which any sort of modern reality was acknowledged. 

When someone like me raised these concerns about the politics and social structure, the answer one would get, more or less explicitly, is "oh, you don't like our politics?  Tough.  Everyone else who shares your politics doesn't share your theology and doesn't care about God.  Even, or perhaps especially, the so-called churches with liberal politics.  So, if you want to worship God in a serious way as part of a community, you have no choice but to sit here and eat shit."

The promise of the Episcopal Church, for me, is the promise that this message is false.  At the first inquirers class I attended, my Rector (a former Roman Catholic priest) said the single thing most calculated to get me to switch denominations--"the Episcopal Church is everything you loved about [Roman] Catholicism, without all of the crap you hated."  I don't have to choose between my faith in what is at the end of the day a rather traditional presentation of the Christian faith and my political and social views.  That's why I became an Episcopalian.

What this means, though, is when Episcopal clergy say things like "the Creeds are archaic," or "they don't help us deal with environmental issues so what use are they?" that old Roman Catholic voice in my head says, "see, I told you so.  They don't really believe in the stuff you believe in and care about.  None of this is really about God.  It's all politics, and you sold out your faith for politics.  Feel good about that?"  And, no, I don't, if I am being honest.  I really, really don't want it to be the case that this is all politics with some God-talk thrown in for seasoning.  Or, worse (and I have to say it definitely feels like this some times), a deliberate program to leverage the talk of God for the purpose of getting people on board with a secular political program, which feels deeply manipulative and cynical.

What I am asking of clergy in the Episcopal Church is not that they be sophisticated systematic theologians with detailed historical knowledge of Christian thinking.  I am not asking that they never have or had any doubts about any of the faith, including the Creeds.  What I am asking is that their priority is God and the Christian understanding of God, and not a political and social program.  And an easy and basic proxy for that is what you think about the Creeds.  I don't want an activist or a community organizer, as I can find those anywhere.  I want a priest.  If you don't understand what you are doing in those terms, or (as I think is most common) you cannot see your devotion to God apart from the activist and community organizer piece, than I would ask that you be honest about that.  Because that doesn't work for me, as that is not what I am looking for.  I understand that such a statement in the moment probably feels like a rejection of the political and social causes you champion on the merits, especially coming from a white, straight guy.  But I would ask you to take me at my word that it is not.  

And, moreover, if the Episcopal Church were to go the way of shedding the Creeds and the traditional presentation of the Christian faith as an impediment to social activism, then I have no place to go.  I just cannot see the point of church-as-social-activist body, as I think there are other entities that do the same thing better.  The Episcopal Church would no longer be providing the thing that I come to church to get.  And I really don't want to go back to Roman Catholicism or to the Orthodox churches and sit through all of the crap about women and LGBT people once again in order to have a real experience of worshipping God in a real community that is not like four people.  What do I do?

And my problem is far less acute than the many folks who have similar views to my own who are women and/or LGBT.  At the end of the day, I could keep my head down and fake it as a Roman or Orthodox; they can't, or at least not nearly as easily.  Taking away the Creeds and the traditional presentation of Christian theology from the Episcopal Church is taking away the one place where they can worship God while being safe in who they are.  They would truly be out in the cold.  Most of my closest friends in the Episcopal Church are LGBT Anglo-Catholics, and as much as I don't what to be "church homeless" for me, I really don't want it for them.

It's really hard not to come across as triumphalist or overbearing in these questions, because I really do think that the worship of God is the reason to go to church, so I don't really understand folks who are looking at church through a different lens.  I need to fight against the reflex to view the folks on the other side of this as disingenuous or acting in bad faith, and suppress the old voice of the Roman world that gets my anxiety about these things up.  So, that's my work.  I hope this is in keeping with the spirit of Mother Joyce's wise post, and that this can in some small way help people talk to each other.