Canon Is Not Enslavement: a Personal and Pastoral Essay

Canon Is Not Enslavement: A Personal and Pastoral Essay Fr Edward Wagner Fr Wagner is the pastor and rector of his home parish, St George's in Owen Sound. Served in parish ministry for 40 years as a priest and precentor (minister of music), and as an oncology and hospice chaplain, most recently as co- director of pastoral care for all eleven hospitals in Grey and Bruce counties. Educated at the University of Waterloo, Ontario (Hons BA, MA), Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut (MDiv), and St Joseph's College, West Hartford, Connecticut (MA) Abstract Sees the issues addressed by the Windsor and St Michael Reports as fundamentally issues of brokenness requiring divine healing. Attempts to make a case for Biblical inerrancy in the broadest sense. Argues for the pastoral necessity of a closed Canon and Biblical inerrancy, defined as "complete truthfulness and dependability of all that scripture affirms" (Barnes, 1993); but proposes that inerrancy be located in the believing communities, rather than the text itself. The model suggested for this is "God speaks; humankind responds." Humankind responds first by worship, then by formation of holy communities, then (much later) by scripture (and theology). Argues that locating inerrancy in the interpretations of the "individual Spirit-filled communities" gives both freedom and necessary security to believers. Pleads for a generous, pastoral reading of the canon, one that allows us to disagree—if disagree we must—in love; and if parting there must be, it will be the hope filled parting of family. Letter from a Friend This is part of a letter I received: As to whether there is a God/Creator/Presence whatever one chooses to call this Being, "yes", I believe that there is such a Being, otherwise there would be no order in the Universe(s). And "yes", I do believe that Jesus, a wonderful man, was crucified, after trying to show people how to love one another. Is the resurrection story true, I don't know. I do believe that the essence of goodness is to found in each of us and certainly, Jesus was a perfect person, whom we all strive to be like. But to believe that there is a God, who is presented the way Christians present him is in my opinion, foolish. How could a loving God/Father do such terrible things to his "children"? And how can people say that when a terrible thing happens to someone, it is "God's will". For the past few years I have been doing a lot of reading and pondering these questions and feeling like a heretic because I cannot go along with what I have been taught for years-- that the Bible is the irrefutable "word of God". I have read books by a number of modem thinkers like Tom Harpur in the "Pagan Christ" (in which there were many quotes by great thinkers); the novel, "The Da Vinci Code" (maybe some truths here), and a book called "The Hiram Key" by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, and a yet-to-be-read book, by the same authors, entitled "Uriel's Machine". I have also read several books on spirituality and the after life. I do also find interesting the writings about the ancient Essenes, Egyptians, Incas, Mayans, Aztecs and our own native peoples. There is so much to read and discover and I for one am crying out for answers as to why the world is the way it is today and what is the answer to making it better. The writer is a retired professional who has spent significant time in non-Christian countries and recalls how dangerous it can be to meet in Sunday Christian assembly in those places; a parish pillar who has suffered graciously through not one, but several great tragedies; and thus in my mind has earned the right to be taken seriously. I think matters of faith are ultimately undebatable, and I said that in my written reply. It seemed to me that if I offered a learned disquisition—however gently expressed-- on Tom Harpur or Dan Brown or the Jesus Seminar—I would only add fuel to a pointless fire. I said to my correspondent that we have both suffered more than our share of life's miseries, that what we've experienced has sent us in different directions, and that while we do not agree, I respect what a lifetime of living and learning have taught. I sent the reply with assurance of my love. My letter-writer stands with a host of good Christian people throughout the world who have thumped up against The Bible. For such Christians, the entire sweep of the Bible as it presently stands, replete with the angry Yahweh who burns up sinners and seems—despite occasional exasperated denials-- to revel in the mass slaughter of animals, is repulsive. The connection between Yahweh and Jesus is pretty much a spiritual impossibility, "Christ" and "Son of God" and even "Lord" now-empty concepts once foisted upon us by ignorant and savage ancients. This corner of the Christian world usually stands opposed to the Bible-thumpers who condemn practicing homosexuals to Hell. Their hearts cry out for the miserable, the ones who suffer, the apparent victims of the thundering old Judger of the Old Testament—the God, let it be said, that fundamentalist Christians, Biblical inerrantists all, use as a weapon against their enemies. But common wisdom knows the Bible thumpers are mostly caricature. For many Christians here in the Western Church especially, the issue of same-sex unions and the ordination of practicing gay, lesbian—and maybe soon transgendered—persons is a heart-rending, mind-bending epic struggle. For these Christians, Christian same-sex marriage and the ordination of practicing homosexuals is by definition impossible. At their most anguished, they must finally say, "Here I stand-- God help me, I can do no other." We can no longer pretend that Christians across the world are not deeply, viscerally divided now over Biblical authority and same-sex blessings and ordinations. We've reached the fight-or- flight stage, and a lot of us just plain don't like each other. One of my counselling mentors says, "How does that client smell to you?" Well, Christians these days are sniffing the air, and finding stink among their opponents. We try to be polite with one another. But the not-for-publication murmurs of "brain dead" when the neo-Orthodox gather in an Essentials convention, or the smug grins when national polls show yet another decline in mainline church attendance, all point to the same thing: We're right. You're wrong. And, too often, we choose to forget that the Way of Christ demands that if we must disagree, we disagree in love. As someone who grew up in the Church and never left it, as a parish minister with forty years of experience, as a former pastoral counselor who specialized in couples therapy, as an orthodox Christian who has been a chaplain in the Order of St Luke for some 15 years, I interpret what's presently happening in the Body of Christ pastorally, using a humanly-inflected Biblical theology. Bluntly put, I see the world-wide Anglican communion so sinfully fractured now that at least a functional divorce is all but inevitable. As in any divorce, there's a process, and negotiating begins even before the bravest partner throws down the gauntlet and at last comes right out with it—"OK. It's over. I want the kids and the house." That's what I think the St Michael and Windsor Reports are—fine pastoral and theological documents, Godly in conception, cogently argued, but attempts nevertheless towards making a deal most of us can live with as the divorce becomes a reality. The bonds of affection are frayed, tattered and torn; and with feelings running this high even the clearest, most sensible thinking can be infuriating. So like the marriage counselor that I still am, my intention here is not to force a change in anybody's mind. Rather, I want to offer what—God willing—might be a channel of grace, a meditation and a benediction that points to an ultimate hope and healing in Christ. Perhaps what I say here is a prayer that all of us experiencing this impending divorce may go into the process humbly, like that father of the epileptic boy whom Jesus healed and his disciples couildn’t-- "I believe—oh, help my unbelief!" The Two Horses As both the Windsor and St Michael Reports assert and demonstrate, the Biblical witness, the written Word of God, is the foundation of the Anglican theological enterprise. Hooker gave us the famous Anglican three-legged stool—scripture, tradition, reason; but even he conceded that Scripture has primacy of place. As a son of the evangelical Diocese of Huron, as one trained by divines in succession to the New England puritans of the seventeenth century, and as one who was Minister of Word and Sacrament among New England Presbyterians for a decade, I am a modern Biblical inerrantist, a priest and pastor who believes that "Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation" and who is convinced of the "complete truthfulness and dependability of all that scripture affirms" (Barnes, 1993). But I am also an artist, a professional church musician of long standing, who like most artists is always kicking at the goads of what is routine and conventional and commonly accepted. I was the one who refused to attend seminary until I was 28, and then didn't seek ordination until I was 33.

Load more