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Monday, June 12, 2023

The humbling of churches in our day?

It would appear that the church(es) of the world have a lot to be humble about. Here is a quick round up:

The famous Saddleback Church a while ago was ejected from the even more famouse Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) for having the temerity to appoint a female pastor. It is attempting to regain lost fellowship. No doubt the SBC is not corporately feeling humbled by what it has done. It ought to!

The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), especially through its Archbishop Foley Beach, Chair of the Gafcon Primates' council, is leading the charge that the Anglican Church in Canada and The Episcopal Church (in the USA) and more recently the Church of England are "bad boys" of global Anglicanism because of, you know, not getting a certain topic right. Is it humbling, I think we may quietly wonder, to find here that ACNA has a quandary or three of its own about getting other things right?

In an update of the situation in which the Anglican Church of Uganda, via its Archbishop, is enthusiastic about the criminalization of homosexuals, the Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a statement. Along with many others, I find this statement compelling. Unfortunately, Archbishop Stephen Kaziimba does not. He has issued a robust response here. I think it is called “doubling down.” Definitely not a humbling of the Ugandan church then. Though I do wonder, you may too, why, when the Ugandan parliament offered a golden opportunity for critique of the criminalization of homosexuality, it chose to miss it and instead to doubledown on endorsing it.

In the Church of England itself there is plenty to be humble about (and I think the CofE is aware of that) as it comes to grips with a series of challenges re safeguarding or insufficient safeguarding in times past and possibly times present. One example involves how the church, two bishops in particular (then Sheffield, now Oxford; then York, now retired), handled a complaint (here for a recent statement by +Oxford). Another involves Soul Survivor, a famous ministry, inaugurated by a man called Mike Pilavachi, now the subject of an investigation into poor if not abusive behaviour, with perceptions of past inadequate responses to surfacing knowledge of allegations, and present consequences re staff being stood down.

Meanwhile, across the Tiber there are many stories to potentially follow up and read, and further across some other rivers, we continue to find the very contemporary scandal of the Russian Orthodox Church supporting the least supportable war of recent times.

We churches have a lot to be humble about. That includes my own as we attempt to be better in the light of our Royal Commission on Abuse. More generally, being a bishop in an episcopally led, synodically governed church gives me a front row seat view of how difficult it is to be a humming, thriving, darn near perfect church. Instead the reality, starting with myself, is how flawed and frail we humans are as we attempt to do things together, for God and for the flourishing of God’s church.

There is much for the church to be humble about and we seem to have a lot going on these days which humbles us.

This is a good thing.

It is also far from the most difficult situation churches can face.

This item, about the possibility of an Anglican Christian in Pakistan being hung for blasphemy, sharply reminds us that hard though it is to be humbled, there is worse for Christians to face in the world today.

This post is not about the individual situations noted above each of which, no doubt, involves considerations not reported upon and concerns by those with complaints against churches which are not voiced in the articles cited. I may not publish your comments if you comment on the individual situations. I am open to publishing your comments about my "slant" here but my wariness is if we stray into discussing situations which then involves the comments making judgments calls on individuals named in reports above without supporting evidence I may run the risk of being unfair to those individuals. 

Comment generally about "the humbling of churches" in our present day is welcome.

18 comments:

  1. You really should withdraw this post, Peter, if you breathlesly mention six or seven disputes (making your own point of view pretty clear) and then solemnly admonish your readers you will not publish their comment if they interact with your specific comments.
    Do you want a dialogue or a monologue? If the latter, then just close comments, it's your blog after all. But that's how to shut down debate.
    Meanwhile, it looks to me that the chasm in world Anglicanism is getting ever deeper and all over the liberal determination to declare homosexuality a holy form of life. It won't work, Peter, and it is wrecking global Protestantism. And yes, I know about German Catholics as well. It won't work there either. It can only end in a return to orthodoxy or schism. We have been there before.

    Pax et bonum
    William Greenhalgh

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  2. But maybe you will at least recognise that the Ugandan law does not "criminalize" homosexual behaviour in Uganda, Justin Welby apparently claimed, because such behaviour has always been illegal in Uganda; rather, it increases the penalties and seeks to prevent any "promotion" of homosexual behaviour in that nation. No "Pride Month" in Kampala, then.

    I am surprised that Archbishop Justin Welby and Archbishop Stephen Cottrell seem to believe that homosexual acts up to now have been legal in Uganda. How have they been so uninformed?

    Pax et bonum
    William Greenhalgh

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  3. The spiritual journey is not a success story or a career move.
    It is rather a series of humiliations of the false self.

    - Thomas Keating

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  4. Hi William
    I have changed my comment at the foot of the post to allow for the possibility of commenting on my slant. My concern is that we do not start commenting on individuals within the above situations without supporting evidence for any evaluative comments.

    With respect to your comment above, I think there is more going on by way of trouble and sorrow in our churches than debate over homosexuality.

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  5. "return to orthodoxy" - is this what you see as a solution to abuse problems in the Church, William? Abuse still flourished in orthodox church systems so would you at least concede that some sort of overhaul of orthodoxy would be in order? And what might that look like? Come to think of it.. do you even agree churches have a lot to be humble about? You didn't speak to that!

    A short excerpt from the Diane Langberg article I linked to above (8:25):

    "He [Jesus] is warning us against the teacher, the spokesperson for God, who speaks orthodoxy, but whose life is false. One who talks like a sheep but is in fact a wolf. His or her words may be accurate or orthodox – that is the sheep’s clothing. But the heart of that person is wolfish – one looking to exploit the vulnerable. They attempt to look like sheep but inwardly, where you cannot see, they are an exploiter, a robber, grasping and predatory."

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  6. Oh dear, William...

    No one is called homosexuality a holy form of life! At least our attempt to call heterosexuality a holy form of life has been rather humbling...

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  7. Copy of Bowman's response (from the end of +Peter's last post's comments)

    "humbled"

    Yes, humility is good for the soul.

    But are churchly institutions with the frailties of all other institutions scandals? Offhand, I would not think so. There is an imperfectability of institutions as such against which the presence of Jesus is not a talisman.

    I Peter iii 15, of course. But this is not a positive duty from God to maintain perfectly a certain institutional image in news media. Colossians iii 3.

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  8. "But are churchly institutions with the frailties of all other institutions scandals?" ~BW

    Yes! a scandal to our Lord who said.. Jubilee Bible

    Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of the heavens. Matt 18:4

    v6: But whosoever shall cause one of these little ones who believe in me to fall, it would be better... [y'all know how it goes]

    v10: Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in the heavens their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in the heavens.

    ~Jesus took the little children up in his arms and blessed them. With all these things in mind, the ordained and lay leadership of the Body of Christ are surely charged to be diligent in all things pertaining to the safety of those vulnerable to "wolves". In the obsession to "grow" churches there's too often a scandalous apathy to doing all things possible to safeguard the young and vulnerable (such as proper attention to: being alert!, vetting staff whether ordained or volunteer, appropriate canons/rules, discussions, training, safe supervision, reading and research, etc). And if things do go wrong then proper support and best-practise care for victims and their families - unfortunately the abuser often gets the lion's share of support at expense of victims.

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  9. Liz, I am not clear what you mean by 'an overhaul of orthodoxy' as a response to abuse. You should know that no one is a bigger critic than I of sexual abuse within Catholic institutions. As I said before, I knew the teacher at the school in Dunedin who committed suicide after abusing some boys there, and the failure of the then-bishop to handle the matter rightly led to the renaming of the school which previously bore the bishop's name.
    That was a humbling! But what that has to do with revising the Nicene Creed ("overhauling orthodoxy") I have no idea.
    Otoh, a few years ago an elderly woman in England alleged that the long dead Anglican Bishop George Bell had abused her as a child. The Church of England responded by giving her about $40,000, Bell's name was removed from a school and other buildings, and Archbishop Welby denounced him, A subsequent high level campaign, championed by journalist Peter Hitchens, showed that the allegations were impossible (and Edward Prebble corroborated this) - but from the Anglican hierarchy there has been no apology, no restoration of name to buildings.
    But as the author of Hebrews might have said, time would fail me to speak of Vanier, Dilworth School, Zacharias, Hillsong, Rembert Weakland, Ellen Cooke ... Sad, yes. But were I to talk about corruption and abuse in the priesthood of the Secular Churches of Today - Entertainment, Business and Politics - I would easily exceed Peter's bandwith.
    The long and the short of it is that institutions seek to preserve themselves and prople seek to preserve their careers, at least until retirement. (Dead and retired bishops are fair game, however, and attacking them will have the advantage of looking righteous while doing nothing,) You want Divine Justice Now. So do I (provided proper provision is made for my own special circumstances). Just be careful that Savanarola doesn't get burned in his own bonfire.

    Pax et bonum
    William Greenhalgh

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  10. The link to orthodoxy: the more authoritarian an institution, person, culture, the more easy it is to abuse power. That goes for secular and religious institutions, families, cultures, IMHO (and experience as a therapist).

    How comfortable is this person - church, community, denomination - with sharing power?

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  11. One of the most humbling current experiences for Christians: how irrelevant we are to ever increasing numbers of people.

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  12. Thanks William. My wording was indeed vague. I just don't know if (a) Christians who commit to an orthodox/conservative view, like ACNA and others, are willing to recognise (and own up to) systemic issues of abuse and (b) whether there's willingness to make changes (even if contributing factors are properly identified).

    I suspect once abuse has occurred, there'd be willingness to tighten up on church canons for instance, to help avoid recurrence of a similar situation. But people are often slack about following rules, especially if discipline is lax!

    Other changes with potential to make things safer mayn't be remotely acceptable in an orthodox/conservative context, for instance, say it's generally accepted that risk to children/vulnerable people is lessened if more women are involved in senior leadership. In a very conservative context it's extremely unlikely male leaders will support any significant change to the status quo.

    As you stated, "The long and the short of it is that institutions seek to preserve themselves and people seek to preserve their careers, at least until retirement." Yes, 100% agree. Also in any religious system (this grieves me), concerns for 'the witness of the church' and 'finances/legal liability' usually take precedence over proper support of survivors.

    Humility - as +Peter's already stated - is a good thing and the reason I think that is because regardless of denomination or type-of-church, I suspect over-confidence in the infallible safety of one's own church system re abuse.. is probably the biggest enabler!

    P.S. Savanarola .. I had a quick read .. Yikes!

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  13. “One of the most humbling current experiences for Christians: how irrelevant we are to ever increasing numbers of people”.

    Yes, so true. Back to sharing stories one on one and living the Life as best we can in the face of institutional failures, in company with others who might want to engage with us.

    Maybe that’s the best way to bring in the Kingdom - like the origins?

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  14. Moya, I agree! Mustard seeds and yeast particles.

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  15. "in the light of our Royal Commission on Abuse"..
    ~thanks for mentioning this, +Peter.

    Last night I read through some transcripts from 13-21 Oct, 2022 and it seems a very useful hearing. I felt hopeful.. it struck me as a process that may be genuinely positive for survivors as well as spurring institutions into developing better practices and understandings.

    from an e-newsletter in my Inbox this morning:
    "If the church loses its independence to the state, the church will lose its freedom." ~Rev. Stephen Weissman, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Asheville, North Carolina

    True, (and also) loss of state/church independence would surely weaken the ability of the state to effectively hold the church to account for harmful systemic issues.

    [BTW thanks for your blog.. great for awareness/learning]

    Link: NZ faith-based institutions hearing .. transcripts ..
    https://www.abuseincare.org.nz/investigations-and-hearings/faith-based-institutions-response-hearing/evidence-of-the-faith-based-institutions-response-hearing/

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  16. Help/guidance for the humble church...

    A Survivor-Sensitive Approach to Handling Allegations / Scot McKnight (mid-2021)

    "The recent example of Stewart Ruch (bishop at Wheaton’s Church of the Resurrection), which was a pastor-led, church-focused approach, pressed me into articulating a Survivor-Sensitive approach."

    https://scotmcknight.substack.com/p/a-survivor-sensitive-approach-to

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  17. You're right +Peter, SBC not "corporately feeling humbled".

    Two churches with female pastors appealed but were voted out:

    "The body affirmed the ouster of Saddleback by a vote of 9,432 to 1,212. The vote went against Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, by 9,700 to 806."

    I'm deeply saddened.

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  18. On Schism. Rt. Rev. Tony Clavier. 07 June, 2023
    ~the parable of the wheat and weeds

    "There is no hint that righteous Christians are permitted to migrate to adjacent fields. In any case, such a migration would be futile. Weeds migrate too."

    enjoyed this...
    https://covenant.livingchurch.org/2023/06/07/on-schism/

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