The leadership of the Episcopal Church of America is finding that Biblical authority trumps church authority in the home of some of its oldest, largest and most influential churches. Over the weekend eight Northern Virginia churches, upset with the denomination’s decisions to ordain a gay bishop and sanction same-sex marriages, voted overwhelmingly to leave the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and affiliate with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), under the authority of a Nigerian bishop.

The departing congregations comprise about 10 percent of the diocese’s 90,000 members and about 17 percent of the 32,000 people in the pew on an average Sunday. Virginia Episcopalians have been in an ecclesiastical civil war since the 2003 consecration of New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, an active homosexual, with the support of Virginia Bishop Peter J. Lee.

“I wasn’t at all surprised,” said Kim Cooke, a former vestry member. “This church has always made a point of being faithful to the Scriptures and God. When faced with a choice between man and God, it was an easy choice.”

“I am thrilled at the results,” longtime member Judy Thomsen said. “I think we need to move on.”

Doctrine is at the heart of the matter, but there are issues of authority and insubordination … and some very expensive real estate. The Episcopal Bishop of Virginia struck a strident note, saying there are “Nigerian congregations occupying Episcopal churches.” With respect to the bishop, next week it will be the same people sitting in the same pews as last week, inside the same buildings that have been there for decades (centuries in some cases), reading from the same Bible of the ages. The only thing that has changed are the philosophies of the denominational leadership that believes the will of God is determined by ballot rather than scripture; in turn their flocks have voted with their feet.

No doubt it will get ugly. According to Robert at The Llama Butchers, the Denomination is taking a hard-line with its rectors, insisting on obedience, with lawsuits, salaries and pensions at stake. Robert is a vestry-member at his Episcopal church in the Washington, D.C. area and his rector wants nothing to do with the dispute. Nevertheless, Rob feels he has to make a stand:

The Church has reached the point where each and every Episcopalian has to know exactly what is going on, in order to make for him- or herself a fully informed decision about where he or she is going to go. “Eyes front, mind your own business and do what you’re told,” is not, I think, the tone the Rector ought to be taking. And I also don’t think the parish should be relying on the Official Party Line as served up by the Rector as its sole source of news and opinion.

So. At tomorrow night’s meeting, I am going to propose that a committee be set up, the purpose being to gather and collate news and opinion pertinent to the Church’s ongoing controversies and to find means by which to disseminate such news to members of the congregation. I’m going to insist that such committee be independant of the Rector’s oversight or control and that its membership be politically and theologically balanced.

I am also going to get shot down in flames, of course. But I’m beginning to get angry enough that I don’t really care. If I can’t get official sanction for such a project, then I’ll do it off my own bat. And if I get threatened with personal liability as a vestryman for spreading alarum and confusion, I’ll quit and carry on as a private parishioner.

The Rector mentioned in an email to me the other day that he wanted to make sure my energies as a vestry member were being directed to areas for which I felt a passion. Well, dammit, I think I’ve found just the ticket.

God bless.

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Yesterday’s post about extremism and the ensuing comments got me to thinking again about the culture wars. I remembered how my family used to make it a point to watch “Star Trek: the Next Generation” when there were still new episodes. We loved the characters and the writing, the imagination and the mostly discrete sexuality of the show. It also had a very edifying vision of human virtue and potential.

The only problem I had with the program was that this vision of human potential was based on the Secular Humanist views of its creator, Gene Roddenberry. Yes, we would all like to live in a world where everyone demonstrates love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as the characters in ST:TNG did. Roddenberry, however, saw this occurring through self-directed human evolution while I, as a Christian recognize these traits as fruit of the spirit imparted by God and developed through a personal commitment to renew my mind as I transform myself in order to be more like Jesus.

It may appear that the Christians and Humanists have a similar vision. There is a difference in how we go about fulfilling that vision, however.

As a Christian, I use God’s word as a standard to strive for and measure myself against. It’s not based on feelings, polls or my own thoughts about what is right and what is wrong. Today’s culture may hold out a vision of ennobling evolution — while at the same time saying that any type of standard (except for their own) is merely a prejudice. Maybe that’s why I as Christians can hope to see a change in myself within my lifetime, while Roddenberry’s super-humans don’t get it until the 25th century.

I see the human soul as being made up of our mind, will and emotions — and as being something that needs to be disciplined in order to exalt God. It seems to me that Humanists see the soul as the thing to be exalted – and that excellence can be achieved by indulgence. My focus is to improve the individual so the individual can effect society; Humanists try to change society so that it can affect the individual. They label as intolerant, unprogressive and “out of the mainstream” any discussion of morality when it comes to personal behavior and responsibility (except when they refer to what you do with your wealth and private property). Meanwhile, you can do whatever you want with your body, or whoever else’s body you can get to along with your program.

Let me, finally, get to the point. Despite my self-indulgent and even extremist rant, the Humanists are really irrelevant to a Christian’s own spiritual growth. Sure, they may pollute the culture with their illogical approach, but even if we “win” the cultural and political war we gain little but breathing room. That’s because Christ’s example is always from the “inside out.” While I would like to see a day when the culture around us is more wholesome, that in and of itself will not release us from our spiritual obligation to become more like Christ and to continually work out our salvation. In fact it may even invite a complacency that could be terminal — to us and ultimately to our culture.

Our individual commitment to tending the fruit of the spirit in our own lives — and to helping these develop in other people’s lives — must be unchanged regardless of what is going on around us, no matter how good or how bad it looks. We cannot look back longingly for “the good old days” or wait expectantly for the wonders of the 25th century because Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. “What would Jesus do?” is the wrong question. Better for me to ask, “What is Jesus doing?” and make sure I’m a part of it.

Filings is an ongoing section of this blog where the posts focus specifically on issues of Christian life. The name comes about because “filings” are the natural by-product of Proverbs 27:17: “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

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I recently acquired a book entitled “A Year With C.S. Lewis” which features short, daily excerpts from many of his great works. I thought this morning’s excerpt was especially apt.

It’s from The Screwtape Letters, the book where Screwtape, a senior demon in Hell, counsels his young nephew, Wormwood, on how to best distract and deceive the human he’s been assigned. This particular missive focuses on the value of extremism in faith … or by extension, politics…football…blogging…

To the Extreme
Screwtape explains the usefulness of extremism:
I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged. Not always, of course, but at this period. Some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep. Other ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them. Any small coterie, bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop inside itself a hothouse mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the ‘Cause’ is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal. Even when the little group exists originally for the Enemy’s own purposes, this remains true. We want the Church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique. The Church herself is, of course, heavily defended and we have never yet quite succeeded in giving her all the characteristics of a faction; but subordinate factions within her have often produced admirable results, from the parties of Paul and of Apollos at Corinth down to the High and Low parties in the Church of England…

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Football wasn’t the only thing on the tube yesterday as I found myself pulled away from ESPN and NFL Network game highlights to watch the National Geographic Channel’s program, “In the Womb: Animals.” Using the latest 4D ultrasound imaging, state-of-the-art cameras and computer graphics the 2-hour program took us through the stages from conception to birth of yellow labradors, elephants and dolphins as they developed in their mothers’ wombs.

The elephant goes from a single cell to a 260+ pound “baby”; the dolphin learns to swim before it is born and the dog also showed full-grown dog behavior while still in utero. The film work, showing color and movement, is spectacular and engrossing (and sometimes just gross, based on some of the Mall Diva’s reactions). When you see the amazing close-ups and sharp detail of these developing species it is impossible not to think about the implications if the National Geographic Channel should devote the same study to comparable stages of human babies — pardon me, fetuses. As I watched the program I even thought outloud how great it would be if they used the same technology to cover human development, but I figured that would be anathema to contemporary thought and too controversial. Still, I was happy that this program was available as it couldn’t help but make anyone watching it pause to think.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised — nay, thrilled — to learn that NGC in fact had already kicked off their series back in November with a study of human infants in the womb, and is planning to carry another “In the Womb” program in January featuring the development of human twins (maybe even triplets), including film of the unborn children playing, fighting and cuddling. (More details here). I’m definitely going to check my listings for repeats of the first show and the broadcast schedule for the upcoming one.

The footage in these programs is absolutely devastating to the “blob of tissue” arguments that persist mainly because people don’t want to — or haven’t been able to — see the truth for themselves. There’s also something else in last night’s program that was plain to see: intelligent design.

While the narrator went on and on about evolutionary development and millions of years of random coincidences that led to these “miracles of birth” in each of the animals, when you see the process up close like this — and give it even a moment’s thought — it’s impossible (for me, anyway) to believe each of these tiny but crucial steps could have happened by accident. For example, how does a dog’s uterus “know” how to contract in such a way as to place and attach each puppy embryo an equal distance apart inside its walls? Yes, I know what the evolutionary models (and the narrator) say, but to cling to that despite the evidence of my own eyes seems to require an even greater leap of faith than what my superstitious mind is accused of making. But that’s just me; you can come to your own conclusions. The important thing is that you take the time to watch this incredible series for yourself.

Note: how detailed is 4D ultrasound imaging? Here’s a sample (the images and in utero photography on the NGC program are even more dramatic). You can see more images like this over here.

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