As the Episcopal Church begins its General Convention in Anaheim, California, many are waiting for the besieged denomination to begin anew conversations around gay bishops and other matters of sexuality as the march toward marriage equality continues to heat up [see comic below this post].
But, right out of the box, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is showing she’s able to create shockwaves of her own. In her opening statement to the General Convention, Rev. Schori took a shot one at of the sacred cows of many Protestant believers—individual salvation:
The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy—that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention.
The crises Rev. Schori refers to are more far reaching than the church’s own battles over gay bishops and acceptance of gays and lesbians in the pew. She looks even deeper into the problems of the human race and names the sin of rampant individualism as the cause of most of the world’s problems, from environmental disasters to economic meltdown.
I said that this crisis has several elements related to that heretical and individualistic understanding. We’ve touched on one—how we keep this earth, meant to be a gift to all God’s creatures. The financial condition of the nations right now is another element. The sins of a few have wreaked havoc with the lives of many, as greed and dishonesty have destroyed livelihoods, educational possibilities, care for the aged, and multiple forms of creativity—and that’s just the aftermath of Ponzi schemes for which a handful will go to jail. If we want to be faithful, we need to be continually rediscovering that my needs are not the only significant ones. […] We are our siblings’ knowers and their keepers, and we cannot be known without them—we have no meaning, no true existence in isolation. We shall indeed die as we forget or ignore that reality.
The speech has already raised eyebrows at more conservative Christian news sites like the Christian Post and One News Now that fretted over her dismissal of “the sinner’s prayer of repentance.” The accompanying “poll” (I hesitate to use poll in an unqualified way since the poll is so obviously one-sided in its available responses) brand Rev. Schori the true heretic.
I give Rev. Schori high marks for the direction of her speech. As one raised in the Southern Baptist church I was taught that individual salvation was like cleanliness—it was as close to godliness as we could get. If we “get right with God” in our hearts and minds, then that’s really all that is required for salvation and righteousness. As I’ve progressed in age, I’ve come to see what kind of havoc that can wreak on a society. Those who believe “once saved, always saved” have too often been the purveyors of much evil in the world. They’ve got their salvation and nothing can take it away, so they think nothing of cheating, stealing, lying, or even killing—sometimes in the name of their savior.
Rev. Schori’s amazing opening words to her flock call us from this insidious practice and rightly names it for what it is—heresy and idolatry. Focusing only on our own needs—with perhaps scraps and crumbs thrown to “the least of these”—has produced a selfish church preaching a variety of individualistic messages of prosperity, moral superiority, or feel-good sermons about godly self-esteem.
I hope not just the Episcopal Church, with all its problems, but every church will hear and heed Rev. Schori’s brave words—we are each other’s keepers and if we forget that, it will surely be the demise of us all.
From Integrity USA, in partnership with Douglas Gould and Co., comes this comic, "The Ripple," connecting the history of the Episcopal Church with the struggle for LGBT equality:
Tags: comics, episcopal church, individual salvation, lgbt, multimedia
I have read her books and numerous essays and deeply respect her views, including her deeply sensitive understanding of human sexuality. The world would be a much different place if we could have escaped 2000 years of patriarchy.
...her observations (on this particular issue) are very much in line with the most ancient of Christian traditions, which are still held faithfully by the Eastern Orthodox churches.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is definitely representing the Orthodox Christian position here rather than the usual Western position regarding salvation. Russian Orthodox theologian Nicholas Zernov is quoted in "The Transfigured Cosmos" in this way:"In the West the individual always occupies the center of attention; in the East he is always seen as a member of a community...In the West mankind is the main object of redemption; in the East the whole cosmos is brought within its scope.... The East does not think about salvation in terms of the individual soul returning to its Maker; it is visualized rather as a gradual process of transfiguration of the whole cosmos, culminating in theosis...Man is saved, not from the world but with the world."
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is on target--precisely on target. This greatly encourages me.
It is one thing to insist that Christianity requires a communal dimension, a truth that is often lost in the laissez-faire United States, but quite another to suggest that individuals are not saved as individuals. I agree that the "once saved, always saved" mentality can often have noxious consequences, though it is unfair to paint all such believers with the same brush. Yet this is not the same as an individual vs communal distinction.
Reading Ms. Schori's full speech, I see many different ideas muddled together, in a vague enough way to allow plausible deniability if she is accused of heresy. Anyone familiar with the New Testament cannot help but notice that there is a deeply personal, introspective dimension to salvation, and to deride this as heresy, as Ms. Schori appears to do, would be to deny what has been a defining characteristic of Christianity.
The elevation of individual salvation is an intrical part of Christianity. But we should remember that the machinery of the modern Christian philosphy arose a very long time after the event of its birth. That modern philosphy arose in an attempt to stave off pressure from the masses again oppression imposed by the self proclaimed right of earthly kings.
I appreciate this article. I have come to believe that God's true desire for which Jesus was incarnate, was to save the world...not just individuals....God's little club. It is human to need to be loved as an individual, it is not divine. God is love. It is a cruel God who withholds salvation because an individual, humans who are very flawed, didn't quite "get it." It is the flawed human who cannot imagine a God that loves and forgives unconditionally....whether that human has "accepted" God or not; for, that act of acceptance, if the only way to salvation, is then, by nature, conditional.
The quest for individual salvation though an act of faith and words really has created a "me first" culture, particularly in the U.S. Bishop Schori's message is sorely needed.
For years, I repeatedly watched and heard pastors ask people joining congregations this question, “Do you confess that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, and do you accept him as your personal savior?”
I thought that the question is scatterbrained. First, Jesus is dead and gone (left to the ravens and dogs, if one scholarly view is right). Second, from where does the second question come? What in the heck is a personal savior and what does that have to do with a biblical point-of-view or with historical Christianity? When did that second question enter Christian life?
Further, what does the word “accept” mean in the sentence?
I understand the mystery of "repent and believe in the gospel" or something akin to that.
I wonder if this is some academic argument that will escape most people in the pews or if she has neglected to read centuries of Eastern and Western history and tradition and Church History in the language of her choosing (and I'm no conservative at all)!
Gosh, I am glad that I can almost read English (0n a good day) :-D
Her message is easily summed up in the old adage that the Cross is multidirectional with two arms extended horizontally to embrace one another ("We are our siblings’ knowers and their keepers,") and two vertical poles uniting the temporal and divine realms ("that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.")
Bp. Schori creates an unnecessary dualism -an "either/or" proposition. Anglican orthodoxy celebrates the "both/and" - the Cross reveals it.
I find the writer's comment that it's the "personal salvation" people who use "once saved, always saved" as an excuse to cheat, lie, steal ironically funny. Episcopalians focus on baptism as their proof of being God's people-- usually performed on an infant who has no choice in the matter(and whose parents probably only go to church once or twice a year-maybe less). Isn't their argument for GLBT priests and bishops that "anyone who's baptised has the right to be a priest or bishop"? Where I'm from practically everyone's baptised(rural area) and there are murderers,thieves, prostitutes, etc. and they've all been baptised and so they're all "saved." Episcopalians, Lutherans, etc. are "Once baptised, always saved" people, so what makes that better than "personal salvation"?
What's damaging about the emphasis on personal salvation is that ignores Jesus's command to love our neighbors as ourselves. I'm saved and you're not is a terrible religious stance. It blinds us to the humanity of others who are not like us in some respect; we only love those who love us. The doctrine of personal salvation relieves us of our responsibility to the community and the world. If I'm only interested in you to convert you, I can't even see who you are, much less respect your differences. I'm not sure where the Anglican church can go if it doesn't deal with this. It's an important thing to do.
While faith requires a personal commitment and personal responsibility, that does not make it individual. Without a community to carry language and meaning, holding an idea all by oneself just makes a person insane, not saved.
Christian understandings of salvation are personal and communal, not individual and separate from love or from all of creation, which sustain individual life.
Borrowing from an antidote about Oscar Wilde, I tell mysef that I wish I had said this. Then I realize that I will—word for word.
"...Jesus’ passion was and is for God’s dream of a reconciled creation. We’re meant to be partners in building that reality, throughout all of creation." The Bishop
I'm wondering... What is the plan? What was Jesus heading to Jerusalem for? And how was he going about reconciling God's creation?
According to one Reply, Jesus is dead and gone, so apparently his plan didn't work, and now that I think about it, neither did God's.
So what is the plan?
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was expressing a concept that Rev. Billy Graham understood many years ago.
Billy Graham at one point near the end of his life began to believe that perhaps there are other faith journeys to salvation rather than just Christianity.
Here is a link to a Billy Graham interview by someone who regretted that Rev. Graham had come to these conclusions.
http://www.biblebb.com/files/tonyqa/tc00-105.htm
[Excerpts from interview]
Billy Graham: God's purpose for this age is to call out a people for His name. And that's what God is doing today, He's calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they're going to be with us in heaven.
She doesn't share the faith of the group that is going to be saved. The fact that she thinks she is a bishop demonstrates how wrong she is.
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