Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori made a rather extraordinary opening statement at the TEC General Convention:
The crisis of this moment has several parts, and like Episcopalians, particularly ones in Mississippi, they’re all related. 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 use 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 all being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention.
This seems to be saying that anyone – from the thief on the cross to the average Christian today – who believes that Jesus’ sacrifice has taken away their personal sins allowing them to be reconciled to God the Father is – a heretic!
Update: there is a spirited discussion at SF on this.
Update 2: Primate Fred Hiltz is attending as a guest.
Far be it from me to defend Ms. Schori, but I think that’s a little unfair.
Individualism is destructive of the Church, in that it often leads to the view (sometimes implicit rather than explicit) that only the individual has the truth, and everyone else is wrong, deluded or heretical. Whether it’s also heresy is another matter altogether (I rather doubt it is).
I notice that you refer to personal sins, not individual sins. Persons are defined by their connections. Individuals are defined by their separateness. As you implicitly acknowledge, Scripture always sees salvation as a corporate act.
What happened to the MDGs – wasn’t TEC and the ACoC going to save the world through those? I guess that didn’t work and now she is attacking Christ’s atonement on the Cross because he actually did save the world. The darkness slithers onwards.
I must agree with David as there’s no Christianity without the cross and putting ourselves right with God is essential. I believe that Jesus saves individual Men and Women as opposed to groups or collectives (I do not believe that there are any group or family rates in Heaven). In my opinion the PB is trying to ‘put lipstick on a pig’ as ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’.
Salvation is NOT always seen as a corporate act in Scripture! How can you say something like that? We are justified as individuals, that is, each of us on our own, when we believe in Jesus Christ who died for Sin. If what you say is true, then we could be “saved” by our membership in a family, or in a church, or in a demonic cult such as TEC. We are not saved corporately unless what you mean is that individually we all share the same Saviour, who justifies each of us on our own when we repent of our sins and believe in His Name.
If I’ve mistaken what you’re saying, please accept my apologies. If you do think that we are “saved” by our membership in a group, then … perhaps Schori will offer you a mitre
!
#1, Gordon Arthur
I must ask, how and where did David implicitly acknowledge that Scripture always sees salvation as a corporate act?
Some further comments on this from Here:
This certainly seems to be a theological innovation (or as Fr. Radner says, “incoherence.”) It looks to me like a confounding of the Eucharist as an ecclesial act into a doctrine of ecclesial salvation.
At the same time, there is a “hard” form of sola scriptura that promotes individual and ideosyncratic interpretations of Scripture. Those are frequently old heresies rediscovered.
Henry (#7), by a “‘hard’ form of sola scriptura“, would you actually be referring to solo scriptura? In my understanding, sola scriptura does not promote “individual and ideosyncratic interpretation of Scripture” that rejects tradition and reason.
Charles [#4], corporate salvation runs through the Old Testament. Israel is God’s chosen people as a nation, not Jacob on his own, or his descendants as a group of individuals (see, for example, Deuteronomy 33:29, Isaiah 45:17-22, Jeremiah 23:5-6, Joel 2:27-32). In the New Testament, This is reflected in, for example, Acts 2:44-47, Acts 16:25-34, Romans 5:1-11 (which is entirely plural, although the following section reverts to the singular) and Jude 5.
We are NOT saved to go off and do our own thing; we are saved into the Body of Christ, which is the Church. It’s true that the Church grows one soul at a time, but that does not mean people are saved as individuals: they are saved as persons. Individuals heading off with their own agendas and losing touch with the community of faith got us into this mess in the first place.
John [#5], David refers to personal salvation, which implies salvation with connections to others, rather than individual salvation, which would imply we might be saved, but this might have no implications for anyone else.
Gordon,
I think you are reading rather too much into my use of the word “personal”.
While I would agree that we are not saved to “go off and do our own thing”, I can’t see how a person’s initial coming to Christ can be anything other than as an individual.
David [#10], perhaps I am, but please bear in mind that the Western concepts of individual and individualism are products of the 17th century. They were unknown in the ancient world, which saw the whole of life in corporate terms (this is still true in much of Africa). Reading modern concepts with no ancient counterparts back into Scripture is inherently dangerous.
How so, Gordon? It seems to me that the bible has lots to say about individual responsiblity towards God and towards other people.
Gordon (#9), you are spot on.
Our coming to faith is indeed an individual (or personal) thing. And I don’t see anything in Bishop Schori’s address that contradicts that.
But how we live that faith has nothing at all to do with our individualism and everything to do with our relationships with others. (See Paul, esp. 1 & 2 Cor and Ephesians, and James, as well as the Prophets). A Christian cannot be a “Lone Ranger”.
The heresy which she attacks shows up in the many people who come for “drive through” baptisms. How often have I heard “I don’t need to belong to the church to be a Christian; I can read my Bible and pray and follow the Commandments without going to church”! It seeks to set the terms for our engagement with God rather than listening to God’s terms. (see Mt. 7:22-23)
She is also chastising both sides in the current conflict–those who say that TEC should just get on with it and forget about the rest of the Communion, and those who want to be a fellowship of only the pure.
Schori constructs a lovely strawman (or, let’s not be sexist, straw-woman) which she then seeks to tear down. Schori imposes a dichotomy between individual and communal which simply doesn’t exist in Scripture. There is no doubt that Scripture appeals to individuals to repent and believe, as well as communities to repent and believe. God saves individuals in Christ by faith (e.g., the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40), but they never remain disconnected individuals. The key point is: we are saved individually (take Romans 7′s frequent use of “I”, and its resolution in Rom 8:1-2, which, in 8:2 uses the Greek singular “you” [the NIV takes an alternative reading of the Greek singular "me"]) and sometimes corporately (eg., in Acts 16:31-34 where a whole ‘household’ is saved). But, whether individually or corporately, we are saved by God FOR community – the body of Christ. Or better, we are saved for **communion** with God through Christ and in the Spirit, and with other believers – the body of Christ. On what is that communion built? A God-given understanding and revelation of Christ, through the Scriptures and in the Spirit – an understanding and revelation that leads to faith – and you can’t believe for others, it has to be an individual response! Schori’s dichotomy fails to see that a community is made up of individuals, with individual gifts (Rom 12; 1 Cor 12-14; Eph 4:7-14 etc), that in Christ by his Spirit forms a community – a community of faith, of worship, of encouragement. Schori is shaping a theology to try to justify her own position (and those who are like her) in the “community of the saved” – in her case TEC and the Anglican Communion – and all the theological baggage that comes with her and those like her. Schori misrepresents the Scriptural view of salvation, just like she misrepresents its understanding of Biblical sexuality and relationships. 2 Corinthians 11 is apt!
Gordon (#11), you are right the ancient world knew nothing of the C17th concept of individualism, based on Descartes’ radical skepticism to arrive at a solid foundation for epistemology – although he had good motives: he was trying to set out a basis from which we could have certainty of knowledge, and therefore certainty of knowledge of God. In fact, it would be anachronistic to suggest it did. HOWEVER, it is clearly an overstatement to say that the ancient world ONLY and ALWAYS viewed all of life in a corporate manner. That’s a nonsense and a caricature. Certainly, there was a greater emphasis on the corporate than what we know – and this is a corrective to our disjointed and idolatrous emphasis on individualism – but it doesn’t mean all notions of the individual never existed. Interestingly, it’s precisely the individualism of C17th to now that Schori and others in ACoC use to chart their own course on theology and sexuality, counter to the wider Anglican Communion’s wishes and rebukes! And when some Orthodox Anglicans (St John’s Shaughnessy and other ANiC parishes) – theologically in line with very many Anglicans around the world – choose to align themselves with the majority, they are persecuted! Unbelievable. :s
Warren at #8 – I think that’s an interesting mixture of languages, but we had a commenter in another thread who indeed espoused exactly the rejection of tradition and reason. Which leaves a “bare” scripture, devoid of all the historical context; usually then some “personal revelation” follows.
Jim at #13 – exactly what I meant.
The key to my comments is the difference between an individual and a person.
A person, defined by their connections to others, always acts as part of a larger group, even when he or she acts on his or her own. This, I would suggest, is the Biblical understanding of humanity.
An individual, as understood by Descartes and his successors, is defined by his or her separateness, and can act alone, if necessary without regard for anyone else.
Real humans act both as persons and as individuals, sometimes simultaneously, but I maintain that individualism, in the sense of acting primarily on one’s own, perhaps without regard for others, is harmful, and it is this I think Schori was attacking.
Gordon (#17), I find the distinction between an individual and person as you have described them interesting – not something I’ve really thought about before. In what category would you place those who act directly in obedience to God regardless of the impact of their actions on the community around them? I’m thinking of biblical characters such as Abraham, Moses, Gideon, David, the Prophets, etc.? Would they fall into a third category? On the other side of the coin, what about those who act in direct obedience to the temptations of Satan – acts that go beyond the depravity and sinfulness that is the condition of all mankind? Where does Eve fall?
#17 Gordon: In your last sentence, I think you are attributing your own cultural and theological thoughtfulness to Archbishop Schori. It doesn’t make sense that she would be decrying as a heresy the kind of individualism which allows her to remove TEC from universal Christendom the way she has. David in#6 was getting at this too in the quote from Christopher Seitz.
No, I think we are back to David’s original comment in this post. What Schori is seeing as the great Western heresy is the concept of salvation itself, in her own words “that any of use [sic] alone can be in right relationship with God”. What follows the statement just quoted is a typical liberal argument against individuals/persons coming to saving faith, despite the fact that Jesus himself describes an uproarious party in heaven each time one sinner repents.(Luke 15:7. 10)
Irena [#18], there is such a thing as doublethink. No one ever said Schori was consistent…
Guys, get a grip! Christian teaching has always been that each person is saved on his or her own. ‘Twas ever thus, ’twill ever be thus. Of course we are social beings, living in communities etc. and we are born owing obligations to each other, but we come into this world alone and we meet our maker alone, accompanied only by our faith and good deeds. Too simple for you? Too uneducated for you? Too child like? Insufficiently hermeneutic or praxitical? Well why dont we all spend our time learning metaphysics and ancient languages and discoursing learnedly about Patristic theology, for as the Gospel saith, “He that is unable to parse the etymology of the underlying Aramaic shall never enter the kingdom of heaven”. If the doctrine of personal salvation was good enough for Peter, it should be good enough for you. Clearly it isnt good enough for JS. So? Dont be as big a bloody idiot as she obviously is. Dont defend her and thereby yourself go astray. There is 2000 years of history backing the (until now) conventional view, there is nothing backing JS up except a lot of religio/management cant. Bishop my a—!
I agree with Gordon Arthur’s take on Schori’s statement. However, how one says something when one is the highest spokesperson of the national church means a great deal. The fact that she painted with a broad brush and ignored the nuances that have been conveyed at this website shows her to be entirely inadequate to her job. She spoke not as a theologian but as a politician, rallying her base. For that, she deserves a drubbing by those who put theology before politics and consequently politically oppose her.
To Keith @ 21: “we meet our maker alone, accompanied only by our faith and good deeds”? Dear me, hell would be a crowded place and heaven would have no residents.
Luckily, we also meet our maker as members of the body of his son, Christ Jesus. Because we have died with Christ in Baptism, we are raised with him at the last day. That doesn’t happen because we do anything–it happens because God the Father offers us the gift of salvation, God the Son lived and died as one of us so that humanity and divinity could be reconciled in him, and God the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to respond to that gift.
Paul is absolutely clear–if I have faith, it can’t be any of my doing because I am incapable of anything good without God’s help. So even my faith and good works are not my own, they are the product of God working through me.
I think that’s what the PB was trying to say. Jesus says the two greatest commandments are to love the Lord and my neighbor–both of those involve somebody other than me. If I am “right with God,” it’s only because of my relationships with others–my relationship with the Trinity and my fellow human beings. And it is the whole Trinity–I’ve heard too many evangelicals say that “I don’t need anything but Jesus.” Yes, they do. They need the Father and the Holy Spirit, too, because by focusing on one person of the Trinity, they think that God can be contained in an easy to picture man with a kindly face and a whole lot of love. They focus on an individual member of the Trinity and forget that we Christians can’t even imagine a God without a relationship contained within God’s self.
For those of us who are sacramentalists and who, like C.S. Lewis, see the line between eternal damnation and eternal bliss as not being decided just by our souls’ experiences on this physical plane, becoming a Christian is a product of baptism. I don’t think it’s an accident that people can’t baptize themselves. Even becoming a Christian (on the sacramentalist view) requires the participation of someone else, because it involves becoming a part of a greater whole–Christ’s body.
You can’t save yourself. Only God can save you. And God has ordained that he can only save you by making you part of something greater than yourself. When you are saved, you are no longer an individual–you have died with Christ so that you may be raised with Christ as a member of his Body.
You have to be in right relationship with God first before any of the other things can happen. Schiori is saying that that isn’t necessary. That is the heresy.
Baptism alone doesn’t save you. If that were so, someone could be baptized as a baby, and then lead a life like Clifford Olsen, never repent, and still go to heaven.
Todd (#23), to be fair, I think you should distinguish between the meaning of the word evangelical in a historical and traditional sense, and the beliefs of many who wear the label. In the same way, I should distinguish between orthodox Anglicanism and the beliefs of many who call themselves Anglican. I grant that it may be common to hear the phrase “I don’t need anything but Jesus” in evangelical circles (along with lots of other strange things), but I will argue strongly that it is not a distinctive of evangelicalism. I’m sure that Al Mohler, who has unequivocally branded KJS a heretic, would reject the phrase “I don’t need anything but Jesus”. Unfortunately, I don’t think KJS meant what you have suggested she meant.
Chistianity teaches us that salvation is offered BOTH to us as individuals and as communities. Schori’s insistence on community alone is heresy. If what she meant was SELFISH preoccupation on one’s salvation without serving, thinking, doing anything for others in the community is a hesery, then she is correct. Thus, the Episcopal Church’s SELFISH preoccupation of marketing its own brand of Christianity (gay/lesbian proganda machine) without thinking of the community of Churches in the Anglican communion IS a heresy.
Chistianity teaches us that salvation is offered BOTH to us as individuals and as communities. Schori’s insistence on community alone is heresy. If what she meant was SELFISH preoccupation on one’s salvation without serving, thinking, doing anything for others in the community is a hesery, then she is correct. Thus, the Episcopal Church’s SELFISH preoccupation of marketing its own brand of Christianity (gay/lesbian propaganda machine) without thinking of the community of Churches in the Anglican communion IS a heresy
To Kate @ 23
“You have to be in right relationship with God before any of the other things can happen.”
OK, then we’re all doomed. Because it’s very clear that none of us is capable of being right with God without God’s help. And you say we can’t get that unless we’re right with God. I would argue that we can’t even repent sufficiently to “get right with God,” without God’s help. No human being is capable of being totally, unequivocally sorry for what s/he has done, unless God provides that ability through the Holy Spirit.
The Nicene Creed says that we believe in “one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” Really. We do. And you seem to believe that heaven and hell are two distinct places. That’s not what the Roman Catholic Church, C.S. Lewis, or I believe, and that’s the reason that we Anglicans pray for the souls of the dead. Heaven is eternal bliss in the presence of God. Hell is eternal loss through separation with God. Just because I’m not pure enough at death to be in God’s immediate presence doesn’t mean that I won’t eventually get there.
You want justice–the idea that people who lead a bad life get punished and people who lead a good life get rewarded. God can’t offer that, because, compared to God, none of us are anything close to good. That’s why Jesus died “for the sins of the whole world.” If salvation depends at all on us as broken human beings, then no one is saved. We are no more capable of truly repenting our sins than we are of living a sinless life in the first place. Except with God’s help.
Todd (#28), because of his popularity and quality of writing (I’m a fan and have most of his books), CS Lewis gets a pass on some of his theology where most others would be taken apart mercilessly.