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Seeking Truth in the Wrong Places

Seeking Truth in the Wrong Places

By Ladson F. Mills III
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
September 21, 2015

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it... the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie.

So wrote Paul Joseph Goebbels PhD. Minister of Propaganda during Hitler's Third Reich. Dr. Goebbels may have lacked morality but he was perceptive. Lying is a necessity for deception in order to to maintain power and control. We live in the age of the big lie.

Problem solving was once inherent to effective leadership. Today cliche has replaced competence. Leadership is no longer about serving but attaining the elite status which grants immunity from accountability. Even the church has become dependent on legalities and the courts to solve most problems.

There was a time when the church was respected for principled centered leadership. Today it is more a reflection of the culture rather than the redemptive alternative. Like the culture the Episcopal Church is very good at letting you know when you have finally reached the club where you are not a member.

Rising to senior levels in the church means one can ignore canons with impunity. Sin is arbitrarily dismissed by proclaiming God is doing a new thing.

Children are robbed of innocence under the guise of Islam while church leaders remain strangely quiet. A pro-female agenda is promoted even as brutal rape, torture while the marginalizing of women in certain cultures is conveniently overlooked. There is more fear of being labeled as Islamophobic than proclaiming truth. Racism is decried but only when it is white on black.

Former Episcopal Divinity School President and abortion activist The Rev. Kathryn Ragsdale has proclaimed abortion as a blessing. That is like saying capital punishment is a blessing. At best both are tragic.

The Episcopal Church spends millions on never ending lawsuits with little, if any, accountability. Ministry to youth is sacrificed to assure the bureaucracy is comfortably funded. Anyone seeking clarity or questioning these directions are labeled intolerant or haters.

On Wednesday September 20th the Diocese of South Carolina and the Episcopal Church will once more argue in a court of law. This time it is the South Carolina Supreme Court. Whatever else one might think about the American System of Jurisprudence what it lacks in efficiency is more than made up for in time consuming expense. And best of all for lawyers is there is always "one more court" willing to hear the case.

Last year during the trial in St. George, South Carolina I asked provisional Bishop Charles von Rosenberg if there was any plan for reconciliation should the Episcopal Church prevail. There was no plan which suggest there is either no expectation of winning the case or capitulation not reconciliation is what the Episcopal Church really seeks.

Many years ago I was requested in my role as a Navy Reserve Chaplain to provide pastoral care to a convicted pedophile, a Roman Catholic Chaplain awaiting transfer from a local military brig to Leavenworth Prison. I accepted.

There were those in my parish horrified that I would accept this request pointing out that I was the father of young sons. I was asked how I would feel if my children had been one of his victims.

These were honest questions that I had asked myself. I was, however not there to stand for him; only with him. I made it clear to him that my role was not to dismiss what he did or to condemn him. I prayed God would grant him dignity and grace to accept his punishment and show contrition by making living amends. While it is impossible undo what was done repentance and change is possible

That was several decades ago before the legal model surpassed the Gospel as our means of defining ourselves. In today's church rather than bear witness to the world we model the world.

As implausible as it may appear the situation created by former Maryland Suffragan Bishop Heather Cook may offer the Episcopal the means by which to provide a true witness of the Christian Gospel. We must first accept the initial response from the Maryland Diocese was a legally inspired clumsy disaster. It smacked of insiders more concerned with self preservation than truthfully addressing the horror of a situation in which a husband and father was tragically killed.

Her removal from all Ecclesiastical Offices was the right decision. However if the church stops here we have done nothing but to reinforce what the culture is already familiar in that Heather Cook finally reached the club where she is not a member. She can be cast away or supported and encouraged to make living amends.

Challenging decades of presupposition is not easy. We have been inundated by big lies for far too long. We have generations in the church more familiar with legalities than Gospel. Court cases are no longer the exception but the rule for settling differences.

With the façade of our failure unmasked we are left with only the truth Christianity offers through the redemption and the grace of Jesus Christ.

C. S. Lewis noted that the only reason to believe something is because it is true.
Or as its enemies acknowledge, ...truth is the mortal enemy of the lie.

Ladson F. Mills III is a retired priest with over thirty years pastoral experience. He lives with his wife in South Carolina. He currently serves as Scholar in Residence at Church of Our Saviour, Johns Island. He is a regular contributor to Virtueonline

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