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IN THE CHURCH, OF COURSE, THERE’S UNITY, AND THEN THERE’S UNITY
By Peter Cook
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
9/20/2006
As a deputy last June to General Convention I sat and listened to a lot of folk pleading for us to retain “unity” in the Episcopal Church. For quite some time leadership in our church has pleaded that avoiding “schism” is always more important than avoiding “heresy”. That’s pretty rich when you consider Paul’s warning to the Galations that perverting or “turning to a different gospel” already denotes desertion, separation, or schism. Here’s a question that came to me from one of the Epistle readings early in August.
What does it take for there to be “unity” in the Church?
From Ephesians chapter 4 it would seem that four things are necessary. (1) A love among Christians that constructively seeks welfare for others before welfare for ourselves. (2) We must acknowledge that it is the “Tri-Unity” of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that creates and feeds “unity” in the Church. (3) The Holy Spirit “enriches that unity” by giving diverse gifts to the Church. (4) Finally, “unity must mature and grow” in every way (love and truth) into Christ as head of the Church.
Why isn’t there “unity” in the Episcopal Church?
Taking those four principles of Paul in Ephesians 4, perhaps we can see why “unity” is lacking in our church: (1) Conflict has overtaken welfare and fellowship. Weapons in the form of “agendas”, or shields in the form of “faith statements”, seem to preclude constructively seeking the welfare of others;
(2) Modernistic thinking has destroyed belief in a “Triune” God. For our new Presiding Bishop, Jesus is merely our pathway to the divine. He is not the truth but simply a truth ;
(3) For our current Presiding Bishop, the Holy Spirit is welcomed not because he gives gifts that enrich the church in ministry, but because he guides us into new truth, truths which until now were not given to the church. Sadly, these new truths both ignore and contradict much of what we have been given in scripture;
(4) Sadly also, our Episcopal Church is not growing in maturity, or being built up into Christ as head, it is in systemic decline. When it speaks, we hear not the Holy Spirit’s voice of love and truth, but the voice of duplicity and confusion.
These are just four reasons why “unity” is lacking in today’s Episcopal Church!
Unless, of course, you buy into the idea that an artful use of church canons can somehow enforce unity. But that is sheer manipulation, pure power politics, and belongs to a totally different gospel!
---The Rev Dr. Peter J.A. Cook, M.A., is Rector of St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church, in Lake Charles, in the Diocese of Western Louisiana.
