Ecumenism

So when ever I talk about the Episcopal Church, it seems like I’m dwelling on the divisions within it from controversies over gays and women and whatever. And that raises the bigger issue of divisions between various Christian sects/denominations. While there may be some cynically pragmatic reasons why it’s maybe just as well that Christian unity is more of a distant goal and slogan than a reality, it is one of the directives that Christians — as informed by Jesus in the Bible — ought to be striving for.

Our rector now posts his sermons on a blog at our church, and a couple of weeks ago he included this quote:

The great labor of ecumenism has barely managed to dent the walls of separation that keep the divided Christian denominations from a genuinely common life… Protestant and Catholic, East and West, Christians remain divided –- and seem by and large content with their separation.

I started writing a response to the blog/sermon, but it got long enough in thought that I decided to post it here instead.

Why is it, in the face of calls by their founder to be “one” that Christians seem to be divided into so many sects and denominations and groups and subgroups. It’s such a recognized phenomenon that it’s made its way into the (ostensibly) world’s funniest religious joke:

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: “Stop. Don’t do it.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked.

“Well, there’s so much to live for!”

“Like what?”

“Are you religious?”

He said: “Yes.”

I said: “Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?”

“Christian.”

“Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?”

“Protestant.”

“Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”

“Baptist.”

“Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”

“Baptist Church of God.”

“Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?”

“Reformed Baptist Church of God.”

“Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915?”

He said: “Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915.”

I said: “Die, heretic scum,” and pushed him off.

(Alternate versions here, here, here, and elsewhere around the Net.)

Part of it is, I think, tribalism. We like to herd together with birds of a feather. Even within a given parish (take my own), you end up with folks banding together by service time, by participation in different groups, by the choir folks vs the “contemporary music” people, by the women vs the men, etc.

But that’s only a part of it. When you look at the rhetoric that gets thrown about disagreeing between Christian groups — heck, just the things that are said (on both sides, though I have my preference) in the current Episcopal divisions — it’s not just herding, but downright hostility, even hatred. Which, for folks who’ve been told in no uncertain terms, to love one another, is pretty (as they used to say in the old days) scandalous.

It seems to me, watching these sorts of contentions, is that a lot of people aren’t interested in being One, they’re interested in being Right. Or, more importantly, in being the Winners, the ones whose beliefs are proven and vindicated by other folks agreeing with (or giving in to) them. They may want unity, but it’s a unity on their terms, by their rules. They want to win the debate, to be acknowledged as right in every jot and tittle of theological controversy, rather than in working together to further what they’re supposed to be doing in God’s name — feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. They are more interested in asserting what the “Good News” is (“Now pay special attention under section three, paragraph twelve, clause 47/a, where it clearly states that …”) than in sharing it.

It’s a matter of pride, in other words. And, yeah, I can be that way sometimes, too. Though I try to hold it in check.

Too, I think ecumenism and a “common life” is misperceived. Too much emphasis is given on coming up with a fully agreed-upon theology and formal; recognition of each others’ flavors of priesthood and hierarchy and so forth. Too much emphasis is placed on uniformity vs unity. Arguments over ordaining women, or married priests, or bishops vs presbyters vs congregational control, which flavor of creed to adhere to or whether the eucharist is symbolic, transubstantiational, or consubstantiational, all miss the point; trying to settle them is like trying to convince everyone in a big crowd what restaurant go to — and what to order there. The goal in the latter is not that everyone eat mushu pork, but that everyone go out for a good time. 

From my way of thinking (and, yes, I’m cognizant that I’m dancing around a bit of hypocrisy here, but bear with me), God didn’t make everyone the same, so why do we have to come up with a laundry list of identical and identically interpreted rules in order to work and live together? Wasn’t over-adherence to rules something that Christ himself is recorded as condemning? I’m willing to live with a little ambiguity, mystery, and disagreement over the specifics of God’s will — because I think the general guidelines are pretty clear. “In essentials unity, in non-essentials freedom, in all things love.” I’m less interested in folks’ theology than in what they do with it.

Or, looked at another way, I can be good neighbors, coworkers, even friends, with people with whom I disagree in one or more particulars (religious, political, recreational, aesthetic, etc.). Heck, Margie and I don’t agree on everything, but we seem to get along together pretty well. 

The “non-essentials” aren’t unimportant — but they aren’t (by definition) essential to be in agreement about. The trick, of course, is that what is “essential.” My own opinion is that the “essentials” in Christianity need to boil down to the actual dictates by Christ as to what the most important commandments are, to wit, loving God and loving our neighbors. Most of the creedal and theological differences between Christian denominations — let alone the organizational and ritual differences —  have only tangential importance to those commandments. 

But, of course, they aren’t something you can win at, play power games with, easily condemn people for, or otherwise use as a club for being holier-than-Them. Perhaps that’s why they have such a hard time catching on.

But until they do, or until people act more on them than in hurling vitriol over which direction to cross themselves, or what sort of paraphernalia to have up on the altar, or what version of the song book is being used, or who’s married to whom — it seems unlikely we’ll ever have much in the way of unity within Christianity.