Modern Donatism

Not many people know these days about the Donatist Heresy, but the battle over it (i.e., what got it eventually officially labeled a “heresy”) was a key development in Christianity.

Long story short, the Donatists argued that the sacraments were only valid if administered by an orthodox, theologically pure and right-thinking officiant (more specifically, by someone who had not renounced their faith during the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian). If it turned out that Father Fred was not a right-thinking priest, then all those marriages and baptisms and confessions and so forth that Father Fred performed were invalid.

The anti-Donatists argued that the sacraments were a gift from God, and were not invalidated by a less-than-saintly cleric administering them. God’s the one doing the forgiving, the baptizing, the witnessing of the marriage, and the priest, worthy or un-, is simply a mortal instrumentality, the sacrament not at all invalidated by whether the person was worth to be a priest. The messenger is not the message, and the words spoken need to be considered apart from the speaker.

The anti-Donatist group eventually won (St Augustine was big in that effort), which is why Donatism is considered a “heresy.” The issue continues to crop up now and again, though. In the ongoing kerfuffles within the Episcopal Church, the unwillingness of some conservative / orthodox Anglicans to accept communion from some of those wicked, evil, apostate Episcopal bishops has been seen as an example of latter-day Donatism.

Which brings me to Rev. Rick Warren, a rather affable gent whose Hawaiian shirts and winsome smiles belie his conservative evangelical stance on numerous social issues, including strong opposition to gay marriage and abortion. Warren, by being less overtly strident and insulting than his ideological brethren (Dobson, Falwell, Robertson, etc.) has taken on a role as a Christian “moderate” — though the moderation is mostly in how he expresses himself, not in his theology.

So there’s a huge brouhaha over Obama choosing (in conjunction with the committee handling the particulars) Warren to do the invocation at Obama’s inauguration. While some folks see this as a clever (or honestly engaging) reach across the theological aisle to the conservative Christian Right (Obama’s disagreement with Warren, et al., has been made multiple times, and was clear during the Saddleback “debate” that Warren held with Obama and McCain), others see it as a huge betrayal, a welcoming to the table of someone who holds obnoxiously intolerant beliefs, and who acts on same (in an affable, Hawaiian-shirted fashion).

To me, though, the question is more what Warren has to say at the invocation, less than who he is or represents. Sure, he represents a religious strain that I don’t particularly care for (we did the 40 Days of Purpose program at our church, and Warren’s theology more than occasionally rankled me and many the Episcopalians in the program), but he also represents (whether he gets to speak at the event or not) a lot of people in this country, which makes it a politically savvy move on Obama’s part (what, you expected him to invite Bp. Spong?).

But, more important, the question is what Warren will actually say at the invocation. If he turns it into a forum for anti-abortion, anti-gay sentiment, then he deserves to be booed off the stage. But I don’t see Obama as giving him that sort of latitude (nor do I think Warren tone-deaf enough to do so, either). Instead, I think the message / prayer / invocation that Warren will give will both support Obama (all good there) and point out or focus on some of the common ground that folks on the religious (or irreligious) Left and Right can agree upon.

Which, if that’s what happens, is probably just the tone that Obama wants to set. And I’m okay with that. Considering what Warren has to say as intrinsically evil just because of his (to me, regressive and ultra-conservative and negative) beliefs is to confuse the messenger with the message. It’s the Donatist Heresy all over again, saying that in invocation can only be “valid” if the person doing it is ideologically pure and correct, and that only the “proper” folks can be considered for involvement in the inauguration (we’ll leave aside the substantial number of people who consider a prayerful invocation to be improper or goofy in the first place).

To be sure, I’m not particularly thrilled about Rick Warren having the role he’s been given — but I don’t consider it to be the Ultimate Betraying Evil that some folks seem to be taking it as.  I’m more interested in what Warren actually ends up saying — and in what the Obama Administration ends up doing — than in criticizing Obama for including Warren as part of the whole inaugural process.