The Chinese novel Dreaming of Red Mansions (or Dreaming of the Red Chamber) by Tsao Hsieh-chin is considered a classic in Chinese literature. The title though has nothing to do with the fact that it’s the colour of the Chinese Communist Party (it was written during the Ch’ing Dynasty.) Red in China is traditionally the colour of success and prosperity, which may by a marker as to why Chinese communism is so hopelessly heterodox from a Marxist-Leninist viewpoint. To dream of red mansions or the red chamber is to yearn for a propserous and successful life.
When I read both Joe Colletti’s original piece on why he was going to the Episcopal Church and the responses, it occured to me that this was what he and many of his respondents were looking for in a church: an ideal church in unity with that of the Apostles, whose earthly hierarchy is, like Pseudo-Dionysius envisioned, a reflection (or earthly type) of the heavenly hierarchy of the angels leading up to God himself. And it also occured to me that their attempt to get there is no more successful than those in the novel.
Probably the best response of the six that the North American Anglican published was that of Alexander Wilgus. It was relatively brief and to the point, which is a rarity in much Anglican commentary. His response was centred on the importance of confessional orthodoxy. That’s one of the things that bothers me about even stepping into most Episcopal churches (there are exceptions, but they’re few and far between.) The Episcopal Church has worked hard to be a progressive church and to put this in front of their laity as many Sundays as their laity’s attendance will allow. It’s one of the things that created the blow up last year which was the basis for my post About Those “Loosey-Goosey” Communion Theologies, Episcopal and Otherwise. As I noted in that post:
The minister who complained about receiving Communion in the Episcopal Church did so because this church is a “gay-friendly church.” While I’m sure some Episcopalians would try to dodge this characterisation, during the last quarter century and more the actions of its prelates and the General Convention say otherwise.
A church is first and foremost defined by what it believes and what teaches its laity and clergy to be the truth. As Origen eloquently put it at the start of his Peri Archon:
All who believe and are convinced that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ and that Christ is the truth (in accordance with his own saying, ‘I am the truth’) derive the knowledge which calls men to lead a good and blessed life from no other source but that very words and teaching of Christ himself. By the words of Christ we do not mean only those which formed his teaching when he was made man and dwelt in the flesh, since even before that Christ the Word of God was in Moses and the prophets.
It is unfortunate that many churches with ancient roots have wandered far from that, but it is a reality that cannot be ignored.
Those who would bemoan the whole business of multiple churches that are the result of “scism” need to realise that that’s been going on for a long time. I’m aware of the endless argument that the Church of England and its progeny are a “true church” because they’re “the British church,” which conveniently ignores the fact that the original British church was swept into the corners of the British Isles in the wake of invasions from the Continent and that the see of Canterbury itself was established by a papal mission. (The rest of the British Church was beaten down in the subsequent Roman-Celtic church conflict.) Removing sovereignty over the church from Pope to Sovereign is, at least from Rome’s perspective, supremely scismatic.
The Episcopal Church was itself the result of another scism, but this time secular: the independence of these United States from the United Kingdom. It was evident that independence included that from the Church of England, but the latter was initially unenthusiastic to do anything about this situation, so the Americans went to Scotland and the Anglican church there, itself the result of secular conditions after the failure of Archbishop Laud to impose liturgical worship on the Scots. The Episcopalians have never done anything to put themselves under the authority of the See of Canterbury, even when the politics allowed it and while watching the Roman Catholics build their church in the U.S. under the authority of–God forbid–that dreadful Pope in Rome.
That, of course, leads to the next anomoly in this mess: the ACNA’s own view of its own authority. The ACNA was constituted with two assumptions: the laity caused the rot in the Episcopal Church, and a decidedly Anglo-Catholic view of the episcopate, the latter in spite of (or buttressed by) the strong Charismatic underpinnings of many who started the ACNA. It reflects a longing for human authority to go along with divine authority, and it got sideswiped in Abuja when those assembled opted for a committee at the top rather than a primus inter pares. (It’s worth noting that this move was encouraged by the Sydney Anglicans, whose country’s move out from under the UK was a lot smoother and less an assault on authority than ours.)
It’s time for Colletti and others to stop “dreaming of red churches” and start asking the important question: is the church I’m a part of a help or hindrance to my fulfilling the mission that God put me on this earth to do, from salvation onwards? Apostolic churches are certainly capable of facilitating that fulfilment: it’s not a matter of “can’t” but “won’t.” The hour is late, however, it is time to decide.
Positive Infinity 