Episcopal Irrelevence

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA has declared salvation the great Western Heresy. More specifically, she thinks that the message of personal salvation has led the all the ills that plague the Western World. The financial crisis and the degraded environment can all be laid at the feet of the western notion of the individual (never mind the crushing poverty and environmental disasters of collectivist societies).

Where the Bishop will get some support from me concerns the 'cheap grace' aspect of certain salvation philosophies. Blabbing a sentence in no way gets me access to God. Likewise, it is wrong for the Bishop to think that salvation is the act of the community. That means there are human gate keepers...our betters who decide what salvation looks like. This is the Marxist heresy. Both philosophies are wrong because salvation alone is the work of the Holy Spirit and the Church has recognized this fact through the ages.

Because Jefferts-Schori is firmly rooted in systematic analysis of all things, she cannot name the one ancient affliction that has plagued humanity for all time, Sin. She sees history as a compilation of bad communities that have let down their constituents because of systematic injustice. So to her, greed and rapacious appetites are the function of an ill ordered community instead of the deep workings of a corrupt heart. By rejecting the salvation of the individual and the responsibility of that person to seek after God's kingdom, the Bishop has not addressed the main cause of injustice in the world...the evil of sin in the heart of every human.

The followers of Christ, from the 12 disciples on, has been a community of radical volunteerism. Radical because it calls for immediate allegiance to a way of life that is contrary to the human systems of the fallen world. Voluntary, because it is the work of the Holy Spirit on the believer's heart, not the compulsion of a neighbor (or the purchase of indulgences for the church community) that brings one to the Kingdom.

I suggest the Very Right Rev. stop reading her liberation theology books and start reading the classics to find the salvation of the individual in Roman times (St. Augustine) and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to find the line of evil that passes through every human heart. Indeed, if she reads the Gospels, she will see Jesus interacting with people in a personal way, not talking about concepts of political organization or abstract principles of ordered systems except to mock James and John who wanted prestige. Concerning moral superiority, Jesus said it was His Kingdom vs. all the rest, and he was speaking in an adversarial manner. Concerning prosperity, the Kingdom of God is like a pearl of great price.

Here is the great irony of this Bishop's statement. She has just poked the eye of at least 575,000,000 Christians. There is not much ecumenism or community bonding going on.