We are grateful that the Presiding Bishop has sought to ground her appeal to diversity and new truth in a public message available for the Church’s evaluation and testing. It explains what kind of vision for the Episcopal Church she is seeking to defend. On the one hand, she believes the Holy Spirit has spoken in truthful and special (timely) ways to those who share this view in TEC. On the other hand, she believes diversity on this matter is equally a gifting warranted by the pentecostal event, explaining why the majority of the Anglican Communion and the vast preponderance of Christians worldwide (including the saints numbered on another shore) attended and attend to different Holy Spirit guidance and a different confession of God the Holy Spirit, “who spake by the prophets”¦who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.” Her remarks help frame the matter in clear ways, which we can only pray is itself a gift of God the Holy Spirit, whose vocation is to glorify Christ and convict the world in respect of him. St Paul reveals that appeals to the Spirit and the Spirit’s manifestation required testing in the earliest Christian Churches, especially those with large gentile numbers. Discerning the work and person of God the Holy Spirit was necessary and was an evangelical challenge.
John and Acts provide the record given to the church so that the Holy Spirit’s work might be recognised, adjudicated, and confessed. The Holy Spirit’s deliverances are those of the Risen and Ascended Christ, in agreement with the providential will of the Father as expressed in the Law and the Prophets, whose subject matter is Christ, latent and now patent (St Augustine). The Presiding Bishop’s account of the Spirit as bringing a truth without prior testimony or dominical warrant, which at the same time gives rise to diversity as a pentecostal gift, diverges in extreme ways from the Gospel of John and the Acts of the Apostles. It is a teaching lacking continuity and agreement with the witness of Christians in our present day, in the worldwide body, and because without biblical warrant, it is also nowhere attested in the history of the church’s teaching.
We conclude this teaching comes from a conviction already held, independently of what is customarily sought in respect of a warrant of God the Holy Spirit (see the Catechism of the BCP), because of cultural assumptions about the intentions of sexual activity in our age and because TEC has already acted on these.
The PB’s statements are even at odds with her own Prayer Book which simply and clearly states: “We recognize truths to be taught by the Holy Spirit when they are in accord with the Scriptures.” BCP 853.
A good and encouraging exposition by Professor Seitz of what the Bible has to say about the nature and actions of the Holy Spirit.
Dr. Seitz you get three thumbs up!
One for your thorough exegetical work and…
Two for your intentional connection of these passages to orthodox Christian creedal theology and…
Three for your graciousness in refuting the PB’s “novel” attempt to fit a square peg in a round exegetical and theological hole.
Thank you.
This is very helpful. I couldn’t help thinking about the contrast between KJS’ musings and the Benedict XVI’s [url=http://www.zenit.org/article-29347?l=english]Pentecost sermon:[/url]
[blockquote]The account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles — we listened to it in the first reading (Acts 2:1-11) — presents the “new course†of the work that God began with Christ’s resurrection, a work that involves man, history and the cosmos. The Son of God, dead and risen and returned to the Father, now breathes with untold energy the divine breath upon humanity, the Holy Spirit. And what does this new and powerful self-communication of God produce? Where there are divisions and estrangement he creates unity and understanding. The Spirit triggers a process of reunification of the divided and dispersed parts of the human family; persons, often reduced to individuals in competition or in conflict with each other, reached by the Spirit of Christ, open themselves to the experience of communion, can involve them to such an extent as to make of them a new organism, a new subject: the Church. This is the effect of God’s work: unity; thus unity is the sign of recognition, the “business card†of the Church in the course of her universal history. [bold]From the very beginning, from the day of Pentecost, she speaks all languages. The universal Church precedes the particular Churches, and the latter must always conform to the former according to a criterion of unity and universality. The Church never remains a prisoner within political, racial and cultural confines; she cannot be confused with states not with federations of states, because her unity is of a different type and aspires to transcend every human frontier.
From this, dear brothers, there derives a practical criterion of discernment for Christian life: When a person or a community, limits itself to its own way of thinking and acting, it is a sign that it has distanced itself from the Holy Spirit.[/bold] The path of Christians and of the particular Churches must always confront itself with the path of the one and catholic Church, and harmonize with it. This does not mean that the unity created by the Holy Spirit is a kind of homogenization. On the contrary, that is rather the model of Babel, that is, the imposition of a culture of unity that we could call “technological.†The Bible, in fact, tells us (cf. Genesis 11:1-9) that in Babel everyone spoke the same language. At Pentecost, however, the Apostles speak different languages in such a way that everyone understands the message in his own tongue. The unity of the Spirit is manifested in the plurality of understanding. The Church is one and multiple by her nature, destined as she is to live among all nations, all peoples, and in the most diverse social contexts. She responds to her vocation to be a sign and instrument of unity of the human race (cf. “Lumen Gentium,†1) only if she remains free from every state and every particular culture. Always and in every place the Church must truly be catholic and universal, the house of all in which each one can find a place.[/blockquote]
Well done.
Christopher Seitz:
[blockquote]”This is indeed a question before the church regarding the work of the Holy Spirit properly understood, and she is right to focus her discussion on this crucial theological confession.”[/blockquote]
I wonder if her intent was to get into a theological discussion on discerning the work of the Holy Spirit. It appears to me that she is assuming that there is no need for discussion.
#7. For the record. I was not assessing her intent. I was describing the ‘rightness’ of her decision outside of her intent, as it means an evaluation is possible. The appeal to feelings and interior convictions is the usual route for change agents. By moving into theology/exegesis, even in the very vague way she has done, she exposes the problem of her advocacy. Note that she cannot even with conviction say the Holy Spirit warrants X or Y. She can only muster a ‘seems like’. But what is genuinely necessary for a new teaching is theological and biblical warrant, and she appears to get that if even against her will and certainly as against her skill set as a Christian leader. The appeal to general themes of the bible is surely an afterthought, occasioned by RDW’s use of Pentecost and citations of John. So she decided to follow him. I do not think that was wise, but it may be necessary for her to present herself as a theologian and a wise alternative to the theology of the ABC. Such is our season.
[b][i]8. Rev. Professor Seitz[/i][/b],
There is a broadly similar battle going on in the Catholic Church to which I now belong. In reading your paper, I was very quickly reminded of Pope Benedict’s words on the [i]Hermeneutic of Continuity[/i], which is, I think, also related to his Pentecost sermon, excerpted by Fr. Allen, at comment [b]5[/b], above.
Clearly, I agree with the Holy Father, but I also think you are correct in your assessment. If she wishes to defend this innovation in TEC, her choice of Biblical texts was unwise, probably in the extreme—an opinion which you have demonstrated with exceptional lucidity.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
Praise God for the Rev. Chris Seitz! O that the Lord would raise up many more like him!
Oh my. I wonder who advised PB Kate to try a theological argument in response to the ABC?! I guess that same person forgot to remind her that he is a highly regarded theologian and academic who, while remaining personally more liberal, has a body of work that is esteemed in many circles and churches.
Dr. Seitz
I love the following line:
[blockquote] We are grateful that the Presiding Bishop has sought to ground her appeal to diversity and new truth in a public message available for the Church’s evaluation and testing. [/blockquote]
Since the ++KJS letter seems to be a striking “call to arms†for the reappraisers within TEC, it’s quite helpful to have the theological justification within it taken apart so carefully and graciously. Especially so because her justification has been used by other TEC Bishops and Same Sex union advocates.
Well done.
She had to venture forth at some point, in biblical theology. I think you can thank the ABoC for that one. If he hadn’t written his Pastoral Letter clearly with the Feast of Pentecost in mind, she wouldn’t have had to provide her retort in the same light. To wit, her letter is AFter Pentecost, when her other Festival letters are well ahead of time.
So – given the timing – now she has to resort to her own choice of Pentecost scripture and focus, but only to try to bring some sort of biblical bearing to what she really wanted to say. Even then, she completely blew the biblical part, as I pointed to in my own response to her letter (actually my response was limited to her comments and Acts 2 quote in her Pentecost preamble).
In this regard, there will be people who disregard Chris’ response also recognizing that the PB’s rebuttal to the ABoC was all about the rebuttal and not about scripture.
But, then, that is one of Chris’ points, isn’t it.
Here is the irony. I will agree with Chris that the Holy Spirit had his hand in the PB’s letter. Despite, as I am suggesting, she only included Pentecost scripture because the ABoC did it first (so to speak), her letter does indeed reflect her Holy Spirit theology, or at least ragged components of it. As I shared in my response, and as Chris has exhaustively pointed out in his (his response makes mine look convoluted), making use of the Pentecost scripture of Acts 1 and 2, and the John material in Jesus’ discourses to the disciples regarding the Holy Spirit, her discussion makes clear a mistaken understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit.
Why indeed would the Holy Spirit want this to be said in this way? Because it is not just unfortunate — it is tragic and destructive. Why? Because we are dealing with praxis. Real application of the truth as God has provided for it.
This is indeed the right place, Chris, to focus this part of the war on and of the bible.
This is a debate which has been with us at least since Newman wrote his essay on the development of doctrine. One of the problems the theory raises is the matter of authority. Who or what determines that a “new” doctrine is “of the Holy Spirit”? Rome in a sense answered the question in papal infallibility, and at least in the matter of the ordination of women, John Paul limited papal authority by requiring Scriptural reference. (I’m not arguing for or against WO here.) Classical Anglicanism has been accused of archeological religion by rooting doctrinal development in the Early Church period. The Orthodox Churches advance the theory that a General Council may approve a doctrine generally received, rooted in Scripture and Tradition.
In an odd way the Charismatic Revival in the late 20th Century has been grasped by “progressives” as an answer to the question. Thus +Katharine’s letter is concerned not in finding a Scriptural authority for a new doctrine of Matrimony, but rather Scriptural authority for a belief that the Holy Spirit reveals doctrine out of thin air, if you will excuse the pun. At root we have an unbalanced Trinitarianism which takes away the concept that the Holy Spirit makes clear the teachings of Jesus as contained in Scripture and replaces it with a concept that the Holy Spirit reveals teachings which have not the slightest reference to Scripture and Tradition or general reception affirmed by a General Council.
If Truth has never changed and will never change, then the entire concept of “new truth” seems to me to be based on a false premise and nonsensical. Further, the PB’s stance in favor of “Not Unity in Diversity but Same-Source, Separate Revelation” seems a very convenient argument that would permit a variety of understandings to retain equally and valid positions in the Church, presenting a superficial appearance of a form of unity, while the reality is that a legitimate, scripturally-based understanding of the Truth would not lead to a unity that is based more on convenience than on understanding of the Truth. It’s troubling to me that there seems to be a desire to “resolve” the continuing conflict on superficial, politically-oriented bases, because the conflict is about Truth and it should be obvious that any approach to resolving the confict that avoids the issue of what the nature of Truth is and how that nature is discerned will go nowhere in resolving the conflict, and only result in greater detriment to the mission of the Church.