One of the primary strengths of the Episcopal Church is that we don’t require you to leave your brain at the church door.
We believe Jesus’ words that we heard in today’s Gospel, that we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and all our souls, and all our minds. Certainly we know that there are mysteries in faith beyond our understanding, but we also know that God expects us to use our God-given intelligence.
Another strength of the Episcopal Church is our comfort with ambiguity. We know that the world is not black and white, and efforts to divide is, and our faith, up that way will not sustain us for long.
That does not mean we do not know the difference between right and wrong, or that “anything goes,” as our critics sometimes charge. It does mean that we recognize that the world is a complex place, and there are times when there is no absolute answer or “one size fits all” solution to a problem.
[blockquote]One of the primary strengths of the Episcopal Church is that we don’t require you to leave your brain at the church door.[/blockquote]
UGH. I’m so SICK of this cliche that it makes me want to gag whenever I read it.
I wonder who first said it / wrote it. It seems they should have copyrighted the phrase. They’d now be rich it has been uttered or written so many times by TEC leaders. It’s an incredible example of how some phrase or practice can so insidiously worm its way into an organization or culture and become a very powerful controlling deceit.
Is this supposed to be a sermon? This seems to have been delivered in a church service inbetween Bible readings. Was this the minister’s idea of preaching the word of God?
If it was, then maybe the text was Luke 18:11.
Nonetheless, enjoyed how the Episcopalian Church can be both giving full support to ambiguity and all the typical progressive causes [i]at the same time[/i]. I think it would be more precise to say, not that “Another strength of the Episcopal Church is our comfort with ambiguity”, but that “Another strength of the Episcopal Church is our comfort with ambiguity [i]where Christians have historically sought clarity and confessional boundaries[/i] and [i]no ambiguity at all[/i] in our support for the causes promoted by the Democratic Party and the NYTimes. ”
That’s more of a mouthful, but it better reflects this speech.
Perhaps this is the money quote:
[blockquote]The only time I feel a little bit envious of Southern Baptists is when I drive past the full parking lots in the Baptist Church on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings, even in the summer.[/blockquote]
Goodness, what is it with all these people queueing up to leave their brains at the door?
One other thing I noted when I read it in full… this was supposed to be a piece about “what I love about the Episcopal Church,” but the whole thing was structured as a refutation of supposed criticisms by unnamed people against TEC. It was all a case of responding to purported “hearsay” with trite cliches.
Now if she really HAD given a POSITIVE exposition of the beauty of the liturgy or awe in worship or whatever… it might have been more powerful. But purely on a rhetorical level this failed because it was something of a case of “me thinks thou dost protest too much!”
Who spends time praising their beloved by saying: “well, some say that you’re ugly, but I actually kind of like that wart on your nose or am proud that you don’t conform to traditional standards of beauty” LOL!
And oh that instead of trying to preach about what she “loves” about TEC, this rector instead would have proclaimed all that there is to love in Jesus and exalted HIS beauty, glory and majesty. Now THAT is a topic worth preaching on! 🙂
Yeah, yeah, yeah, fish in a barrel, target-rich environment and all that. Wouldn’t want to spoil anybody’s fun – after all, it’s only too obvious that people with actual brains don’t brag about how they didn’t “check them at the door” – but is there anything in this piece worthy of serious adult contemplation?
I honestly don’t know. I’d like to say that there are sad, damaged people who need the little ego boost that comes with seeing themselves as an elite intellectual group and once you’ve tossed them a little flattery, they can then go on to whatever they’re capable of in the way of Christian commitment and worship. Aging Leftists need spiritual care as much as anybody else, and as long as they are caring for the people they actually meet and reserving their feelings of superiority and disdain for people “out there” that they never actually encounter, then the charity (as Lewis noted in the second Screwtape Letter) becomes mostly real for being directed at real people and the disdain less and less so for being directed at imagined targets.
That would be my hope, I suppose. I know plenty of older folks who turn out every four years to give Adlai Stevenson another vote. This stuff might appeal and might draw them into a reasonable semblance of Christian life. The dangers are only too obvious and I expect others here will note them. Nevertheless, I’d like to think that in a limited way, the rather trifling world of liberal churchmanship can do the Lord’s work nonetheless. Hope is ever a virtue.
Since 1990 or so, I believe the number of people in the US with graduate degrees has increased by about a third, and the membership of TEC has dropped by around a quarter (which is probably generous). So people do seem to be getting smarter.
“One of the primary strengths of the Episcopal Church is that we don’t require you to leave your brain at the church door.”
As long, of course, as your brain has been thoroughly indoctrinated in leftist values and convictions. Conservatives need to leave their brains for some re-conditioning before they are allowed to speak.
I currently attend a Christian Reformed Church. There are three adult Sunday School classes, with over 50 adults in attendance. The one I attend is studying the Canons of Dort, which is pretty heavy-duty theology. The church has about a 50-50 ratio of men to women, and in fact, the number of single men between 25 and 65 exceeds the number of single women. How many Episcopal churches could say that. Well over half the congregation has at least 2 years of college, and many have degrees.
The members of this CRC congregation have not checked their brains at the door – and furthermore, they use their brains!
Re # 5
Daniel,
[blockquote] but is there anything in this piece worthy of serious adult contemplation?[/blockquote]
No.
Not leaving your brains at the front door is Episcospeak for believing any thing you want to believe. Since the historic creeds are liturgy, you do not have to believe them. And scripture turns out to be any thing you want it to be. This is why TEC is different from other churches.
Dear Father Harmon:
It seems that my responses have been blocked, and I accept and even bless your decision. However, the vile and unholy responses that I see here in response to Patricia Temptleton’s “What is Right with the Episcopal Church” only reinforce my perception that you are overseeing a nice little intellectual concentration camp for hate-filled, embittered Episcopalians, ex-Episcopalians, and haters of the Episcopal Church in general–people who have been profoundly distracted from the reality of Jesus Christ and have willingly accepted the poison Kool Aid of pharisaism. If these folks were being nourished at the true vine, would they be so bitter and poisonous. If they hate the Episcopal Church so much, they should shake the dust off their feet and move on. Those of us who love the Church are doing our best and letting our Lord Jesus Christ take care of the rest. What more can we do? It’s been my experience that “conservative” Christians love “conservatism” more than they love Christ. Peace!
Sam Cuthbert
The sermoner/rector’s approach in this sermon involves the heavy usage of setting up a series of “straw” men/women that differ from her view of what TEC should be doing or stand for in these times, and then rhetorically knocking down the straw men/women. It an ineffectual rhetorical approach in my opinion, and places the Church in a position that isn’t apropos. While it’s a truism that every Christian has some innate inclinations that relate to what Christian denomination/congregation are the most likely best “fit” for the individual in his or her walk through life (I’ve found mine to be more likely in the liberal wing of a conservative denomination), some find their best fit in the conservative wing of a liberal denomination, others in the conservative or middle wing of a conservative denomination, still others in the liberal or middle wing of a liberal denomination. The important point is that in effect, denigration of more conservative Christian points of view, which may be thought, positively-speaking as representing a desirable “narrow way” per Scripture, is NOT a liberal attitude of mind at all. It amounts to believing that one has a liberal attitude ONLY if he or she supports points of view that are more liberal than the point of view being criticized.
She left out the one about the three-cornered stool. What’s the point of doing something like this if you leave out the one about the three-cornered stool?
From the article: [blockquote]It does mean that we recognize that the world is a complex place, and there are times when there is no absolute answer or “one size fits all†solution to a problem.[/blockquote]
Except that there [i][b]is[/b][/i] an absolute answer and a one-size-fits-all solution to all our problems: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
What is so comical to me about the claim that one doesn’t have to leave one’s brain at the door when in an Episcopal church, is that the only time I was ever asked to not use my brain in church was precisely in an Episcopal church by an Episcopal priest.
After the service, I indicated that the sermon seemed to me to use Buddhist ideas: the priest had spoken of needing to give up all our desires, even those for God. Upon hearing my complaint, the priest opined that maybe I was thinking too much, and instead of analyzing things, I should just accept what was said.
The basis of the problem, of which this statement is a symptom, is that it is most often aimed at other church groups, bodies, denominations. It fosters a stereotype of which the unchurched are not usually aware, however. All it does is to make “us” feel better and affirm our belief that we are better than any other denomination. And besides affirming ourselves for ourselves, it assures those who have left their “old” church in anger, dissension and frustration, and some pain, that they have found greener pastures. Instead of bringing healing, and sending people back, it fosters an environment of dissension, and – in opposition to the very prayer of Jesus – at the expense of the rest of the Body of Christ. Call it popularist elitism.
Ironically, lots of non-Episcopal churches use the same phrase, probably pulling in some disgruntled Episcopalians! So who is better now?
Now, if the idiom (which I couldn’t identify its earliest use) was meant not in a corporate manner, but rather as an exhortation to the individual Christian, then fine, as in “when you come to Church please don’t leave your brain at the door.” Then the phrase suddenly is able to be useful for a wide range of contexts.