On Pentecost Sunday all hell broke loose in Rome. Following Mass that day, the unpredictable Pope Francis laid hands on a demon-possessed man from Mexico and prayed for him. The YouTube video of this encounter was flashed around the world, and the story caught fire: Is Pope Francis an exorcist? The Holy Father’s Vatican handlers were quick to deny such. The pope simply offered a prayer of deliverance for the distraught man, it was said. Exorcism in the Catholic Church is a sacramental, a sacred act producing a spiritual effect, which must be done according to the officially prescribed Rite of Exorcism. And yet what the pope did on Pentecost Sunday in St. Peter’s Square was more than a simple prayer for someone to get better. It looked for all the world like a real act of spiritual warfare.
Timothy GeorgeThe scene now shifts to South America, the continent where Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born and has spent most of his life. The place: All Saints Church, in Steenrijk, Curaçao, in the Anglican Diocese of Venezuela. The date: May 12, 2013, one week before the pope’s exorcism-like event in Rome. The preacher: The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church (formerly known as ECUSA). When she was elected to her post in 2006, Father Richard John Neuhaus described it as an occasion of great sadness. His reaction reflected neither personal animus nor schadenfreudlich glee. Rather, he saw her accession to this high office as likely to deepen the pain and division within the Christian community. Sadly, he was right.
In Venezuela, Bishop Katharine also confronted a demon””the one found in her sermon text for the day, Acts 16:16-24. This is Luke’s account of Paul’s exorcism of a manic slave girl in Philippi. The bishop’s sermon was really a polemic against what she called, in postmodernist lingo, “discounting and devaluing difference.”
I’m glad that Timothy George has called attention to the striking and stark contrast between the two leaders and their attitude towards the demonic realm. The more I hear about Pope Francis the more I like the guy. Whereas the more I hear about the PB, the more scorn and disdain I have for her. Her astounding sermon in Venezuela is not just “bizarre,” as +Dan Martins aptly called it on his blog, it illustrates what a friend once said to me, commenting on a mutual pastor friend who had fallen into a serious sin and then engaged in a futile attempt to cover it up, “[i]Sin makes you do stupid things.[/i]” The PB’s stunning twist on the story in Acts 16 is not only sheer nonsense, it is utterly perverse. It’s not just wrong, it’s simply stupid. It almost begs for satirical treatmejnt.
The PB turns the text in Acts on its head, imagining somehow that Paul is the bad guy, and totally discounting the very idea that the slave girl’s prophetic powers were demonic in origin. The stern rebuke of the prophet Isaiah comes to mind: “[i]Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil![/i]” (Isaiah 5:20).
The silence of the left wing of TEC over this embarrassing incident is notable. Nobody seems to want to come to the PB’s defense after such a lame, pathetic sermon. It reminds me of the famous tale of Hans Christian Anderson, [b]The Emperor’s New Clothes.[/b] The PB, like that foolish emperor, is surrounded by people who hesitate to point out the obvious, that the leader has become a laughingstock. And so it is left to a Baptist seminary leader, Timothy George, to play the part of the small boy who yells out in stonishment that the emperor on parade is flaunting supposedly fashionable ideas, I mean clothes, that expose him/her to ridicule as naked.
David Handy+
Eisegesis triumphs again. Demons and gods, apparently like squids, have little to distinguish them, especially to the Dean of the Good Samaritan School of Theology. That pestilential Paul has been up to his proclamation of the Gospel and the PB that of the Gozpell (TM).
Rev. Handy,
It bothers me a bit that I have only seen this PB appalling sermon story spun around Baptist circles. Has anyone verified that the sermon was written and preached with the meaning and intent that is widely being reported on the Internet? Quite honestly, the very fact you mentioned — that the usual suspects aren`t offering all sorts of spin and explanations — has me scratching my head. That, and the Baptist stories I have seen are very disjointed, terrible “translations.” When folks have asked for clarification of points and sources, no one has responded.
I know she`s no theologian and she isn`t a good preacher. This PB wasn`t elected for her spiritual gifts, but this doesn`t seem like her style, either.
Btw, this column and others I have seen use the same phrases and language from the sermon but no one I have read yet provides references, details, and official quotes from the sermon, someone who had a copy of it, was there, heard it, etc. I am not insinuating anything. I am simply cautious. I have also known how easy it is to run with something, thinking someone had a hard copy and triple-checked but nope.
From the Episcopal News Service:
http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2013/05/13/presiding-bishop-preaches-in-curacao-diocese-of-venezuela/
Is the PB’s exegesis related to the “upward fall” interpretation of Genesis 3 in which the issues is not disobedience but human freedom?
Thank you, Charles52. Good to be able to read the full text, not just snippets.
RE: “It bothers me a bit that I have only seen this PB appalling sermon story spun around Baptist circles. Has anyone verified that the sermon was written and preached with the meaning and intent that is widely being reported on the Internet?”
All the blogs of which I’m aware were responding and linked to the ENS transcript of the sermon. I haven’t read any Baptist blogging about it, either. ENS posted its transcript and then the blogging began, linking to the ENS-posted sermon.
I’d be interested in the Baptist take on it, though, if there are any links available of that. All I’ve seen are the Anglican blogs and the First Things one.
Charles52 (#5),
I too thiank you for providing the link. It’s typical, of course, for ENS to publish the PB’s sermons, but it’s still remarkable that they went ahead with this appalling example of the PB at her worst. It may be pointless to speculate about the reasons for the awkward silence from the PB’s normal defenders, or the equally significant and notable silence on the part of her critics, especially among the small remnant of orthodox bishops left in the HoB. It’s tempting, of course, to assume that no one DARES (except +Dan Matins, to his credit) to critcize publicly this ridiculous sermon, when KJS has been successful in deposing her most outspoken opponents in the HoB.
OTOH, the PB’s perverse twisting of the sacred text is so blatant, blasphemous, and downright silly that probably many of them feel like it stands self-condemned. Who needs to say anything when the PB engages in such suicidal behavior?? Still, I wish that godly bishops like Bill Love of Albany or Jim Staunton of Dallas or Greg Brewer in Orlando had joined Dan Martins of Springfield in denouncing the PB’s obscene abuse of Holy Scripture.
Finally, Elves, I recognize that I was pushing the envelope with my expression of open scorn and disdain for the PB above. I know how unedifying that is and I had some qualms about venting my contempt in so public a fashion. So let me clarify my stance. I regard the PB’s remarks as contemtible and reprehensible, but she herself I would regard with pity. This incident in Venezuela exposes the fact that the woman is totally self-deceived. The Father of Lies has completely beguiled her and she has clearly lost her senses. She is not the enemy, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the very principalities and evil powers in the spiritual realm whose reality she denies.
David Handy+
Let me see if I can dig them up, Sarah. I saw them via my Baptist friends on Facebook but it`s been a few weeks. The theme was along the lines of “this is what happens when your church puts a woman in authority over men” so the lens through which it was viewed was a bit clouded from the start of its exegesis.
That is why I was interested in reading the whole sermon and, as truly bad as it was, it wasn`t quite as bad as what a few Baptist preachers wrote. I read that she said Jesus` death on the Cross wasn`t necessary, and that`s what I wanted to see if she expressed that in any way.
RE: “via my Baptist friends on Facebook” . . .
[i]Ah hah![/i] There is your problem!
“Baptist” and “friends” and “Facebook” . . . [i]what could possible go wrong?[/i]
; > )