They argued so much. That was my overriding impression of the early church when I saw the book of Acts on a movie screen for the first time. All churches have disagreements, they always have. But when the arguing turns to strife, watch out.
Two recent experiences brought this to mind. The first was when something I said was met with criticism (say you are shocked). But it wasn’t the disagreement that surprised me; it was the sharpness of it. There seemed little charity and instead harshness and even enmity. It was out of all proportion to both the words and the context.
The second came when I chose to reascend the great mountain of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Like all truly great works, it always repays greatly upon its rereading.
One scene from The Inferno struck me more than all the others this time. It is a harrowing portrayal of a disagreement gone wrong.
When he gets to near the very bottom of hell, Dante meets a man whose name is Ugolino who tells him his story. He was the city manager of Pisa, placed there by Ruggieri, the archbishop. Ugolino was a Guelf, and Ruggieri was a Ghibeline. The Guelf-Ghibeline battle was literally devouring Italy at the time, and the two formed a secret alliance from opposite sides.
The deal was simple. Ruggieri the archbishop would name Ugolino as city manager of Pisa, and in return Ugolino would undermine the Guelf control of the area from the inside and gain authority for the archbishop. It was a plot to seize power and betray the city of Pisa.
What happened is a devastating story of betrayal, counter-betrayal, and treachery. Almost immediately after Ruggieri gives Ugolino his new position, the archbishop realizes he has made a mistake. He then seeks to undermine the very person he has just named to his new position. Ugolino recognizes what is occurring and retaliates.
The brutal battle gets so bad between them that eventually Ugolino is captured by the archbishop and, along with his descendants, imprisoned in a tower. Then one day, at the time when they normally receive their food, Ugolino hears the door of the room being nailed shut. He now knows he and his offspring will be slowly starved to death.
As time wears on Ugolino starts eating his hands out of hunger, and his offsping offer to allow him to eat them instead. In agony he refuses. After four days, one son throws himself with outstretched hands at his father’s feet begging for help. Ugolino then tells us what happens next:
There he died; and, as thou seest me,
I saw the three fall, one by one,
between
The fifth day and the sixth; whence
I betook me,Already blind, to groping over each,
And three days called them after
they were dead;
Then hunger did what sorrow could
not do.
What did hunger do? Dante depicts here a man who in total desperation devours his own children’s dead flesh so as to sustain himself just a little while longer. In the context it is clear that as he is eating, his life has become nothing more than focusing on his hatred of, and desire for vengeance upon, the archbishop who betrayed him.
And what is Ugolino doing when Dante meets him in hell? He is gnawing upon the head of Ruggieri. Both men are encased in ice up to their necks.
Beneath every disagreement is the possibility of enmity and strife that can kill. Saint Paul knew that, which is one reason he pleaded for his readers to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Dante knew it too, which is why he provides his shocking portrayal of Ugolino and Ruggieri in hell.
I am praying that we may relearn it so as not to become encased in icy hearts seeking to devour others.
— The Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall S. Harmon is Canon Theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina and Convenor of this blog
Jesus taught that we are His when we forgive and extend to others the grace He extends to us.
Yes, Amen.
Canon Harmon, you are the mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit in this post. Just this morning, I expressed to friends that I can now be counted among the Christian unchurched, so distraught have I been over the strife in our church. Rather than leading people to Christ, the church’s bickering and battle line-drawing have become an impediment, one which I’m close to deciding I can’t allow to further strain and weary my soul.
Prayers that our leaders will take to heart your wise instruction.
#4 teatime – read John Stott’s address further down the page and take comfort that He is in charge. Trust things are ok with you at the moment.
God bless
PM
Dear Kendall:
Right before I read this I had finished a talk with my deacon. I had said, “How it amazes me that I expect so much grace for myself but find myself quick to dispense with it with others.”
We are so much like the man forgiven so many debts so little inclined to forgive the debts of another.
May we be sensible of it, and seek to reform our hearts before requiring it of another.
Amen and amen.
Kendall, this is quantum overkill, rhetorical blanket bombing. The sturm und drang we are presently passing through is nothing at all like the Inferno tale. Nothing. Indeed, one of the remarkable things about it is the civility that has marked the hostilities. We have not had face-to-face confrontations of threat and counter-threat. We have had instead endless meetings, discussions, synods,confabulations and divigations. It is not civility that is lacking, it is leadership.
The conflict between Guelph and Ghibeline was real war, the real bloody thing, and the tale of Ugolino is just one tale in a long and brutal battle.
How can you justify making a comparison? If you say to me that contemporary American society has created a new and heartless level of misery for mankind, I will agree. The US has made stress, abrasion, falsity,haste and greed make the OLd Days,( when a trip to the dentist – ah I remember! – a nightmare, and a case of measles fatal), look like a golden age. I for one would not hesitate to go back to 1940. (Kill your television!) But your entry here serves no purpose than to exacerbate the church’s problems, which are, I trust all you will recall, a matter of small consequence to the bulk of the US. Internecine struggles among the lawn sleeves and the well-heeled: What does the rest of the world care? Petty princelings fighting over
territory and dogmas. Even where larger issues are involved – what are we to do with homosexuals and the homosexual agenda which affects our entire culture – are largely bloodless, and are carried on among legislators and the courts and other ill-employed. Your entry is simply hyperbolic. LM
Kendall, Thank you so much for this! There been a lot of venting emotion more than debate recently and I fear we’ve not shown one much charity over the last week or so. May we learn to love others as Christ loved us.
[b]Larry Morse[/b]
[blockquote] The sturm und drang we are presently passing through is nothing at all like the Inferno tale. Nothing. Indeed, one of the remarkable things about it is the civility that has marked the hostilities.[/blockquote]
Larry, don’t know what has gone on in your diocese – but a former diocese of mine, which oft does not make the news (e.g. the diocese isn’t currently suing anyone) we’ve had priests barred from going into the diocese because they are orthodox – and maligned, we’ve had orthodox priests abandon their beliefs in order to fit in, we’ve had the bishop and the priest work in concert to get orthodox Christians to leave their church – with great duplicitious games and other things that weren’t quite ‘kosher’ to put it nicely, we’ve had orthodox priests loose their parishes because they were orthodox… this is just the little I personally know of.
If you do not appreciate how angry that makes one about the injustice of the situation – and the difficulty it is not to want to retaliate and treat some of these people with bitterness, anger, and plain derision then you underestimate what it feels like to be in such a vice-grip.
So, we pray for them, try to treat them with respect, and do what is right. We also have to pray to let the ‘right to retaliate’ go.
Otherwise, war or not, you are stuck in a mental Inferno with injustice as the ice and malice as your teeth – with bitterness as the harvest.
This is brilliant.
Devouring the children is how it feels to the families and church laity. They cannot endure the strife and intrigue.
Beg your pardon Eclipse, but what you don’t do is roll over and play dead – the Christian dead, of course, forgiving your enemies and turning yourself into a doormat. What do you do? You fight back; you give and take the hits and the blood because you are fighting for something that validates the bloodshed.
Why is it that spinelessness is seen as Christian? Remember Christ with the moneychangers. He didn’t stroll through there, saying, “My goodness, this is ill done and I am afraid you really must leave quietly or else I will have to forgive you and pray for you.” No, he was ripped and he kicked their a…s out of there.
Those who permit injustice install injustice. Stop wringing your hands, for Heaven’s sake. Have the courage to be judgmental and then you bring the heat. I am so tired of listening to this mewling and puking and calling it Christ-like. You have turned Him into a wimp. No wonder people complain that Anglicanism is a woman’s club.
Larry, really don’t appreciate the tone of your remarks to Eclipse. (Especially the “doormat” remark and the “stop wringing your hands” part — it comes across as very judgmental. You don’t know what she has or hasn’t done in terms of actions.) And in any case, she and all commenters is/are entitled to her/their opinion.
And perhaps some Christians are what you view as spineless because of Jesus’ exhortations on the sermon on the mount you know, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile. That stuff.
Sorry, I’m being a bit cheeky myself here, but we don’t appreciate it when commenters denigrate the comments of other commenters. Make your point that you disagree. But do so charitably and without so much name calling and accusation. Thanks.
–elfgirl
Dr: Harmon: Which translation of The Divine Comedy did you use?
Eclipse: Please accept my apologies. The elves have kicked my a.. and rightly so. I do get angry at the notion that Christianity requires passive aceptance of all that is patently wrong, because this is not Christ’s attitude. Turn the other cheek? So He says. But then, what do you make of Christ and the money changers?
When He said to render unto Caesar those things that are his, he was admitting that the secular world and the sacred world each have their own legitimate identities and that even He has to admit it. The money changers are Caesar’s world trespassing on the sacred world, overlapping it, so to speak, and He said He would not bear that. Spiritually, then, one turns the other cheek; practically, you take the bad guys on and give’ em hell. It seemed to me that you were also overlapping territories, if I may call it that. Forgive whom you will, but the wrongdoing you speak of is of a practical sort, disgraceful manipulations: These are your money-changers and I am saying that you should not let them use the forgive-your-neighbors posture as a means of getting away with manipulating the world for their own benefit and agendas.
Are you really unwilling to fight back? If so, how will you keep the worst elements from controlling what they will if they know they will receive no check in their depredations? This is not a rhetorical question. I hope you will respond, for this issue – what does a Christian do to defeat his enemies? – is almost never answered directly because the answer is so complicated and the scriptural message so contradictory. Well, mea culpa. I will be more self-disciplined. Larry
the elves wrote:
[i]rn the other cheek, … Sorry, I’m being a bit cheeky myself here, [/i]
LOL, I found that a funny transposition! 😉
Larry:
Thanks – sorry been off-line most of the day. Do not think what I was implying was allowing apostasy. I DID fight the good fight against ECUSA for 3 years – trying to salvage my church and the diocese from the evil which now pervades it. Many of us had to stand and fight for the truth and the Faith.
It’s a very long story what I have dealt with from 2003 – 2006, but let’s just say the part I played during that period was a very hard one – I was on my parish council – and I fought to do what was right for Christ, for my parish, and in relationship with my diocese. I didn’t ‘roll over’ – LOL!! No, indeed, I think my former bishop would term me ‘rather meddlesome indeed’ to put it mildly… I do not repent one whit for standing for the Authority of Scripture, Jesus as the Christ nor for doing what I could to get my parish to understand what was at stake and align with the ACN.
We ultimately had to part ways with some of our church community, loose our building, and begin again somewhere else. To get to that point of leaving was very difficult and hard on our fellowship. We lost our building, but not our foundation – and the Foundation was what the fight was ultimately about.
So, no, we do not stand aside in the name of ‘forgiveness’ and let evil reign for ‘Love does not rejoice in evil, but rejoices when truth wins out’. However, we do need to ‘not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good’.
I so wish I could tell you that those from the opposition I with whom I dealt I always treated with grace and forgiveness – that I always spoke ‘the truth in love’. However, my failing is TOO often not doing these things – holding grudges, being too quick to judge, being resentful and wanting revenge… especially when injustice is involved – which was the case in my situation…
However, that is not our calling. Our calling is to overcome that evil with good – pray for our enemies – let those injuries be healed with the cross of Christ. The only person who is harmed by my holding resentment is myself. God will take care of the injustices I could not overcome… I need to allow Him to do that… and ECUSA is its own worst enemy. Twenty years from now will prove that more conclusively than either of us can dream of – and without one malicious or ungracious act on our parts.
Our calling is to stand in the truth – but also to stand in love. If we can balance both we will be where God wants us to be.
Does that make sense?