Various groups of bishops are having lots of meetings about the future of the Episcopal Church ("TEC"). That’s because elements of the scripturalist school of thought have been working to separate their dioceses and parishes from what they regard as the apostacy of the more-liberal wing. The blogosphere is full of thundering denunciations. (See also Tobias Haller’s post of today, The Widow and Her Church: A Parable.)
I’m starting to think, however, that a separation of the various factions within TEC into separate churches might be a good thing in the long run.
Progress Comes from a Repeating
Process of Variation and Testing
Recall that much progress happens through trial and error, involving a repeating process of variation and testing that goes something like this:
- Generate a lot of ideas — a lot of imagined variations on the way the universe could be — using our existing knowledge of the way the universe is;
- Weed out the imagined variations that seem to be obvious "losers" (although sometimes the apparent loser variations are the ones that prove most fruitful);
- Test each likely "winner" variation in the real world that God created;
- Keep and propagate the variations that actually do seem to work.
- Repeat, indefinitely.
So far as we know, this process has been going on at least since the dawn of human existence. To cite just one example, that’s approximately how agronomists have bred hardy new varieties of wheat and rice that have dramatically increased humanity’s ability to feed itself.
The process is a bit like the Parable of the Sower — except that we seldom know for sure, in advance, which is the good soil that will produce a bumper crop with its own seeds; which the rocky soil that will produce a thin crop, if any; and which the thorns that will choke the seeds.
And the process shows no signs of abating.
Scriptural Hints of the Process
Paul alludes to this process in 1 Thess. 5.16-22: "Be joyful always […] give thanks in all circumstances […]. Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil." (Emphasis added; the above quotation draws on both the NIV and NRSV translations.)
Paul echoes Deut. 18.21-22, which observes that not all prophets are speaking words the LORD told them to say, so we have to wait to see which words are proved true or come to pass; there’s no way to know for certain, in advance, who’s right.
Let’s Help the Scripturalists
Generate and Test Their Variations
In The Current Troubles, both the liberal- and scripturalist sides are proposing new ideas on how we should live together as a church. Each side is declaring that This Is How Things Are, And Therefore This Is How We Must Act. In effect, each side each speaking words of prophecy. That’s a good thing, the generating of variations that can be tested.
Some will say bluntly that no words that contradict Scripture can ever qualify as prophecy and thus the liberal prophecies do not deserve a chance. That, however, implicitly says that everything of importance that God will ever have to say to us is already contained in the Bible. Such a claim seems breathtakingly presumptuous, bordering on blasphemy.
If some of the scripturalists in TEC are bound and determined to separate from the rest of us, we should affirmatively help them do so, instead of opposing them. Let each side sow their seeds, generating and testing its own variations. Eventually we’ll see which seeds bloom, which variations work, and which ones don’t. Maybe they all will. Maybe none of them will.
What Matters is to Make Progress,
Not Which of Us Actually Does So
If the scripturalists’ seeds flourish but not those of the liberals — or vice versa — then so be it. What matters is that collectively we make progress in building the city of God, not which of us happen to be the ones to do so.
And no matter what happens, we can all try to learn from the experience — to figure out why things happened the way they did and to use that new knowledge to do a better job.
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