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The Elephant in the Room I – He Who Takes to the Plough. . .

I would like to begin by mentioning a bit about how this became an . . .”interest” or “issue” of mine. I confess until about three years ago I was oblivious to it. Over the past few years however, I’ve been paying more attention to certain bits & pieces within our community – both in the life of my own synod and in the wider movement, that appear to contribute to, or detract from, our sense of our identity.

This installment is purely experiential – that is to say I’m drawing my conclusion based upon observation of real conversations and events with people in the community. The other posts are more . . . “ethereal” shall we say focussing on thinking and perception rather than emperical data.

One reason why I am uncomfortable with indie clergy being “half in and half out” of the movement is the simple fact that I have witnessed time and again, both in my community, and in other communities, how these folks are constantly looking over their shoulder, or “over the fence” into or at the other church. Let me offer three concrete examples that I have repeatedly witnessed over the years.

Example 1) a comment, along the lines of: “if we do this our Anglican “friends” won’t like us anymore.” Another example of this is “because of the way you celebrated that liturgy, word will get out among the other Anglicans and we wont be taken seriously anymore”

Example 2) a comment: we can’t change this liturgy/teaching because the Romans won’t approve/will be offended

Example 3) The number of newsgroup/list discussions supposedly dedicated to things OC/IC but that instead spend much of their time discussing, describing, debating the Bishop of Rome!

Now, lets talk about the examples. Mind you these are only three examples – and they are all relatively recent too.

Before I get into my themes I’d like to point out (John Plummer and others have probably already pegged it) that example 1 is hysterically funny – I’M AN EASTERNER what the hell do I care about what the Anglicans think!!!

Now that that’s out of the way. . . .

To my mind – all three of these examples point to an inhibition about truly being an indie boy or girl. When we are constantly looking over our shoulder to see if X is nodding in approval, we do not achieve the fullness of being who we are. If any of you have had the experience of an overbearing relative and the struggle of growing out from underneath the shadow of that relative’s approval/disapproval you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

There is an underlying sense of . . .fear. What I find oddly interesting about these and the many experiences like them. . .it reminds me of what it is like for some LGBT folk coming out of the proverbial closet – coming out just enough, but keeping an eye on the closet door because its safe in there. Believe me, for folks coming out of a Roman background, a tradition which has – in PR terms “cornered the market” on “catholic” I do appreciate how scary, shaky, inhibiting coming out of the ecclesiastical closet is – especially if you have a heretofore lifelong association, and most of your mentors and spiritual friends remain in that tradition.

My only comfort, my only counter to that is – in Christ there is freedom. In Christ, the bonds of fear and despair have been shattered forever. In this community – as eccentric, and sometimes wacky as we can be – you’ll find 10 friends for every 1 you may have lost because you have decided to follow the calling of your heart and convert.

Jesus said: he who takes up the plough and looks back is not fit for the kingdom – This is not a “judgement” rather it is a teaching – the idea of a plough is to push forward, to move on from X toward Y. If you take up the plough and stop all the time to look backward, you’ll never reach Y. If you take up the indie ID but spend your time looking over your shoulder – you’ll never leave the threshold, and you’ll never fully experience the joys (and the tribulations) of the indie life of faith.

04/02/2007 | Filed under OC/IC Issues.

  • Chris T.

    I think we’ve all experienced this, and it is vexing. I can think of an exchange I had with one person when the first incomplete draft of my missal was released. This person was worried that if we used anything but what the Romans or Episcopalians use, people would get confused.

    BUT…that kind of behavior is not characteristic of all people who are “half in, half out”. As I mentioned in my comment, what’s important about such folks is whether they have a mature understanding of the relationship between us and Rome (or us and Canterbury, or us and 815, or us and Constantinople). People with a mature understanding of that relationship can be “half in and half out”, because with them, there is a certain hope that some wall will come down or something will be liberalized, but there is neither the expectation that it’s “just around the corner”, nor the belief that everything in this moment must be done with a view toward that eventual liberalization. If someone hopes someday to return to Rome (or TEC or whoever) but is willing to take what comes from living fully as an Indie priest in the meantime, there’s no problem.

    The second point — this kind of obnoxious “but what if” attitude doesn’t always come from the half-in/half-out situation. When I was a UCC/Disciples campus minister, I encountered scads of clergy who were hypersensitive to certain stuff in the liturgy that no lay person on earth cared about. They would come up with these tortured, unpoetic liturgies “for the people” that really left the people unenthused but satisfied some little bugaboo of their own. Low church clericalism.

    Which is just a roundabout way of saying, I guess, when performing ecclesiastical surgery (or contemplating it, as you do in this post), be careful not to cut out too much. I don’t think people who are half-in/half-out are the problem — the attitude about Rome as authoritative, shared by some half-in people and, frankly, some fully-in IC/OC people at times, is the real problem. We mustn’t target all people who would return to Rome if certain things were liberalized — I’m happy to have the grounded, mature ones, and they add a great deal to the movement.

    And the immature ones, well, there’s probably hope for many of them. If we target the bad behavior and don’t try to squash their love of the positive things they left behind.

  • Alexis

    Hi Chris,

    I agree with you entirely that this particular behaviour/attitude is not exclusive to those who are “half in/half out”. It is in my experience, however, a prevalent feature of the “set”.

    Likewise, I accept that within our own ranks (excluding those who are half in/half out – are not too few folk are are very much a part of the “problem” and that is equally vexing but which I think has a different motivation.

    Your position that those who hope to someday return to [insert your favourite christian -ism] so long as they contribute to our community now – is I feel untenable – and this current point – re: the looking over the shoulder – is but one expression of why I believe that this is so, others are forthcoming.

  • The young fogey

    I know an indy bishop and he’s very sensible about not claiming to compete with the big churches but rather filling in the gaps in their care, taking care of people who otherwise would go to no church. That gets my respect even though I’m not an indy. I respect anything with real congregations even if I don’t agree and wouldn’t join.

    Just curious… not to pry but how are you an Easterner? Were you born Orthodox or did you join an Orthodox church at some point? I’d define an Easterner as a member of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox or Assyrian communions OR somebody in a nationalist or true-believer schism from them but ‘still in the family’, like the Greek Old Calendarists, Russian Old Believers and Ukrainian nationalist sects. They are organically related to and don’t differ essentially from Orthodoxy.

    I’m sorry but I don’t consider an indy who adopts Eastern things but is not directly related to the big Eastern churches (I don’t mean ‘lines of succession’ got decades ago – Eastern sacramentology doesn’t work that way and the big Eastern churches disown such successions) an Easterner.

  • Alexis

    It’s a fair question. Given your . . . shall we say “classic” definition I suspect you’ll not agree with my answer – but there ya go.

    First – (tongue in cheek) – erm . . . look at my name! Seriously its a dead give away! An anglo-boy whose family came over on the Mayflower is certainly NOT going to have a name like mine (he he he)! So I do have an organic connection to Eastern Christianity via my own personal heritage.

    That however, in my mind, is not good enough – to follow a tradition merely because it is somehow linked to your ethnic or national identity and pride is I think thoughtless. That is to say, it may be authentic, but it may not necessarily be considered.

    The “classic” definition raises a few curiosities, for example:

    How is a Westerner defined? Strictly speaking one could argue that unless one is a Roman, Anglican, or possibly a Lutheran, or Calvinist, one cannot really tag one’s self as being a Westerner. Thus, people who are part of the “emerging Christian” community – that mostly, at least here in the UK eschews all attachment to a given denomination – are not strictly speaking (Oh My God I’m sounding like Nestorius!) “Western Christians” so what are they?

    Again, I consider the churches in Africa, particularly those currently part of the “Anglican Communion”. These communities are “politically” linked to, and have their historic roots in Anglicanism. Their vision, values, and praxis, however, have developed in a completely different direction from the rest of the Anglican Church. I do not think it unfair to start calling them an/the African Church, for whilst they are “politically” linked to “Western” Christianity – their heart is certainly no longer with the “Western” Christian ethos.

    On the other side of the fence we have the equally interesting questions:

    Greek-Catholics – Easterners whose “political” link is not with other Eastern churches, but with Rome – the “mother” of all Western churches. Are they still Easterners?

    Within this same context then, how do we understand a bi-ritual priest? Usually a Roman re-trained to also serve a Greek-Catholic parish. He has “adopted” Eastern rite and custom, is he an Easterner, or a Westerner?

    Finally, let us consider another development – this time in the Antiochian church, which over the past 20 years has had a huge influx of former Evangelicals. Here, in order to accommodate “Western” attitudes, and culture they have developed a “Western Rite” is this the “praxis” of Eastern Christianity?

    My purpose in posing these curiosities is not to badger, these have been part of an ongoing conversation among E. Christian communities in the US, in particular, for the past 30 years (possibly longer if one includes the battles between Greek-Catholics and the Irish Roman hierarchy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries); especially given how the original “ethnic” mix – that quality which made the classic definition work so well – is rapidly changing, and bringing other changes with it.

    I am not “O”rthodox – and I would never call myself that, because it is essentially dishonest – being a hard-core indie-boy I have no live connection with the “O”rthodox churches, and no interest in creating one, real or imagined. This is an ecclesial distinction/boundary, which I believe must be respected.

    The desert fathers often asked the question: what is your praxis? My praxis is, has been, and likely always will be “Eastern”. It is the way I live my life – it is the way of my faith. I am therefore, fully comfortable describing myself as an Easterner (as an interesting aside – the other Eastern Christians I have met along the way, are equally comfortable “calling” me an Easterner). Oh, and I’ll also throw in the fact that my theological education and outlook is thoroughly Eastern, and . . . Ah, what the hell, I’m a Slav, its in our blood!

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