On refusing to say 'peace' when there is no peace

Or, developing an ecclesial practice of truthfulness

In his brilliant and scathing LRB review of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Terry Eagleton talks about the crucifixion of Christ as a revelation of the truth of human existence in the agonizing death of an innocent man. It is, he admits, a truth we want to look away from, telling stories about progress that help us avoid confronting the trash-heap of human history. Yet he argues that the core Christian claim is that it is precisely - indeed, only - “those who are able to look on the crucifixion and live” who “might just have a chance of new life” by an unimaginable transformation called resurrection. Now, for what it’s worth, I don’t think that this formulation says quite enough about either the crucifixion or resurrection - but surely Eagleton is right that for the Christian, confronting Christ’s crucifixion is not less than confronting the truth of human depravity, even if it is more. And surely he is also right that our redemption cannot be separated from that honest look at a reality of human evil.

Indeed, in this Eagleton is making a point that rhymes rather well with a point that the Reformers are fond of making. For Reformation theology - see, for example, Luther’s Galatians commentary - the harsh severity of the Law is vital because we try so very hard to assure ourselves that we are basically okay, that our sins are no big deal, that we aren’t really that bad. We have innumerable strategies for convincing ourselves that we are, on the whole, decent people, basically capable of doing the right thing (even if we screw up now and again). But for the Reformers, so long as we persist in this belief, salvation is impossible; convinced that we can earn our way to heaven, we fail to embrace the freely-offered mercy given to us by God. And so we need the Law to smash our self-justifying strategies like a wrecking ball. It is not pleasant, but it is necessary. It is necessary because it is only only by realizing our utter incapacity that we can really, truly receive the forgiveness and new life God longs to give us. The end of this honesty is not despair - indeed, the Reformers have much to say about avoiding despair - but rather a new openness to God’s utterly unmerited grace.

I’ve been thinking about this in my own life of faith as Holy Week approaches, asking God to continue to smash my attempts at self-justification that I might truly welcome grace. But I’ve been also thinking about this in regard to our ecclesial life, in the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church - and perhaps what I’m about to say applies more broadly.

In short, I worry that much of our church is allergic to honesty about its current state, that it has built up self-protective strategies that prevent it from telling the truth about itself: about its numbers, its spiritual state, the effects of the pandemic, and so on. And I worry that the renewal of the church that so many of us long for is impossible without precisely the honest inventory of our state which we so strenuously avoid, an honest inventory that nonetheless avoids the opposite problem, a sad despair. Things are bad. And we so desperately avoid facing this, even though we need to face it head on, with hope and without giving up. Only thus can we continue to be useful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And indeed I think there is hope; it is precisely because I believe that God is not done with us that I think that ecclesial honesty is so vital!

I’ll give a few examples of what I mean by these self-protective strategies. First of all, consider the rhetoric around the church and the pandemic. I have seen a narrative emerge in real time in some parts of the Anglican Church of Canada that the church handled covid excellently and that the experience of the pandemic positions us well to embrace our future. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that there is nothing to this; certainly many clergy and lay leaders worked diligently to offer digital resources for worship and Christian formation to their people. And it’s also true that the digital move enabled us to reconnect with a group of people for whom worship is generally not accessible and opened up possibilities for wider participation in weekday Christian formation events. There were things we did well - even very well - in difficult circumstances. But I know that for me, the experience of the pandemic was largely one of spiritual desolation and a feeling of profound disappointment in the church. My experience of the pandemic was largely this: our churches shut down, provided very few opportunities for their people to receive the Sacrament, and failed to offer much support or mutual aid for their members. And while I am one data point, and everyone’s covid experience was different, I know I am not alone in this! My point is not that we must conclude that the church’s covid response was, in all respects, a failure. I don’t think it was. But given that by the ACC’s own statistics, we lost 12% of our membership during the two covid years (much higher than our usual rate of ~2%/yr), surely the conclusion that we did great and our future is bright is…premature. Indeed, the celebration of a future with fewer buildings and more online-only communities seems to me less a question of the careful discernment of the needs and possibilities of the moment than an attempt to make a virtue of necessity. Sometimes bad things are in fact bad.

Similarly, on church decline in both the ACC and TEC. It seems that there are perpetually articles out with the latest year’s statistics about church decline, especially in the Episcopal Church (largely because it does such an excellent job compiling data); one from last year was making the rounds this weekend. And the numbers are bad. The decline trend-lines for both the ACC and TEC go to zero members around 2040. Now, it is true that this will not in fact be the case; there will be Anglicans in both Canada and the United States in 2040, and there will be churches to serve them. But the demographic collapse that these projections predict is real, given the age of our members and our failures at retaining children raised in our churches and evangelizing those outside them. And yet the church - with, to be sure, some honorable exceptions! - seems largely incapable of dealing with this, at every level! We know what makes churches grow (with evangelism and discipleship at the top of this list). Yet - again, with honorable exceptions - we do not see our church bodies focused on better spreading the Word and forming mature believers. And alas, when conversations about decline make their way around the Episcopal social media sphere, much of the conversation strikes me as, frankly, an attempt at self-justification. People will point to those congregations that are bucking the trend as proof that the projections must be off. There will be talk about how our losses are due to our brave stances on the full inclusion of women and lgbtq people, or about how they are due to broader cultural patterns that we must simply accept. There’s a lot of talk about how ‘every 500 years, the church goes through a reformation,’ and our current change is away from institutional religion. We are told - well-meaningly, I am sure - to trust that God will take care of it, that this is all up to God anyway. And we are told that talking about our undeniable and accelerating numerical decline is a form of doomerism that ignores the good work still happening in many churches. And of course it is true that there are congregations bucking the trends, that good work happens in many churches, that God is sovereign, that just sheer unremitting despair about the church is not helpful. And let me be very clear: doomerism is indeed a real problem. I do see sad resignation in many of my colleagues who have forsworn these strategies, a glum acceptance that the church is just going to die. If it needs to be said, this is not my goal for writing this. And yet! How often are these true things said in such a way that they prevent us from taking an honest stock of our situation, begging God to transform us, and turning to a laser-sharp focus on the rejuvenation of our churches?

Much the same could be said about the spiritual state of our church. I’ve written about this before, so I will strive to be brief. But the short version is this: people and clergy alike are often poorly-catechized with anemic spiritual lives. This doesn’t mean everyone, of course — dear reader, I am in all likelihood not talking about you! But the data we have on Episcopalians’ and Anglicans’ religious beliefs and practices is clear, and has been abundantly confirmed by the experience of nearly every clergyperson I know. The point is not that our people don’t love Jesus - they do! quite often a great deal! But so often they (we) have been taught neither the basics of the faith nor the sort of practices of prayer, Bible-reading, mutual accountability, and service that sustain a life in God; this is what the data shows. And it is considered uncouth to admit this, but how often is this because we clergy have a somewhat shaky relationship with the Bible or the creeds or have let our own lives of prayer and devotion wither? How many of us are truly on fire for forming mature disciples of Jesus Christ? How much of our preaching is actually about the Bible rather than about the center-left cause du jour? (Why, incidentally, do we accept shabby preaching?!) We (and I very much include myself in this!) like to talk about the formative power of the liturgy, about just how steeped in Scripture our worship services are, about how there are multiple ways to express faith such that we need not prioritize American evangelical language or experience, about how both the episcopate and presbyterate are more Jesus-centered than a few decades ago, as bishops like Bp Spong have left active life. And this is all true! And once again, the goal is not despair. But let’s examine ourselves: how often do we say these things to avoid taking stock of the reality of our situation? I know that for me, it is more often than I might like.

We are in Passiontide, moving towards Holy Week, where we will be confronted anew with the reality both of human sin and evil and of God’s superabundant goodness towards us. My hope for myself - and for you all - is this: I hope that we will ask God for the strength to refuse to say ‘peace’ when there is no peace, the strength to cultivate a robust, non-despairing practice of ecclesial truth-telling at every level of our institutional life. It will be hard. But I think it is necessary - and the reason I think it is necessary is ultimately a hopeful one: I don’t believe that God is done with the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada. Despair, the acceptance that this is ‘just how things are’ and there is nothing for it, is as much to be rejected as self-justification! I believe that in an increasingly secular continent, there are so many people who need to hear the saving Gospel, and that our generous theological orthodoxy, our ordered life of prayer, our beautiful worship can still be a means to introduce people to that Gospel and train them up as mature Christians. And that is why I am committed to refusing the self-justification that gently anesthetizes us as much as the despair that paralyzes us: I do not believe that we are mortally ill yet! We are sick, but not necessarily unto death. Let us not drift off quietly into peaceful oblivion! Let us instead imitate St. Paul, who poured himself out in service to the Gospel, trusting in God’s power to give the growth.