One of the frustrations of Synod Press conferences is the rigid control of the questions and answers: rejoinders are impossible – “yes, but” dies in the larynx before being given the chance to escape. I wanted to ask Katherine Jefferts-Schori why she keeps invoking the “Spirit” and what she means by it.
In my Christian life, I come from a charismatic-Anglican background. In the full flush of the charismatic renewal in the late 70s and early 80’s the Holy Spirit was, we thought, active, real and a Person of the Trinity whose presence could be experienced in worship and prayer. We didn’t care much that our diocese and the national church had little interest in the Holy Spirit: we ignored them and they consoled themselves with the comforting rumour that we were closet snake-handlers.
How things have changed. Now it is impossible to read or hear more than 2 sentences from Anglican leaders without hearing, the Spirit says this and the Spirit says that. I have an uneasy feeling that the word has been misappropriated, stolen, hijacked, misused, sullied and misapplied.
I overhead one clerical gentleman yakking away saying how much he was looking forward to synod and seeing how the Spirit was going to work in the discussions. Having already seen some of the discussions, I had to suppress the impulse to ask him, “what spirit are you talking about?”
In the Rowan Williams-Katherine Jefferts-Schori duelling Pentecost letters pantomime, KJS says
[T]he Spirit may be speaking to all of us, in ways that do not at present seem to cohere or agree….
The Episcopal Church has spent nearly 50 years listening to and for the Spirit in these matters. While it is clear that not all within this Church have heard the same message, the current developments do represent a widening understanding.
Note that KJS does not say that some (or even all) in the church have misheard the message that the Spirit is speaking, rather that the Church has not heard the same message, implying that the Spirit is disseminating contradictory messages to different people.
This is not the Holy Spirit, nor the Holy Spirit’s message; if those doing the listening are fortunate, it is merely the meanderings of their collective unconscious.
Listening for the Spirit reminds me of my infantry training. Huddled under a bush in the dark, you ‘knew’ ‘they’ were out there and after a while you were really convinced you saw something move. TEC and ACoC are so fixated on hearing the Spirit that they start to believe there is a whisper in the silence. But they have convinced themselves that they have an exclusive pipeline to the Almighty. If the Holy Spirit has actually spoken it was probably lost in the imaginary voices in Fred and KHS’s minds.
These leaders are hearing the same spirit that is telling the Bishop of Niagara to go to court and spend if necessary millions of dollars suing their Anglican brothers and sisters. The same spirit that would put an end to the ministry these churches provide to the lost, sick and the poor all for a bag of gold.
1 John 4: 1-6
Revalations 22:18-19
18For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
19And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
Seems to me that God is saying that everything He wants us to know, and only those things that we are supposed to know, are already written in His Holy Scriptures. So don’t add anything, and don’t take away anything. Basically, don’t try to change God! This practice of “listening” to the holy spirit seems to be an attempt to change God. Wonder if anyone has pointed that out to Hiltz and Schori?
Yes, AMPisAnglican. I once had someone most upset at me when I responded to her question on the spirit doing a new thing as regards homosexuals (this was some years ago with the ACoC-sanctioned video-teaching tool) with the point that the Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself today vis-a-vis scripture. There are plenty of other spirits out there, including the human spirit, that whisper loudly in our ears.
The serpent appropriates our language and uses it to deceive us.
Peace,
Jim
“This is not the Holy Spirit” – No, it’s the Spirit of the Age the TEC is listening to, the zeitgeist, and reflecting it, buying into it, promoting it … going along with the world-view and values of the secular/materialist (or should that be New Ageist?) culture that rules us all, in the West.