St. Maximos' Hut

The Rev. Kenneth Chalker, of the First United Methodist Church in Cleveland, is doing so because of a recent ruling by the Methodist Church's judicial council reinstating a pastor fired over a dispute over the church's teachings on homosexuality.

And I thought the Church was the body of Christ! How can a Christian pray for the demise of religion?

Rev. Chalker's op-ed raises two interesting points. (I'm leaving the merits of the Methodists' disputes over homosexuality out of this because I am not a Methodist and am unfamiliar with how they deal with the topic).

1) Rev. Chalker writes

In these religious times, church organizations are forsaking their initial spiritual impetus and going over to the dark side. Employing labored, amplified heavy breathing, they have become religious institutions. Like most institutions, religious ones are very much interested in preserving their various ways of doing things. That is, in large part, why there are judicial councils. Their job is not to keep the faith. Their job is to keep the rules and make folks think that "the rules" and "the faith" are the same thing. Most often, they are not.

He argues that there is a distinction between "the faith" and "the rules". By definition, to have a body of coherent beliefs makes it is necessary to exclude beliefs which contradict the body of coherent beliefs. Thus one cannot be a Christian if one denies the divinity of Christ. It just isn't logically possible.

If the body of beliefs is beyond "everything is beautiful in its own way" (apologies to Ray Stevens), sometimes the substance of the existing beliefs will be in conflict with other beliefs. One or the other has to give and the organization in question will have to decide which set of beliefs it is keep and which it is discarding. The organization needs a means of doing this - the Roman Church ultimately has the authority of the Pope, the Orthodox church has a messier and lengthy process (which I earlier argued is Hayekian in many respects) involving the church as a whole, and so on. The Methodist Church has a judicial council. Assuming the procedures followed were appropriate, its decisions can only be attacked for not accurately following the substance of the church's teachings. Yet this is not what Rev. Chalker does - he attacks the idea of having "rules" apart from "faith" and having a body to adjudicate over those rules. Could the judicial council legitimately remove a minister who insisted that Christ was not divine? Perhaps that would fall into "faith," although there is no real principle evident in Rev. Chalker's essay to distinguish "faith" from "rules."

2) The core of Christianity seems pretty meager in Rev. Chalker's formulation:

I believe what all world faith traditions reveal. Namely, that God is Spirit and thus never captured in a picture, idea, book or creed. Rather, the Holy One is always mysterious, awe-inspiring, hope-raising and fear-relieving. Encounters with the Spirit are at once and always an amazing grace.

Religion, however, is what Satan devises as a way of confusing faithful people. Holy wars, suicide bombings and other religiously motivated killings prove the point.

In contrast, consider the Nicene Creed (the Orthodox version is here, the Western version differs slightly and is here.)

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible:

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all ages, Light of Light, True God of True God, Begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made:

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from the heavens, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man;

And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried;

And rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures;

And ascended into the heavens, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father;

And shall come again, with glory, to judge both the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets;

In One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

I Confess one Baptism for the remission of sins.

I look for the Resurrection of the dead,

And the life of the age to come, Amen

This is quite different from Rev. Chalker's encounters with the Spirit. This is a set of specific beliefs (does that make them rules) and it most definitely excludes people who do not affirm them from the Church. You either believe it or you do not - no clever dodges about being "spiritual but not religious" permitted.