July 31, 2009
About three years ago while on a flight leaving the Episcopal Church's tri-annual General Conference in Columbus, Ohio, I was reading Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper's "Lectures on Calvinism."
In the book Kuyper discusses "the sovereignty of the individual person." This sovereignty, the freedom of the individual conscience before God, is a vitally important biblical doctrine. But as I read, a conversation began in the row behind me that forced me to ask questions about its application today.
Two passengers discovered that they had both been volunteers at the General Convention.
"Were you there," asked one, "when Katherine Jefferts Schori was elected presiding bishop?" The 2006 General Convention elected Schori, one of the few female bishops, to lead the denomination.
"Oh, yes I was. Couldn't you just feel the Spirit?"
"Yes, yes. I could just feel the Spirit."
Now realize that Schori in the sermon after her election announced, "Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation and we are his children." No doubt many in attendance including the two behind me thought this creative gender-bending was somehow profound. In truth it is self-evident gibberish and heretical gibberish at that.
But after "creating space for dialogue," emoting and voting, Schori was duly elected Presiding Bishop. Was this the Spirit's leading the church? I don't know, but the Episcopal Church under Schori's leadership has become embroiled in numerous contentious lawsuits over church property and continues to hemorrhage members, churches, and entire dioceses at an alarming rate.
But the two individual consciences in the row behind me insisted that she was God's choice and God's blessing for the denomination.
At this year's General Conference, the denomination agreed to ordain openly homosexual priests and bishops and perform same-sex ceremonies (not yet defined as weddings). Is this more of individual consciences before God? I am afraid it is.
According to Jordan Hylden, writing at First Things, Bishop Stacy Sauls of Lexington, Kentucky argued that these decisions were long overdue.
Over thirty years ago, [Bishop Sauls] said, the church had placed pastoral compassion over Scripture, tradition, and the teachings of Jesus to permit remarriage after divorce, and it would be nothing less than hypocritical for the church not to do likewise for gay and lesbian people.
Hylden comments:
According to Bishop Sauls, this was the most important point he made at the convention. Arguably, it was the most important point anyone in attendance made. The Episcopal Church has now, quite definitively, decided to step out on its own, away from Scripture, tradition, and the rest of the Anglican communion. It was a bold and brave step, for with it the church has decided that it is now a church that takes its own counsel, answerable only to God.
Despite the efforts of many evangelicals in the Episcopal Church, the church is now governed entirely by individual consciences and thus free to do as it chooses without reference to the truth of Scripture or the wisdom of the Church. The result is predictable: theological, moral, financial, and demographic free-fall.
Is this the inevitable result of a belief in the individual conscience before God?
That is a disquieting question for Evangelicals—especially for Evangelicals. Evangelicals believe wholeheartedly in the individual conscience before God. We preach individual salvation, believing that each person will have a conversion experience. We encourage people to read and interpret the Bible for themselves regardless of age or education. We make it clear that every Christian is responsible for his or her spiritual life and that each can trust the internal leading of the Holy Spirit. We talk about feeling close to or far from God who, from time to time, "lays" someone or something "on my heart." In short, we have a faith with a large subjective component.
