It is no secret that mainline Protestants in the United States breathe a sigh of relief when someone else’s denomination is first to face with a controversial set of decisions at a national meeting. Like a canary in a mineshaft, those who follow will watch closely for signs of trouble and attempt to adjust accordingly.
In the run-up to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, scheduled for July, 2009 our own corner of the Anglican world will, again, afford other mainliners that opportunity. The fractious debates over the last three years surrounding the consecration of an openly gay man as bishop of New Hampshire will find new point in the election of still other bishops elsewhere in the country and the church will try to make sense of its relationship with the larger Anglican Communion.
The experience of my own church and that of other denominations in the United States have prompted me to think anew about the way in which we and other American protestants make decisions. At the time of the last General Convention in 2003 I was reading Founding Brothers, The Revolutionary Generation, by historian Joseph Ellis.
Ellis points out that when Alexander Hamilton dueled with Aaron Burr in 1804, the former did so because he felt that Burr was unprincipled. What Hamilton meant was that Burr’s political decisions were made based upon a politics of leverage (my phrase, not his). In other words, he sought to achieve his goals by whatever means possible, relying on expediency instead of principle. According to Ellis, when Burr killed Hamilton, the disgrace of killing a celebrated statesman ruined Burr’s political career. But his politics of leverage have dominated the American political landscape ever since.
Born hip to hip with the formation of our country, the Episcopal Church acquired not only the nation’s bicameral structure, but its political ethos as well. It is no surprise, then, to find that politicking in purple looks much like politicking in red, white, and blue.
The results have been catastrophic: The church in the United States, which was already increasingly congregational in character, is becoming even more congregational as a result. Diocesan and national structures are seen as all but irrelevant to parochial life. Bishops find it increasingly difficult to lead in an environment in which alternative episcopal oversight signals the demise of episcopal authority. Worst of all, perhaps, the unity of the church is in jeopardy to one degree or another on almost every level and the pastoral space to care for people has all but disappeared. The polarities of political discourse dominate and two fundamentalisms reign: one from the right, the other from the left.
Unacknowledged on all sides, the politics of leverage have surfaced as the deeper problematic in church life to which no one addresses themselves. Instead, the zero-sum game goes on, unabated as politicking in purple continues. The net result is that no one wants to discuss the theological, moral, pastoral, and ecclesial issues at stake on all sides, for fear that any concession of that kind will yield an advantage that will be leveraged by the opposition.
So what’s a church to do? There are, of course, no easy answers. The nurture of a new approach to authority and decision-making will not make serious differences of opinion disappear. But the need to reshape the environment in which decisions are made is more important than the decisions themselves. And practically speaking, politicking in purple, like the politics of leverage that dominates the national scene, has demonstrated its inadequacy. The church can no longer navigate the complexity of decision-making by pitting the prophetic against the orthodox or vice versa.
The way forward demands a far lengthier discussion than is possible here, but a few suggestions are useful in starting a conversation:
One, bishops must own their responsibility for the larger dynamic created by the decisions we make. The politics of leverage may bring triumph to one point of view or another, but the bitter political fruit that it yields is something everyone will be forced to consume. Both spiritual and emotional maturity in a leader is most evident in those who take responsibility not just for one point of view, but for the larger environment in which differences are discussed.
Two, the church needs to cultivate a prayerful and reflective approach to decision-making that is integral with its nature. The search for spiritual direction cannot be a thin, pious veneer that conceals or justifies politics as usual. People of every point of view will need to exercise restraint in the name of preserving and promoting prayerful, reflective conversation. People on all sides will need to forgo pressing their advantage when they have one.
This is not to say that the ensuing conversation need be a shapeless and spineless exchange. To the contrary, it can and should be marked by tenacious, critical, theological reflection. The all too easy identification in our culture of the words “critical” and “judgmental” has bedeviled debates in the church. But the two are not the same. To be critical is to engage in careful, deliberative debate over ideas, their pedigree, the evidence in their favor, and their implications for going forward. To be judgmental is to dismiss all four concerns, preferring a decision made on the basis of personal animus or unreflective prejudice.
Finally, we need to think in new ways about authority and, in particular, about the special character of authority in the church. For most Americans “authority” is one in the same with the notion of “authoritarianism.” Defined as the exercise of power, authority is something to which one yields or to which one is subject. On that reading our relationship to authority will never be a healthy one. But authority is better understood as the ability or capacity to author creativity.
A less reactive approach to authority, this understanding mandates that those in positions of authority attend to the creation and maintenance of the space in which a lively expression of the Christian faith can thrive. And all of us are obligated to respond to that authority — not as cruel restriction — but as the discipline akin to the practice and training in music theory that makes for a great musician.
The way forward is neither easy, nor predictable. But as Burr and Hamilton would have benefited from reflecting at greater length on the possible consequences of their duel, we would do well to reflect on the consequences that follow inevitably from a politics of leverage.
