Seminary of the Southwest Commencement 2010
May 11, 2010
John C. Danforth
Members of the graduating class of Seminary of the Southwest, it's an honor to be with you today. It's also disconcerting to fall far short of your academic standards. For three years, you have studied theology, ethics, Old and New Testament among other subjects, and I'm 47 years removed from the classroom. I'm aware of my academic limitations, so I seek refuge on what for me is the more familiar ground of politics. Lest you jump to the conclusion that this is a totally inappropriate topic for your seminary commencement, I'm going to suggest how the current state of politics might, and I think should, relate to the ministry of our Episcopal Church. My theme is the fracturing of America and the ministry of reconciliation.
Peggy Noonan described the current state of politics in a recent column. She compared America to a beehive that people in Washington were poking with a stick. She worried that "something bad is going to happen." Here's a quote from her column:
"Anger is stoked by cynical politicians and radio ranters and people who come home at night, have a few drinks, and spew out their rage on the comment thread. It's a world full of people always cocking the gun and ready to say, if things turn bad, ‘But I didn't tell anyone to shoot!'"
I agree with this description. It's not just the offensiveness of bad manners and lack of civility in political discourse, it's the over the top rage we read of every day. It's protestors with bull horns working themselves into frenzies. It's TV's so-called news channels, more diatribe than news-not talking heads but screaming heads.
This can't be good for the blood pressure, but our health as individuals is nothing compared to the health of America.
The old saying is true that politics is the art of compromise. We will need compromise to address any of the great issues before our country. We will need compromise to rein in our national debt. We will need compromise to produce energy and protect the environment. We will need compromise to control the cost of health care. The framers of our Constitution understood compromise and wrote it into our system. They called it "checks and balances."
Compromise is difficult, maybe impossible, when the prevailing style of pundits and politicians is fanaticism. That's a tough word, but it applies. It has a religious connotation.
It's from a French root that means "pertaining to a temple-inspired by a god." The dictionary gives this quote as an example of the word's usage, "their fanatic sense of righteousness, their absolute certainty that they alone had God's ear."
Fanaticism is holding ideas with uncompromising fervor. It's the elevation of ideology beyond the level of debatable opinion. But, in America, politics is a matter of opinion, and our tradition is that everyone's opinion is debatable.
Much of today's public discourse has the ring of fanaticism, and it is driving America apart. In her column, Peggy Noonan writes, "The great project now is to keep [America] together, to hold us together as much as possible, because future trends will be to come apart." Well if that's the great project, and I think it is, then whose project is it? Who is going to take on the work of holding America together? Here, in a nutshell, is my point this morning. I think that holding America together should be the project of the Episcopal Church. I think it should be the project of all people of faith, but it's one for which Episcopalians are especially well equipped.
It's at the heart of what we believe. We believe that God overcomes estrangement, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, and that we are entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. We believe, as Colossians tells us, that in Christ "all things hold together," so, as the body of Christ, it's our job to hold things together.
In today's Gospel, the Pharisees locked people out when they should have been binding them into God's kingdom. In the Epistle, Paul was willing to embrace conflicting religious practices for the sake of the Gospel.
The model suggested by each lesson is of a church that invites, brings in and holds together all sorts of people with all kinds of differences. It is a church for just the project Peggy Noonan has in mind.
We Episcopalians are especially well positioned for this project. It's our tradition. We are the middle way. We reject extremes. We do not insist on doctrinal purity. We allow a variety of beliefs in our common prayer. We welcome all to our altars. We boast of being inclusive. The Episcopal church is in the business of holding things together. Some might think we are too broad a church, too open to differences in belief. But in the work of holding things together, our breadth is our strength, not our weakness.
The ministry of reconciliation should be our ministry, but as of now, we aren't doing a good job of it. In fact, we're not doing a good job of much of anything. Since I was ordained, the population of the United States has grown 70 percent, the membership of the Episcopal Church has declined 30 percent. Numbers aren't everything, but Jesus never told us to take five talents and turn them into three.
Beyond the numbers, the image we Episcopalians present to the world is the opposite of holding things together. We appear to be a denomination that's splitting apart. Nearly every mention in the media is about our dismemberment. Our General Conventions are public relations disasters. Under the current state of affairs, few people would believe us if we claim a ministry of reconciliation. Therefore, it's the responsibility of all of us, liberals and conservatives, to do what is necessary to hold the Episcopal Church together.
What then should be our next steps? How do we go about the work of holding together a fractured country? The first step might be consciously to adopt reconciliation as the ministry of the Episcopal Church. If that's our work let's say so, and let's keep it in the front of our minds.
And let's make it clear that we are respectful of a variety of political opinions, even if we disagree with them. Some evangelical churches have done the opposite. You may have read a book called The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. If not, I commend it to you. It's about the segmentation of America into likeminded communities and how some churches foster segmentation. It describes niche churches where members cluster together according to politics, reinforcing each others opinions. A predictor of how people will vote is where they worship. If we are serious about being inclusive, we must resist being a niche church that is identified with only one part of the political spectrum.
Religion is often divisive when it enters politics. Americans have known this since the time of Jefferson and Madison, and have kept religion and politics separate. At the same time, people of faith have spoken to government since Moses confronted Pharaoh. In modern America, Christians have marched for peace and civil rights. They have championed the poor and defended the family. They have engaged in politics on left and right. This is our right and our responsibility. Our challenge is to engage in politics in ways that hold the country together. Episcopalians should be the model for doing this.
When rage and uncompromising fervor characterize politics, we have a special gift to offer. It is the gift of humility. It's the recognition that our perception of political truth isn't identical to God's truth. It's the insistence that God alone is absolute, and that no party, no ideology, no issue makes the same claim on us as God. Faith puts politics in perspective. No ideology is absolute, and that perspective makes compromise possible. This is our prophetic ministry, because it stands against the idolatry of fanatics. It tears down the high places of Baal. Except today ideology has replaced Baal and TV studios have supplanted the high places.
I do not suggest that politics should be wishy washy and weak. Many of us have strong opinions on issues of the day. I do suggest that we should spend more effort resolving differences than winning points, that we should acknowledge the good will of those who disagree, and that we should stand up to fanatics on all sides.
Peggy Noonan wrote that future trends will be to pull even further apart than we are now.
If so, that means that the work of holding things together will be even more difficult and even more necessary than it is today. I believe this work is the calling of the Episcopal Church. It is work that is evoked by our faith and consistent with our tradition. Its success is crucial to America. I believe there has never been a more critical time to lead our church. It's your calling and mine. God bless each of you.
