Revisionist Mindsets

Pontificator has an interesting comment on the thought processes of Anglican revisionists. Now, I am certainly way too timid to get in an argument with Father Al – my brain would probably wind up looking like the main course in the movie Hannibal. But I’ve run into plenty of revisionists in ECUSA, and in a few other denominations for that matter, and I think that trying to understand them is a matter of futility, if not outright soul-peril. The real issue doesn’t revolve around theological debate, or even power politics for that matter. It revolves around a form of madness.

That may sound pretty darned condescending, but I think I know whereof I speak. Back in my young-and-heathen days, I was pretty good at it myself – engaging in actions that were obviously self-destructive to anyone with at least one eye and a dozen synapses. But me? I believed it was the way, the truth, and the life… Conversion for me has always been a matter of seeing reality more clearly; I have always identified with Paul and the scales-from-the-eyes thing.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people with a revisionist mind-set. Many of them have been friends. We can talk about the weather, the Longhorns, the church rummage sale, or how much money it costs to get our kids through college, and everything seems normal. But when we start talking about matters religious, then it gets real obvious real quick that we might as well be talking different languages. I’ve sat and listened to a seminarian (now ordained) tell me that “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” can be interpreted as – well – darn near anything except “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” I even went and checked the Greek – egw eimi h odos kai h alhqeia kai h zwh. A really sophisticated grammatical analysis of that passage changes he translation to, ummm… “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Glad the clergy set that straight for me.

I’ve had people tell me that black means white, up means down, and forward means backward. And they watch the church hemorrhage people, and they watch sexual and financial scandals erupt, and they watch power take the place of love, and they smile, and they talk about how wonderful and holy it all is. I’m sorry – that’s not a disagreement. That is madness. And I’m scared for these people, because many of them have been friends of mine, and watching them spiral into Neverland is like watching a plane going down. You know something awful is happening, and there’s not a darn thing you can do to control it. Romans 1:28 is probably the scariest verse in the whole of scripture: “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.”

Pater de caelis Deus, miserere nobis.Fili redemptor mundi Deus, miserere nobis.Spiritus Sancte Deus, miserere nobis.
Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.Sancta Dei Genitrix, ora pro nobis.