Mark Harris at Preludium answers a question from his comments about accountability:
I am accountable to Christ Jesus who is the Source of everything I am, and who would wonder that in any wise the institutional churches were confused for the people who are the living presence of himself, and would wonder why any accountability to those institutions would suffice even in the slightest for the accountability that is love.
....
So I am not much help for those who want to talk about accountability to this or that church, or the Anglican Communion or any visibly right way of being church that would match the Body. The Body of Christ is too visceral, too much alive, too unseemly to be held by anything as starched and petty and pious, as propitious and prudent as the several churches. The Body of Christ is, in other words, too alive to be associated in too great convergence with the death which is most institutional church.
Mark speaks from his heart with great wisdom. I urge you to read his entire post. He speaks just what I'd want to say, but with an eloquence to which I'd never aspire.
Thanks to Counterlight for sending me to read Mark's wonderful words.
You're Welcome
ReplyDeleteThe churches are dying, but the Body of Christ won't die. FWIW, I think the churches must die for new life to spring forth. Mark gets that and is not threatened by it, nor should we be threatened.
ReplyDeleteThose of us who endure and try to see Jesus in each person we meet, especially the least amongst us, will continue to find life in our source, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and we will be the Body of Christ.
For now, the church is what we have, and we work within it and without as best we can all the while remembering our Source and our Center.
Mimi, I read Mark Harris' blog last night and it is really good stuff. We keep forgetting that the church is not the buildings and walls and institutions, it is we who are the body of Christ. All of us messy, argumentative, sinful, hurting, wonderful people.
ReplyDeleteAmelia, I was blown away by Mark's post.
ReplyDeleteIt is a great post from a man with a great heart. And your first comment in this thread about our Source and Center is very eloquent, Mimi.
ReplyDeleteIt is why I continue to maintain that the Anglican Communion is already not in communion with itself and therefore already shattered, and though that is a sadness it really is not that big a deal. Life and ministry will go on because of our Source and Center and the Spirit at work throughout the whole world (with NO boundaries).
Being a bit of a maverick myself, I resonated with a lot of what Mark said.
ReplyDeleteHowever... at my ordination I signed a document in which I promised to conform to the 'doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Anglican Church of Canada' and gave canonical obedience to my bishop. Since the Anglican Church of Canada's ordination services are very similar to the Episcopal Church's, I'm sure Mark made a similar promise at his ordination.
Is that not, at least in a sense, some sort of 'accountability to the institution'?
Tim, I'm not aware that Mark breaks any of his ordination vows. From what I've seen of Mark's writing, he does not advocate disobedience to ordination vows or to bishops of the Episcopal Church.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't want to speak for him. Perhaps you may want to ask Mark your question at his blog.
Paul, thanks for your kind words.
ReplyDeleteThe ordination vows in the Episcopal Church include no vow of obedience to the "doctrine, discipline, and worship" of the Anglican Communion nor to canonical obedience to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I'm not sure putting the institution into some necessary perspective means breaking ordination vows, or even suggesting breaking ordination vows, or any kind of disloyalty.
ReplyDeleteWould it be seditious to say that God is greater than the USA, Canada, or all other countries? No. No more so than to say that God is greater than all who claim to speak for Him.
I don't disagree with what any of you are saying. It's just that what Mark said was 'So I am not much help for those who want to talk about accountability to this or that church, or the Anglican Communion or any visibly right way of being church that would match the Body.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think our ordination vows do make us accountable to a particular church. In my case, it is to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Anglican Church of Canada. Mark has taken similar vows, and those vows do indeed make him accountable to a particular institutional church - the Episcopal Church. So I don't think he's being entirely honest in proclaiming that he does not consider himself accountable to 'the death which is most institutional church'.
Let me be absolutely clear that I am not accusing Mark of breaking his ordination vows. On the contrary - I am accusing him of keeping them, and thereby living in accountability to an institution - which is the very thing he disavows in this post.
Tim, why not comment at Mark's blog and tell him that you don't think he's being entirely honest? Why put me in the middle?
ReplyDeleteI've done just that.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for putting you in the middle - well, you posted the link:)
Good.
ReplyDelete