Conservatives have accused Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of spreading heresy. Now, she’s returning the volley.

In her opening address to General Convention on Tuesday, she told fellow Episcopalians:

“The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy –- that we can be saved as individuals, that any of use alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of all being.

(Entire text below)
Some evangelicals (and even some Anglicans) have long accused the Episcopal Church of preaching another gospel, a false gospel The presiding bishop, in her address, acknowledges that her Gospel is radically different than the Gospel offered by some other Anglicans. One, she says, is Good News. The other, she says, is heresy and idolatry.

General Convention opening address
7 July 2009
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
Greetings to all the dioceses; visitors, ecumenical and interfaith from
around AC. We give thanks to the diocese of Los Angeles for hospitality,
and to the many volunteers. It is already a great convention.
When I was growing up, my mother often reminded us of what our
grandfather used to say to her and her siblings when they were in trouble,
“We’re going to have words, and you’re not going to get to use any of
yours.” Well, we are going to have words. I’m not going to chastise; I am
going to talk about crisis. And you are going to have abundant opportunity
to use your words – they will fill the coming eleven days. As you use those
words, remember that they are meant to image and imitate God’s effective
word, and accomplish what God intends for a healed and reconciled
creation.
Crisis is always a remarkable opportunity – that’s how Christians are
meant to engage crisis. Crisis is about focusing on the most important and
most essential things first. Pilots talk about crisis management in the
shorthand of aviate, navigate, communicate – fly the airplane, figure out
where you are, and then call for help – but keep on flying the plane. The
crisis management called First Aid deals with breathing and bleeding and
heart beats, and then moves on to other, less critical issues.
In the tradition that you and I have inherited, crisis response has a lot
to do with caring for the most vulnerable – who is sick or hungry or dying or
grieving? In the kind of crisis called a disaster, it’s about ensuring that
people have food, water, shelter, and medical care. Schools are important,
but you can worry about rebuilding them after the flood has receded.
The word crisis has its origins in the Greek krinein, meaning to judge,
separate, or distinguish. A crisis is time for decision-making, and a response
cannot be avoided. The early English use of the word had to do with the
turning point in a disease process – like the height of a fever – will it lead to
death, or will the fever resolve and the patient begin to heal? In the gospels,
the essential crisis is contained in Jesus’ decision to turn his face toward
Jerusalem.
General Convention is always a time of critical decision-making.
This 76th General Convention has some connection with other memorable
Conventions – like the one in 1967 that adopted the General Convention
Special Program, and the 1976 General Convention that permitted the
ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate. We’ll hear echoes of
those debates in our conversations at this one, as we consider the needs of
the poorest around us, and the inclusion of those who do not have full access
to the life of this Church. We may revisit some of the critical conversations
of the last General Convention as we consider how the life of this Church
intersects with the life of other Anglicans. Underlying all of those debates
will be the reality that we do not have the same kind of financial resources to
address them that we had three years ago – that is another kind of crisis, both
local and global.
However, this is not a TSA announcement that the threat level has
risen from orange to red, or a reminder to keep an eye on your luggage. Not
a bad idea, but hardly good news. This IS a gospel announcement that our
journey is meant to be toward Jerusalem, rather than sunning ourselves in
the sands of the Negev or floating in the Dead Sea. This IS a reminder that
we’re supposed to travel light – no extra sandals or tunics or lunch bags.
Our mission is to keep traveling, bearing the good news of Jesus and
working to transform the world. This crisis is an opportunity to refocus on
what is most essential. When we have done that, we WILL go on our way
rejoicing.
The decision-making we face here is an opportunity to choose the
direction of our journey into God’s mission. Will we turn our faces toward
Jerusalem, or will we wander back out into the desert? How will we engage
God’s reconciling mission – in sharing the good news, healing the world,
and caring for all of God’s creation? How will we discover anew that we
ARE in relationship with all that God has created, and that we’re meant to be
stewards of the whole?
Lane Denson reminded us recently that stewards are wardens of the
styes – keepers of the pigpens. We’re beginning to notice that our global
garden increasingly resembles an odorous sty. But it’s not pigs who are the
problem – pigs are neat and tidy if they have enough space. The problem is
with their keepers, who see the pigs only as bacon and ham producing
machines, rather than part of God’s good creation and therefore deserving of appropriate respect.

The crisis of this moment has several parts, and like Episcopalians,
particularly ones in Mississippi, they’re all related. The overarching
connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy –
that we can be saved as individuals, that any of use alone can be in right
relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that
salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That
individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the
place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of
all being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention.
Ubuntu. That word doesn’t have any “I”s in it. The I only emerges as
we connect – and that is really what the word means: I am because we are,
and I can only become a whole person in relationship with others. There is
no “I” without “you,” and in our context, you and I are known only as we
reflect the image of the one who created us. Some of you will hear a
resonance with Martin Buber’s I and Thou and recognize a harmony. You
will not be wrong.
I said that this crisis has several elements related to that heretical and
individualistic understanding. We’ve touched on one – how we keep the
earth, meant to be a gift to all God’s creatures. The financial condition of
the nations right now is another element. The sins of a few have wreaked
havoc with the lives of many, as greed and dishonesty have destroyed
livelihoods, educational possibilities, care for the aged, and multiple forms
of creativity – and that’s just the aftermath of Ponzi schemes for which a
handful will go to jail. If we want to be faithful, we need to be continually
rediscovering that my needs are not the only significant ones. Living in
Ubuntu implies that selfishness and self-centeredness cannot long survive.
We are our siblings’ keepers and their knowers, and we cannot be known
without them – we have no meaning, no true existence in isolation. We shall
indeed die as we forget or ignore that reality.
There is another related element to this crisis, the one that has to do
with the particular means and purpose of our gathering. How do we keep
the main thing the main thing? How will we insist that this Domestic and
Foreign Missionary Society remember that God’s mission is our reason for
existence, and that it has most to do with loving our neighbors? The
structures of this church are resources for God’s mission, but they are not
God’s mission in themselves, and if we get that mixed up, we will have
turned our face toward the date palms of Jericho rather than Jerusalem.
The temptation for us here will be to see one small part of God’s
mission, the part each one of use holds most dear, as the overarching reason
for this church’s existence. The reality is that God’s mission will continue,
whatever we do here, but it may not advance as effectively or penetrate as
widely in the next few years if we get selfish or miss the mark. There are
aspects of mission that are more appropriate and effective at the
congregational and diocesan level. This church as a whole shouldn’t be
running, for example, Camp East of Eden for kids from all over the church,
but it could provide some liaison and connecting gifts, and share some best
practices for camping ministry. Much of that work is already being done by
Episcopal Camps and Conference Centers, and the job of the whole church
in that response is thus mostly about making connections.
Some of the ecumenists in here will twitch at this word, but we should
be in the business of subsidiarity – the church as a whole should not be
doing mission work that can be done better at a more local level. The
budget and the resolutions we will debate here should be about those things
that affect the whole of this Church, and the vision of a renewed creation for
all of God’s handiwork. We should leave smaller things and more local
issues to more local parts of the Church. We might also consider putting in
that category the big picture issues we can’t yet agree on – the ones for
which we have many, more local, and varied understandings, recognizing
the different contexts may require different responses.
Jesus’ critical decision to journey toward Jerusalem is about the city
of God’s dream, Yerushalayim, the city of peace, the city of shalom, the city
of God’s holy mountain, toward which the nations stream. We Christians
often think the only important part of the Jerusalem story is Calvary, and,
yes, suffering and killing in that place still seem to be the loudest news. But
Calvary was a waypoint in the larger arc of God’s dream – it’s on the way to
Jerusalem, it is not in Jerusalem. Jesus’ passion was and is for God’s dream
of a reconciled creation. We’re meant to be partners in building that reality,
throughout all of creation. This crisis is a decision point, one which may
involve suffering, but it is our opportunity to choose which direction we’ll
go and what we will build. We will fail if we choose business as usual.
There will be cross-shaped decisions in our work, but if we look faithfully,
there will be resurrection as well.
Will the words we use in the coming days reflect the word of God
incarnate in our midst? Will our words imitate God’s effective word,
speaking shalom to creation? That’s our decision, individually and
collectively – that is our opportunity to live Ubuntu. This is our moment of
judgment, our crisis. We can make our decisions in hope, and we can speak
the love of God to the world through this Church, and we can do it together

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