Snow Theology
My Dear People,
So, what is your snow theology?
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Why has God snowed out Sunday services (some of them, anyway) at churches around Richmond for three of the last ten Sundays? Is God giving us a few Sundays off? "Richmonders," saith the Lord, "you deserve a little extra sleep, a few slow Sunday mornings. Relax; don't worry about getting down on your knees. In fact, put your feet up. You're doing just fine."
No, of course not. And yet Pat Robertson's pronouncement, a few weeks ago, about Haiti--in effect that, with the earthquake, Haiti got what it had coming--is no more sophisticated or, for that matter, sound.
Robertson has said that kind of thing before (along with Jerry Falwell, after 9/11, for example). On hearing something like that, a part of me wants to just shake it off, give it little attention, and move on. Keep it positive! Right?!... On the other hand, I haven't been able to put Robertson's statement entirely out of my mind, and a part of me wonders whether it is one of those moments to call a spade a spade, in the name of distinguishing between, again, sound and unsound theology; that is, dare I say, Christian and un-Christian theology.
Surely a part of proclaiming the Gospel is, at times, saying what's not Gospel.
Well, as is perhaps obvious to anyone who will end up reading these words, I can't believe that Robertson's assertion has an ounce of Gospel in it. In fact, I can only believe that it is nothing less than repugnant to God.
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In a Word from Grace Street a few weeks ago, I wrote of "fundamentalists" and their preoccupation with judgment. "Fundamentalism," in its Christian form anyway, as you may well know, originated in the early 20th century as a reaction to "modernism." Originally the designation "Fundamentalist" was worn as a badge of honor by those claiming to be defending the "fundamentals" of the Christian faith. In time, however, the term became derogatory in the culture at large, with "fundamentalists" becoming known for self-righteousness, narrowness of thinking, and (an arbitrary and idiosyncratic) biblical literalism that resists reason (and, in particular, science), etc., much of that reputation being fairly earned by precisely this sort of thing, i.e., Robertson's Haiti pronouncement.
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Two things: 1) It is important to remember that, like us, Pat Robertson is a child of God, indeed a Christian, trying to figure out and follow the will of God. And 2) the way we Episcopalians approach theology is (of course) very different from Robertson's, very different from "fundamentalism."
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Richard Hooker, a sixteenth-century priest in the Church of England, famously summed up how we Anglicans "do" theology (how we work out and arrive at doctrine, the teaching of the Church): his three-legged stool. We rest our understanding (our theology) on a three-legged stool, the legs of which are scripture, tradition, and reason. In other words, we seek a synthesis of these three sources of insight. As Hooker explained, the key is how we find the synthesis between the three. And the answer to that is: the Holy Spirit. That is, we Anglicans believe in the presence and the guidance of the living God as the most essential thing in discerning what to believe and what to teach, and, for that matter, what to do. The Bible (scripture), the historical teaching of the Church (tradition), and our own reason are all important, but, finally, everything hinges on the salvific (saving) presence of an active God, living and moving and working among his people, guiding us, as he has always guided his people, in the ways of truth and justice, compassion and generosity.
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Of course God didn't snow out any services here in Richmond; any more than God punished the Haitian people by way of an earthquake. Yes, both snow and earthquakes are natural phenomena, aspects of this natural world that God created; however, they are not moral agents. We, on the other hand, are moral agents. And how we respond to a tragedy such as Haiti, including what theological pronouncements we render in such a context, are moral matters. Moral, indeed.
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And, while God is merciful, God is also just. And, when the time comes, we will each render an account.
Your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
