Dawkins and Hitchens are Wimps!

Here behind the lines, we’re coming to the end of the calendar year.  Now clearly, in the larger scheme of things, moving from December 31 of one year to January 1 of the next really does not change much.  Still, it is a time to contemplate, plan, and in some cases actually start on new initiatives, and that’s not such a bad thing.  But there’s nothing magic about the transition from one year to another.  Untended leaks in a roof will grow bigger, untreated cancers will metastasize, and the irreconcilable differences will not simply vanish.  I saw some very sad evidence of that just today. 

A posting to an e-mail list directed my attention to a particular blog.  The blog is found at http://wildernessgarden.blogspot.com/, and it contains the reflections of Katie Sherrod, an American Episcopalian in the US Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.  The particular reflections that we were referred to arose from the author’s contemplation of the offense in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, where the bishop and synod have decided to depart from The Episcopal Church in the United States.  Clearly, the author of the reflections neither cares for the decision, nor for the people who make it.  In particular, the closing of a mission perish by the bishop of the Episcopal diocese did not sit well with the author. In two consecutive paragraphs of the posting, we read: 

We’ve witnessed — and actually personally experienced — equally brutal behavior on the part of our own bishop on more than one occasion. But I have to say that John David Schofield has outdone Bp. Iker in his masterful use of timing. What better way to win hearts and minds than to close a church called St. Nicholas on Christmas Day? 

No, I’m not being sarcastic. Remember which hearts and minds he’s trying to win. Not those of loyal Episcopalians. No, he’s out to the win the steely hearts and tight little minds of THOSE-WHO-KNOW-THE-MIND-OF-GOD and who want to live in safe purity among others who agree with them — or who will at least obey them. 

Pretty strong stuff.  But there’s nothing particularly new about it.  One can find similar rhetoric, penned some years ago now, by those who did not care for the actions of bishop Michael Ingham of the Anglican Church of Canada.  And one can also find similar rhetoric penned by Bishop Ingham’s supporters and directed against those who did not go along with him.  Remember how I mentioned that untended leaks in a roof will grow bigger?  Well it certainly appears that a few drips in New Westminster, British Colombia, Canada have now become quite a bit of wetness all across North America in the Anglican edifice. 

Is this sad?  Yes, of course.  But the sadness of the situation does not mean that there is nothing to be learned from it.  And every so often, such as in these reflections, the learning is facilitated. 

Notice in particular the reference to “THOSE-WHO-KNOW-THE-MIND-OF-GOD”.  This is a fairly common assertion to be found in speech and in writing pertaining to the North American Anglican situation.  And when it is tossed out the way it is in contexts such as the one above, it certainly goes beyond the simply pejorative, all the way to simplistic viciousness.  But even the intensity of these outbursts cannot mask a profound underlying difference in worldviews.  And the difference is critical to understanding what is going on. 

Why is it bad to know the mind of God?  It can only be bad if the erstwhile knowledge derives from speculation about what God may have in mind.  But what if the knowledge derives from revelation, from revealed truth, revealed by God himself?  Is it then a bad thing?  On the showing of the author, apparently so.  Accepting as truth the revelations of God makes one’s heart steely and mind tight and little according to her. 

What we have here is a most remarkable phenomenon.  An erstwhile follower of God has condemned those who hold that God has been, in history, a source of truth.  These condemned folks are doing what they do not, apparently, out of obedience, but out of a desire for some kind of “safe purity.”  The author leaves us, though, with absolutely no indication of what the characteristics of this safe purity might be, which is a pity, because I, for one, haven’t encountered anyone here behind the lines, who has turned to God and acknowledged him as a source of truth, who either seeks it, or knows what it might be. 

So here behind the lines, something new has emerged in the Anglican Episcopal wars.  In a year that has seen a Dawkins and a Hitchens publish condescending and vicious attacks on those who believe in God, we now see an increased incidence of erstwhile believers attacking those who hold that God is a source of truth.  The degree of venomousness of the attacks has, on the showing of the referenced author, grown to the point that, by comparison, Messrs Dawkins and Hitchens look like wimps as they rail against believers.  After all, what’s worse, being stupid, or being steely hearted and tight minded? 

There’s no doubt about it.  International Anglicanism is bearing some very interesting and unexpected fruit these days, and teaching us just how wimpy people like Dawkins and Hitchens are.