Posted on 01/01/2007 3:48:47 PM PST by hiho hiho
Stephen Crittenden: We've had many listener requests in recent weeks for an interview with the new Primate of the Episcopal Church in the United States, Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, Bishop of Nevada since 2001, who is making history in more ways than one at the moment. Not only is she the first woman to be elected Primate in the Anglican world, she's suddenly right at the centre of the storm that's blowing the Anglican communion apart: the election five years ago of a gay bishop, Gene Robinson.
The Episcopal Church has since been asked to repent of that decision, but it failed to do so at its recent general convention. And if the election of a woman Primate has been seen as a sign that the Americans were digging their heels in, ironically the Church of England Synod itself voted in favour of women bishops earlier this month.
Bishop Jefferts Schori spoke to me from her hotel room in New York late at night after a long day on the road. And I began by asking whether the failure of the recent Episcopal convention to fully comply with the recommendations of the Windsor Report, to repent of its decision to 'go it alone' over gay bishops, had been a clear signal by the Episcopal church that it was walking away from the rest of the Anglican communion.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Not at all. I think we were very clear that we fully desire to remain a full partner in the Anglican communion and that we are bending over backwards to demonstrate that desire, and to do what we feel that we can do as a church to express our desire to continue in mission together.
Stephen Crittenden: There has been some interesting discussion on Anglican websites around the world about the fact that ECUSA has changed its name. It's no longer the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, it's now just the Episcopal Church, and there have been suggestions by some Anglicans that with provinces all over the world from Taiwan to South America, the Episcopal church needs to clarify just what kind of body it sees itself as becoming.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well we have had overseas dioceses for a long time. We do have a diocese in Taiwan, the Diocese of Haiti, the Virgin Islands, Honduras, two dioceses in Ecuador, the Diocese of Colombia and Convocation of American Churches in Europe. So we do span a significant chunk of the globe and we are sensitive to the need to more clearly identify ourselves as being a transnational church.
Stephen Crittenden: What's that mean? There have been some suggestions this week that the Episcopal Church needs to clarify whether it intends to hang on to territories outside the United States, or perhaps risk accusations of imperialism.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Those dioceses overseas have missionary roots in the United States and have expressed desires to continue in relationship with the church in the US. Some of them have left and come back, by their own request; Venezuela's a good example. We would I think very much love to see them become members of bodies that can support them closer to their place of existence, but we have strong ties and all of those dioceses feel that they're best served by being members of the Episcopal church at present.
Stephen Crittenden: I want to go back to the Archbishop of Canterbury's statement that this is not a dispute about the dignity and value of gay and lesbian people in the church, but that it is a question of what kind of behaviour a church can bless, or what kind of behaviour it must warn against. What's your reaction to that?
Katherine Jefferts Schori:Well I think it's interesting to note that the last three Lambeth Conferences have affirmed a desire to listen to the experience of gay and lesbian people, and it's also quite clear that that's not happened in a terribly constructive way around the communion. My sense is that when people do begin to encounter other human beings who have a homosexual orientation, they begin to experience human beings fully as complex as heterosexual human beings, who are seeking to live faithful lives in the way in which they've been created. There is a real opportunity to encounter other human beings incarnationally, and there is a sense that those listening opportunities have not been taken up.
Stephen Crittenden: Why do you think homosexuality is the issue? The issue, almost it seems, everywhere in the mainline churches at the moment.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well it's an issue in some parts of the mainline churches, and I would note that it is far more an issue that concerns men than it concerns women. Women tend to be far more interested in discovering whether or not their children will be fed, whether their children have access to adequate schooling and medical care, whether their families can make their way in the world in constructive and whole ways.
Stephen Crittenden: Are you suggesting it ought not to be an issue?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: I think we are being distracted from the central part of our mission which is far more about feeding the hungry and healing the ill and seeking the betterment of existence for all people around the globe.
Stephen Crittenden: The thing I wanted to ask you about is whether at the base of this issue, there isn't a problem that goes to the heart of the gospel itself, about what it actually means to be holy, You know, whether Christ calls us to perfection and whether homosexuality is one of the many areas where people are less than perfect, I'm sure you'll have a view on, but there is a holiness tradition in the church that keeps bumping up against real people in their real lives.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Holiness and wholeness and health all come from the same root in English, and they're related quite intimately to the word 'salvation'. Living a holy life, living a whole and full life, is one of our understandings of what salvation means, and when Jesus says 'I came that you might have life and have it abundantly', he certainly means in the fullness of our beings, and if we understand that some people are created, are born, in this world with affections ordered toward those of the same gender, then perhaps it means we need to pay attention to that.
Stephen Crittenden: Do you see a decade ahead perhaps of property battles and legal battles as being the inevitable outcome of this dispute in the church in America?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: I sincerely hope not. There certainly have been instances in which individuals in a parish have wished to leave, and sometimes large numbers of individuals, and there have been gracious accommodations achieved in a couple of places around this church. I think it would be a sorry state indeed if we got to the point of squabbling over property without paying attention to what the centre of our mission is.
Stephen Crittenden: But I think what is it? Seven diocese, or is it nine now, who have asked Rowan Williams for alternative oversight? What's going to happen?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: I believe it's six, and I think the reality is that no one knows what alternative primatial oversight means. I think one of the things that the Archbishop of Canterbury's been very clear about is that his role in the communion is as Convener, and it is not as one who intervenes. His position is to call people to continue in conversation and relationship with each other.
Stephen Crittenden: Bishop Jefferts Schori, what about the idea of the church as the mystical body of Christ, if you end up with a loose federation of churches which are more or less in communion with each other?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: This body has been evolving as long as it's been in existence. When churching in America, when we had our revolution and clergy here could no longer swear allegiance to the crown, we found ways to move beyond that, and eventually we discovered a way to have bishops in this church that didn't involve swearing allegiance to the crown. That was the beginnings of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion has evolved in fits and starts and it's clear that in this season there's an opportunity for us to grow into a new stage of relationship. What that's going to look like ten or twenty or fifty years down the road, I don't think anyone knows. The Archbishop of Canterbury has certainly done some conjecturing about what one possible route might be, but I think he's also been very clear that he doesn't think that there's one clear answer at this point.
Stephen Crittenden: And what do you think about the idea of a covenant of beliefs that would be drawn up and that you'd all sign up to?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: I think there have been several kinds of covenants proposed. One that's more confessional, one that's based on canon law, and one the Anglican Consultative Council proposed from the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Mission and Evangelism last year that's really based on joint mission effort. I think at its best, a covenant that most of the community could agree to might contain elements of all of those.
Stephen Crittenden: I interviewed the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, the other day and his view is that there's something very American about the American church. There's an American unilateralism, that comes through here; there's a kind of a secular mission almost in terms of civil rights that comes through; that perhaps there isn't a great deal of difference between George W. Bush wanting to spread democracy to the rest of the world and the Episcopal church standing up over a gay bishop.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: No I will have a very different take on what the American church is about. Our polity is far more egalitarian and less hierarchical, less dictating than some of the portions of the communion. We're fully committed to the baptismal dignity of every human being. I think that strand of theology in our prayer book has profoundly shaped who we are as a church in the last 30 years. I would also point to the fact that our broad immigrant experience in this country and the fact that we have had to wrestle with a variety of cultural viewpoints in this church, has meant that we've had to express opinions in a very direct way. We cannot cope with cultural norms that are less than open, because of the different cultures in this country.
Stephen Crittenden: I want to talk a bit just briefly about yourself. You mentioned that you were a scientist, and I know you've talked a bit in the past about the way that science and your religious belief have influenced each other.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well I certainly see them as partners. I don't see them as mutually exclusive even though some people who've come out of the Enlightenment tradition would see them that way, I see that the life of faith is about questions of meaning: why am I here? What is my purpose on this earth? How am I to live in relationship to the divine and human beings and the rest of creation? And science is about asking why questions: How did the world come to be this way? What does it mean for us to be - we could ask questions that might relate to the religious realm - what does it mean for human beings to be stewards of this earth? What kind of influences do we have on the creation around us? How do these systems work, how do they inter-relate? And then we begin to ask theological questions about the meaning of inter-relationships.
Stephen Crittenden: I was almost going to suggest it may actually be far more significant than the fact that you're a woman, that here you are dealing with issues of sexuality, a bishop with a background, a serious background in biology. And what an important breakthrough that in itself is, the kind of issues that biology opens on to in terms of complexity and sexuality and so on.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well if one looks at the rest of creation, there are lots and lots of instances of same-sex behaviour in other species. They're generally a small percentage of the whole, but they're clearly evident. If they exist, an evolutionary theorist would say they have some kind of evolutionary benefit, or they don't have a massive evolutionary detriment, and if we can affirm that creation is good, as Genesis would say, then I think we have to take those instances quite seriously.
Stephen Crittenden: You're a big fan of Isaiah I think; you quote Isaiah a great deal.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: I am. I think Isaiah in all its richness holds up visions of what creations meant to be, how we are meant to live in a society of Shalom.
Stephen Crittenden: This of course is the basis of where our incarnational Christianity gets its roots I suppose, in the Old Testament?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Absolutely.
Stephen Crittenden: What's your favourite passage in Isaiah?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well I'm very fond of the 61st Chapter of Isaiah, where it talks about the hungry being fed and the ill being healed and the blind finding their sight and the prisoners released. In the 25th chapter of Isaiah when it talks about the heavenly banquet, the banquet set on the side of a hill with rich food and well aged wine, strained clear, I think those are both images of how we are meant to live on this earth.
Stephen Crittenden: I have to ask you about your recent comment which raised hackles I'm sure you're aware, all around the world, about Jesus as mother.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well anyone who knows the tradition knows that it's a very popular image in mediaeval mysticism. A former Archbishop of Canterbury, 11th century Ansolm of Canterbury goes on at great length about 'Jesus, our mother'. It's a favourite image of Julian of Norwich and Bernard of Clarevaux, and countless others. It's a metaphor, as all language about God is a metaphor, and I used it in that sermon in intentional ways because it fitted the text.
Stephen Crittenden: Some people saw it as a deliberate provocation, that particularly at this moment when events and ideas in the Anglican Church are so fraught.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Well perhaps it's a reminder of the breadth of our tradition, and I certainly didn't intend it as provocation. I was simply preaching the gospel as I saw it that day.
Stephen Crittenden: I guess we should just dwell on it a little bit more because it's not an idea we hear very often. What is it a metaphor for , Jesus as mother?
Katherine Jefferts Schori: It's a metaphor for new creation. When we insist that the Christ event in the death and resurrection of Jesus brings a new possibility of life, a new kind of life to humanity, it is certainly akin to rebirth. When Jesus says to Nicodemus You must be born again from above, what might he mean? I think it is a way of the gospel is saying that Jesus is a venue, an event, an experience, and an instance in which life is renewed, in which every human being as access to new life.
Stephen Crittenden: Katherine Jefferts Schori it's been fantastic having you on the program, thank you very much for your time on what's been a very busy week.
Katherine Jefferts Schori: Thank you, it's been a pleasure speaking with you.
Stephen Crittenden: Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori the new Primate of the Episcopal Church in the United States.
You're probably right...for the consistent. However there are theistic evolutionists who see evolution as the method God used to create the world--and since Adam and Eve, the corruption of sin has come, contradicting evolution, at least in the moral sphere.
I believe it is very difficult to be any kind of consistently orthodox Christian without a belief in Adam and Eve. Without a literal "old Adam" who fell the "new Adam" of Jesus Christ who redeems makes little sense--and religion becomes, as it appears to be for Schori, do-goodism with costumes and ceremonies.
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