Bishop in a Funny Hat

No.161: May 26, 2023

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Medieval chess pieces (The “Lewis chessmen”), discovered on the Isle of Lewis, now displayed at the British Museum

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that a mark of Christian sanctification and maturity is that one’s convictions about non-debatable and essential matters grow stouter over time while one’s grip on debatable and non-essential matters loosen over time.

I’ve observed over my decades in confessionally Reformed contexts that often this maturity is stunted. Every dogma is imagined to have the same urgency, everywhere and at all times. Going “squishy” on one relatively minor matter tends to threaten “the gospel” itself. While it is true that Christianity is a system of belief (it is, in fact, a religion, despite all those who naïvely insist that it isn’t) and therefore every doctrine is related to every other doctrine in some way (everything is a “gospel” matter in some sense), it seems to me that too often people imagine the system to be as fragile as a doll made of finest porcelain. A single mistake or misstep in one’s thinking somehow destroys the whole thing! The better analogy was made by Oliver Wendell Holmes in his 1858 poem, “The Deacon’s Masterpiece: or the Wonderful One-Hoss Shay.” The Deacon makes a wagon with every part so perfectly made and interconnected that it doesn’t break down over time—it is invulnerable to normal wear and tear. The only downside is that every part is destined to disintegrate at the exact same moment. It looks robust, but it is a fragile thing, that “perfect” integrated system.

When this intuition or assumption of “fragility” forms the backdrop of one’s worldview, here is what you get: everything is a five-alarm fire. Everything is dialed up to “11” on the amplifier. Paranoia sets in and every disagreement is seen as the proverbial camel putting its nose under the tent, destined to undermine all that is good and true. And you get a (generally very small) community of theological perfectionists striving to enforce a stultifying uniformity.

There are lot of problems with this frame of mind. For one thing, it assumes that we finite and not-yet-perfected sinners really don’t “see through a glass darkly,” but rather have a sort of beatific vision—a fully comprehensive, “God’s eye” view of things. But we do see “through a glass darkly.” Paul tells us so. Moreover, when everything is a DEFCON 1 “gospel” issue then one really loses the ability to prioritize or perform “triage” of any sort. It seems to me this is why I observe in some circles an inordinate passion for clearly debatable topics like, say, whether women ought to wear head coverings in church, whether the creation event in Genesis 1:1 took place in 4004 B.C., or whether infants should or should not be baptized. How do we prioritize the things of greatest urgency when everything is a matter of greatest urgency? We don’t. And then things that are of greatest urgency (the “weightier matters,” Jesus calls them) will fall through the cracks while we’re having social media brawls about tithing the “mint, dill, and cumin” (Matt. 23:23).

Reformed circles in my lifetime have gone through a never-ending series of theological “crises” along these lines. Twenty years ago John Frame wrote a brilliant and—because, of course—controversial essay on this entitled, “Machen’s Warrior Children.” It holds up well, but it could probably use a good updating since in the twenty years since we’ve experienced many more rounds of combat.

I can only really speak to my own context, but from a distance I can see this kind of thing elsewhere. The Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting is coming up, and I’ve noticed something peculiar from my Twitter cheap seats. The big topic was supposed to be the damning 2019 report from the Houston Chronicle about systemic coverups of child sexual abuse in the denomination and what the SBC plans to do about it. But as the day approaches all Baptist Twitter is talking about is Rick Warren wanting to call a female counselor a “pastor.” Now, sure: women’s ordination is an important question that shouldn’t be neglected. But I do wonder if I’m seeing some straining at gnats and swallowing camels (Matt. 23:24). Likewise, it seems to me that the Roman Catholic Church has a great many problems, but I see a lot of people who think the really big issue is whether or not the Mass is said in Latin.

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I should make all this a bit more personal. Back in my early “cage stage Calvinist” days I went through a phase in which the very most important thing to me was something called “The Regulative Principle of Worship.” In the broad historical scheme of things, the “RPW” is a pretty niche Reformed doctrinal point (I didn’t really know that at the time, of course), and even then it only exists among a smaller subset of the Reformed world—mostly the Scottish Puritans and their descendants. The idea is that public worship can only be conducted according to God’s positive commands. We can only do those things that God has explicitly—or by “good and necessary consequence”—has commanded us to do. In other words, if the Bible is silent on a given thing, we cannot do it. By contrast, the Lutherans and others say that if the Bible doesn’t forbid something, then it is allowed. The RPW is intended as a sort of doctrinal “guardrail” that keeps public worship from devolving into the kinds of rank idolatry common in the late Middle Ages, and it is viewed as a protection of the individual believer’s conscience. The church can’t command you to obey the “doctrines and commandments of men.”

As you might imagine, this makes for fairly simple and austere worship services—decidedly “low church”—but cold and hard reality has meant that the RPW has been tweaked and bent in various ways. One typical Presbyterian distinction is between essential “elements” of worship and “circumstances” of worship, but even that is far fuzzier than most RPW advocates will admit.

I do not bring this up to analyze or settle the debate over worship practices. I bring it up because it is an example of how my convictions are held far more loosely than they used to be. So much so that if you were to set 20-year-old me next to present-day me on that question I am not sure you would see much resemblance.

Now, that might be a mark of compromise instead of maturity (as I’m sure my RPW friends would say), but I am struck by a few things the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter 4. It is a classic section of Scripture on the unity of the body of Christ:

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. (v.2)

If Paul expected everyone in the church to agree on everything, he wouldn’t need to exhort them to “bear with one another.” He goes on:

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (v.3)

Being of one mind and maintaining unity takes effort. Effort that, he just said, takes humility, patience, and forbearance. It doesn’t seem that Paul viewed Christian doctrine like the “Deacon’s Masterpiece,” a comprehensive, ready-made perfected doctrinal system dropped out of heaven. But that does not mean there isn’t unity:

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; on God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (v.4-5)

And now he goes on to tell us how we might achieve this unity. Christ has appointed apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers

to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (v.12-13).

What I find interesting is that this unity is something he expects the church to be built up to, to reach, to become, and to attain. A few verses later he puts it this way:

[S]peaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

The church is not Holmes’s “Deacon’s Masterpiece.” It is an organism with many supporting ligaments and with many parts that have their own place and work to do. The broad Christian church has some essential doctrines; there is foundational unity, and they are embodied in the ecumenical creeds. But there remain many, many things that we must “make every effort” to work toward unity and like-mindedness, and that is going to take humility, patience, forbearance, all flowing from the cardinal virtue of love. It seems to me the Apostle Paul’s vision for the church is precisely the historical development of maturation leading to unity.

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This is on my mind because last Sunday I attended a robust and well-attended (ACNA) Anglican Church while staying with friends in Georgia. Twenty-year-old me would be appalled. I mean, this was an über-Anglican church—probably the only thing missing was incense. And, to top it off, it was a day when the Bishop was in town to do baptisms, confirmations, and reception. And it so happens that my friends were being received into membership and two of their kids were being confirmed.

So I got to sit in the front, up close and personal.

And I saw all that pomp and circumstance with my older eyes instead of my youthful ones. And I didn’t see what my younger self would have haughtily expected to see: a group of people going through the motions of rote repetition like Zombies. I saw things that were extraordinarily meaningful. And the pomp and circumstances contributed greatly to that meaning.

Do you know what Presbyterians typically do when a child becomes a communing member (their version of “confirmation”)? We get them on a stage, ask them their membership vows, pray for them, and give them a handshake. (And then serve them grape juice for the sacrament.) On Sunday, I saw a number of precious kids, one at a time, kneel down on a cushion that was arranged so that they would be directly face-to-face with the Bishop. And this fellow in his extravagant hat and robes put his hands on their shoulders, looked each and every one of them in the face, and prayed for them. I was most struck that he then he put his hands on their heads, looked them in the eye and said: “[Name], Remember! You are not your own. You were bought with a price.” Is there any more meaningful thing to tell children in our generation, as they are constantly assaulted by competing “identities”?

I guess my point is that yes, that could all be done in a low-church environment that finishes it off with a handshake; but I daresay the high-church trappings contributed to some core memories for some of these children. There was nothing “ho-hum” about it. And even if they weren’t moved, I was. I was reminded that I am not my own, but was bought with a price.

And that I, too, see through a glass darkly and even an Anglican Bishop in a funny hat can teach me a thing or three.

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