Church-breaking versus Church-making Issues: What's the Difference?

The Anglican Church of Canada is meeting in General Synod this week. (Their GS is roughly parallel to the Episcopal Church's General Convention). The Synod adopted the following resolution:

BE IT RESOLVED:That this General Synod accept the conclusion of the Primate’s Theological Commission’s St. Michael Report that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter of doctrine, but is not core doctrine in the sense of being credal, and that it should not be a communion-breaking issue.

The "St. Michael Report" referred to in the resolution above may be found here.

I am in the midst of digesting this report, but for now I would like to make one comment on the resolution's statement, "that it should not be a communion-breaking issue," namely: Duh.

The problem, of course, is that it is a church-breaking issue--for the simple reason that it is causing a significant number of people to consider leaving the church. Any assertion to the contrary is irrelevant and nonconstructive. Will this resolution change anyone's mind on this point? Certainly not.

In light of this resolution, I've decided to post a paper that is in very rough draft form. Any comments on a) how it could be improved and b) whether (and where) it should be published would be most appreciated.

Here is the paper:

Issues: What Breaks the Church & What Makes the Church
An Essay on Ecclesial Discernment in the Midst of Conflict
Marshall Montgomery

What Makes An Issue Church-Breaking?

In the volumes of popular commentary and scholarly reflection issuing from the actions of General Convention 2003, as well as in the various responses to the Windsor Report, many writers from all theological points of view have tried to address whether the issues under discussion are “church-breaking” issues.[1] It is significant that the question, “What makes something a ‘church-breaking’ issue?” cuts across ideological lines in the debate over human sexuality, for this question indicates a concern more for the nature of the church in conflict than for the issues blamed for causing that conflict. If both conservatives and liberals see an issue as “church-breaking,” but for opposing reasons, that says quite a bit about what people on both sides of the debate think the church is in the first place.

This paper will look briefly at the attitudes and basic positions prevalent along the divide of those who see issues in human sexuality as potentially church-breaking and those who do not, particularly as these attitudes and positions vary according to theological outlook. I will then proceed to offer two theses about the role of “issues” in church conflict and draw out their practical implications for the ecclesial task of discernment.

Attitudes and Positions

Among those who believe these debates do constitute a church-breaking issue, we find both conservative and liberal viewpoints. Conservatives of this conviction have tended to maintain that the recent actions of the Episcopal Church are evidence of that church’s apostasy from the truth of the Gospel and the deposit of the faith “once delivered to the saints,”[2] and so, sadly, it is impossible to maintain true witness while simultaneously continuing to be associated with an apostate church. Liberals, arguing from a radically different theological viewpoint, maintain that the church acted prophetically at General Convention 2003, and that if it comes to it, the church will simply have to “walk apart”[3] from those who cannot accept the true prophetic witness of the church as an inclusive community where all are welcome.

Those who see these issues as potentially church-breaking tend to view the debate over human sexuality as reflecting something deeper and of the essence of the faith. While they may be saddened at the polarization of the church, they are committed to doing their part—indeed, their duty—in making the church truer to the Gospel of Christ, whether that means ensuring the church becomes more inclusive and tolerant on the one side, or forming a separate community capable of purer witness to the traditional understanding of faith and morals on the other.

Among those who believe these debates do not constitute a church-breaking issue we also find both liberals and conservatives, who are generally in agreement that human sexuality should not be a litmus test for orthodoxy. They take exception to the notion that their views on matters of human sexuality should be considered a determining factor in their theological correctness or acceptability as “true” Christians. For many who value the unity of the church over any issue that may divide it, a feeling of powerlessness prevails, for it does not seem to matter in the end which side one takes in the human sexuality debate, if the debate itself is going to destabilize the church to the extent that some form of schism or fracture is inevitable.[4]

Both liberals and conservatives in this camp tend to agree that church unity is more important than the issues that divide it because unity serves mission better than division. Liberals of this conviction tend to argue for church unity on the grounds that diversity is essentially good and divergence in viewpoints is a sign of ecclesial health. From their point of view, the church needs to learn how better to live in creative tension.[5] Moderately conservative approaches tend to attempt to qualify the acceptance of divergent viewpoints by setting out criteria by which to judge the limits of tolerable diversity. More conservative approaches tend to argue for church unity on Scriptural bases and may hold a high view of the church as sacrament. Here, too, the church’s essential mission to witness to the truth of the Gospel as a whole eclipses the insistence on any particular moral truth, though conservatives agree that moral truth should not be compromised. According to conservatives, those who hold divergent opinions are clearly wrong, but that is no basis for church division; rather, the presence of false witness in the community should spur those in the church of right belief to bolder and clearer witness.

Thus, those who see these issues as church-breaking maintain that truth cannot be compromised for the sake of unity, while those who see these issues as not church-breaking maintain that church unity (and even, in the end, truth) can prevail in the face of divergent and even deeply mistaken convictions. Each side argues from the assumption that a core value, whether truth or unity, should be the central criterion for judging the weight of an issue.

Two Inter-related Theses

By contrast, I maintain that the core values of “truth” and “unity” are so relativized in their very definitions that to insist that one or the other is a reliable measure of the seriousness of an issue overlooks the inherent subjective nature of the issues themselves. This claim leads me to put forward for consideration two inter-related theses:

Thesis I: Church-breaking issues are what “we” decide they are.
Thesis II: Church-making issues are what we allow God to do with the issues themselves.

The “we” in Thesis I is a factionalized “us” placed over against any particular “them,” whereas the “we” in Thesis II is a communal “us” with reference to a community’s lived relationship with God, specifically without reference to any particular “them” against which “we” define ourselves. The sole difference between a church-breaking issue and a church-making issue, in other words, is in how the people to whom the issue is of importance relate that issue to God’s presence and action within the community. Each thesis deserves careful consideration in turn before their combined implications for community discernment can be set forth.

The Implications of Thesis I: Issues as Idols & Advocates as False Prophets

What makes something a “church-breaking” issue? Whatever “we” choose. Anything whatsoever is a “church-breaking” issue if there are enough people who decide it is.

Let us suppose that I am the leader of an advocacy group that believes its own rightness must prevail, come what may. It does not matter how many people think the issue ought not be a church-breaking one, for as soon as I can gather (however small) a party of advocates for my own position on an issue and convince them that the institution must change or else, I have created a church-breaking issue. Thus, whether it is the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals or the color of the carpet in the sacristy, anything can be sufficient grounds for schism (or “walking apart”) if those holding a particular position convince themselves that it is important enough.

To put it bluntly, I believe that to choose any particular issue and raise it to the level of church-breaking is idolatrous, whether that be the filioque or gay bishops or seemingly minor issues of liturgical usage. This is not to downplay the importance of issues in the life of a community, but rather to question their proper role in it. This position does not claim that something is not a church-breaking issue based on any subjective criteria, but that when an issue is made church-breaking, it is necessarily put in an idolatrous relationship to the community.

This idolatrous relationship of an issue to a community renders its advocates false prophets. Traditionally speaking, a false prophet is one who teaches false doctrine, or advocates the worship of false gods. False doctrine leads to idolatry because our concepts of who God is affects whether we are actually worshipping God or a false conception of God. The worship of false gods is idolatry in its plain sense.

I contend that in addition to the traditional definition of a false prophet, a more subtle kind of false prophecy exists, which is all the more difficult to detect because this prophecy may in fact advocate true doctrine and worship the true God, but these truths are overshadowed by a deadly relationship between the preconditions for belonging on the one hand and the demands of ongoing conversion on the other.

By “idolatrous” I mean anything that takes the focus of a community off God, “in whom we live and move and have our being”[6] and redirects our energies toward some other thing as an end in itself. This is a fine distinction, admittedly, and I wouldn’t blame liberals or conservatives from taking umbrage, particularly if they see their advocacy as having to do with the essence of God’s revealed truth (whether that truth has already been revealed in Scripture or is being revealed in the lived experience of the church). Certainly, this thesis opens me to the accusation that I am guilty of idolizing the church, and this is not a charge to be taken lightly. In order to acquit myself of such a charge, it is necessary to demonstrate how Thesis II protects the church from self-idolization through its faithful practice of discernment.

The Implications of Thesis II: Issues as Icons & Advocates as Prophets

The good news is that Thesis I is capable of a positive expression in Thesis II. What makes something a “church-making” issue? Whatever we choose. Anything whatsoever is a “church-making” issue if we choose to let God make it so.

Notice that in Thesis II, what constitutes the church must originate not with an “I” but with a “we,” and that our choice is grounded not in our own activity alone, but in our choice to allow God to transform our activities and consecrate them so that they are edifying to the community rather than destructive of it.

In this context, any issue can become an icon through which we look to God for guidance. By corresponding analogy to the idolatry of Thesis I, insofar as an icon is not an idol but an image that points beyond itself to a divine reality that gives shape and order to the life of the community, it functions as a corrective to the idolizing tendencies of every worshipping community.

The notion of an “icon” may be problematic for those of a more protestant (even “iconoclastic”) mindset. It might be helpful, therefore, to point out that Scripture itself fits this definition of icon, for Scripture is iconic in its function. As the Word of God, it points beyond its human authors’ words to the Divine Word, the Incarnate Logos.[7] But if “iconic” still presents a conceptual problem to those who take injunctions against “graven images” as an absolute principle, we might also describe the counter-idolatrous phenomenon as angelic, insofar as angels are God’s messengers who point beyond themselves to God. (Thus, for example, in Scripture, when humans fall down and worship angels, they are immediately told to stop.[8]) The Gospel is good news (euangelion) in this way. Thus the language of Icon, Scripture, Word, Angel, and Gospel all counter idolatry so long as they are revered and used as God intends.

What is an icon? Simply put, it is a window into divine reality. It is a re-ordering of the way we look at something so that we see God’s presence and activity in it. It is a valuing of things and others not merely in themselves or for what they can do for the self, but as a manifestation of God’s goodness in creation (fallen, imperfect, and incomplete as the icon may be, but an image of God, a participation in the imago Dei, nonetheless).

The trick, then, is in figuring out how to let God use us and the issues we struggle with to build up the church. Or, to put it another way, we must ask: How can we in the church truly let God be God? This question is one, ultimately, of discernment, and the very meaning of “discernment” must be adequately defined in order to blaze a trail through the woods of ecclesial disagreements and (at least potential) divisions. We will return to this question in the final section.

Natural Allies

Before proceeding to the final section, which will examine what circumstances and attitudes are necessary in order to convert even the most church-breaking issues into church-making issues, I would like to make an appeal to all those who are currently undertaking the vital task of arguing that whatever issues they are facing are not church-breaking issues, for I regard this group as the natural allies of those who would demonstrate how any issue may, in fact, become a church-making issue. Thus, I believe it necessary for all those who value the unity of the church to join forces, if they are to prevail over those who value their own positions (however good and true and correct these positions may be) over the unity of the church, without which true evangelical edification in holiness is impossible.[9]

Those who spend their time and creative energies trying to articulate why an issue is not church-breaking have chosen to undertake a noble, and possibly even heroic, task, in that if their argument is compelling (especially to their own local communities), they serve the very important function of holding together communities that otherwise would have broken apart on an issue. Those who make compelling arguments for regarding an issue as not a church-breaking issue thus empower communities to carry on the work of mission and witness, even in the face of deep differences of opinion and practice. Through undertaking this theological project, God gives such communities grace to keep difference from devolving into division.

At the same time, it is important to note that there is no single compelling argument for what distinguishes a church-breaking issue from a non-church-breaking issue. This is because it doesn’t ultimately matter what list of criteria one draws up, or where one draws the line on any particular issue, for what constitutes a church-breaking issue, according to my thesis, is not decided by anyone other than those who choose to break apart a church community on the basis of that issue. Those who maintain that something is not a church-breaking issue must, in the end, employ one or more of the following strategies: they must downplay or neutralize the importance of an issue for a particular community, emphasize unifying issues over divisive ones, or give a community permission to avoid an issue, whether partially or altogether. Further, avoidance or downplaying may or may not contribute to the health of a community; for if the issue is truly something that must sooner or later be addressed (e.g., the bell tower is crumbling but we have decided to put our limited resources toward keeping our soup kitchen operational), then it does not matter how compelling in the present any argument may be. In the end, someone is going to have to address the issue, else it may prove even more divisive than at the beginning.

Thus, while it is often necessary to articulate in terms compelling to a particular community why an issue should not be of immediate concern to it—or at least not to the point of causing division—one must be aware in so doing that there is no one argument that will be compelling to all communities (the historic preservation board, for instance, will likely be more interested in the bell tower than in the soup kitchen), that these arguments are merely temporary fixes, and that if an issue is actually to be addressed without schism ensuing, one must find a way, by God’s grace, of transforming that very issue into a church-making issue.

This is no small task. It is a task made all the more difficult given the fact that good pastors will always be about the business of trying to hold together communities that are ultimately volunteer associations. Yet if this is all that pastors do, unity will always be maintained through defensive strategies, which by nature are only temporary, when what is really needed is a constructive and proactive approach that puts the community on a surer footing and gives hope and confidence for the future survival of the community.

The Implications of Theses I & II for Ecclesial Discernment

Such an approach is what I mean by discernment, for when done in faithful discipline, the practice of discernment is about making room for God’s transforming power to break into a community, edifying the community in holiness and thereby empowering it for witness and mission.

[The remainder of this paper is in note form]

Thesis II as it relates to Thesis I: the difference is God’s action versus our action. The difference is a recognition of our own tendency towards idolatry, not only amongst those who are ready to declare something a church-breaking issue, but among those who aren’t. For what are those who aren’t potentially idolizing? The church itself.

Idolatry of truth over church is of self over community. Truth as you hold and express it is bound to be partial…The way it is held and expressed preempts discernment because it purports to know what God does or does not will. It limits God. It places self as arbiter and is unwilling to subject that truth to the discernment of the church…this is idolatry…

Idolatry of church over truth is the manipulation of the community over its proper tasks. So those who arg that things are non-church-breaking are in just as much danger of idolatry, only in reverse.

It is only in the non-manipulation of true discernment that idolatry can be overcome. One will find that issues remain issues, differences remain differences, but discernment creates space and allows time for the Spirit to move in the church. The Spirit is not guaranteed to move in either a liberal or a conservative direction; in fact, extremes are likely to be unhappy with the way the Spirit works, preferring to take the reins. But true discernment allows issues to be church-making rather than church-breaking, because the issues themselves become material for the edification in holiness of the community as it seeks to bear true witness and carry out the mission entrusted to it. Discipleship and mission.

Through conflicts, God constitutes the church, but only if we are willing to renounce the idolatry of self and community that keep us from discerning the true shape and function of the church in history.

These are all questions to be considered, not answers I can hand you...They raise more than they answer, but show that there is an alternative to arguing that something is or isn’t church-breaking. Neither of those positions is edifying in any lasting, unitive sense. The “is church-breaking” party “edifies” a faction, but not a church, while the “isn’t” party shores up the cracks in the dyke without actually patching them. Only when we focus on what is church-making do we begin to engage in the project that God gives us…

Any issue can be a church-making issue, given the right circumstances and attitudes.[10]

My goal, then, is not to convince advocates of particular positions on issues of importance to them that their positions or their issues are or are not church-breaking, for this is a determination that the advocates themselves are ultimately responsible for making. Rather, this is a solemn warning that those who make the choice to elevate an issue to the level of church-breaking cannot then use their settled position on that issue as church-making for themselves. There is nothing to keep some other advocate within a community that defines itself over against church-breaking issues from forming factions that further break that community by engaging in the same process ad infinitum. The downward spiral of choosing to make an issue a church-breaking one only leads to ecclesial instability.

Engaging in this process of elevating anything to church-breaking status is, in fact, to give in to the temptation to a particular form of idolatry—the idolization of issues, which necessarily has a destabilizing effect precisely where the strategy is intended to stabilize a community’s identity. The organization of ecclesial identity around an idolized issue is at once static and destabilizing. In other words, it provides a false sense of security, for while this issue may be “settled,” there is a destabilizing dynamic in the very constitution of the community.

Obviously, the intention is to organize ecclesial identity not around an idol but around God, particularly as God is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ and as the community is led into all truth by the Holy Spirit. My claim is that church-breaking issues reorganize and thereby disorder a community away from the dynamic but stabilizing work of the Holy Spirit in community discernment.

Dynamic but stabilizing means that the community remains open to being surprised by God’s grace and love, but these surprises do not threaten the identity of the community, because the community embraces God’s surprises. Openness to surprise is stabilizing, it is a form of dynamic rootedness.

…keeps God’s Spirit from leading us into all truth by claiming that on any particular issue, we already have the full truth. Since we already know God’s will, there’s no need for discernment. If discernment isn’t a necessary task anymore (except with regard, perhaps to in-group tactical decisions on how to move the group’s agenda forward), it’s not necessary to listen to others (outside the group), for God has nothing to say to us through them, and we don’t have any responsibility to say anything to them. This attitude, prevalent among both ultra-progressive and ultra-traditionalist advocates, is uncharitable and against Scriptural precepts. [Liberals tend to be more subtle in some ways about being so inclusive that others “self-exclude.” Conservatives are perhaps more forthright in grounding their anathemas in Scripture.]

Elevating an issue to church-breaking status forecloses discernment. It is a great temptation to stake out a position and then organize one’s community around it…

Discernment does not mean that the verdict on any issue need change. (Example: the divinity of Christ?), but discernment is always necessary for continued reliance on the Holy Spirit, who leads the community to discern what role any issue is to play in its ongoing life….It accomplishes stabilization at the expense of edification…

Short-circuiting of discernment…

All of us are guilty from time to time of engaging in this form of idolatry. When we become our own advocates, rather than relying on the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the Advocate for truth. We may be agents of the Holy Spirit’s advocacy only as long as we are constructive in our approach to issues. When an issue ceases to be church-making and begins to be church-breaking, our advocacy has gone terribly wrong. We have ceased listening to and following the Advocate of Truth in favor of the advocacy of truths. To borrow the Roman Catholic notion of a “hierarchy of truths,” we idolize a truth as if it is The Truth.

Advocates on all sides lose when their advocacy becomes disconnected from the Advocate…

Advocacy:
Is an important function in the church
When exercised responsibly, it is appropriately termed prophetic
A prophet points out the idols in the community’s midst.
A prophet calls the community back to faithfulness to God.

The Advocate
Is the Holy Spirit
All advocacy must be grounded in the commitment to follow the Holy Spirit as the Spirit leads us into all truth.

Advocacy and discernment are thus inseparably linked through life in the Spirit.

The ossification of positions on issues is the idolization of issues over God, truths over the Truth…

Advocates are called to advocate not positions as goods in themselves, but positions as stances and attitudes that open ourselves to God’s activity in the world. They should reveal something of God’s will as it is expressed dynamically in a community.

Advocacy goes too far when it takes an issue and makes it church-breaking.
This is a failure of the function of advocacy, which is always to engage in issues so that they are church-making.

Church-making is a synonym for edification. Issues can be edifying. Conflict and controversy can be edifying. Not in a polyannaish sense, but as they call a community to deeper reliance on the Advocate.

It’s a matter of hearing the Advocate amongst the advocates, the Word of God amongst the prophets and false prophets, the Word amongst words.

[1] [Cite bibliographic examples from research.] Due to the nature of this reflection paper, a detailed survey of these responses cannot be made here, but I have tried to be a faithful reporter of the main lines of argument on either side of this question. It is important to remember that among those who think this is not a church-breaking issue there are conservatives and liberals alike, and the same can be said of those who do think this is a church-breaking issue, as the following arguments show.
[2] Scrip. REF
[3] Windsor Report REF and other bibliographic citations.
[4] Emotionally, the impact is very similar to the traumatic feelings that children of parents going through a nasty divorce experience, with all their repercussions.
[5] This viewpoint was articulated, for instance, by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town recently: “[The] constant talk of schism from various quarters does not address the heart of the matter which is living with difference and otherness…It is our nature as human beings to be diverse and therefore the modern world requires the church to deal with diversity.” Quoted in “Anglican leaders respond to Williams’ reflections on Communion” by Matthew Davies, Episcopal News Service, Thursday, June 29, 2006, posted at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_76465_ENG_HTM.htm
[6] REF
[7] Even Orthodox Judaism treats the scrolls of the Torah with reverence in this “iconic” manner. No Jew would confuse the Torah with God, but the Torah is a window onto Heaven or a gateway to God. Devout Jews decorate the Torah and may even carry it in the streets and dance for joy in its presence—not because the Torah is their idol, but because it is iconic of God’s self-revelation.
[8] Refs. Also with Peter, Paul & Silas in Acts…
[9] This is a loaded statement, for I suppose that both conservatives and liberals who view an issue as potentially church-breaking only view it as such because unless the truth of their position is recognized, it is impossible to edify the church in holiness. This attitude of impossibility, however, is precisely what I wish to combat, for I am convinced that any such attitude on any issue whatsoever constitutes evidence of an unwitting idolatry. (The counter-claim might be that my idol is the church, or the unity of the church at the expense of truth, a very serious charge that must be considered carefully…)
[10] Or, to put it another way, given the right dispositions and disciplines, these things being given, in the first place, by God’s Holy Spirit.