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Letters from 20 to 26 September 2010

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Schism and Beck

After the Great Schism (a show of hands if you can recall the matter which first divided the universal Church in 1054) the Western church began to pile on the authority. That was, I think, the Filioque Clause on the theological side and the dispute between the equally arrogant and intransigent Michael Cerlularius and Cardinal Humbert.

I am dismayed at the extent to which strictly theological issues, like the Filioque Clause, are dismissed while moral principles and "lifestyle issues" are taken to be central. Right now there's speculation at whether Glenn Beck, a Mormon convert, will be able to capture the hearts and minds of evangelical Christians. And it seems likely that he will because members of his conservative constituency don't care whether their leaders are monotheists or, like Beck, Mormon polytheists: they care about promoting puritanical codes of conduct, maintaining sex roles, and promoting social conservatism. Theology is just a means to that end.

I'm really fed up. I believe the articles of the Nicene Creed — sans Filioque. I really have no place to go. On the one hand there is the Episcopal Church where, judging from long experience, at least half of the priests not only don't believe in God, but think that anyone who does is stupid. On the other hand, there are religious believers who believe that the essence of Christianity is social conservatism and the promotion of sex roles. And that anyone who isn't on board with that agenda can't possibly be a real religious believer.

H. E. Baber
University of San Diego
San Diego, California, USA
baber@sandiego.edu
21 September 2010

Schism and Bread

After the Great Schism (a show of hands if you can recall the matter which first divided the universal Church in 1054) . . . Whether the bread of communion should be leavened or unleavened.

The Reverend Lois Keen
Grace Episcopal Church
Norwalk, Connecticut, USA
21 September 2010

Earlier letters

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