Like The Earth Underfoot, Values Divide

Prologue

Episcopal priest and former US senator John Danforth (R - MO) is interviewed by Will Sullivan in this week's issue of US News & World Reports. The Q & A is tellingly titled, "The Values Divide." Indeed, they do. For Mr. Danforth strings together some of the most disheartening -- and empty -- thoughts I have seen in a long time; it is a wonder he has a book published at all (the occasion for the interview). But more importantly it is a wonder he is taken seriously as an Episcopalian, since his theology is utterly naive. And I am not suggesting a naivete reminiscent of child-like faith. I am talking naivete that is ignorant of its own heresies.

I urge readers to read the full text, which can be found at this link. It is a prerequisite for what follows.
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One could choose to address a myriad of problems -- cultural, political, philosophical and religious -- with Mr. Danforth's comments, but I shall ignore them for what I believe to be the most salient absurdity posited by Mr. Danforth. This is not a foray -- though it could be -- into the contentious and divisive 2003 election of V. Gene Robinson to shepherd the diocese of New Hampshire. That event is no doubt relevant; it is indeed the backdrop for Mr. Danforth's interview (and his book).

When asked what The Episcopal Church (TEC hereafter) should do to bring back the many (though Danforth believes it is only a few) people who have left TEC, Danforth gives us this stupifying answer:

I think to emphasize that we are traditionally a broad church and this has been our glory. I think a lot of people would say, well, the Episcopal Church is wishy-washy, that it doesn't really stand for anything. I think we stand for a lot. I think we stand for the idea that God cannot be encapsulated in our perceptions or in our views of political issues or social issues. It's saying that God is bigger than all these issues and bigger than any of our factions, and the church is big enough to include everything. [emphasis added]

Fortunately, we are spared Danforth's full list of what might be included in his generous use of the word, everything. But we know no such list is even necessary: listing everything is as futile as dividing infinity. Everything is, well, everything, and it is impossible to find any worth in adumbrating the extension of the word: The church, reflecting the glory of God's inestimable bigness, has no rooms, no partitions. It bids welcome to everyone -- and every thing -- without distinction. After all, to distinguish or define is to be small-minded, factious: If God is big enough to include everything, well, let us fall prostrate in adoration of his hospitality.

One wonders if Mr. Danforth is at all sentient of the glaring fact that he has contradicted himself. If his proposition that "God cannot be encapsulated in our perceptions" is indeed meant as something other than a mere theological jest; if it is meant as a premise to Mr. Danforth's argument, then it must be noted that Mr. Danforth has indeed encapsulated God in his perceptions. To Mr. Danforth, God is BIG, really big. So big, in fact, that we should just submit (islam?) to the overwhelming wonders of God's mighty size in blissful nonjudgmentalism.

The pantheism of Mr. Danforth's theology is utterly clear. We see without the slightest obscurity what this all means: God is everything -- at least everything wonderful (which is a vapid tautology). But we also see the inevitable inverse of all of this: If God is everything, he is nothing. It's analogous to a Christmas morning when a child looks with shock as his father announces that he has not given his child a single gift, he has instead given him everything: "My son, there is a bow and ribbon on the whole universe!" It also calls to mind the great Steven Wright quip: "I have the world's largest seashell collection -- I have it scattered all over the beaches of the world." In other words, Mr. Wright has no seashell collection; and the little boy sits Christmas morning without a single gift to open. Mr. Wright doesn't love seashells enough to collect any for his pocket; the father of the little boy does not love him enough to make a distinction between nothing and just one thing, one gift that is set apart, distinct, chosen and shaped specifically for his little child's delight on Christmas Day.

Perhaps I misread Mr. Danforth's expansive theological statement. But I don't think I do. "Everything" can fit into the church, which is exactly why the church is increasingly empty. Mr. Danforth's God is as big as Allah, as undistinct as Buddhism's nirvana, as permissive as the cult of Bacchus, and nearly as much nothing as the atheist's void. Truly we can define this apparently Episcopalian theology as universalistic and tolerant; as syncretistic and postmodern. We might even call this idea of God authentic and accessible and "inclusive." But the one thing we can't call it is Christian. To do so would be factious -- and small.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

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