Disputatio, Volume 14 #3

A delightful story about a rural Anglican community provides a link to further the discussion undertaken by Martin Royackers SJ and Brian Metcalfe in their respective articles in the May/June issue of Compass ("Christian Identity and Buddhist Journey" and "Jamaicans Believe What They Believe").

Two visiting Pentecostals, unable to locate a church of their own tradition, found themselves at Sunday service in the local Anglican Church. As the rector warmed to his theme, one of the visitors gave out a loud and clear AMEN! An elderly sidesman, strategically stationed halfway down the church, glared disapprovingly and raised his index finger to his lips in a disciplinary "Ssssh." The preacher, heartened by the new member's spontaneous response, made his next point even more forcefully. This elicited from the delighted visitors a rousing PRAISE THE LORD! In a flash the distraught usher was at their pew. "We don't do that sort of thing here," he admonished. "But we got religion, brother," eagerly replied the younger Pentecostal. With nary a pause, the now calmed sidesman responded, "Well, you didn't get it here!"

The two engaging articles present well a dilemma that we all experience at some level: our desire for clear and defined expectations, on the one hand, and on the other, an awareness that any belief here below is, by its very nature, imperfect and incomplete. We want timeless answers for timely questions; we are absolutely suspicious of absolutes.

I sense both our scribes have avoided the real issue and sought refuge in opposing extremes. Even allowing for Martin's enjoyable penchant for hyperbole, the church he describes is surely doomed to becoming a historical oddity if it doesn't engage the suspect "modern world." (I've always felt that the Vatican II document on the subject might have been better entitled "The Church in the Real World.") The challenge to transform this world lies at the heart of the church's mission. However, preserving tactics of transformation that give an illusion of security but haven't really worked very well for a long time can hardly be called effective discipleship. If I didn't know better, I might mistake Martin's Jamaican church for a product of the right-wing evangelism currently sweeping large sections of the believing community, north and south.

Could I dare suggest that the ability of Jamaica's Catholics to "interpret the church's teaching on sexual morality according to their own cultural norms and beliefs" is indeed evidence of the same kind of flexibility needed to encounter this brave new world from which Martin seeks refuge? We can't stand still. The appeal of many of the evangelical groups "raiding" the Jamaican church is their simplistic, otherworldly approach. When it comes to narrowness and exclusivity, they leave us in the dust. We can't compete. Better to brave the waters of growth and change with at least the hope that we are heading in a direction that will help people deal with the real world around them. Peter's bark never fares well in safe harbours.

Brian, on the other hand, wears his Christianity much less constrictively. While he may enjoy and be warmed by the sound of hymns and chanting emanating from Martin's church, he's out the door when the talk turns to good and better ways of doing things faithfully. I sense that the problem with the church's claim to "absolute correctness of doctrine or authority" is a bit of a red herring. (I am reminded of the description of Jesuit governance: an absolute autocracy mitigated only by the unremitting insubordination of its subjects!) In fact, the church seldom works from such claims in practice and has always taught that the church does not exhaust the power of the Spirit, which blows where it will, to teach and guide. Ironically, Brian finds even reasonable claims to authority arrogant and prideful, while Martin considers enlightened reflections of Brian's sort "pretentious."

To experience the truth of another's way of believing is not to invalidate one's own. To recognize the incompleteness of all finite efforts to approach the infinite demeans none of them. In fact, all of us deal with "confusion and ambiguity," all of us respond "partially, contingently," blundering along at our own speed. Herein perhaps lies the common ground. Martin's backslider is "ashamed" of missing Mass--with little possibility of this being corrected. This is his partial, contingent and blundering response. Brian shies away from commitment and engagement to "one way," preferring to work with his experience of love, recognizing that this remains a central question to be dealt with in his life. This is his "seeing through a glass darkly." Both share the exciting incompleteness of our journey home. Knowing exactly how to get there doesn't really seem to be the issue--as long as get there we do.

Brian Massie SJ is associate pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Toronto.