WHY INCLUSIVENESS IS EXACTLY WRONG - Gary L'Hommedieu

[david at virtueonline.org]

WHY INCLUSIVENESS IS EXACTLY WRONG, by Gary L'Hommedieu

Commentary

By Canon Gary L'Hommedieu
www.virtueonline.org 
8/22/09

 In a recent opinion piece in The Washington Post The Rt. Rev. John Shelby Spong, the Episcopal Church's iconoclast emeritus, weighed in approvingly on the actions of the recent General Convention in moving the gay agenda into the end zone of History. Assuming an air of authority he declared "the battle over homosexuality" to be "over." (John Shelby Spong, "Battle Over Homosexuality in Episcopal Church is Over", Washington Post, August 6, 2009; http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/john_shelby_spong/2009/08/)

"I do not want to be part of a church united in homophobia or one that pretends it can preserve unity by excluding any group of human beings," scolded the retired Bishop of Newark.

Bishop Spong couches his remarks in reference to the secular gospel of which he is a self-proclaimed champion, the gospel of inclusiveness. Under the usual anointing, he pronounces TEC to be on "the right side of history", compared with the Archbishop of Canterbury who, regrettably, is relegated to history's "backside" for giving place to the majority of the Anglican Communion who do not share the anointing of the American Province and its leadership.

Spong is right about one thing; the battle is over in the Episcopal Church. Conservatives are reeling, scouring the horizon for "other issues" to moralize about in order to persuade the public that they are not homophobic after all. They have yielded the moral high ground to the revisionists by giving credence to the faux pathology of homophobia.

One of the comments we conservatives make is that we really are the inclusive ones, that we alone truly "welcome" sinners through our willingness to lovingly speak the truth about their need to change. Gays and straights alike see this for what it is--a transparent display of self-promotion. What has astonished me is the need conservatives have for affirmation by those who have already rejected us. We can't bear the thought that anyone might get the wrong idea about our good intentions.

For now, the battle is over. No one is debating any more. It takes a common language to hold a debate and an openness to be persuaded. Neither side has that sort of mind--not on this issue. And no one will hear our self-serving remarks as we bid for our self-respect. We can only win that back by not worrying about it.

It's time for an ideological shift by the orthodox, both those remaining in TEC and those who have departed. For those who have ears to hear, it's time to reject the inclusiveness dogma. The reason is not to persuade the revisionists--and certainly not to win their approval--but to turn ourselves from the tendency to sell ourselves at a bargain price, which is the core motivation of Christian revisionism.

As a basis for evangelism and as a guiding principle of faith, the message of inclusiveness is associated with groups in rapid decline. As a word "inclusiveness", whatever it does mean, does not mean aggressively recruiting those who feel excluded. Even if a few do straggle in, the main thrust of the inclusiveness gospel is the validation of the institution that proclaims it.

The message of inclusiveness rings hollow for a number of reasons. Least among them is the fact that it represents a distortion of New Testament teaching and is thus a heresy--as if heretical institutions cannot thrive. The mainline churches are not declining because of heresy--not directly.

Conservatives who bewail TEC's heresy and apostasy are too late. The faith of the creeds has been decorative at best for generations of Episcopalians, even at the highest levels of leadership. The American Episcopal Church has tolerated, even embraced, a latent unitarianism for most of its history. The present "inclusive" church, with Gene Robinson as its most recent poster child, is only the latest example. 

The Episcopal Church, along with the other mainline churches, did not begin its decline after World War II when liberal policy wonks began foisting their social experiments on traditional faith communities; nor during the Vietnam era when the protest generation began coming of age. The decline began at the time of the American Revolution with the rise of the nonconformist "camp" religions, when a spirituality based on religious need began to distinguish itself from a spirituality often based on social polish.

In their book "Acts of Faith" Rodney Stark and Roger Finke identify a distinction between "high cost" and "low cost" religions. Those religions that make demands on their membership, whether in terms of commitment or belief, are the ones that "cost". People join these faiths out a sense of need, and they're willing to pay a considerable price. 

Stark and Finke develop a parallel concept of "tension" in relation to high and low cost religious institutions. "Tension refers to the degree of distinctiveness, separation, and antagonism in the relationship between a religious group and the 'outside' world" (page 281). 

According to these writers "churches" are those institutions existing "in relatively lower tension with their surroundings" and are thus "low cost", compared to "sects" which are characterized by "relatively higher tension" and thus higher "cost".

The "church-sect" typology has a long history among students of religion, one which enjoys a surprising resiliency today. When H. Richard Niebuhr wrote "The Social Sources of Denominationalism" in 1929, he predicted that the rise from small "sect" to established "church" would be a one way progression, running parallel to other forms of progress in the exploding industrial economy. The sects began as meetings of the lower socio-economic classes who, in place of wealth and respectability, found religious faith and community life as incentives. 

After the Revolution the former Old World missions--the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists--were transformed overnight into the Establishment. Outsiders clamored to get in because being an Episcopalian (for example) was a sign of class. Meanwhile the upstart sects, composed of displaced immigrants seeking a place in the new economy, became the focus of dramatic growth in the New World--in the 19th century, the Baptists and Methodists; later, in the early 20th, the fundamentalists and Pentecostals. Already the older churches demonstrated a gradual decline relative to the overall population, a decline which accelerated in the post-WWII era up to the present.  Among the distinguishing characteristics of the newer religions is that they put demands on their members. Discipleship had a cost and often carried a stigma. The sectarian movements often defined themselves as "true believers" over against the established churches who had sold their spiritual birthright for a pottage of worldly prestige and splendor. From the standpoint of the mainline elites, to belong to one of the sectarian bodies carried the stigma of social immobility--like living on the wrong side of the ecclesiastical tracks.  This last point explains the instinctive abhorrence Episcopalians feel at being identified as "fundamentalists". It is a source of shame. The horror Episcopalians feel at being so labeled is not a reaction to criticism. For a modern Episcopalian to be called a fundamentalist means the same thing that being spat on meant to a Jew three thousand years ago.

In spite of explosive controversies surrounding women's and gay liberation, TEC's proclamation of inclusiveness is anything but a prophetic challenge to authority. It is at best a calculated effort at running a parallel course to the secular culture, with minimal risk at predicting the drift of that society. In other words, TEC's agenda is a strategy for systematically eliminating social stigma. 

Note that Bishop Spong exults in the final elimination of tension in the life of the Episcopal Church. Here his terminology is revealing. He refers to his fear of being "irrelevant" and "embarrassed"--two code words for shame. He legitimizes his fear in grandiose terms as "being on the wrong side of history", indicating his own delusion regarding the social meaning of TEC's lockstep conformity to the dominant culture. The rhetoric of inclusiveness, in short, is a formula for false consciousness. It is a jealously guarded illusion.

Inclusiveness is an explicit strategy for cost-free religion, which in turn is a formula for religious decline, as in Spong's former Diocese of Newark. As Bishop Spong put it himself, TEC's doctrine of inclusiveness is about "relevance"--a thinly disguised bid for validation and an attempt to avoid embarrassment and shame.

Inclusiveness is the ideology of a toppled majority. It is a form of appeasement. It is the "prophetic" voice of those who have lost the will to defend any boundaries, physical or psychological, hence they can "include" everyone. It is really impossible to join a group that has no boundaries. "Join" doesn't refer to anything. The invitation is imaginary.

Conservative Anglicans and Episcopalians have been called "sectarian" by revisionist critics, and this is ironically true. Much to the chagrin of Professor Niebuhr and the prognosticators of Progress, the sect-to-church evolution can and does reverse itself. The newer, smaller Anglican bodies, including conservative Episcopalians, have in effect voluntarily moved to the other side of the ecclesiastical tracks, with all the social "tension" that implies. 

In spite of our proud pedigree we have become "fundamentalists". Don't bother trying to rehabilitate that term with historic reference to "the fundamentals of the faith". People who toss that word around aren't interested in what it means. They just want to spit. 

We are not "inclusive". We have boundaries, like any healthy body. It means something to join our group, and it costs a lot. But we have something to offer, besides our illusions.


---The Rev. Canon J. Gary L'Hommedieu is Canon for Pastoral Care at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida, and a regular columnist for VirtueOnline.