{"id":735,"date":"2006-06-24T04:20:25","date_gmt":"2006-06-24T04:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=735"},"modified":"2006-06-24T04:20:25","modified_gmt":"2006-06-24T04:20:25","slug":"kneejerk_reactions_and_polariz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=735","title":{"rendered":"Knee-jerk reactions and Polarizations"},"content":{"rendered":"

With all the acrimony that runs through this Church these days, and considering the knee-jerk reactions from various sides coming out of the General Convention, we must begin to revive the traditional Anglican way of seeking a common or middle way that carries the Church though rough times and the strong pull of the polarizing extremes. Heck, we need a revival of Hooker\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ideals of what the Church of England and now Anglicanism can truly be. We could call ourselves \u00e2\u20ac\u0153revivers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rekindlers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reawakeners\u00e2\u20ac\u009d after the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153conservative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u009d term for themselves as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reasserters\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153liberal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u009d term for themselves as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reappraisers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nNow is the day to begin rebuilding Anglicanism in the United States.
\nThe polarization resulting from the American Culture Wars (from both the conservative and liberals sides) has infiltrated The Episcopal Church. The two extremes in this Church have polarized the membership, perhaps intentionally, in order to achieve their goals that result in the imposition of particular perspectives and practices over and above the middle or opposite-extreme positions. There are good and faithful Episcopalians from all sides that do wish to remain together and to forge an honest way forward so that the balance and richness that results from different sides staying in conversation, debate, and inquiry can be maintained. The result is a solidly balanced way to understand our faith in the 21st century and God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call to us to influence the world.
\nDean Alan Jones from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in his new book entitled, Common Prayer on Common Ground: A Vision of Anglican Orthodoxy<\/em>, attempts to articulate an Anglicanism based squarely on Via Media – the middle way which encompasses the vast majority of the common folk in the Episcopal Church. He writes about the “Conservative and Liberal Perspectives” in one small section of the book. I want to quote from it because I think he does a similar thing that The Very Rev. George Back did with his essay written in 1991 detailing the positive aspects of conservatism and liberalism in the Church and our need for both. I read Back\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s essay for the first time in The Anglican Digest<\/em> July, 2003.
\nJones writes:
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This highlights the weakness of liberalism. It is an effort \u00e2\u20ac\u201c sometimes noble and heroic \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to dispense with tradition and ancient ways of believing. [Houston] Smith writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcLiberals are at their worst in not recognizing how much an absolute can contribute to life, and in assuming that absolutes can be held only dogmatically, which is not the case. Absolutism and dogmatism lie on different axes. The first relates to belief, whereas the second is a charter disorder. The opposite of absolutism is not open-mindedness but relativism, and the opposite of dogmatism is not relativism but open-mindedness. There can be, and are dogmatic relativists and open-minded absolutists.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But he goes on, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcliberals [are] better than conservatives at recognizing the dangers of fanaticism and the virtues of tolerance, and conservatives [are] better as perceiving the dangers of nihilism and the virtues of a sense of certainty\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Both the strengths and dangers of liberalism pertain to life\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s horizontal dimension, which encompass[es] human relationships \u00e2\u20ac\u201c whereas those of conservatives pertains to the vertical, asymmetrical God-person relationships.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 [Houston Smith, The Soul of Christianity<\/em>, HarperSanFrancisco: 2005, p.211]
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Liberals need to learn that the vertical relation is more important. It seems to me that the conservative diagnosis is often right but its remedy (charging back into an idealized and imagined past) is both unworkable and disastrous. The liberal is often a poor diagnostician but, at least, has an inkling of freedom in God\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Of course, as an Anglican, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say that both statements are true! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a matter of emphasis. Polarization is a form of indulgence and is both unnecessary and harmful. The world is in both a state of sin and a state of grace. Human beings are both fallen and free.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nAlan Jones, Common Prayer on Common Ground<\/em>, Morehouse Publishing, 2006, pp31-32.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With all the acrimony that runs through this Church these days, and considering the knee-jerk reactions from various sides coming out of the General Convention, we must begin to revive the traditional Anglican way of seeking a common or middle … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}