Rev’d Dr. Leander Harding

This is the second in a series of meditations given to the clergy of the Diocese of Albany. As I read these over I am aware of how easily some of things I say about the priesthood could be misinterpreted. I use words like mediator and intercessor but I mean these things in what I would call a John The Baptist sense, that is that there is a legitmate ministry which must proclaim His coming and then must disappear. This is a work in progress.

The Glory Of The Lord
Glory, kabod in Hebrew, doxa in Greek, here is one of the most important words in all of scripture. The lexicons tell us that the word has to do with weight, heft and also with shimmering light. The word has the sense of power and majesty and even danger and threat. When the lookout put his hand over his forehead and searched the horizon and there saw the shimmering reflection of the desert sun on the spear points and chariot wheels of an approaching army, he would say that he had seen the glory of an army. If it were an enemy army it meant threat and danger, if it were an ally, it meant rescue and salvation. When the people of Israel were encamped before the Red Sea, the lookouts sounded the alarm, “Behold, here comes Pharaoh and all his glory.” Moses stretched out his hand and said, “Behold, the glory of the Lord.”

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This started out as one of a series of meditations on the priesthood given to the clergy of the Diocese Of Albany. I am rewriting and collecting them as a little book tenatively entitled “To Persevere In Love.” I just gave this as a lecture at Trinity Episcopal School For Ministry. Thanks to the dean, faculty and students for the chance to speak with them about a topic that is important to me.

To Persevere In Love
Meditations On the Priesthood

Our talk about ministry and priesthood is oddly imageless, abstract and generic. We speak of ministry, the ministering community, of facilitating gifts, of empowerment, of spirituality for ministry, of the baptismal covenant, of circles rather than pyramids, of mutuality and mutual ministry, of the Roland Allen model, of mission and the missionary church, of reconciliation, inclusion, justice and peace. Less often we talk about the Body of Christ and very seldom or so it seems to me do we hear of Jesus hanging on the cross, appearing after the Resurrection, breathing upon the disciples, Ascending into heaven and there interceding for us as the Great High Priest. What could it mean for the church and all its ministers, lay and ordained, if this image of the Jesus, The Great High Priest were more clearly before us and more carefully developed in our imaginations. So I invite you in what follows to an exercise in imagination.

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BISHOP SPONG: RESURRECTION AND MIRACLES
BY
THE REV. LEANDER S. HARDING, PH.D.

In this last of our series on John Spong’s critique of credal Christianity we are taking up thesis number 5 and thesis number 7 in the Spong manifesto. Thesis 5 is:The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity. Thesis 7 is: Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.

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BISHOP SPONG AND THE ATONEMENT’
BY
THE REV. LEANDER S. HARDING, PH.D.

Thesis number 6 in Spong’s manifesto is :The view of the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive ideas about God and must be dismissed.

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BISHOP SPONG AND THE INCARNATION
BY
THE REV. LEANDER S. HARDING, PH.D.

The third of Bishop Spong’s theses that we are taking up in this series includes number 2 and number 4 in his manifesto. His second thesis is:Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt. Thesis number 4 is: The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ’s divinity, as traditional understood, impossible.

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Happy Fat Tuesday,

To get ready for Lent you should treat yourself to some good Louisiana Music, like Zydeco.

BISHOP SPONG AND THE FALL
BY
THE REV. LEANDER S. HARDING, PH.D.

The second thesis of John Spong we are taking up in this series is the third in his manifesto: The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.

Spong treats the concept of the fall and the story of Adam and Eve in a chapter in his book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, entitled, “Jesus As Rescuer: An Image That Has To Go.” He quite accurately outlines the traditional story of salvation history which begins with a good and loving God freely creating a good creation and as the pinnacle of that creation God creates the man and the woman in his image and likeness. God places the man and the woman in the garden and gives them dominion over the earth. Then the snake appears on the scene and tempts Adam and Eve to break the one commandment that God has given them. Sin enters in and the original relationship with God is broken. From this original sin evil spreads. Traditional theology says that we are all affected by Original Sin and stand in need of an antidote for this sin. God deals with sin and evil by calling Abraham and by giving the law through Moses, by sending the prophets and in the fullness of time, Christ to be the sacrifice for sin. By his death and resurrection Jesus Christ restores our fellowship with God and gives us the gift of eternal life. This basic narrative of salvation Spong calls “Jesus the divine rescuer” which is “dead wood of the past” which “must be cleared out so that new life has a chance to grow.”

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MUST CHRISTIANITY CHANGE OR DIE?
A RESPONSE TO BISHOP SPONG
BY
THE REV. LEANDER S. HARDING, PH.D.

The first of Bishop Spong’s Theses that we will take up is thesis number 1: Theism, as a way of defining God is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

Theism is the belief that there is a God who is distinct from and not dependent on the cosmos. Christian Theism is the belief that this God has revealed himself in creation and history and perfectly in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who has taught us to call this God,” Our Father.” In order to understand more clearly what John Spong means by his theses I have consulted his book, Must Christianity Change or Die? Harper Collins, 1998

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Ed Friedman is probably the most comprehensively worshipped authority in the Episcopal Church. Rabbi Friedman was famous for applying the Family Systems Theory of Dr. Murray Bowen to congregational life and leadership. Liberals and Conservatives, Reappraisers and Reasserters may share little else but a reverence for Ed Friedman.

A central concept in Friedman’s opus was “leadership by differentiation of self.” This leadership posture was contrasted by Friedman to leadership by force of personality and persusasion, which he thought produced overdependent followers and a cult like ethos, or leadership through consensus, which he thought empowered the “emotional terrorists” and tended to produce “peace mongers.” (The vintage Friedman terms remind me of the wonderful combination of Sigmund Freud and Henny Youngman that the Rabbi was in person. He wowed his audiences including the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church.)

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I am trying to understand what you are professing and teaching both explicitly and implicitly by your votes at the General Convention, by your public statements and by your participation in the consecration in New Hampshire.

1. It appears to me that you are teaching more than a strategy of pastoral care of homosexual persons by making exceptions to the church’s received norms. It appears to me that you are teaching that homosexuality is part of God’s original plan and order for the creation on the order of God’s creation of humanity as male and female and that this “gift of God” should be celebrated in the sacraments of the church.

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