Confession of 1967 is focus of eighth
annual Semper Reformanda Conversation
C-67 could help us shape our confessional faith for
the new millennium
by Doug King
[6-14-02]
Gathering at Trinity Episcopal Church, some 30 people spent nearly 3
hours in creative theological thinking before plunging into the hectic
pace of the Assembly.
Barbara Kellam-Scott opened with a brief period of
worship, focusing on 2 Corinthians 5:20, a few words of which have been
chosen as the theme for this year's Assembly. She noted that the chosen
words - "ambassadors for Christ" - need to be read in the
context of the whole sentence: "So we are ambassadors for Christ,
since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of
Christ, be reconciled to God." When read in context, these words
point to God's gracious gift to humanity, and our call is grounded in
God's gift of reconciliation, not in our own qualifications or purity.
Kent Winters-Hazelton, newly elected president of the
Witherspoon Society, traced the course of the group's recent focus on
C-67, beginning with our thinking a couple years ago about the notion of
"whole gospel congregations." This idea affirms that
"evangelism is justice, and justice is a form of
evangelism." A group gathered in Claremont, California, in the fall
of 2001 to follow this line further, working with C-67's affirmation
that we must do the Word, not just speak it.
This thinking led to a February 2002 conference on
C-67 held at the Stony Point Conference Center. One insight from this
event was the recognition the "C-67 is a time-bound document,"
intentionally reflecting on the issues of its own time rather than
speaking only in terms of eternal verities. Winters-Hazelton pondered
some of the ways the confession might have been quite different if it
had been written in the late 1970s, for example, at a time of rising
influence of the Religious Right, declining respect for religion among
intellectuals, and the growth of religious pluralism.
So, he asked, what does C-67 offer us today? For some
answers, he
turned to Dr. Douglas
Ottati, professor at Union Theological Seminary/PSCE in Atlanta. Ottati
addressed three questions.
First, he asked what C-67 says and does.
Most important, he said, is that it affirms the complexity and diversity
of our faith, reflecting a long tradition in Christian churches of
affirming more than any one confessional statement. This pattern, he
said, reflects "a humbling awareness that we don't own the whole
truth." To say that such confessions are "rules of faith and
practice," he added, claims both too much and too little for them:
It gives them an absolute authority which many of the statements
explicitly deny for themselves, but it ignores their affirmation of the
varieties of human knowledge and faith.
Ottati also suggested that C-67 offers us important
insight into the dialectic between the gathered and scattered aspects of
the church's life. Gathering for worship is vital, as it symbolically
points to our true communion with God and with each other. But this
gathering is always to be balanced by engagement with the world in
mission and service.
Ottati's second point was "what C-67 doesn't say,
or doesn't say especially well." The confession did speak to issues
such as racism, war, poverty and sexuality. But of course the issues
change, and our understandings change, as history moves forward. So
today, for example, we need a fuller understanding of sexuality: that
embodiment is a vital part of our created human nature, and that there
are varieties of sexuality which were not understood a few decades ago.
So also international relations must be viewed now in
light of the growing realities of globalization, and we need to
reconsider the meaning and value of the nation state.
C-67 addressed religious pluralism with the clear
Barthian distinction between faith (a gift received through Christ) and
religion (human constructs). In today's world we need "a full and
robust theology of religions," and C-67 doesn't provide that.
And where C-67 portrays the natural world as nothing
more than the stage for what's really important - us! - we now need a
theological framework for relating to the vastness of a universe which
stretches far beyond humanity.
Finally, asked Ottati, what are some things that we
might say today if we were to go about formulating a confession for the
new millennium - a C-02? (However, Byron Bangert pointed out that CO2
is toxic, so we might need a better name for it.) What themes might
reflect our situation today, and speak to it as C-67 spoke to so many
people in its time?
He suggested a few themes:
