DIOCESAN SYNOD ADDRESS 2007
CHRIST CHURCH - MOLINE
October 19, 2007

“I want you to know, beloved, that the Gospel I preached is not something that man made up.  I did not receive it from any man, nor was it taught; rather I received it from revelation from Jesus Christ.”  Galatians 1:11

I greet you in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Much has happened since our last Synod, in fact some very unbelievable things: who would have ever imagined that the Colorado Rockies would win the National League Pennant and that the Cleveland Indians might actually be in the World Series.  It appears that this could be the year of the underdog, at least on the baseball field.

In my fourteen years as your bishop, we have all seen some unbelievable things.  So much around us is changing so rapidly, and it would appear that the world is changing so rapidly that we can barely keep up with it.  At least it would seem that it is a cultural expectation that we always must keep up with every change.  There is even a type of gospel or good news message inherent in the culture that would lead us to believe that failure to keep up with all change indicates a non-progressive spirit.  In other words since some change is good, all change must be good.

In seven of my Synod Addresses in the past I have summarized the messages of each of my illustrious predecessors in this Apostolic Order, and I have noted that in spite of disease, unemployment, demographic shifts, several wars, and ecclesial turmoil the central themes of your bishops have remained the same: there is one Gospel, there is one Savior, there is one Lord, there is one Faith, and there is one way.  His Name is Jesus.
Moreover as I have analyzed the central messages of my predecessors I have discovered a remarkable sense of unity with them as it relates to theological and biblical premises.  In other words there has been a remarkable consistency in our 130 years as a Diocese – a consistency which carries with it a type of holy boldness or sanctified tenacity that seems almost disproportionate to the size of the diocese.  That is, this diocese, whether one likes it or not, whether we remember it or not,  has been in the forefront of the Defense of the One Gospel revealed in the One Lord, and lived out in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.  The most significant shift in these 130 years, however, is that in previous generations this Diocese and her Bishops were in the position of stating what the Church has always believed and has listened carefully and prayerfully to minority perspectives that sought to change her.  Today we find ourselves in the unusual position of holding majority positions as it relates to the Faith delivered unto the Saints, but we live in an ever shrinking Province that tends to elevate speculation and socio-political hypothetical constructs to the level of the Gospel, and responses to the Baptismal Covenant that are seen by some as having the same authority as the Baptismal Creed.  In searching the writings of my predecessors I find principles of the Defense of Truth which are helpful, but it is also in searching the writings of the Patron Saint of our Diocese that I find remarkable consolation and clarity.  In truth, as it relates to truth, from a cultural sociopolitical perspective with narcissism and hedonism often at the center, we find that for all of its technological sophistication our days are not unlike the days of St. Paul.

I am the wrong Bishop of Quincy to convey the essential theology of the Apostle Paul, inasmuch as the Sixth Bishop of Quincy is a Pauline scholar, but since I have asserted that we find ourselves in philosophical and sociological terms in an age not unlike Pauline times, we can assume that Pauline principles are as appropriate today as they were 2000 years ago.  In fact upon occasion I find it helpful to think of St. Paul as a Primate who has decided to review the state of the Church and address those things which are preventing personal growth, spiritual growth, church growth, missionary endeavors, and evangelism.  In spite of these passions, however, first and foremost he returns to foundational matters.  In other words, if we have constructed a faulty foundation it does not matter how ingenious or attractive the subsequent layers of building are.  In time the building will fall.  The attractive brick a brack will crumble if the foundation has fault lines.  Therefore while St. Paul has a passion for the building, he is willing to die for the foundation.

In the first Chapter of his letter to the Galatians St. Paul says, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.  I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all.  Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should peach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.  As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted let him be eternally condemned!  Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?  Or am I trying to please men?  If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.  I want you to know, brothers that the gospel I preached is not something man made up. “

If we look carefully at the pastoral letters of Bishop Paul to his dioceses we will note that the foundational gospel of which he speaks carries with it the reality of revelation, as opposed to an ongoing, fluctuating contextual process.  The latter is a necessary principle for those engaged, for example, in technological endeavors, but this principle applied to objective and revealed truth is inconsistent with the methodology articulated by St. Paul our Patron.

Indeed, some of St. Paul’s followers were eager to hear what St. Paul had to say.  In some ways they may have even awaited his letters as a student awaits a progress report from the teacher.  Some students will reserve their impression of the brilliance and effectiveness of the teacher until they have seen their grade card.  An “A” will mean that the teacher is a brilliant judge of intelligence, but a “D” will mean that the teacher has failed to disseminate essential information.  Unfortunately in the Church today we often measure the “success” of leadership on the basis of agreement, numbers, and preconceived notions of what we have already decided a good leader is.  In some ways St. Paul was a poor leader in terms of some principles of leadership today; he traveled too much and he was not in his office enough.  He was not very democratic; he rarely broke up his leadership teams into small groups for conversation purposes, and he did not seem to offer many opportunities for opinion polls. In his clarity, not always coupled with the world’s new meaning of charity, St. Paul kept going back to his Damascus Road experience.  For St. Paul without conversion there can be no conversation.  Without repentance there can be no forgiveness. 

I have found it fascinating of late to fill out warranty cards.  In the last 10 years any hint of religion has been removed from these cards.  I have discovered recently that I am the CEO of a small business, that I am a “Mr” or “Dr” but that most of the time I am consistently, in terms of the culture, an “other.”  Actually that does not trouble me because the Scriptures tell us that we are not to be confirmed to this world.  Nonetheless this consumer culture is still unsettling, and I suspect that if St. Paul were to write a Pastoral Letter to the Church today that his emuensis might have suggested a few adjectival changes.

However there are still some principles that can arise from the proverbial verbiage of our culture that require some response:

• Just because one has been  a member of a particular Church his or her entire life does not mean that they understand the Church to which they belong
• For most people “my church” means “where I go on Sunday”
• Most Episcopalians are convinced that they belong to an independent American Denomination except every ten years when there is a Lambeth Conference
• Anti-Racism  means not articulating the sense of intellectual superiority we have in our hearts towards those who “are not like us”
• Liberal no longer means being able to coexist with a number of incongruities
• Respectful, charitable, and intelligent debate has been replaced with anecdotalism, ad hominum aggression, and feelings
• Objective Truth has been replaced by Subjective Voting
• Verbal ambiguity is a new art form
• Critical thinking now means thinking critically of others
• Anyone who actually believes what the Bible says is a Biblical Fundamentalist
• When we fill out a pledge card to God it is really seen as a financial opinion poll response
• Ever changing scientific truth ranks higher than the revealed truth of the Gospel
• Being patient means waiting 29 ½ minutes for someone to return my call or answer my e-mail
• It is important that YOU follow all of the rules, as long as you understand that none of them apply to me
• Some people think that pre-Synod Resolutions are final form documents
• Abbot and Costello would literally have a field day if they attended many church meetings
• People who are desperate to prove a point use statistics
• Dialogue and conversation place us on the stool; Scripture, Tradition, and Reason are the stool, and God decides if it is a stool
• We check our e-mail more times per day than we read our Bibles
• People fear the judgment of transitory civil courts more than the judgment that comes from the eternal throne
• Finally, we would rather see a stained glass window of St. Paul than to listen to his words about our stains

I am absolutely convinced that the culture has value!  It has value because God has made that clear to us in the Doctrines of Creation and Incarnation.  What I have enumerated as musings if viewed by themselves could be construed as being caustic, cynical, flippant and judgmental.  I offer them, however, as the challenge that is before us.  Far too much time is spent wringing our hands instead of folding our hands, and far too much time is spent ignoring what exists instead offering up what exists to the “only Name that is given for health and Salvation.”  My enumerations are on my prayer list, and I pray as a sinner who has been thrust into leadership whether I like it or not and whether anybody else likes it or not.  To be a leader today is to have one’s heart broken daily, but even more so it is to be before the throne of Grace beseeching the mercies of the only One who can repair a broken heart.

Our Patron speaks to my heart again in his first letter to the Church of Corinth when he says,

“When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.  My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power….”

“The Spirit searches all things even the deep things of God.  For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him?  In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.  The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:
 For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?
 But we have the mind of Christ.” (I Corinthians 2)

Beloved in Christ, this Synod is not about Resolutions.  This Synod is not about keeping the Bishop happy.  This Synod is not about crafting creative sound bytes for the media.  This Synod as has been the case for 130 Synods is about being a Christian family, by keeping our eyes on Jesus, by being faithful to that which has been entrusted to us, and by never forgetting the call that has been placed on the lives of all Christian disciples.
As our Patron says in his letter to the Philippians, and so I say to you,

“But whatever was to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which I s through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.  I want to know Christ and the pwer of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

+Keith Quinciensis
10/19/07
Christ Church Moline