PEARSON'S PARTING PUNCH
Yesterday, May 16, 2021, was Andrew Pearson's last day as the dean of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Advent, in Birmingham, Alabama. He had been dean for the past seven years, following the terms of others from South Carolina, namely Paul Zahl and Frank Limehouse.
The whole course at the Advent for the past quarter century has been to differentiate the parish from the Episcopal Church and define it as a semi-independent and highly evangelical church. So, as one will notice in yesterday's service, that is available on YouTube, the service was about as "low church" as one can get. Before the service, the congregation laughed and talked as if at a camp meeting. There was no solemn decorum. Neither was there a processional. The choir and clergy sat in the front. The altar was irrelevant as no one even recognized it let alone reverencing it. The ever-burning light, hanging near the organ, signaling the presence of the sacrament in the Ambry was extinguished, something that was strikingly ironic. I saw the sign of the cross one time, and that was from the lector layperson. The Confession of Sin was the very first item of the liturgy, but even then the clergyman offered a generic and passive absolution. The Gospel was read from the lectern. The congregational singing was a mixture of church hymns and apparent camp songs. The main feature of the service was the twenty-minute sermon. I do not know how much of this was covid related and how much long-term.
Pearson's sermon was based on the text of I John, supposedly in a series of sermons on this book. He spent most of his time railing about the difference between the divine Jesus ("God in the flesh") and the "false understandings" and "heresies" about Jesus. At one point he said that some people (unidentified) said the Advent was overemphasizing the importance of the Cross, something that he clearly believed would be impossible. Then came the highest eyebrow raise when he went on to talk about Satan tempting Jesus. He inserted this (at minute 48):
a recent conversation I had with a bishop, they asked me: Andrew isn't it better to believe a part of the Bible than none at all?
Then Pearson said he recalled James Chapter 2 as the demons shuttered when they denied Jesus.
Pearson did not name the "bishop" but I doubt it takes much imagination to figure it out. What I see in this is that Pearson implied that he himself believed all of the Bible while some church (Episcopal?) authorities did not. One can make whatever one wishes of this remark coming as it did couched in the context of his remarks about Satan's and the demons' knowledge of but ultimate denial of the true nature of Jesus. Perhaps we should give the benefit of the doubt that this was an unfortunate and inadvertent simile.
It seems to me the take-away Pearson would have one make is that the Advent, and Pearson himself, follows the whole and true faith of the Bible while some other church people do not. At least, this is what I understood.
What one sees at the Advent is vertical religion about as far as possible in the context of the Episcopal Church. Vertical is individualistic, one person and one God. God is an entity beyond in space, like us, only greater. He is all perfect and all powerful. The human being is by nature the opposite. He cannot save himself. He must be "saved" by this all powerful God. If one surrenders self to this far-off being, one gains the external positive to overcome the internal negative. Taken to extreme this becomes idolatry, one implores this all powerful force to save oneself from the doom that follows from human nature.
The opposite interpretation is horizontal religion. Horizontal is communal rather than individualistic. It sees God not as a remote anthropomorfic idol, but as the transcendent force of life in the universe. People were made in the image of God to be God's representatives in the world. Moreover, God gave humans Free Will and the knowledge of good and evil. It is the mission of human beings to enact good in the world. It was ironic that Pearson quoted James Chapter 2, of all Bible texts the strongest in favor of horizontal religion (faith without works is dead).
A more familiar term for horizontal religion is the Social Gospel. The Episcopal Church has been thoroughly committed to the Social Gospel since the 1950's. This is what has caused the proponents of vertical religion in the Episcopal Church to have so much discomfort with the Church. They tend to believe the Church has gone too far away from what they see as the true nature and purpose of religion, the saving of lost souls. Whether the Episcopal Church became too extreme in its horizontal religion is a matter of debate. I for one do not think so. Obviously the schismatics and their fellow travelers think so.
Where Andrew Pearson goes from here is to be seen. Rumor has it he might start his own church, or perhaps join one already established, in the Birmingham area. Starting a new church in Birmingham is highly problematical. Real estate in the city can be very expensive. Places in the far suburbs, and they stretch for many miles around the city, may be cheaper but less convenient. There are of course some vertical megachurches in the metro area.
Most importantly, this is an inflection point for the Advent. After decades of evangelical clergy from the lowcountry pushing vertical religion in the parish, here is an opportunity to reflect on the nature and mission of this great parish, the largest in the diocese. The most hopeful sign is that the vestry has set up a committee to talk with Bishop Glenda Curry about ways to improve relations with the diocese and the broader church. Of course the people of the Advent have every right to follow an evangelical bent of religion but they do not have the right to make this parish into something beyond the recognizable limit of Episcopal and traditional Anglican religion. Anglicanism, broad that is is, does eventually have a bound beyond which one cannot go. This is the task of the Advent now: finding its identity.
