Other Wanderers

The desert is a large place. Many who wander for various reasons... -e


We need to exist in the wilderness, says theologian president

By Paul Zahl
11/21/2006

There is a lot of worry out there, among "traditional" Christians of The Episcopal Church, concerning our destination. People are asking, Now that The Episcopal Church has de-camped on us and gone straight down the track of the "New Age," where do we go? Where can we go? Do we wait for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates to provide some sort of alternative Province and safe haven within our own country? Do we shelter 'neath and with The Network and with those faithful Network dioceses such as Pittsburgh and South Carolina? Do we look to the Global South bishops to come to our aid? Do we tie in with the Anglican Mission in America? Or to one of the "continuing" Anglican bodies?

Or, going further afield, do we go to Rome? (This is in fact a live option for many people, and especially given the current Pope and his predecessor.) I was listening to Olivia Newton-John's version of "Ave Maria" the other night - I really was - and felt that sort of tug which many Anglican people feel, although they tend not to talk about it until... Afterward (Edith Wharton - Dean's Contest).

In any event, does one ponder the Tiber? Or, the Presbyterian Church in America, notwithstanding its exceptionless teaching concerning the role of women in public worship? Or, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, notwithstanding its exceptionless teaching concerning the lostness of Christian bodies other than its own? Or, do we... well, you fill in the blank.

I think that this grand question of "Whither?" is not the right question. It presupposes that there is some church body out there, some supervising entity or person, which, when we find it, will be seen definitely to be "The One." The question of "Whither?" is based on the idea that there is, at this point in time, a verifiable protecting safe place.

I think that is wrong. I think it is wrong because the model for us now, for "traditional" Christians who have watched our old church travel straight off the tracks, and with animus and prejudice, too, needs to be that of the "wandering people of God." This metaphor - this actual Christian experience - is from the Letter to the Hebrews. There the inspired writer writes, "By faith Abraham... went out, not knowing where he was to go... These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. ...If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city" (11:8, 13-16).

He continues, "We have here no continuing city, but we seek the city which is to come" (Hebrews 13:14).

We need to content ourselves just now with existing in the Wilderness. And hey, that's not such a bad thing. We had our amethyst temples and our cities of gold. (Mary and I remember when a homeless mental patient smashed into bits the gorgeous altar cross of Grace Church, Manhattan, Edith Wharton's old parish. We were just a few yards away when that particular atrocity took place.) Now, however, we have to live by a different metaphor. We have become what Ernst Kaesemann called - from his Gestapo cell, incidentally - the "wandering people of God." This is what we are.

We don't have to fight it, looking here and there for a humanly held safe house. It does not exist. Or at least not until it is given. For now, we are in the Wilderness. Looking back on it afterward, we shall discern the Hand of God in our wanderings by faith.

--The Rev. Dr. Paul Zahl is Dean and President of Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA This article first appeared in November-December 2006 Seed & Harvest.