Robert Spencer is not happy with The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, DD, Episcopal Bishop of Washington and Dean of the Washington National Cathedral
The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, DD, Episcopal Bishop of Washington and Dean of the Washington National Cathedral, last week preached a televised Christmas sermon that was so breathtakingly brimful of theological confusion and pandering dhimmitude that I am breathless as I type this.
| Say on, Macduff. I've never seen a religion commit suicide before... |
Rapt in wonder at the miraculous works of God, Chane asks a series of rhetorical questions: "And what was God thinking . . . when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the Law to Moses? And what was God thinking . . . when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the sacred Quran to the prophet Muhammad? And what was God thinking . . . when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?"
| We might also ask what God was thinking when he made all religions interchangable parts, each one as valid as the other. F'instance, there's no apparent difference between an Episcopalian and a Unitarian, and neither religion appears to be as valid as any cargo cult or the Worshippers of the Great Toaster. |
Chane continues: "Were these just random acts of association and coincidence or was the Angel Gabriel who appears as the named messenger of God in the Jewish Old Testament, the Christian New Testament Gospels, and the Quran of Islam, really the same miraculous messenger of God who proclaimed to a then emerging religious, global community and to us this morning that we are ALL children of the living God? And as such we are called to acknowledge that as Christians, Jews and Muslims we share a common God and the same divine messenger. And that as children of the same God, we are now called to cooperatively work together to make the world a haven for harmony, peace, equality and justice for the greatest and least among us."
| "And since all three religions are equally valid, just as is Unitarianism, I might add, we have nothing to worry about if we happen to be overrun by wild-eyed Mussulmen, waving AKs and scimitars and such. I, for instance, will simply trade my bishop's mitre for a turban and continue collecting donations, living a very comfortable life, thank you..." |
Gee, that all sounds swell. Put me down for harmony, peace, equality, and justice too. But I am left wondering if Bishop Chane has actually read the Qur’an that he acknowledges as a divine revelation. While he calls Jesus the "Son of God" in this sermon, is he aware that the book he calls "the sacred Qur’an" in practically the same breath doesn’t exactly approve of those who call Jesus the Son of God? "The Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they!" (Sura 9:30). It’s unlikely that anyone who really believes that that verse was revealed by God would take kindly to Chane’s calling Jesus "the Son of God." Meanwhile, by affirming both, Chane has demonstrated that he himself most likely doesn’t believe in much of anything.
| There's lots to believe in. A comfortable life financed by the regular donations of the faithful, the company of like-minded clerics, a certain amount of prestige. It's not like people are carried off by demons anymore... |
Chane has also entangled himself in an absurdity. In his view, evidently, although his god was busy sending the Angel Gabriel to do a lot of revealing, this deity wasn’t much interested in making sure his revelations were internally consistent or, therefore, particularly revelatory by any standard. In doing so, and by attempting to pander to Jews, Christians, and Muslims in one fell swoop, he has managed to make statements offensive to each group.
| Only to those within each group who actually believe in their religions. He wasn't talking to them, though, and it was probably rude of them to listen in. He was talking to other people like himself, people who don't believe much of anything, starting with sin and redemption. |
This kind of silliness is not a viable road to the genuine harmony, peace, equality, and justice that Chane longs for. Instead, it’s the road to dhimmitude: now that he has publicly affirmed Muhammad as a prophet, Chane could easily be pressed by Muslims to discard what may remain of his Christian faith — or else accept dhimmi subservience in the name of the peace he covets. For nothing is more certain than the fact that his generosity will not be reciprocated. Many Muslim apologists make skillful use of the fashionable language of tolerance by saying that they affirm Jesus as a prophet, and why can’t Christians do the same for Muhammad. But if Chane thinks this is real tolerance and that he is reciprocating, he is much mistaken, as the cases are not in fact equivalent: the Jesus that Muslims affirm has little in common with the Jesus of Christianity, and for Christians to affirm Muhammad as a prophet would be tantamount to their renouncing Christianity — since Muhammad’s revelation demands adherence to propositions that are directly opposed to Christianity.
| The position he's taking isn't an intellectual position; it's an emotional position. He's seeing the world the way he'd like it to be, populated with men of pompous goodwill like himself. He's going with the flow, which is why the Anglican church is losing ground. Clerics receive those donations and their comfortable rectories in the expectation that they are pondering the differences between right and wrong, good and evil, and taking one side in opposition to the other. The Catholics, or most of them anyway, are still doing it — they've pondered, and decided that abortion and lady clerics are wrong positions, hence the bitching and moaning within their church. The Muslims take it even further, with anybody with a turban seemingly authorized to issue a fatwa on any subject he pleases. Not only do Episcopalians not issue fatwas, they don't even take positions unless they're sufficiently fuzzy. |
Meanwhile, anyone — Muslims as well as Jews, Christians, and others — seeking real peace would do better to seek it with integrity, not with shallow and empty-headed pandering such as that of Bishop Chane. In other words, not by constructing a fantasy world of fictional harmony, but by forthrightly acknowledging differences and looking squarely at what must be done to make genuine peaceful coexistence possible. The explicit renunciation of violent jihad theology would be a good place to start for the New Year.
| But His Excellency the Archbishop didn't touch on jihad, did he? |
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