Introduction to the Episcopal Church
Session
17
As
we look to how we have come to be formed as the Episcopal Church, I want to
look at some questions that might be regarded to be universal for people of all
times. And these questions that arrive
in living have been dealt with in our biblical and church traditions. Before looking at the variety of answers that
have come in the formation of our identity as the Episcopal Church, we might attempt
to present some of these basic questions of life.
Where
did we come from?
How did
we get here?
How can
I know a time before human recorded memory?
Why are
people different from one another?
Why do
babies die?
Why do
some people live a very long life and others much shorter lives?
Why are
animals more self-sufficient days after birth and humans need more care until
age twelve or later?
If we
can know a being greater than us, who is that being?
What is
the name of the greatest being?
How can
we know that we know the greatest being?
How can
God be known?
How can
we trust that God can be known?
What do
we do when there is disagreement about God?
What is
the best way to live together?
What do
we call not living together well?
Why
does war and fighting occur?
Why do
people live together?
What
happens when people who don’t live together encounter each other?
Why do
people speak different languages?
Why do
we treat death differently than animals seem to treat death?
Why is
death a hard experience for us?
What
happens to me when I die?
What
has happened to my friends and family who have died?
What
happens to animals when they die?
If I
see that flesh decays, how can I know that a person has any permanence?
How do
we decide when we have human disagreement?
Will
this world ever end?
What
will happen to all people if the world ends?
If the
world ends how is it likely to happen?
Why are
some people lucky and other people not so lucky?
Why did
writing come to some people first?
What
does written language mean for a culture?
What
information from the past is reliable?
How do we determine whether information is reliable?
If good
people die do they die in a more advanced state than people not so good?
Why is
there innocent suffering in the world?
What
can we believe about God?
Can we
believe that God is good and loving?
Can we
believe that God is all powerful?
Does
God intervene in the world?
What is
the logic that governs when, where and how God intervenes in the world?
Is God
located through the top of the sky?
Is God
an invisible reality everywhere?
Why do
things happens and repeat themselves with regularity? Sunrise?
Sunset?
Is
there a proper way to get God’s attention?
Does
God’s anger happen in the harsh events of life?
Did
people in the past understand God and life the same way that I do?
How
come we get sick?
Why do
people drown in water but need to drink it to stay alive?
What is
blood for in people and in animals?
What
causes diseases?
What do
we do to protect the community when it seems as though unseen things are
causing diseases?
How
come some people recover from sickness and others don’t?
What
are we supposed to eat?
Does God
have any rules for eating? How would we
know such rules?
How
does birth happen?
What do
we do with children?
Who are
we supposed to marry?
What is
love?
How is
love known?
Is love
and being married the same?
How do
we determine the written words of God?
Does
God write?
How
does God communicate?
Does
God prescribe the kind of clothes we wear?
Does
God prescribe one particular pattern for all human relationship with one
template for all times?
How do
we define evil and badness?
Who
gets to define what is bad and evil?
How
come some bad people have good luck?
How
come some good people have bad luck?
Does
God have favorites?
Are
some people chosen by God as God’s favorite people and does that make other
people not favored by God?
If I
feel favored by God can someone on the other side of the world feel favored by
God too?
Does
justice exist?
How do
we practice justice?
Can we
believe that there is some way for everything to be fair and even?
Why do
we feel a need for fairness or justice?
Does
life allow the strongest people to win and set the rules?
Is
success a sign of God’s blessing?
Is
failure a sign of God’s curse?
What do
the stars in the sky have to do with me?
Do
you see how there are some great basic questions in life that could occur in
any human time period? And we could also
have different details in how these questions have been answered or attempted
to be answered. And we can see that
communities of faith have sanctioned answers and practices to deal with these
questions at different times and in different ways and they have felt inspired
by God to give their particular answers and practice. If we observe variation over time in how
people of faith have tried to answers these questions and suggest community
practice of faith to live with these questions, how are we to understand the
different practices and answers that have been given over a long period of
time? Some answers and practice seem to
have longer duration in their relevance or their usage. For example, we retain the perceptual
commonsense that “the sun rises” even though we are no longer people who
believe in a flat earth. For a long time
in religious history a flat earth was unquestioned truth, even biblical truth
in the way it was understood by most people.
Do
you see how understanding Scripture and tradition will be much concerned with
how “change in truth” is sanctioned and who has the community authority to
sanction changes in understanding. A
major change in understanding led to the separation of Christianity from
Judaism and so we cannot be naïve about change and actual consequence in the practice
of faith communities. Changes in
understanding still happen and they often divide faith communities. This is something that we must understand if
we are to understand how we came to be the Episcopal Church.
Exercise:
Look
at the list of questions above. What
other basic questions would you add to the list?
Father
Phil
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