August 30, 2004
Discipline
Those champions of orthodoxy who tried to present one of their fellow bishops with his head a few years back assured us at the time that this was no “heresy trial,” but only a matter of alleged deviation from the discipline of the Church.
The Ecclesiastical Court found no relevant discipline or, for that matter, any “core doctrine” involved. The sign-on Guardians of the Faith had simply wasted a lot of the Church’s money and a lot of their time away from the work they were elected and ordained to do.
The Church’s discipline (its constitution, canons, and polity, et al) in general is a lot simpler than its doctrine, which is labyrinthine enough. As fuzzy and frustrating as law and order sometimes is, it doesn’t hold a candle to the magnetic and amiably challenging ambiguity of grace and love. Perhaps that is why we so often delude ourselves with squabbles about orthodoxy and sex, committee meetings and mission statements, decades and brocades, rather than getting on with the inclusive and immediate love and justice Jesus preached about.
Any parent knows that diversion is one of the more effective weapons for raising children. So does any prelate who apparently either incapable of or prefers not to separate patronizing from pastoring. The current distraction with no-risk evangelism by the numbers and with quotas and goals, for example and albeit under the noble guise of biblical commitment, is enough to make a used-car dealer proud.
Any excuse, it seems, to keep our minds off making love.