Guest Author: The Rev. Randall R. Warren, D.Min., Rector
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Kalamazoo
Historical Background
A transnational synod (church gathering) of the Dutch Reformed Church was held in Dordrecht, Holland from 13 November 1618 to 9 May 1619. They gathered to discuss the nature and extent of prevenient grace. Prevenient grace is the name we give to the grace of God which prepares us for conversion. It is the grace of God which comes to us before we turn to God and it helps us turn to God.
A Dutch theologian named Jacob Arminius (1560-1609) had taught that God’s prevenient grace is present to everyone. Those who promoted this idea came to be known as Arminians. Among Pastor Arminius’ teachers were Johann Kolmann who worried about the tendency among some in his day (and, we could add, our own day) to over emphasize God’s sovereignty in a way that made God seem like a tyrant and an executioner. The Arminians’ assertion that God’s grace is available to everyone to help them turn their hearts to God (even though some ignore or reject it) is an idea which flows from several theological streams of thought, including Professor Kolmann’s concerns. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Arminianism was growing in influence in the Reformed Churches.
So the Synod of Dordt was called to explore this question: Is atonement in Christ limited only to a predetermined elect, or is it available to all? The Synod definitely chose the view that atonement is limited only to people whom God has chosen. They wrote:
Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to the free good pleasure of his will, God chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people out of the entire human race, which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin and ruin. Those chosen were neither better nor more deserving than the others, but lay with them in the common misery. God did this in Christ, whom he also appointed from eternity to be the mediator, the head of all those chosen, and the foundation of their salvation. . . God did all this in order to demonstrate his mercy, to the praise of the riches of God’s glorious grace (1st Main Point, Article 7).
So the Synod asserted that God’s grace, the very grace that helps people turn to God, is only available to some people whom God chose before creation. They rejected the notion that Christ died and rose for all people, and that God floods the world with grace in the hopes that all would respond positively. Rather, they insist God picked and chose those who would be saved and those who would be condemned, writing,
Having set forth the orthodox teaching concerning election and reprobation, the Synod rejects the errors of those. . . Who teach that it was not on the basis of his just will alone that God decided to leave anyone in the fall of Adam and in the common state of sin and condemnation or to pass anyone by in the imparting of grace necessary for faith and conversion (1st Main Point, Rejection VIII).
Obviously, this is not what most Episcopalians believe. This is especially the case for those of us who, as taught by Kathryn Tanner, believe that God is always seeking to give everything that is God to everything that is not God. We should not, however, get prideful about our beliefs. There were Anglican representatives at Dordt, among them The Rt. Rev. George Carleton, Bishop of Llandaff, and The Rev. Walter Balcanqual, a priest representing the Church of Scotland, along with John Davenant, Thomas Goad, and Samuel Ward. In the early era of Anglicanism, there was a more overt fascination with the concepts of election, predestination, and prevenient grace than there is now. And, of course, we recognize many theologians early and recent. Some of these believed that Christians are “elected” by God without necessarily believing that God intends only to elect a limited few. Examples include St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in his later thought and Karl Barth (1886-1968). So it should come as no surprise that Bishop Carleton and his delegation were among the signatories of the Dordt canons.
It seems to me that Dordt was both on and off target. It is certainly a valid theological belief that God is deeply and mysteriously at work in all things in ways beyond our understanding. The Dordt delegates experienced their faith as a gift from God, as do we. But, as Professor Kolmann and his student Jacob Arminius might warn us, trying to nail down such an assertion in overly specific human logic will leave God seeming like a tyrant and an executioner. The Dordt assertion that God decided for all time who would and would not be saved “in order to demonstrate his mercy, to the praise of the riches of God’s glorious grace,” leaves us asking, “Demonstrate to whom?” Presumably the elect do not need a further demonstration of God’s mercy. Also, those not elected by God are not going to be able to-or will not be interested in-this demonstration. So, is God deciding who will live in Heaven and who will suffer eternally for God’s own pleasure? Most of us today would consider that tyrannical behavior.
What the delegates to Dordt seemed not to be able to imagine is that God transcends and contains even the things we think are opposites. As hard as it is for us to imagine, God’s involvement in human life does not curtail human freedom. The opposite is also true, God granting us freedom does not exclude God’s sovereign involvement in our lives. When we are unable to embrace this paradox, we end up defining some people as worthless and disposable (as, for example, in colonization). The Canons of Dordt, despite using their assertions of universal human guilt as a justification, end up asserting that God has decided arbitrarily who will be saved and who will be passed by.
Martin Luther, was a Reformer who used paradoxical language a great deal. But as he died only 72 years before Dordt, it is easy to imagine that paradox was not yet a widely used concept in some regions. Further, the contemporary use of paradox as a thought category is deeply reinforced by modern science. When quantum mechanics shows us that light is both a particle and a wave, we come to understand paradoxes to be a normal part of our universe, and not a special or necessarily supernatural case. So, once again, there is no justification for castigating the Synod of Dordt delegates or for being prideful about our own positions.
Relevance for Today
Now you may be wondering why I am bringing up this Seventeenth Century theological debate. Those synod delegates, most likely unwittingly, conceived of the divine/human relationship in ways that left some people imagining as a given that some are lacking in worth and disposable. The idea that there are disposable people has endured throughout human history, but in many ways that idea entered the American mindset through Protestant thought like that of Dordt. If God decides to save some and pass by others, then it may seem there must be people who are valuable and people who are disposable. Given the Protestant work ethic, those who are perceived as hard working, successful, and wealthy must be blessed by God. Those who are poor, lacking in resources or success, must be cursed by God and are therefore disposable by their own fault.
If God decides to save some and pass by others, then it may seem there must be people who are valuable and people who are disposable.
Today we are suffering with the idea of disposable people being prominent in secular society. Political division and debates on all sides have us conceiving of a society with severely limited, finite goods and a perpetual struggle between winners and losers, those who have worth and those who may be disposed. The idea of infinite human worth is sadly lacking, and dismissed as pious niceties are statements of Christ’s like,
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows (Mt. 10:29-31).
In our contemporary situation, people are not conceived of as having value simply because all people are children of God. Politically, socially, and economically, all sides of our divided society act as though some must win and some must lose. It seems perfectly reasonable to many people today to make cannibalistic statements like, “Eat the rich,” or cruel statements about those in need such as, “They don’t deserve help.” The message is clear, some people are disposable by their own fault, and that’s just the way it is. What changes between sides is who is disposable.
Our Baptismal Covenant, by contrast, gives us a clear message that is different from the attitudes of our nation’s unhealthy divisions… We firmly believe that “all” really does mean “all.”
Our Baptismal Covenant, by contrast, gives us a clear message that is different from the attitudes of our nation’s unhealthy divisions. In our Baptismal Covenant we promise to . . .
- proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ
- seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves
- strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being
We firmly believe that “all” really does mean “all.” God is lovingly interested in all people and God’s graces flow continually to all. The energies of God, as revealed to us in Christ, are a ceaseless flow of self-giving love. Persons from one side of our nation’s political divisions wanted to hang a former Vice President. Persons from another side of our nation’s political divisions protested a presidential inauguration by bringing along a guillotine. Both actions are morally wrong. All means all. We are not called to be resigned to our fallen world. We are called to strive for a better world.
The delegates to the Synod of Dordt, including some early Anglican guests, asserted that God is only interested in some people whom they called “the elect.” They also believed that God condemned the rest of humanity to eternal suffering. We reject this view.
- We reject the idea that only a few will be saved to live with God eternally.
We reject wanting to kill those with whom we disagree. - It is morally wrong to seize, kidnap, or banish those with whom we disagree.
- Cruelty and scapegoating are morally wrong.
- All people (regardless, for example, of ethnic origin, race, sex, gender identity, sexuality, physical or mental ability) should be cherished as beloved children of God, made in the image of God.
- All people are deserving of love, justice, and peace.
- All People deserve life and flourishing, equity and respect.
- All Christians are commanded to work for the greater good of all people.
We take seriously St. Paul’s teaching, “For since death came through a human, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human, for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” (I Corinthians 15: 21-22). All means all.
So how do we, as an Episcopal parish, enact what we believe? There are three key ways we enact our belief in the universality of God’s love. 1) We enact our spirituality by sharing God’s love for and with our neighbors in need. We do this formally through our agencies and ministries. We do this informally through all the ways our parishioners care for their neighbors, families, friends, and strangers. 2) We enact our spirituality by participating with others in building a better world.
We do this through membership in I.S.A.A.C. We do this when parishioners are members of diocesan or secular groups working on social and environmental justice. And 3) We enact our spirituality by being an inclusive parish. Being an inclusive parish means, of course, that all people are welcome to attend, participate, and potentially be leaders in our parish life. Being an inclusive parish also means that our official preaching and teaching will not take sides in current political debates. All means all and our Baptismal Covenant expresses our positions. We encourage parishioners to allow the Baptismal Covenant to inform their consciences, and then to follow their consciences by participating in the political process. Christians should vote their consciences. Christians should communicate with their political leaders, expressing what their prayerful, conscientious reflections tell them.
The duty of preachers and leaders in our parish is not to argue politics, but to break open the Word and Sacraments. Fed by Word and Sacrament, our parish feeds and forms a loving, striving, and inclusive participation in God’s love, both individually and socially. God loves everyone and enrolls us in building God’s beloved community by striving for justice and peace among all people, respecting the God given dignity of all people. All means all.