I had made a mental note to post something about N.T. Wright’s comments on the Christian faith of Marcus Borg. Life has been busy, and this might be yesterday’s newspaper by now, but I would like to add my two cents. Those who missed the flap can catch up on it by looking at some of the discussion here and here. And here is the article that started it.
Anyhow, Wright was quoted as saying this:
Imagine that Wright said this in the Q&A time following a debate with Borg on the resurrection. This context would mean that Wright’s point is that such heterodoxy as Borg exhibited was nevertheless somehow “within the pale.” The problem here is that Athanasius and Arius were not discussion partners, and the mandatory collegiality of contemporary scholarship is really one of its most grotesque features.
Now take the same comments and place them in Wright’s mouth at a news conference where he was explaining why he, as the Bishop of Durham, had just defrocked Borg (who for purposes of this thought-experiment was under Wright’s jurisdiction). He was explaining why the disciplinary action was not tantamount to the pronouncement of a personal anathema, a consignment of Borg to Hell, but how it was still necessary to preserve the purity of the Church by taking this disciplinary action.
I would categorize the first action as appalling (even if I agreed at points), and the second as praiseworthy (even if I differed at points). And having said this, I am afraid that the context that Wright is operating in looks to me to be far more like the first than the second scenario. He said something very similar (about Borg) at a lunch some of us had with him in Monroe last year. The tone would have been entirely different if had only added the caveat that “whoever was responsible for” Marcus Borg ecclesiastically ought to yank his credentials like yesterday. But I would be astonished if Wright could be prevailed upon to say something so combative. I say all this as someone who has learned a great deal from Wright — but I pray I never learn this.
Discipline clears the air. As a bishop, N.T. Wright has been entrusted with a shepherd’s staff, and it must be used, especially in times like these, and especially in the Anglican Communion in times like these. What will he do when confronted with practicing homosexual priests under his authority? It will be entirely irrelevant (and more than a little sad) if he simply writes a monograph opposing the practice. Discipline clarifies. Suppose a husband is blogging away, and his children are screeching and screaming at their mother in the background. The problem is not solved if hubby posts a note on his blog about how kids in the abstract ought not to do that as a general rule. His authority to intervene has to be used.
This is what love means. There is no doubt that Wright believes in (and cogently defends) the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. And it is clear that he loves the doctrine of the resurrection, because he defends it. But the real testing point for scholars is when they are called upon to defend something like this with something other than arguments — when something resembling action (the kind of action that would end the scholarly give and take) becomes necessary.
So the real question is this — are there any priests under Bishop Wright’s authority who hold to the same doctrines that Borg does? And are they under discipline from their bishop? If they are, then I would encourage Wright’s critics to back off and, as the Staples Singers so ably taught us, “let the gentleman do his thing.” If they are not under discipline, then what do we need bishops for?