Yesterday I published a post regarding the Windsor Report of the Anglican Communion. I’d like to treat here a topic that I believe will be important for understanding the dynamics of what will colour much of the debate: the so-called Ecstatic Heresy.
What is the Ecstatic Heresy? You can read that article I linked to yourself, but basically it is the idea that faith is such a mystery that it is not possible to ever really state which party in a faith-related dispute is closer to the truth or further from it. Of course, no one should ever claim to have ALL the Truth, but the ecstatic heresy basically starts from the assumption that we can never say we really have ANY of the Truth (or at least, we can never really say with confidence where that Truth is to be found in our beliefs).
Such an assumption, of course, is destructive to the idea of a Christian unity grounded in truth. Against this, the ecstatic heresy proposes that we found our unity in “feelings”. There is some validity to this approach, in that it is true that even though people disagree they should still love one another. But the problem is that the ecstatic heresy essentially opposes the pursuit of truth with the pursuit of charity and love. But surely, if Truth exists, it is a loving act to speak of it to another person who is unaware of its contents?
Which brings us to our post-modern times. Post-modern theorists, like the recently-deceased Jacques Derrida, state that truth is essentially unattainable. Our world is permeated with such ideas, heard in phrases like “your truth may not be the same as mine,” or understood in the idea that anyone claiming to “know the truth” must necessarily be some kind of fanatic.
This is what makes the Windsor Report so fascinating, because it is a remarkable instance of clarity in this midst of all this post-modern fog. Among its many other statements, in its pages the Report points out that there are people who were *hurt* by the “rejection of truth” by their brothers in religion. I look forward to seeing how the Gene Robinson’s and Frank Griswold’s will react to this point. Had the report made some huge claim of certain “truths” of Biblical teaching, the post-moderns would simply have accused them of that same kind of fanaticism. But because the post-moderns have to found the unity of the church in “feelings”, and it is precisely these “feelings” that have been hurt, they really don’t have a leg to stand on.
From what I can see, the Windsor Report forces those it rebukes to take off their masks, because it identifies what in the end is the real issue: TRUST. Trust is the place where Truth and “feelings” meet. Trust is what will decide if the Anglican Communion stays together or flies apart. And trust needs to be earned. The ball, it would seem, is now firmly in the court of those whose actions have harmed that trust. It will be an interesting next few months in the Anglican Communion.