Learning new ecclesial languages

Bishop Dan Martins wrote a provocative piece the other day challenging all Christians, and especially Anglicans, to remember that Christian unity is not just some nice, pie-in-the-sky ideal but the single most important thing that Christians ought to be focusing on ecumenically. “We have blinded ourselves to the scandal,” he says, “either by rationalizing our divisions, by partial measures like full-communion agreements, by crypto-triumphalism in our ecumenical endeavors, and by severely limiting the section of the playing field that we pay attention to. But the scandal is still there. It still grieves the heart of Christ, and is therefore still an emergency.” And, moreover, it creates a massive roadblock for many people coming to know Jesus. The problem is mammoth. What are we to do about it?

I do not know how far it will get us towards the goal of visible unity, but one thing I have experienced that has helped me to better understand my fellow Christians is to learn to speak what we might call their ecclesial language. I mean really speak it, fluently. What I mean by ecclesial language is not merely the words and phrases that particular groups of Christians tend to use, but also the grammar, the syntax, and the culture that surround its application. These are not things you pick up easily. You have to work at it, by getting to know people and by seeing how the thing operates from the inside. You have to consciously put yourself in the presence of that tradition long enough to imbibe it on its own terms. No one has ever learned a language by talking to one’s self. To truly learn a language requires immersion.

My Native Tongue

I grew up Roman Catholic. While my experience of Roman Catholicism was very different from that of most people, Catholicism was nevertheless home. What I gained from that experience, among other things, is an intrinsic sense of the culture of Catholicism. Of course, Catholicism spans many different cultures, even just in the United States, but there are certain commonalities. I know nothing of what it is like to be Latino, for instance, but when I listen to Latino Catholics speak about their faith, I can totally track with many of their experiences. That is because I know how it feels to be a Roman Catholic. I know, from the inside, what Roman Catholics mean when they say certain things. I am, if you like, a native speaker of Roman Catholicism. Even now, having been away from that church for more than half my life, I can still call up the language on occasion when needed. Sometimes I even still catch myself, when listening to other types of Christians, filtering what they are saying through a Roman Catholic lens so that I can understand it better, translating in my head. When I hear Roman Catholics talking, theologians and laity alike, I understand them in a way that those who have never been Catholic might not.

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A Taste of the Orient

Years after I left the Roman Catholic Church, I became engulfed in a crisis of faith about my place within Anglicanism. It was at that time that I began to explore Eastern Orthodoxy. The language of Orthodoxy was different from anything I had experienced before. It was rich and exotic. Though many of the concepts were the same as what I had known as a Catholic, and even much of the grammar and syntax were familiar, the flavor of the words was different. There was a different poetic sensibility. I discovered this easily enough from reading the works of converts from Anglicanism like Frederica Mathewes-Green and Kallistos Ware. But it was not really driven home for me until I sought out some Orthodox people, making friends with a few Orthodox priests and taking some time to walk in their worlds. They encouraged me with more reading, podcasts, trips, prayers, and invitations to join in the Divine Liturgy. I cannot say that my tour of Orthodoxy was comprehensive, but it was thorough. In the end, I did not decide to become Orthodox. I realized that Anglicanism was where I belonged, for reasons both personal and philosophical. Nonetheless, I came away with a different understanding, so that now when I hear Orthodox Christians speak, I have a greater feel for what they are saying than I would have otherwise. Unlike Roman Catholicism. I am fluent in Orthodoxy, but I am not a native speaker. I doubt I ever could be, even if I became Orthodox. But I can understand so much more than I would be able to if I just assumed that I could follow what is being said without knowing its larger context.

Decoding the Language of Concordia

My most recent sojourn has been in the world of confessional Lutheranism, and this one I experienced quite by accident. Through a series of strange connections, I have somehow found myself friends with a number of pastors in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, both locally and across the country. Admittedly, LCMS is a pretty specific dialect of Lutheran. I had the chance to speak a little ELCA back when I was in seminary, but I cannot say I ever really got the hang of it since its sound was hard for me to distinguish from the other Mainline languages around it. But the LCMS folks I know now live in their Lutheranism. It is their world. And it has taken me more to understand that world than any other I have encountered, at least in part because it has required me to get over some of my prejudices about “Protestants” (which I have learned, by the way, that they do not like to be called — who knew?). Those guys are really excited about their confessions. Like, really excited. So I read them. And then I read the other stuff that the guys who wrote those confessions wrote. And I still did not get it. So I asked a lot of questions and said a lot of dumb stuff to them. I made comments during Bible Study that would make the whole room look at me like I just peed in the communal punch bowl. But that is how immersion works. You risk saying the wrong thing. You make mistakes. You get better. Now I have guys telling me I know Lutheranism better than many Lutherans do. They are flattering me, of course, but I will take it. Again, I have no desire to become Lutheran. And when topics come up where we differ, I vigorously pursue the debate. Nonetheless, by taking the time to live in their world for a bit, I now find those debates much more fruitful than I once did. It is not just a back-and-forth where we lob bombs at one another about who is the bigger heretic. There is genuine shared understanding about our differences.

Differences Matter

This, I think, is key. All too often, ecumenism becomes an exercise in minimizing differences between Christian traditions, as if those differences do not really matter. But they do matter. They are really, really, super important. I agree with Bishop Martins that our divisions are an absolute scandal and that we should be doing everything in our power to heal them. But we are not simply divided because people are irrational and stupid. There are things at stake here. All Christian churches are charged with the care of souls. If we get these things wrong, the consequences are eternal. So I try not to take it personally that my Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and LCMS friends do not share Holy Communion with me. It is not because they are arrogant or rude. It is because they think this stuff really matters. And it breaks their hearts, as much as mine, that this is the case.

I still have many more languages to learn. I fear that all too often I speak a critical word about my brothers and sisters in Christ from other traditions without first trying to understand exactly what it is that they are saying. Learning new ecclesial languages is hard. It requires letting go. It also sometimes requires a thick skin, as not everything that folks say in private is all that edifying. But it is a worthwhile pursuit if our goal is real unity in Christ.

Speaking Anglican

Anglicans are in a unique position to do this kind of linguistic learning. Our own tradition affords a kind of breadth that allows for multiple languages to be spoken. Of course, it is easy in such a setting to lose yourself if you are not careful. One of our great problems as Anglicans today is that we have been so keen to allow other languages to influence us that we have largely stopped speaking our own. The Anglican language spoken by our forebears in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is well on its way to becoming a dead language. The 39 Articles are often dismissed and the prayer book has been revised almost into oblivion. Our own sense of ourselves is staggeringly inconsistent, which is why when we are speaking to others, they are often as baffled by us as we are baffled by ourselves. But if we can learn again to speak our own language robustly, our ability to understand and be understood by others will certainly improve. It may seem ironic or out of place, but I truly believe that the single greatest thing we can do today as Anglicans to help the ecumenical endeavor is to become better acquainted with our own tradition. As we learn who we are, we will be equipped to better understand others. Who knows but that God may see fit to bring a new Pentecost moment among us.