Decline The Dance of Darkness

The collect for All Saint’s Sunday reads:

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you…

On All Saint’s Sunday the hope for worship is to honor our unity with one another, with those who have gone before us and those who will come after us, with those who come to church and those who don’t, all through the presence of God in Jesus Christ. God is the glue, the beginning, the end, the point, and the purpose.

And so with this belief as our backdrop, I wonder why there is so much fighting and tumult and discord in the world?

John Peterson dropped by Epiphany Parish for a visit the other day. John was the Dean of St. George’s College in Jerusalem for twelve years, and then served as the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) for ten years. John knows the worldwide Anglican Church as well as anyone.

What John has noticed over the years is that the worldwide Anglican Church and the broader Christian church, as well as Muslims and Jews and even secular governments and political parties are becoming more and more fundamentalist. As I sit here and wonder why, I am reminded of the second question the priest asks people who are being baptized: “Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?”

Could it be that the world, through the wonderful power and imagination of God, is being knit together in a new way? Might the mystical body of Christ be finding a revolutionary form of expression that has hitherto never breached the minds of humanity? Maybe there is new access to the saints… and if so, maybe it is causing the evil powers of this world to thrash about and seek to consolidate power and to fight back like their very lives depended upon it.

Am I hinting at the idea that in the corners of fundamentalism lives the spark of evil? I suppose I am. But let me be clear, this evil spark of fundamentalism has equal access to all walks of life, all forms of religion, all political parties, and all tribal persuasions. There are two characteristics of fundamentalism that strike at the heart of the mystical union. The first is dogma and the second is broken relationship, and when they dance together they call forth the power of darkness.

Here is the dance of darkness: Dogma says that what I believe is more important than my relationship with you. Dogma has fixed boundaries and those mired in dogma are uninterested in exploring how what you believe and what I believe might have points of intersection. If you want to know where evil breeds, look to a place where people are willing to break relationship over a particular “belief” or a “right way” of doing things.

Our churches sag and thrash about when we forsake one another. Honor unity with one another. Resist dancing in the darkness.


Doyt+