Apostasy at 2000
Episcopal Institute Promotes Pantheism, Syncretism
by Mark Tooley
Over 1,300 people gathered for the Trinity Institute’s 31st national conference, “God at 2000.” Although intended to foster “theological renewal” for Episcopal Church clergy, the cavalcade of liberal speakers envisioned a new religious world in which syncretistic consensus would replace Christian orthodoxy.
The luminaries at the conference, held earlier this year at Oregon State University, included Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jesus Seminar leader Marcus Borg, Benedictine nun Joan Chittister, Harvard professor Diana Eck, Jewish rabbi and author Lawrence Kushner, writer/broadcaster and former nun Karen Armstrong, and Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr.
The Trinity Institute is an arm of Trinity Episcopal Church on Wall Street in New York. Its large endowment makes it one of America’s wealthiest congregations and facilitates the organization of conferences such as “God at 2000.”
One of the most celebrated speakers was Borg, who is Episcopalian, but who advocates a brand of “panentheism” that rejects notions of a personal God in favor of a broader universal spirit.
“I grew up in a time and place where it was taken for granted that Christianity was the only true religion and Jesus the only way of salvation,” Borg recalled with distaste. “That’s why we had missionaries. . . . I find it literally incredible to think that the God of the whole universe has chosen to be known in only one religious tradition, which just fortunately happens to be our own.”
Diana Eck heartily agreed. She is director of the Pluralism Project, which analyzes and advocates religious diversity in America. Eck and her female companion are also the first lesbian dorm parents at Harvard University, where she teaches comparative religion. Eck, who is United Methodist, has served as a consultant to the World and National Councils of Churches. And she has received the National Humanities Medal for her work from President Clinton.
“Today if we open our eyes and our ears, there are many ways of theological conception other than the ones we have known as Christians,” Eck said. “It is our task, and our joy, to re-imagine what we know about God.” She is convinced that “it is time for all of our theisms to be held in a context of global multi-theism.”
Catholic nun and activist Joan Chittister came to a similar conclusion as she examined the “parochial” repression of her Catholic upbringing. Spiritual globalism has since replaced her traditional Catholic faith. “The melting of national boundaries, the free flow of peoples and ideas across the globe introduced for me a new kind of cognitive dissonance. The white, male, Catholic, American god was suddenly suspect. Were all these others—nearly four-fifths of the world—really godless?” For Chittister, the answer is no. For her, the “greatest of all truths” is that God has many faces and names not limited to Christianity.
Karen Armstrong is a former nun who shares Chittister’s rejection of Christian orthodoxy. Her new faith draws equally upon Eastern Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Islam, which prompts her to describe herself as a “freelance monotheist.” But she admitted even this description does not quite capture her, as she is also “amazed by Buddha’s insights.” Armstrong told the audience that she draws upon all these religions and “cannot see any one of them as better or superior. All of them have given me so much.”
Mark Tooley directs the United Methodist committee of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (www.ird-renew.org) in Washington, D.C.
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