Episcopal Exiles at Home

By a coincidence that strikes me as meaningful, the first two things I read today say virtually the same thing: Episcopalians, be conscious how we let the prevailing values of secular culture warp our faith.  We are like the Jews returned from Babylon, strangers in their own land who want to fit in.

[Image of the return to Jerusalem of the Babylonian exiles. Julius Chnorr von Carolsfeld, Julius 1794–1874. From AKG-Images]

Bishop Daniel Martins, reflecting on Ezra 9.1-15, gives us the book's context: "The exiles returning from Babylonian enslavement, under Ezra's leadership, struggle to maintain their identity as people and a nation." He allows that Ezra's strictures against intermingling with Gentiles can be "off-putting or offensive." But then he compares his Christian readers to Ezra's people:

We face a similar challenge as we navigate a secular society that exalts egotism, competitiveness, acquisitiveness, vanity, exploitation, violence, and other values contrary to the way God asks us to live. These backward values are embedded in our culture in ways we're not even consciously aware of.
-from Forward Day by Day, November 9, 2019

Theologian Julia Gatta similarly writes about a "cultural matrix" that warps our perceptions.

The advertising world turns toddlers into consumers and pre-teen girls into objects of sexual attraction. Adolescent peer pressure can take a sinister turn with the unlimited possibilities available in social media for exposure and mocking.... [The entertainment industry] capitalizes on violence, ridicules chastity, discounts honesty, and glorifies greed.
-Julia Gatta, Life in Christ: Practicing Christian Spirituality, p.17.

These are the "evil powers of this world" that we renounced just last week in our Baptismal covenant. She's not pointing fingers away from herself, as she adds, "It is easy for religious liberals to expose social sin and for religious conservatives to decry personal sin," and that we should remember what Jesus said about seeing the speck in someone else's eye, missing the beam in our own.

These two writers, relating us to the story of the Hebrew exiles and the oft-repeated Baptismal vow, give a sharper focus to my amorphous unease about our culture. I've always felt like an exile in my own land; today I have a clearer sense of why.

Of course, as a teacher, this makes me an alien to my students. A child who attended my own church underscored this during a class when I asked, "When someone strikes you on the cheek, what does Jesus say to do?" Everyone said, "Hit him back!" Of course, I said, "No, turn the other cheek." The class was incredulous. This boy, tears in his eyes, said, "Is that for Episcopals, too?" Sigh.