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03/14/2004: "Schism or heresy, again"
Virginia Episcopal Bishop Peter Lee is not the only ECUSA leader who is touting the line, "if you have to choose between schism and heresy, choose heresy." Here's Atlanta Bishop J. Neil Alexander in a recent letter to his diocese, in which he condemned members of two churches who are leaving to form new congregations under the Anglican Mission in America:
Schism breeds schism. It always has. I hold in mind the great wisdom of the ancient church: if you have to choose between heresy and schism, choose heresy. For heresy is, in the end, just an opinion. and opinions come and go. Schism tears the fabric of the Body of Christ and is irreparable. For those deeply committed to the body of Christ, breaking fellowship is never a faithful option.
I defy Alexander, absolutely dare him, to offer one quote from an orthodox Father of the Church that says heresy is preferable to schism, or that it is a trivial matter of "opinion." Instead, we read stuff like this:
St. Ignatius of Antioch: "Be not deceived, my brethren: If anyone follows a maker of schism [i.e., is a schismatic], he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange doctrine [i.e., is a heretic], he has no part in the passion [of Christ]. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons" (Letter to the Philadelphians 3:3–4:1 [A.D. 110]).
St. Jerome: "Heretics bring sentence upon themselves since they by their own choice withdraw from the Church, a withdrawal which, since they are aware of it, constitutes damnation. Between heresy and schism there is this difference: that heresy involves perverse doctrine, while schism separates one from the Church on account of disagreement with the bishop. Nevertheless, there is no schism which does not trump up a heresy to justify its departure from the Church" (Commentary on Titus 3:10–11 [A.D. 386]).
St. Lactantius: "It is, therefore, the Catholic Church alone which retains true worship. This is the fountain of truth; this, the domicile of faith; this, the temple of God. Whoever does not enter there or whoever does not go out from there, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. . . . Because, however, all the various groups of heretics are confident that they are the Christians and think that theirs is the Catholic Church, let it be known that this is the true Church, in which there is confession and penance and which takes a health-promoting care of the sins and wounds to which the weak flesh is subject" (Divine Institutes 4:30:11–13 [A.D. 307]).
St. Augustine: "We believe also in the holy Church, that is, the Catholic Church. For heretics violate the faith itself by a false opinion about God; schismatics, however, withdraw from fraternal love by hostile separations, although they believe the same things we do. Consequently, neither heretics nor schismatics belong to the Catholic Church; not heretics, because the Church loves God; and not schismatics, because the Church loves neighbor" (Faith and the Creed 10:21 [A.D. 393]).
St. Augustine: "The apostle Paul said, 'As for a man that is a heretic, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him' [Titus 3:10]. But those who maintain their own opinion, however false and perverted, without obstinate ill will, especially those who have not originated the error of bold presumption, but have received it from parents who had been led astray and had lapsed...those who seek the truth with careful industry and are ready to be corrected when they have found it, are not to be rated among heretics" (Letters 43:1 [A.D. 412]).
Schism is a terrible sin, as is heresy. Heresy of necessity results in schism, because the heretic separates himself from the Church Catholic. But it is also the case that in the early church, groups and individuals would readily separate themselves from those in power if they fell into heresy (see my namesake and his relationship to the See of Alexandria when it was controlled by Arians, for instance), and they did so in accordance with New Testament teaching (Galatians 1:8-9, for example, or 2 John 7-10). Given that the Anglican Church is itself the product of a separationist movement, it ill behooves Bp. Alexander to decry those who would separate themselves from him for far better reason than Henry VIII did from the Pope.
