Manteo and Virginia Dare Feast Day Reflection

A Reflection on the Baptism of Virginia Dare and Chief Manteo                All Saints’, Southern Shores August 18, 2013                                                                           Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 60:1-4               Ephesians 2:13-22      John 10:14-16

Icon written for East Carolina Diocese

Today we remember the Baptism of Virginia Dare and the Croatan Native American Chief Manteo in 1587, twenty miles down the road, at the Fort Raleigh Roanoke Island Settlement, what we now call the “Lost Colony”. Dare was the first English Child born in the what was called the “New World”, and Manteo was the first Native American to be baptized as an Anglican Christian. Today many of the churches in the dioceses of East Carolina, North Carolina and Western North Carolina are celebrating this feast day. 

The lessons chosen for this day reflect how all are connected to the one God and to the one Spirit of Christ. Isaiah sings to the exiles, “Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.” John’s Gospel remembers Jesus saying, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” The writer of the Ephesians Epistle continues in that theme and says:

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.  He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace…”  

So today we celebrate the Baptism of two different people into the one body. Virginia Dare was baptized because her parents were part of the Anglican tradition, and it was “normal” for her family to do here in the colony what they would naturally do back in England.  But I wonder what was it like for Chief Manteo to make the decision to be baptized? 

Years ago before I went to Seminary, I was teaching Social Work and Counseling in a small Baptist-affiliated college in Virginia. I enjoyed it and reveled in the role of being the token Episcopalian. I took courses in the Bible and ethics and was impressed with the scholarship of the teachers. My teachers, who in the language of the day were called “moderates”, had been Pastors before they became academics, and they were colleagues and we became friends as I kept growing in faith. I attended the Episcopal Church and worked with the Youth Group, but I felt a call to be an ordained minister. I decided to start the process of Discernment toward the long and expensive proposition of going through Seminary and ordination. Some of my students approached me with the idea of preaching at their Baptist Congregation. In the Baptist tradition, Seminary education is optional, and after one preaches, the deacons get together and discern a “call”.  If they approve, then the congregation votes to approve or disapprove. The Pastor stays until he leaves or until 51% of the congregation votes him out at a meeting.

I was tempted, for it meant that I did not need to disrupt my life of teaching, and it was a heck of a lot cheaper than going to seminary. The college administration, believing in an educated clergy, offered to adjust my schedule so I could take classes at a Baptist Seminary within driving distance. I thought about it and prayed, but I turned my students down because I did not want to change the way I did church. The Episcopal service was comfortable for me, I feared the loss of my freedom of expression without reprisal, and I lacked the courage to enter into the unknown.

Manteo had his first contact with English explorers in 1584 and was taken back to England with another chief named Wanchese.  Manteo was open to the idea of cooperation with the English, while Wanchese was suspicious and saw himself as a prisoner. There was a return visit home in 1585 and then, accompanying the Settlement expedition in 1587, Manteo, under Sir Walter Raleigh’s instruction, was baptized and declared “Lord of Roanoke”.  (Under English law, office holders were required to be baptized and be active communicants, that is, attend communion 4 times a year.) That law was not repealed in England until 1829.

I am not sure how much of a sincere Episcopalian Manteo was, because the Anglican religion was in the process of understanding its sources of knowledge about the divine. The old Roman Catholic teaching had been that the church hierarchy had approved the ideas of dogma and passed them on to the lay people through tradition. The Protestant viewpoint was that Scripture was the only way to understand God. Later on in 1595, a few years after Manteo disappeared from the scene as the Lost Colony went into the mists of time, Richard Hooker formulated the Elizabethan Settlement into The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity when he wrote “What Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience are due; the next whereunto, is what any man can necessarily conclude by force of Reason; after this, the voice of the church succeedeth.” Out of this we speak of the three-legged stool of Anglicanism - “Scripture, tradition and reason”.  

All three of these sources are accessed by head knowledge, or the left hemisphere of the brain where we deal with facts, creeds and laws. However, most Native American religions seem to be more comfortable in the right hemisphere of the brain, the place where we deal with the unconscious, dreams, and symbols. One of the books that I am reading for my Dream Group Leader Course is Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams and Reflections, and in one chapter he speaks about his encounter with  a Native American religious leader in the Taos Pueblo in the 1920’s, Ochwiay Biano ( Mountain Lake), who said about whites:

“How cruel the whites are: their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and distorted by holes. Their eyes have a staring expression. They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something, they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want, we do not understand them, we think that they are mad.” I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad. “They say they think with their heads,” he replied.
“Why, of course. What do you think with?” I asked him in surprise.
“We think here,” he said, indicating his heart.

The English and Western view of creation was that it is something to be conquered and overcome. The explorers that Manteo met were looking to get rich, and they saw their faith as  support for the view that God was safely ensconced in God’s heaven, and greed was the acceptable response to the world given to them for domination and exploitation. If one killed a deer or found gold, the Englishmen would thank God for the blessing - and would search for more, because more was never enough. Time was something to be grabbed to do busy work, for one could never get enough time to do all that one wanted. Religion was what you believed, and all other beliefs were wrong. Manteo, on the other hand, probably looked at the world as a place of dynamic tension with stories, the spirits of the animals, and nature which came from the living Great Spirit who walked with him and his people in everything they did. When Manteo killed a deer, he would offer a prayer of thanks to the deer which gave its life so that Manteo’s family might eat. If Manteo found gold, he would think it pretty and use it to bring pleasure in art. Manteo would only kill the deer he needed, and the gold he found was enough for there was no sense in trying to get more than one needed. For Manteo time was a gift to be used in connecting with creation and others, and religion was who one was in relationship to the spirit of the universe. Jung once was asked if he believed in God, and he replied, “I do not believe, I know.” Manteo knew God but only as the undefinable mystery which permeated all of life. 

I got a phone call this week from a person who is going through recovery from addiction.  He was raised an Episcopalian - an altar boy and all the rest - until he graduated from high school and went on vacation from the church. He was always fond of the Episcopal Church and identified himself as an Episcopalian even when he was going down the slide as an addict. He now lives in a place where he does not have access to an Episcopal Church and has found a home in a Church of Christ. The Pastor there wants him to be baptized by immersion and become a member. The man wanted to know if it was all right, and he was very worried about it because the Nicene Creed is an important part of the Episcopal service, but the creed is not done in the Church of Christ.  Now, the correct theological and ecclesiastical answer is that one baptism is sufficient, and he should stand up to the Pastor and either he or I tell that fool pastor that he was insulting our denomination by suggesting that our Rite of Baptism was inadequate. That is what the Episcopal Church leaders did when one of the daughters of President Johnson wanted to marry a Roman Catholic boy, and the leaders of the church forced her to get re- baptized. I remember that battle even though I was not attending church at the time, and I sided with the Episcopal leaders and harrumphed along with them.  But as the man and I talked about how much this community meant for him in his continuing recovery, I realized that the service was not about making a stand on holding on to the rules but about becoming a full member of that community and beginning a new start. I blessed him in this new direction of his life and offered to continue to talk with him in his recovery. 

As the Rector of an Episcopal Parish, that answer is wrong and I will deserve whatever the Bishop decides to say to me.  The left side of my brain is not comfortable because I want to be right about my theology.  I wrote a five page paper in response to one question on the General Ordination Exam 29 years ago on the meaning of the Rite of Baptism, and the readers commented on how well thought out it was, and I was proud of my erudition. However, I find the older I get, the less I think with the left side of my brain and the more I think with the right, less with the head and more with the heart. I have learned how to be in awe of that which I cannot define. I am less interested in explanations than in exclamations, more interested in spirit than in law, justice than government and less with being “right” than in being reconciled in Christ. While I believe in the Christian God, the power that permeates my faith comes not from what I espouse at religious meetings but from the dynamic encounter with the mystery for which I can find no words, but which I know and am known through.

When Manteo and Virginia Dare were baptized, the two sheep from different flocks of Christ came together. When they were baptized, the sons and daughters were brought together from far away. When they were baptized, they were brought into one new humanity in place of two. Today, we celebrate our one humanity and welcome all of God’s children to join us there.