Here is the latest report of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music is the organ of General Convention usually charged to evaluate and recommend changes in the liturgy of The Episcopal Church. In other words, any proposed new Book of Common Prayer or Enriching Our Worship etc. goes through them. Those with a good memory for GC2003 also will recall that proposals for rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. Students of liturgy will be interested in the various rites associated with church planting. On p. 214, there is a mention of an International Anglican Liturgical Consultation. Has this been lost in the unpleasantness? But the key page to my mind is p. 211, which summarizes the result of a Congregational Survey.
Here are some tidbits:
1. Episcopalians are now a more Eucharistic people than ever before. When I was little, even our fairly High Church Rector put up with Morning Prayer as the principal Sunday service, once a month. St. John Chrysostom in Chicago celebrates the Eucharist on Sunday fortnightly (I'm not quite sure what the patron would think.) Now, the Holy Eucharist tends to be the principal act of Divine Service on Sunday.
2. There is a strong bimodal distribution in the size frequency of Episcopal congregations. In other words, there are a large number of small parishes in the church and a moderate number of much larger ones, but there aren't that many in the middle. Thus, the typical Episcopal church is small (e.g., St. George's in Bolton in the Diocese of Connecticut), but the typical Episcopalian worships in a large congregation (e.g., St. Mary the Virgin in the Diocese of California.)
3. There are 2-3 services per Sunday.
4. The later in the day, the less traditional the liturgy.
5. Music is very important for the principal Sunday morning services.
6. There is some suggestion that praise and worship bands may appear at Episcopal churches on Saturday and Sunday nights. (But I may be reading too much into things...)
7. The Hymnal is big but so is LEVAS (Lift Every Voice and Sing [good Gospel hymns]) and WLP (Worship, Love, and Praise [no idea]).
8. Service music still is sung by the congregation.
9. Worshippers use prayer books, hymnals, and a leaflet. (So Episcopal juggling is alive and well).
10. People typically stand for the Introit, kneel for most of the Eucharist, and stand for the Dismissal.
11. BCP Lectionary still dominates RCL. [Yes, that RCL really snuck up on me. It's not a bad idea... as long as you read the lessons...]
12. Most Congregations use BCP Prayers of the People. (At my second parish, the intercessions usually were free-floating riffs of one sort or another. The first time I was an intercessor, I weaved the readings of the day (especially the Psalm) into Form VI [I think]. People, especially the more senior intercessors, liked that. I prefer straight Form VI myself (or the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church, Militant and Triumphant (that's the original name, right?) We tended to be more Prayer Book-oriented generally in college. If you have to put on much of the service yourself, you don't waste brainpower on florid prose.
13. "Few Episcopal churches involve volunteers in their liturgy planning team." Well, in some places... Liturgists' meetings were my antidrug!
14. Lay volunteers may not do the planning, but they do the execution. Where else but the church and Cub Scouts do you let 8 year-olds use fire? And who can forget the Altar Guild?
15. Less than 25% of congregational membership attend services on Holy Days that fall on weekdays. (This was easier in college than before, though I often joined the Lutherans on Ash Wednesday.)
The comments, we note, are all over the place.
It is asked how one reaches Generation X, Y, or Z. It is very simple: You reach Generation Y by not marketing to us or anyone else. My Roman Catholic friends tend toward the Tridentine Mass but wish they had been instructed to understand it better. I know a few converts to Eastern Orthodoxy. I know evangelicals attracted to a mix of traditional and praise and worship music anchored by solid Bible preaching. I know a girl who basically is attracted to the types of services her grandmother dragged her to when she was little but also appreciates an active community of people her own age. The threads that draw "seekers" my age together is that many of us (Deo gratia not me) are children of divorce. And if we are not children of divorce, we generally have weaker relationships to our extended family and local community than past generations. We are attracted to people and ideas that are anchored in something and long to be as anchored as they are. Thus, we may be sorely disappointed by certain present threads in progressive Christianity. There are a variety of possible anchors, but I think the future of Anglican liturgy and Anglicanism in general lies in being anchored to what has been communicated to us by our spiritual progenitors, not in all things and not at all times but generally.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that thy prayers be set forth in the sight of the Lord Our God as the incense and the lifting up of thy hands be thy evening sacrifice.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
++Rowan Cantaur's Lecture on Richard Hooker
Can be found here . I have one quibble with it very early in the lecture, when he suggests that the eternity of the moral law is an issue of absolute debate in the current unpleasantness, but otherwise he gives an excellent preface to Laws .
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may know that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may know that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Some Short Thoughts on Liturgy
Both Derek of Haligweorc and *Christopher of Bending the Rule have been discussing liturgy lately. They have important perspectives, since they are both academics in communion with the church that have expertise in the history and philosophy of these matters. I look forward to what they have to say. I also recommend a recent piece by Michael Spencer of Internet Monk that looks at similar phenomena from a Low Church perspective (Spencer is a Southern Baptist with Calvinist leanings, so I think it's fair to call him in Low Church if he were transferred into an Anglican context. For instance, much of what he says would be relevant to a Lutheran church I attended last summer.)
But they also have asked for the perspective of intelligent folks of both the lay persuasion in the church sense and the academic sense. Since the closest I get academically to liturgy involves the buoyancy budget of the Red Sea boundary layer (which tells you nothing about proper occasions to sing the Song of Moses), I'll give you a few notes, based on fifteen years as a lector, fourteen years as an usher, fourteen years as an acolyte, nine years as an intercessor, eight years as a chalice bearer, six years as a subdeacon, and five years as a preacher (all of them somewhat discontinuous). (Note: I am 22, and I have reasonably conservative views on liturgy. One way to obstruct the phenomenon discussed in Spencer's article is to prepare older children and teenagers to do "adult" jobs in the liturgy when they're ready and there has been some discernment of their gifts in this area. It makes them part of the tradition. (Frankly, my favorite job relating to liturgy is to cook dinner for folks after Sunday Eucharist. It made me feel like a servant.)
****In English, we go to church services. I occasionally say something called the Office. Lately, I've found it helpful to restore the usage that connects these ideas. What we do at church is Divine Service. This is a usage to amuse Australians, but it has been lost from the mindset of most. So often I hear language that suggests what we do at church is merely done for us. The Eucharist has become "strength for the journey" instead of "Oh, you know, Body and Blood of Christ and all that, participation in the Eschaton, sacrament of the Church. Bagels afterward" (as one of my Orthodox friends puts church). Perhaps, I'm wrong, but there is some important difference there. Now, I could riff on the very word "liturgy" for a while, but let's just say that Aristotle often uses an important form of liturgy as an example, i.e., the arrangement of a big communal and potentially sacrificial banquet. So, yes, there is some suggestion in this that liturgy helps us, but the liturgy of this type is still for the larger community. Liturgy is pro Deo , and to some extent it is pro nobis , but it isn't propter me .
****At first, it's hard to see traditional liturgy in the Bible. Jesus, for instance, did not say (to our knowledge), "Verily, I say unto thee that those who cense the altar shall enter the Kingdom of God before thee." But there a few things I notice Jesus did do that has relevance to liturgy. He read the Scriptures in the synagogue and he preached on the text of the Scriptures. Jesus did not read, "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound" and then discuss for fifteen minutes that great play he saw at Herod's Theater on Thursday night. Now, I cannot say I have been perfectly faithful to completely Biblical preaching in my time. But I do try to make the Lectionary readings central to what I say. Moreover, I look for the harmony in the readings, in whatever way that can be justified. Hence, the Liturgy of the Word is important. Jesus knew His Bible like the back of his hand (and He didn't even own the latest translation by Vandervan). He almost certainly memorized the Law before the age of 12 based on the readings he had heard in the synagogue. We should aim so high. He also instituted Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist. No one has tinkered with the Words of Institution in my hearing, but cave glorificator !
These words are prayed at the end of the evening prayer service that closes Shabbat. (I once went to Havdalah. Very cool, the Messiah could come any time...) Now from what we can tell from the Gospels, Jesus acted very much against the viewpoint of this prayer. He associated with profane people. He healed on the Sabbath. He suggested that God actually could stand the Gentiles. For Jesus, it seems, there was no distinction between the sacred and the profane. But think carefully here. Jesus was God. If God is willing to do these things, it seems to mean that the profane ought to be sanctified by the holy. And that's one way of seeing Jesus, the Man-God made his entire life into Divine Service. He made life into liturgy. And He did it so well that the author of Hebrews can say,
Hebrews says also of the sacrificial tradition established by the Law, "All this is symbolic, pointing to the present time." Christ did not abolish the sacrifices of the Law, He merely fulfilled them by incorporating their symbolic content into the Verity of His Being. And He, having passed through the heavens, continues in such Verity as He did from Eternity. Thus, the Temple worship really is the model for Christian worship. I mean, the present traditions of Judaism, did not receive Christ as we did, but they still structure their synagogue worship around the Temple worship, transferring animal sacrifices to good works, just dealings, and effluent praise to the Most High, for the Old Testament says that's all God really wanted in the first place. Derek has suggested that monastic liturgy really should be our exemplar. He's exactly right in my opinion. The monastics certainly took Temple worship as their model, problematizing themselves simultaneously as the Levitical choirs of the Temple (under Asaph's direction) and as fellows with the angelic choirs. Thus, Christian liturgy seeks to participate in a Temple worship translated to Heaven in which Christ is once and eternally Our Intercessor and our atoning Sacrifice. As Morning Prayer I quotes Hebrews, "Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."
So bring on the incense! Well, not quite. I am an Anglican and so believe that a diversity of rites can speak to the same verities. Low Church Anglicans have a strong tradition of Psalm singing that must be holy vengeance for the monastic lands their ancestors stole ;) . One does not need lots of glitter to give God the service due to His Name. Now, Texanglican and I disagree strenuously about this, but worshipping in a whitewashed basement chapel does not suggest lack of reverence (though since his critiques, I aided with certain holy and decorative touches to a chapel where the ciborium-looking thing is a utiility box and there was a sewer pipe in the sacristy), but we said our Psalms antiphonally by half-verses. In other words, the Church is the people not the building (and so with worship).
OK, that's the big stuff. Here's some small stuff.
1. The Book of Common Prayer is an awesome book that is useful every day, not just Sundays. Even Baptists use it (Internet Monk, for instance). But its use must be learned and so it must be taught. There's a great Lenten Adult Education series here... If you are printing your liturgy for good wholesome evangelical reasons, please keep as much of the BCP"s formatting as possible for good wholesome formational reasons.
2. Care about the small stuff but don't sweat it. I still may remember how to light triple candlesticks (though it's against Holy Tradition in some places for me to do so). I also remember being taught by one of my Rectors, "The Gospel candle never burns alone." It's a great system. It has interesting symbolic meaning. And I've seen many people do it the "wrong way." I really think God is served not by our principles itself (which by this time are mostly man-made) but by the fact we believe there should be one. I love American representative democracy, but I enjoy reverencing a High Altar and walking backwards down steps as before an Oriental potentate, because Jesus is my King and so I shall not be slave to any mere man.
3. If you're going to be High Church, watch your ventilation. It's great to introduce people to incense, but if you're in a church not designed for it, you will win yourselves few friends by choking the Low Church senior citizens.
4. Responsory prayers can be great. I love Eucharistic Prayer C of Rite II, because it really involves me in the great power of God and my utter incompetence. But saying the closing portion of the Eucharistic Prayer is a little too much. I am not concelebrating. I cannot do fun hand motions. I am not acting in the person of Christ. I also dislike tag team Eucharistic Prayers for the same reason.
5. Finally, because my pet peeves could go on forever, let me remind everyone of a certain rubric from the BCP (also printed in the front of the Hymnal with the relevant citation from Canon 24), "Hymns referred to in the rubrics of this Book are to be understood as those authorized by this Church. The words of anthems are to be from Holy Scripture, or from this Book [BCP], or from texts congruent with them...[From the Canon] [The minister and persons skilled in music he consults] shall see that music is appropriate to the context in which it is used." As much as I love "Love Alone" by Caedmon's Call, I really don't see where it fits in the liturgy though there is some congruency between the lyrics of the song and the Holy Scriptures. I mean even "Loud, Boiling Test Tubes" (I mean "Earth and All Stars") is an homage to Benedicite Omnia Opera (and thus fits well).
OK, those are my seventy-five dollars.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that thy lips be opened so wide and reverently that they might give such praise to God on earth that the worlds be suffused with them, even to the horns of the altar of the holy city, Jerusalem.
But they also have asked for the perspective of intelligent folks of both the lay persuasion in the church sense and the academic sense. Since the closest I get academically to liturgy involves the buoyancy budget of the Red Sea boundary layer (which tells you nothing about proper occasions to sing the Song of Moses), I'll give you a few notes, based on fifteen years as a lector, fourteen years as an usher, fourteen years as an acolyte, nine years as an intercessor, eight years as a chalice bearer, six years as a subdeacon, and five years as a preacher (all of them somewhat discontinuous). (Note: I am 22, and I have reasonably conservative views on liturgy. One way to obstruct the phenomenon discussed in Spencer's article is to prepare older children and teenagers to do "adult" jobs in the liturgy when they're ready and there has been some discernment of their gifts in this area. It makes them part of the tradition. (Frankly, my favorite job relating to liturgy is to cook dinner for folks after Sunday Eucharist. It made me feel like a servant.)
****In English, we go to church services. I occasionally say something called the Office. Lately, I've found it helpful to restore the usage that connects these ideas. What we do at church is Divine Service. This is a usage to amuse Australians, but it has been lost from the mindset of most. So often I hear language that suggests what we do at church is merely done for us. The Eucharist has become "strength for the journey" instead of "Oh, you know, Body and Blood of Christ and all that, participation in the Eschaton, sacrament of the Church. Bagels afterward" (as one of my Orthodox friends puts church). Perhaps, I'm wrong, but there is some important difference there. Now, I could riff on the very word "liturgy" for a while, but let's just say that Aristotle often uses an important form of liturgy as an example, i.e., the arrangement of a big communal and potentially sacrificial banquet. So, yes, there is some suggestion in this that liturgy helps us, but the liturgy of this type is still for the larger community. Liturgy is pro Deo , and to some extent it is pro nobis , but it isn't propter me .
****At first, it's hard to see traditional liturgy in the Bible. Jesus, for instance, did not say (to our knowledge), "Verily, I say unto thee that those who cense the altar shall enter the Kingdom of God before thee." But there a few things I notice Jesus did do that has relevance to liturgy. He read the Scriptures in the synagogue and he preached on the text of the Scriptures. Jesus did not read, "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound" and then discuss for fifteen minutes that great play he saw at Herod's Theater on Thursday night. Now, I cannot say I have been perfectly faithful to completely Biblical preaching in my time. But I do try to make the Lectionary readings central to what I say. Moreover, I look for the harmony in the readings, in whatever way that can be justified. Hence, the Liturgy of the Word is important. Jesus knew His Bible like the back of his hand (and He didn't even own the latest translation by Vandervan). He almost certainly memorized the Law before the age of 12 based on the readings he had heard in the synagogue. We should aim so high. He also instituted Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist. No one has tinkered with the Words of Institution in my hearing, but cave glorificator !
“Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who has made a distinction between the sacred and the profane, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the Shabbat and six days of work..”(from the Havdalah ).
These words are prayed at the end of the evening prayer service that closes Shabbat. (I once went to Havdalah. Very cool, the Messiah could come any time...) Now from what we can tell from the Gospels, Jesus acted very much against the viewpoint of this prayer. He associated with profane people. He healed on the Sabbath. He suggested that God actually could stand the Gentiles. For Jesus, it seems, there was no distinction between the sacred and the profane. But think carefully here. Jesus was God. If God is willing to do these things, it seems to mean that the profane ought to be sanctified by the holy. And that's one way of seeing Jesus, the Man-God made his entire life into Divine Service. He made life into liturgy. And He did it so well that the author of Hebrews can say,
But now Christ has come, high priest of good things already in being. The tent of his priesthood is a greater and more perfect one, not made by human hands, that is, not belonging to this created world, the blood of his sacrifice is to be his own blood; not the blood of goats and calves; and thus he has entered the sanctuary once for all and secured an eternal liberation. If sprinkling the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer consecrates those who have been defiled and restores their ritual purity, how much greater is the power of the blood of Christ; through the eternal Spirit he offered himself without blemish to God. His blood will cleanse our conscience from the deadness of our former ways to serve the living God(Hebrews 9:11-14).
Hebrews says also of the sacrificial tradition established by the Law, "All this is symbolic, pointing to the present time." Christ did not abolish the sacrifices of the Law, He merely fulfilled them by incorporating their symbolic content into the Verity of His Being. And He, having passed through the heavens, continues in such Verity as He did from Eternity. Thus, the Temple worship really is the model for Christian worship. I mean, the present traditions of Judaism, did not receive Christ as we did, but they still structure their synagogue worship around the Temple worship, transferring animal sacrifices to good works, just dealings, and effluent praise to the Most High, for the Old Testament says that's all God really wanted in the first place. Derek has suggested that monastic liturgy really should be our exemplar. He's exactly right in my opinion. The monastics certainly took Temple worship as their model, problematizing themselves simultaneously as the Levitical choirs of the Temple (under Asaph's direction) and as fellows with the angelic choirs. Thus, Christian liturgy seeks to participate in a Temple worship translated to Heaven in which Christ is once and eternally Our Intercessor and our atoning Sacrifice. As Morning Prayer I quotes Hebrews, "Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."
So bring on the incense! Well, not quite. I am an Anglican and so believe that a diversity of rites can speak to the same verities. Low Church Anglicans have a strong tradition of Psalm singing that must be holy vengeance for the monastic lands their ancestors stole ;) . One does not need lots of glitter to give God the service due to His Name. Now, Texanglican and I disagree strenuously about this, but worshipping in a whitewashed basement chapel does not suggest lack of reverence (though since his critiques, I aided with certain holy and decorative touches to a chapel where the ciborium-looking thing is a utiility box and there was a sewer pipe in the sacristy), but we said our Psalms antiphonally by half-verses. In other words, the Church is the people not the building (and so with worship).
OK, that's the big stuff. Here's some small stuff.
1. The Book of Common Prayer is an awesome book that is useful every day, not just Sundays. Even Baptists use it (Internet Monk, for instance). But its use must be learned and so it must be taught. There's a great Lenten Adult Education series here... If you are printing your liturgy for good wholesome evangelical reasons, please keep as much of the BCP"s formatting as possible for good wholesome formational reasons.
2. Care about the small stuff but don't sweat it. I still may remember how to light triple candlesticks (though it's against Holy Tradition in some places for me to do so). I also remember being taught by one of my Rectors, "The Gospel candle never burns alone." It's a great system. It has interesting symbolic meaning. And I've seen many people do it the "wrong way." I really think God is served not by our principles itself (which by this time are mostly man-made) but by the fact we believe there should be one. I love American representative democracy, but I enjoy reverencing a High Altar and walking backwards down steps as before an Oriental potentate, because Jesus is my King and so I shall not be slave to any mere man.
3. If you're going to be High Church, watch your ventilation. It's great to introduce people to incense, but if you're in a church not designed for it, you will win yourselves few friends by choking the Low Church senior citizens.
4. Responsory prayers can be great. I love Eucharistic Prayer C of Rite II, because it really involves me in the great power of God and my utter incompetence. But saying the closing portion of the Eucharistic Prayer is a little too much. I am not concelebrating. I cannot do fun hand motions. I am not acting in the person of Christ. I also dislike tag team Eucharistic Prayers for the same reason.
5. Finally, because my pet peeves could go on forever, let me remind everyone of a certain rubric from the BCP (also printed in the front of the Hymnal with the relevant citation from Canon 24), "Hymns referred to in the rubrics of this Book are to be understood as those authorized by this Church. The words of anthems are to be from Holy Scripture, or from this Book [BCP], or from texts congruent with them...[From the Canon] [The minister and persons skilled in music he consults] shall see that music is appropriate to the context in which it is used." As much as I love "Love Alone" by Caedmon's Call, I really don't see where it fits in the liturgy though there is some congruency between the lyrics of the song and the Holy Scriptures. I mean even "Loud, Boiling Test Tubes" (I mean "Earth and All Stars") is an homage to Benedicite Omnia Opera (and thus fits well).
OK, those are my seventy-five dollars.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that thy lips be opened so wide and reverently that they might give such praise to God on earth that the worlds be suffused with them, even to the horns of the altar of the holy city, Jerusalem.
Friday, October 21, 2005
A Commentary on St. John Chrysostom's On the Priesthood (Part I)
Editor's Note: This piece is rather long, so I am going to introduce the less controversial piece today, given that *Christopher recently has written on some of the same subjects. The controversy will have to wait until I can do a good job on it.
I am spurred to this post by Father John Heidt, Canon Theologian of Fort Worth, who writes in a recent post,
Among other things, Heidt says in this post that we should beware of the label "homosexual," since it was invented by the atheist Havelock Ellis. What I hate to have to tell the Reverend Father in God is homosexuality is prior to Havelock Ellis. And in some sense, Father Heidt does admit this by mentioning "the great heroes of the Faith." But was it is this simple? Did these heroes theologize their homosexuality as something that really doesn't exist? Did they theologize homosexuality as something Christ could take away or did they theologize it as something capable of sanctification as a primary characteristic of the individual nature? Did they theologize same-sex unitive relationships or did they regard such unions as impossibilities in the divine economy? We know what Heidt would answer. I remain quite unconvinced of his position. And I was less unconvinced before reading the ancient sources than afterwards.
*Christopher of Bending the Rule often refers to the family of his conjugal union as a "community of ascesis." In the sense I suspect he means it, he sees his family structure in terms of creatures training for the competition alluded to in 1 Corinthians 9 or obliquely in 1 Timothy 4. Thus, a community of ascesis is in constant training for the present struggle against the principalities and powers in hope for the amazing blessedness of the world to come. This is a common problematization of the monastics. Why are the monastics so popular among Christian gay couples? Why do I see so many icons of Benedict near rainbow flags? Why are relationships that seem the height of profligacy and indulgence in one view so strongly invested in the theology of self-denial for the sake of the "work of God." This is not a modern problem, I believe. I believe these elements are so strongly juxtaposed because monasticism was strongly influenced by a solution to very peculiar problems of the early Christian Era.
The First Problem: You are attracted to a person of the same sex in the 3rd century AD Roman world. You are an adult male citizen. Your beloved is an adult male citizen. In a world with supposedly more liberal sexual mores, your situation is impossible. At best, any relationship between you would be seen as immature, the kind of thing teenage boys would do. It would lower your status in the community. Moreover, it would complicate your property relations. Philosophically, such a relationship would be seen as poor discipline of the soul. At worst, your relationship could be considered a criminal offense.
The Second Problem: You are Christian. From what you read in the Scriptures, you cannot have sexual relations with your beloved without incurring divine sanction. Moreover, you are on the d.l., since in some dioceses, anyone with any homosexual experiences is regarded as incapable of redemption. Such persons are not permitted to be instructed in the Faith, let alone baptized. What are you to do? Surely, God has some good news for you.
To be honest, there seem to have been a variety of solutions to these problems. In some cases, gay men found liberty in solitary or communal living dedicated to prayer and works of mercy. And because being a straight man often wasn't easy in those times, such communities were mixed in sexual orientation. The idea of these communities was very simple. They were all "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven" who had given up everything to take up the cross and follow Jesus. The liberation of all of this was tremendous, because in the ideal world, there was no longer gay or straight living in Greco-Roman society with its worries about taxes, agricultural failure, commercial disaster, and the marriage market. The obligations of earthly citizenship could pass away. In this ideal case, persons were consecrated by their decision to abandon the world and by this consecration, they sought relationship with God and the entire created order. They sought the most final state of holy and eschatological being, in which God would be "all in all." In practice, the Institutes of Cassian suggest there were certain concessions to human nature. A couple of monks might share the same cell, if the abbot had determined their close living would further the work of the community. Were these particular same-sex relationships that actually had romantic dimensions? Probably. But there was no sex. Sex, of course, did not mesh with the theology. And it still doesn't. But I still claim that monasticism originates from a rejection of the heterosexual world for one not just "genderfucked" but completely rearranged. This is the power of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ!
We also can see cases in which particular same-sex romantic relationships became what I like to call "fratrimony." I think the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus came from or were exemplars to a rare community in which there really was a theology of same-sex marriage. And the theology was this: just as matrimony is a potential icon of the relationship between Christ and the Church, fratrimony is a potential icon of the relationship among the members of the Church and the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity. Thus, by natural relationships, the symmetry between koinonia and perichoresis that ultimately will be hyperthesis (by which I mean the transposition of the fullness of God for the fullness of the human being) can be displayed to the world entire. For indeed one of the ancient liturgies of fratrimony ends with this hymn of the priest, "By the union of love the apostles join in the praying to the Master of all; themselves committed to Christ, they extended their beautiful feet, announcing the good news of peace to everyone." When I read this I was amazed, for the Scriptures were opened to me, i.e. John 17.
However, fratimony had a strong pressure on it, the Greek emphasis on body/spirit duality and certain legal issues made it very difficult to theologize its sexual elements. Fratrimony, from the few sources that testify it, emphasized union according to the spirit rather than the flesh. This is a distinction one can make in a Johannine framework, because John could live with both monist and dualist understandings of human nature, but it is very hard to reconcile with the Old Testament. The body without the spirit is mere potential and vice versa . And indeed, the Old Testament lauds the potential of spirit, being "the breath of God" and views "bones" as the potential of the flesh.
But we need not worry. Heterosexual sex still was rather dubious in the Patristic books. It was allowed for sake of procreation. The Schoolmen were able to put it on better footing, until we have reached its ultimate theological celebration in American Protestantism. If it were up to me, I would adapt the formula of the Schoolmen and say, "faith, offspring, and sacrament" for matrimony and say, "faith, direction (cultivation?), and sacrament." In other words, I believe that homosexual unions possess as part of their charism not the fecundity of matrimony but the ability to look beyond the reproductive necessity to the fullness of the human person. In the ideal view, a homosexual union provides to the sensible world benefits in the form of a more objective economic and emotional safety net. They should be able to dedicate more of their time to cultivating the good and healing the harms. They have the ability to make more people their brothers and sisters than their immediate family. In the future of properly theologized relationships I see in the future, fratrimony and matrimony will be a spectrum not about sex per se but about how the couple gives of themselves to the world. The heterosexual couples will give their children to the world, both in terms of genetic potential and the habits they instill in them. Childless, homosexual couples, and celibates will give of themselves in other ways. What will matter is how the nature of God and the Christian community is published to the world by these relationships. By their fruits, we will know them.
[To be continued]
I am spurred to this post by Father John Heidt, Canon Theologian of Fort Worth, who writes in a recent post,
"For whatever reason, a Christian man or woman who is unable, or does not feel called, to enter the married state as the bible and the church understand it, must attempt to develop an inward discipline of chastity which most heterosexual people never even consider, and do their best to withstand the external social pressure of conforming to the life style of the homosexual community. This is not an easy calling, but there is no substitute, and today, as in past ages, those who have responded faithfully to that call have often been the great heroes of the Faith. In their pilgrimage they need all the sympathy, encouragement and support that the church can muster, while reminding them that their particular troubles and temptations may differ in kind but not in power from the troubles and temptations of married men and women."
Among other things, Heidt says in this post that we should beware of the label "homosexual," since it was invented by the atheist Havelock Ellis. What I hate to have to tell the Reverend Father in God is homosexuality is prior to Havelock Ellis. And in some sense, Father Heidt does admit this by mentioning "the great heroes of the Faith." But was it is this simple? Did these heroes theologize their homosexuality as something that really doesn't exist? Did they theologize homosexuality as something Christ could take away or did they theologize it as something capable of sanctification as a primary characteristic of the individual nature? Did they theologize same-sex unitive relationships or did they regard such unions as impossibilities in the divine economy? We know what Heidt would answer. I remain quite unconvinced of his position. And I was less unconvinced before reading the ancient sources than afterwards.
*Christopher of Bending the Rule often refers to the family of his conjugal union as a "community of ascesis." In the sense I suspect he means it, he sees his family structure in terms of creatures training for the competition alluded to in 1 Corinthians 9 or obliquely in 1 Timothy 4. Thus, a community of ascesis is in constant training for the present struggle against the principalities and powers in hope for the amazing blessedness of the world to come. This is a common problematization of the monastics. Why are the monastics so popular among Christian gay couples? Why do I see so many icons of Benedict near rainbow flags? Why are relationships that seem the height of profligacy and indulgence in one view so strongly invested in the theology of self-denial for the sake of the "work of God." This is not a modern problem, I believe. I believe these elements are so strongly juxtaposed because monasticism was strongly influenced by a solution to very peculiar problems of the early Christian Era.
The First Problem: You are attracted to a person of the same sex in the 3rd century AD Roman world. You are an adult male citizen. Your beloved is an adult male citizen. In a world with supposedly more liberal sexual mores, your situation is impossible. At best, any relationship between you would be seen as immature, the kind of thing teenage boys would do. It would lower your status in the community. Moreover, it would complicate your property relations. Philosophically, such a relationship would be seen as poor discipline of the soul. At worst, your relationship could be considered a criminal offense.
The Second Problem: You are Christian. From what you read in the Scriptures, you cannot have sexual relations with your beloved without incurring divine sanction. Moreover, you are on the d.l., since in some dioceses, anyone with any homosexual experiences is regarded as incapable of redemption. Such persons are not permitted to be instructed in the Faith, let alone baptized. What are you to do? Surely, God has some good news for you.
To be honest, there seem to have been a variety of solutions to these problems. In some cases, gay men found liberty in solitary or communal living dedicated to prayer and works of mercy. And because being a straight man often wasn't easy in those times, such communities were mixed in sexual orientation. The idea of these communities was very simple. They were all "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven" who had given up everything to take up the cross and follow Jesus. The liberation of all of this was tremendous, because in the ideal world, there was no longer gay or straight living in Greco-Roman society with its worries about taxes, agricultural failure, commercial disaster, and the marriage market. The obligations of earthly citizenship could pass away. In this ideal case, persons were consecrated by their decision to abandon the world and by this consecration, they sought relationship with God and the entire created order. They sought the most final state of holy and eschatological being, in which God would be "all in all." In practice, the Institutes of Cassian suggest there were certain concessions to human nature. A couple of monks might share the same cell, if the abbot had determined their close living would further the work of the community. Were these particular same-sex relationships that actually had romantic dimensions? Probably. But there was no sex. Sex, of course, did not mesh with the theology. And it still doesn't. But I still claim that monasticism originates from a rejection of the heterosexual world for one not just "genderfucked" but completely rearranged. This is the power of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ!
We also can see cases in which particular same-sex romantic relationships became what I like to call "fratrimony." I think the martyrs Sergius and Bacchus came from or were exemplars to a rare community in which there really was a theology of same-sex marriage. And the theology was this: just as matrimony is a potential icon of the relationship between Christ and the Church, fratrimony is a potential icon of the relationship among the members of the Church and the relationship between the Persons of the Trinity. Thus, by natural relationships, the symmetry between koinonia and perichoresis that ultimately will be hyperthesis (by which I mean the transposition of the fullness of God for the fullness of the human being) can be displayed to the world entire. For indeed one of the ancient liturgies of fratrimony ends with this hymn of the priest, "By the union of love the apostles join in the praying to the Master of all; themselves committed to Christ, they extended their beautiful feet, announcing the good news of peace to everyone." When I read this I was amazed, for the Scriptures were opened to me, i.e. John 17.
However, fratimony had a strong pressure on it, the Greek emphasis on body/spirit duality and certain legal issues made it very difficult to theologize its sexual elements. Fratrimony, from the few sources that testify it, emphasized union according to the spirit rather than the flesh. This is a distinction one can make in a Johannine framework, because John could live with both monist and dualist understandings of human nature, but it is very hard to reconcile with the Old Testament. The body without the spirit is mere potential and vice versa . And indeed, the Old Testament lauds the potential of spirit, being "the breath of God" and views "bones" as the potential of the flesh.
But we need not worry. Heterosexual sex still was rather dubious in the Patristic books. It was allowed for sake of procreation. The Schoolmen were able to put it on better footing, until we have reached its ultimate theological celebration in American Protestantism. If it were up to me, I would adapt the formula of the Schoolmen and say, "faith, offspring, and sacrament" for matrimony and say, "faith, direction (cultivation?), and sacrament." In other words, I believe that homosexual unions possess as part of their charism not the fecundity of matrimony but the ability to look beyond the reproductive necessity to the fullness of the human person. In the ideal view, a homosexual union provides to the sensible world benefits in the form of a more objective economic and emotional safety net. They should be able to dedicate more of their time to cultivating the good and healing the harms. They have the ability to make more people their brothers and sisters than their immediate family. In the future of properly theologized relationships I see in the future, fratrimony and matrimony will be a spectrum not about sex per se but about how the couple gives of themselves to the world. The heterosexual couples will give their children to the world, both in terms of genetic potential and the habits they instill in them. Childless, homosexual couples, and celibates will give of themselves in other ways. What will matter is how the nature of God and the Christian community is published to the world by these relationships. By their fruits, we will know them.
[To be continued]
Sunday, October 16, 2005
The Integrity of Our Witness
Yesterday, I took a break from the old problem sets to go promote Episcopal Relief and Development at an event at a Baptist church here. There was another detour involved, but that's another story. Actually, I really had no idea I was going to promote Episcopal Relief and Development, but I don't think I did too bad a job on short notice. But one man said to me, "It's really about integrity, isn't it?" I had been doing too much radiative transfer that day and was rather confused. "Integrity, what do you mean?" "The integrity of our witness." I muttered agreement then. But it occurs to me now that he's absolutely right. In literature, there is a strong prejudice against telling as opposed to showing. But the fullness of Christ is proclaimed to the world in both showing and telling a unified Christ. There is no aesthetic prejudice in this. And since I tend to live in communities of showing, I tend to forget how essential to telling showing can seem. Now, if only I could get the telling down.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may proclaim Christ boldly in word and deed.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may proclaim Christ boldly in word and deed.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
It's Always A Good Time for Fasting and Prayer
This question was posed to Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef, "We see that the followers of Rabbi Yohannam and the sages are fasting. But your disciples are eating and drinking. Why do they not fast?" And he replied, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast."(From the Synoptic Gospels in poor homage to the Talmud).
It's funny. On one hand, my parish church has been promoting the idea of God's October Surprise: an unusual conjunction of Yom Kippur in Ramadan, thus allowing Jews and Muslims to share their fast times. Of course, it's no fair if everyone can't get into the act. So this highly irregular event includes a Hindu festival commemorating spiritual struggle and victory, a Buddhist festival, and the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, whose work to make peace between Islam and Christianity is not as well-known as it should be and gives the lie to all of the critiques of Kingdom of Heaven about the anachronistic religious tolerance of some of the characters. In every age, there are a few saints who can recognize genuine religious differences without considering it an excuse for bloodshed or the impossibility of friendship. The Kingdom of Jerusalem probably had a higher concentration of such people. But anyhow... The Rector encouraged us all to use the conjunction of the Islamic and Jewish festivals to use Yom Kippur as an opportunity to fast and pray for peace and justice. I am presently taking him up on it, though I am not doing it wholesale. For one thing, I am tempted to rub a little olive oil on my head tomorrow to give a Christian character to what I am doing. I also am working. Thus, let not my fast be confused for other fasts going on tomorrow. I merely wish to share some of the sanctity of the day and incline my heart toward the providence of God, bewail my sins and the systems of oppression I uphold, and thank God for the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.
It is also tomorrow the Feast of St. Edward the Confessor, King of England and founder of St Peter's Abbey, the original West Minster of the See of London. It is also roughly the millenium of his birth. St. Edward the Confessor is quite a proper patron for this fast. In a time of much fighting for the throne of England, Edward came to power not by his sword but by his relationships. He was connected somehow to each of his four most recent predecessors, giving him a superior claim to all rival claimants, who were less connected. Yet Edward never intended to become king. He had taken a vow of chastity and probably would have ended up under the Rule of St. Benedict if he were not needed to bring civil peace to England. He ruled well and mercifully, though. He even married but made it clear to his wife that they would be living as "brother and sister" as the Apostle saith. Although in the long run, this probably was not the most responsible thing to do. Edward also tried to secure the succession for his Norman relatives, which was another ambiguously responsible act. But Edward also was said to have visions from God. Perhaps, he saw that the Normans and Saxons had a common destiny and tried to avoid future bloodshed. His life reminds us that self-denial, mercy, and peace are worthy virtues for even the most powerful of us to cultivate.
And now I hear of this :
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Fasting, almsgiving, and prayer have a long foundation in the Christian tradition stemming from our Jewish matrix. This triple counsel calls us to share signs of tangible grace with one another, reminding each of us to live in such a way that our very lives declare “God is gracious and bountiful, generous and merciful.”
Our holiness is found in loving our neighbor as ourselves. Many saints past knew this. Fasting was not simply a matter of individual piety, but a matter of personal responsibility to sisters and brothers with whom we are intertwined. And so we find St. Catherine of Sienna fasting and giving her meals away to the hungry. We find Desert Elders selling their woven wares to purchase food not for themselves, but for those without sustenance.
In the last few weeks, a series of natural disasters have ravaged the earth, striking brothers and sisters far and near. Some leaders within the Christian community have taken this as a sign of God’s wrath, singling out one or another sort and condition of human being for blame. Others are speaking up about taking care of our own first.
Rather than seeking to lay blame, to raise dividing walls for deciding who is our neighbor, or to get caught up in speculation about the end of days, we choose to discern in the signs of the times, that now is always the time for solidarity with those who are suffering. The signs of the times call us to live graciously as our Heavenly Father is gracious toward us.
To this end, we pledge to be signs of God’s generosity through fasting, prayer, and almsgiving in solidarity in a particular way with our brothers and sisters: To begin each day with the Lord’s Prayer, remembering that the Bread of Heaven at Holy Eucharist is intricately tied to striving so that all shall have daily bread; to abstain from a meal or simplify our eating habits each day; and to give the cost of this meal or savings from simplified eating to Episcopal Relief and Development or equivalent relief organizations for the work of disaster relief amongst our sisters and brothers both far and near.
At a time when our Communion is impaired by conflict and many search far and wide for signs of God’s tangible grace, we invite you to join us in the work of Christ, living into our Baptismal Covenant as we seek to serve Christ in all peoples, loving our neighbor as ourselves.
lux Christi vobis,
*Christopher and Annie
It really weaves all of our troubles into a common whole and a common solution. I've been reading poor Anglican Scotist. Our pangs of schism hit very close to home for him. Rev. Mr. Wilkins has yielded to anger and repented of it. And it's best not to talk about what I've seen at Titusonenine and Virtuosity. While our Bridegroom already has been taken from us and passed through the heavens, having needed no purificatory sacrifice but offering Himself for us, He returns to us in the Bread and Wine of the Holy Eucharist. He also returns to us in all of those acts of two or three or more of us by which we demonstrate our visible unity and the stirring of His Kingdom into this world. Though our unity with Christ is not exclusively dependent on our visible unity with one another, it is only strengthened by our communal obedience to his commandments by which God is reconciled to the world not only by the dispersal of the lifegiving Gospel as it regards salvation but also by works of mercy. Thus, the threat of the diminution of the visible unity of the Church is very much like something of the Bridegroom being taken away from us, it feels very much like an excuse to postpone a wedding (even if the divine economy doesn't work that way.) Thus, *Christopher and Annie are quite right to see natural disasters and schism as two very good reasons to fast, to pray, and to do works of mercy. I'll try to do a little more of all three.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers remind you that the sacrifice of God is a well-threshed spirit, a contrite heart He will not despise.
Monday, October 10, 2005
On the Names of the Persons of the Trinity
Well, not quite... I couldn't possibly give this issue its proper treatment. But I was spurred by this post to do a quick Anglicanocentric look at the issue. Besides, who would jump into this fray? I've already been cyberanathematized once this week. But the commenter who connected this issue to human sexuality issues is quite correct. It's not that sexuality is simply sublimated desire for God or that desire for God is sublimated sexual desire. The same faculties that mediate our part of our relationship with God also mediate our part of our relationship with other people, especially our most intimate ones. The tendency of the liberal moderns is to be sickened by the more ancient sexual responses to theophany. The tendency of the reactionary moderns is to purify the theophanic ecstasy of its sexual aspects.
But this wasn't my point. The Sewanee professor in question is in some sense supported by Athanasius, "And in this Trinity none is afore, or after another; none is greater, or less than another." Quicunque Vult founds the Sonship of the Son not on His inferiority to the Father, for they are indeed co-equal and co-eternal. He is Son because he is Begotten of the Father. Begetting implies no power relations nor any loss of equality or co-eternity. Thus, the Sewanee Professor questions whether Father is an appropriate title, since it implies power relations: the paterfamilias , who of old, had power of life and death over his household. Do we imply poor Christology or soteriology in this way?
But I think the commenters who found themselves on the antiquity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not far off, except they imply this is the only Scriptural formula. The problem is not the names themselves but the exclusionary and erroneous conclusions we draw from them. For instance, if we infer something about the role of women from the name, we certainly may err, "For God created a human being in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female He created him." I have to use "him," because we have no common gender pronoun in English. But why don't we change to something gender-neutral in that case? Well, as a hypothetical, why don't we change the name of Jesus? Well, I hope you don't go any further, because this is ridiculous. Changing the name of Jesus would introduce a number of dangerous errors.
But more importantly, Jesus is a name of power, for its referent is powerful. The name itself means "God saves." When we say it, we are naming its referent to the entire cosmos that may be feeling rebellious and enslaved. By saying that name, we say so much. As for the Names of the Persons, we are baptized into Christ's death, but we are baptized in the name of Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now I have thought about the locative aspects of this. Being baptized in the name of God is a usage that could suggest a variety of reified and substantial meanings for the name of God, particularly in its association with a continuation of the Temple worship in the Church. However, I suspect strongest sense of the usage is legal. It is the language of agency. The priest (or indeed layperson) baptizes by delegation from Christ. You also can find similar usage of doing things "in name of" (nomine + gen.) in contemporary Roman legal sources.
Let us also think of Moses, "Whom shall I say sent me?" And then God gives a fairly long title. These "legal names" clearly do not comprehend God. They are mere shorthand like the name of Fangorn in The Two Towers , but surely we have no authority to change them in "legal" contexts.
Thus, I would insist, if I were in charge, that the "legal" name of the Trinity be said at least once in every liturgy, so that we clearly direct our prayers to the rightful party. (We technically even do this at my own liberal Episcopal megachurch...) But I am not so limited as to deny that certain extralegal appositives may have a place in the liturgy. To give you examples, I have compiled a table of appositives used for God in the Litany of the Books of Common Prayer.
I apologize for the formatting. But from what I can tell, there is some tension in these appositives. All of these have Scriptural or creedal precedent, though. What we should be wary of is not any departure from Father, Son, and Holy Sprit but what precedent these departures have. But there's one more thing we should be wary of. But I need to tell a story to illustrate it.
This winter, some folks in "815" sent a survey around directed at churchgoers under 30. One set of questions asked our opinions on various formulations intended to name God. I can't reproduce them verbatim, but there were several that sent us into fits of laughter. There was ones that revealed a fellow student's leanings toward Mormon theology on the issue. But none of them seemed right. To some extent, I understand concerns that poor language or good language poorly interpreted and comprehended leads us into bad habits and into vice. But "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" has been good language for a very long time and is the strongest candidate for God's "legal" name. We have no power to change it by fiat. By delegation from that God I was baptized and I seek the unity of that same God in the Eucharistic feast. I am very wary of a trend to deny that this ancient formula is not God's proper name or that there is something wrong about using it to refer to God. Again I say that the problem is not the name of God but how we use it and think it. Who told us to use God's name to diminish our neighbor? No one did. So I can understand the push for inclusive language, yet I think it is becoming an increasingly misguided discourse. We should strive to expand our comprehension of God not diminish it.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit that the whole world may not merely know the names of the Trinity but know the Verity of their Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. And indeed, O gracious Lord, please spare all of your children from the motions of the earth and the ragings of the waters and keep them in life, health, and safety.
But this wasn't my point. The Sewanee professor in question is in some sense supported by Athanasius, "And in this Trinity none is afore, or after another; none is greater, or less than another." Quicunque Vult founds the Sonship of the Son not on His inferiority to the Father, for they are indeed co-equal and co-eternal. He is Son because he is Begotten of the Father. Begetting implies no power relations nor any loss of equality or co-eternity. Thus, the Sewanee Professor questions whether Father is an appropriate title, since it implies power relations: the paterfamilias , who of old, had power of life and death over his household. Do we imply poor Christology or soteriology in this way?
But I think the commenters who found themselves on the antiquity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not far off, except they imply this is the only Scriptural formula. The problem is not the names themselves but the exclusionary and erroneous conclusions we draw from them. For instance, if we infer something about the role of women from the name, we certainly may err, "For God created a human being in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female He created him." I have to use "him," because we have no common gender pronoun in English. But why don't we change to something gender-neutral in that case? Well, as a hypothetical, why don't we change the name of Jesus? Well, I hope you don't go any further, because this is ridiculous. Changing the name of Jesus would introduce a number of dangerous errors.
But more importantly, Jesus is a name of power, for its referent is powerful. The name itself means "God saves." When we say it, we are naming its referent to the entire cosmos that may be feeling rebellious and enslaved. By saying that name, we say so much. As for the Names of the Persons, we are baptized into Christ's death, but we are baptized in the name of Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now I have thought about the locative aspects of this. Being baptized in the name of God is a usage that could suggest a variety of reified and substantial meanings for the name of God, particularly in its association with a continuation of the Temple worship in the Church. However, I suspect strongest sense of the usage is legal. It is the language of agency. The priest (or indeed layperson) baptizes by delegation from Christ. You also can find similar usage of doing things "in name of" (nomine + gen.) in contemporary Roman legal sources.
Let us also think of Moses, "Whom shall I say sent me?" And then God gives a fairly long title. These "legal names" clearly do not comprehend God. They are mere shorthand like the name of Fangorn in The Two Towers , but surely we have no authority to change them in "legal" contexts.
Thus, I would insist, if I were in charge, that the "legal" name of the Trinity be said at least once in every liturgy, so that we clearly direct our prayers to the rightful party. (We technically even do this at my own liberal Episcopal megachurch...) But I am not so limited as to deny that certain extralegal appositives may have a place in the liturgy. To give you examples, I have compiled a table of appositives used for God in the Litany of the Books of Common Prayer.
| Edition | God the Father | God the Son | God the Holy Ghost (Spirit) |
| 1544* | …of heaven | redemer of the world | procedyng from the father and the sonne |
| 1549 | proceding from the father and the sonne | ||
| 1552 | " | " | " |
| 1662 | ,…of heaven | Redeemer of the world | proceeding from the Father and the Son |
| 1689* | Creator of heaven and earth | Redeemer of the world | our Sanctifier and Comforter |
| 1928E* | Father of heaven | Redeemer of the world | proceeding from the Father and the Son |
| ASB | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 1789 | Father of heaven | Redeemer of the world | proceeding from the Father and the Son |
| 1892 | " | " | " |
| 1928 | Creator of heaven and earth | Redeemer of the world | Sanctifier of the faithful |
| 1979 | " | " | " |
| 2004-Ireland-2 | Creator of heaven and earth | Redeemer of the world | Giver of life |
| 1962-Canada | Creator of heaven and earth | Redeemer of the world | Sanctifier of the faithful |
| Melanesian | …in heaven | the Saviour of the world | coming from the Father and the Son |
| Portuguese | criador | redentor | defensor e guia |
| Spanish | y Padre celestial | Redentor del mundo | procedente del Padre y del Hijo |
| * | Not official Book of Common Prayer |
I apologize for the formatting. But from what I can tell, there is some tension in these appositives. All of these have Scriptural or creedal precedent, though. What we should be wary of is not any departure from Father, Son, and Holy Sprit but what precedent these departures have. But there's one more thing we should be wary of. But I need to tell a story to illustrate it.
This winter, some folks in "815" sent a survey around directed at churchgoers under 30. One set of questions asked our opinions on various formulations intended to name God. I can't reproduce them verbatim, but there were several that sent us into fits of laughter. There was ones that revealed a fellow student's leanings toward Mormon theology on the issue. But none of them seemed right. To some extent, I understand concerns that poor language or good language poorly interpreted and comprehended leads us into bad habits and into vice. But "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" has been good language for a very long time and is the strongest candidate for God's "legal" name. We have no power to change it by fiat. By delegation from that God I was baptized and I seek the unity of that same God in the Eucharistic feast. I am very wary of a trend to deny that this ancient formula is not God's proper name or that there is something wrong about using it to refer to God. Again I say that the problem is not the name of God but how we use it and think it. Who told us to use God's name to diminish our neighbor? No one did. So I can understand the push for inclusive language, yet I think it is becoming an increasingly misguided discourse. We should strive to expand our comprehension of God not diminish it.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit that the whole world may not merely know the names of the Trinity but know the Verity of their Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. And indeed, O gracious Lord, please spare all of your children from the motions of the earth and the ragings of the waters and keep them in life, health, and safety.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
XIV. Of Works of Supererogation
XIV. Of Works of Supererogation
Voluntary Works besides, over and above God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety...
First, let's examine the very word supererogation, since we do not normally use it in conversation outside of the context of the theology of justification. Its earliest OED citation is 1526. From what I can tell, it originates from the Vulgate translation of Luke 10:35 in which the Good Samaritan leaves the man he has helped with an innkeeper while he takes care of some business. The Good Samaritan leaves a sum for the innkeeper but says that if the innkeeper needs to do anything more than the usual services for a guest (the verb for "if you should perform additional services" is supererogaveris in the Vulgate and prosdapaneses in the original. Considering the concept of which it is the origin, this suggests that the Roman Catholic doctrine of supererogation herein critiqued might originate from an exegesis of this passage in which Christ is the Good Samaritan, the man on the road is the ordinary man, and the innkeeper is the man seeking "perfection." [Though the source of the concept of "perfection" is Matthew 19:21]. Hence, the perfect man aids the cure of souls by following the commandments of Jesus, but if some additional things need to be done, it shall be for the perfect man as for the innkeeper. He shall be repaid by Jesus.
Well, this is a very strange exegesis and completely unlike any reading of this story I have ever heard, but it is the likely origin of the name (at least) of supererogation.
The doctrine itself (and Schaff is my primary authority on this) seems to be the idea of an Englishman, Alexander of Hales. If it was not his original idea, he certainly gave it its most traditional form. Alexander was a man whose influence on the Scholastics was so great that he might as well be called Doctor Doctorum , though honestly I barely have heard anything about him before now. From what I can tell, Hales was a great professor of Paris and a Franciscan of influence and papal patronage. His tendency as a theologian was to justify extant practice, no matter how innovative, and he especially emphasized the superiority of the clerical status.
The idea of the doctrine is this: God reveals in the Scriptures that certain acts (or their omission) either deserve reward or deserve punishment in whatever sense is appropriate. These acts that are either commanded or forbidden are commanded or forbidden in the form of laws, rules, acts, statutes etc. Generally, we call them by the general name of commandments. But Hales and his followers divided the commandments of the New Law (I would presume) into precepts which are obligatory on everyone and counsels (sometimes called evangelical counsels, either from their placement in the Gospels or because they often are connected with evangelism). It is not obligatory on anyone to obey counsels, but their obedience contributes to a gigantic treasury of merit on which the Church may draw to forgive the guilt of those who fail in obedience to precepts, do not have power in themselves to do the necessary penance for their failure, but are willing to do some penance to show their contrition to provide justification for the church to forgive their guilt. And, of course, Purgatory gets involved somewhere. All of this guilt forgiveness is an attempt to avoid Purgatory in which the souls are purified from remanent but not damnable guilt.
The Articulators, like the other Reformers, were highly disdainful of this doctrine. Their chief objection lay in the regula incurvata of their theology. As the Nicene Fathers sought doctrine in which Christ was just enough God and just enough man, the Reformers would not admit anything that spoke against free grace through Jesus Christ. We have argued before against Purgatory and for the impossibly high price of salvation. Although I have suggested one normally does not buy adoption or inheritance, I have not given any Scriptural basis for free grace. I find myself most convinced by the Old Testament in Isaiah 55, a possible reading at Easter Vigil, though I do not know how long it has been part of this Lectionary, since Easter Vigil is an ancient practice of recent restoration among Episcopalians at least. Hear the Word of the Lord through Isaiah, "Come for water, all who are thirsty; though you have no money, come, buy grain, and eat, come, buy wine and milk, not for money, not for a price. Why spend your money for what is not food, your earnings on what fails to satisfy? Listen to me and you will fare well, you will enjoy the fat of the land."
As in much of Isaiah, we see the life and teachings of Jesus in these verses. Water is freely offered, suggesting both the Sacrament of Holy Baptism and the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit (living water welling up such as in the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well). Bread and wine is freely offered, suggesting both the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist and the mass feeding stories that are forerunners of the Eucharist. Enjoying the produce of the land follows listening to the Word of God, for "man does not live by bread alone but every word out of the mouth of God." Since we often see the Sacraments as the foundation of the life salvifying, i.e., in the midst of salvification, we see symbols of them being freely offered without money and price and thus we also see grace and salvation likewise freely offered. Moreover, salvation through Jesus Christ was a free offering of himself on the cross, for we say of Him that He was as a Lamb led gently to the slaughter. We did not pay Him for taking the fall for us. He gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God. It is thus dangerous and potentially erroneous to introduce anything that looks like a payment scheme into the economy of salvation. The amounts of guilt involved are too large to be accounted except in the books of God.
Great was the obedience of the martyrs and they have the full measure of blessedness in the company of the Triune God, but they have no salvific grace to provide to anyone. To which it is objected that the bishops of the Church considered libelli and the reified merit of the martyrs in determining the penance of the lapsi [Note carefully the source of the objection.] And I reply thus: the bishops possess two very confusing powers by delegation to their predecessors the Apostles. First, they possess the power to "bind and to loosen," which could be midrashic or judicial powers. The bishops are the settled judges of the Church, as Hooker might put it, and thus have the authority to decide who belongs inside and outside the carnal communion of the Church. This power, no doubt, is misused, but it is theirs. I have no idea what the extent of their spiritual authority is, though I suspect it is as efficacious as their temporal authority if in full faith and knowledge. But they possess in addition the ability to forgive and retain sins, probably on the same conditions as "binding and loosening," since these powers are introduced analogously in the Gospels. They indeed may be one and the same. But since these powers derive from delegation from Christ and the communication of the Holy Spirit, it is highly likely that if anyone's merits are related to their exercise, it would be the merits of Christ.
Thus when the bishops reconciled the lapsi , they were exercising their proper powers gained for them through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and no other act. The libelli of the martyrs thus are analogously effectual to the prayers of the saints, they only can help, being patronage and co-endorsement of our prayers, if the saints indeed do patronize us and endorse them. But to say the witness of the martyrs has any power compared to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross would be contrary to that same witness. Did the bishops really think they were doing otherwise. As far as I can tell, they were extending Christ's mercy. Indeed, any other reading of the libelli suggests that an error of the lapsi has propagated.
For indeed the first form of libelli in the context of martyrdom originates from a decree of the Emperor Decius in the middle of the 3rd century AD. Decius commanded that all of the citizens of the cities of the Empire perform sacrifices to their local gods for the safety of the Empire. Those who sacrificed received a certificate ( libellus ), saying that they had performed the sacrifice. People who did not possess this document and refused to make sacrifice were subject to capital punishment. Christians had a variety of responses to the decree of Decius and similar decrees issued in later persecutions. Some forged libellos or obtained them from the local magistrates by bribery. Others obtained them by actually sacrificing. All of these, no doubt, had theological arguments of better or worse sorts justifying themselves. But in all cases, it was the general consensus of the Church that all who possessed libellos were apostates of greater or lesser sorts. Thus, by obtaining libellos from martyrs in prison they had aided, the lapsi were trying to get right with both God and the Emperor.
As a sign of contrition, the acts of the lapsi were admirable. They risked martyrdom by helping the martyrs. But the libelli of the martyrs had poor precedent. For in the logic of the precedent, the lapsi were making sacrifice to the martyrs in order to keep their place in the Christian commonwealth. The lapsi were better off helping the martyrs out of charity, asking for no documentation, and doing whatever additional penance the bishops mandated. Imitating the institutional logic of the present persecution was iniquitous.
Of course, I see another problem with supererogation that does not involve free grace. I am much disturbed by the division between precepts and counsels. The counsels generally seem to fall under the heading of what we often call, "the hard sayings of Jesus." For instance, see Matthew 19:10-12
And compare it to Matthew 19:16 ff. which follows an interlude about children...
This passage begins very strangely. The disciples speculate that it is better not to marry. Why do they do this? Has Jesus said marriage leads to damnation? No. Has Jesus said marriage leads to painful boils? No. Has Jesus said women are evil? No! Jesus has said that marriage is permanent. Why is this so troubling?
I was about to put a insufficient exegesis of Deuteronomy 22 here, but I think the disciples are troubled by permanent marriage because Jesus essentially closes off the flexibility of the institution in mediating social relations and property transmission. You can't divorce because your marriage is fruitless. You can't divorce because your wife's family has insufficient standing in the community relative to your ambitions for social ascendancy. In other words, marriage is not a socioeconomic power game but something more fundamental and mystical. Close on the heels of this is Jesus' famous discourse on the eunuchs, especially those who are "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven." Now until the time of Jesus, halakhic teaching on marriage generally held it to be obligatory. One was obligated to be fruitful and multiply in lawful matrimony. These acts were mitzvot . So Jesus' counsel seems hard and superogatory, but it is also tremendously liberating. Jesus wants us to be free from the socioeconomic games that direct our minds too much on the present things and not enough on the constantly arriving kingdom of God. By making chastity a permitted form of life acceptable to God, he allows us to be free from all of the burdens of matrimony on our hearts if we choose to accept this liberty. But because these counsels liberate us in Christ Jesus and this liberation is not only permitted but made possible by God (as is suggested in Matthew), there is nothing meritorious in itself obeying the counsels.
Moreover, dividing matters into precepts and counsels makes us less inclined to the liberation of the counsels. The first son of the medieval aristocracy would feel obligated to take up arms, inherit his father's property, and marry to continue his line. His younger brother would feel obligated not to marry and enter a religious order so that there would be less of a drain on the family property from his potential children. Yet I argue that the counsels in support of celibacy and poverty are liberating. They are meant to free one from such temporal concerns. The older son should feel more liberated by the counsels as his younger brother. But because the counsels are so liberating, they obligate one to pursue the kingdom all to the stronger.
But as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7, the key to all of this is that the kingdom be furthered in the state to which God calls you, "Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God" (1 Cor. 7:24).
The medieval theologians so strongly associated perfection, obedience to counsels, and superogation with the clerical state that they passed over the work of the spirit of Christ in the ordinary man or woman in ordinary life. Moreover, they also sometimes ignored the possibility of the counsels applying well to non-clerics. But sometimes they didn't. The Third Order of the Franciscans etc. are good examples of "the work of God" flowing from the monastery into the world. I guess what I'm saying is that all Christians need an orientation toward poverty, chastity, obedience, and the liberation of the Kingdom of God. It does us no good to say that such things belong to the holy people over there who can give us some of their holiness because we need it. Holiness is the general vocation of the Christian, "be ye holy as the Lord thy God is holy."
Rev. Mr. Richard Kew of Kew Continuum has a post dated 1 October on the general need for a new call to holiness of life. I enjoy reading Rev. Mr. Kew, though I disagree with him most of the time. But I think he's right that there's a general hunger for holiness these days that has to be answered with something. Of course, as someone who recites Psalm 51 several times a day, I may be projecting my own lack of holiness on the world...
...for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required...
To these people whom the Articulators discuss here I say, "You do realize that the rich young ruler in Matthew didn't really obey all of the commandments in their fullness..." In other words, I am skeptical that anyone can love God and their neighbor with every fiber of their being, so I doubt that anyone can do more than that. And yet it is our bounden duty to love God to the uttermost and our neighbor as ourselves. Here at least, you really can't give 110%. Martyrdom, for instance, is not a gratuitous service to God, just a more fundamental expression of your love for Him.
whereas Christ saith plainly, When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.
See Luke 17:7-10. This follows Jesus telling the disciples that they essentially have no faith, since if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could do amazing things. The evangelicals sometimes say, "The Cross is very big." Their point is that even with the spirit of Christ working within us, we are still pale and pitiful creatures compared to the weight of our sins and the glory of God. The merits of Christ alone bridge the gap. We always can do more.
Question
What is a novena? Is there any good objection to an Anglican praying one? Let's just say that I have come to a fuller realization that some close connexions of mine are in deep need of prayer.
Angloblography of the Day
Titusonenine is filled with much debate about Robin Eames' lectures at VTS and the changes to the Constitution of the Church of Nigeria. I said my piece here and like all reassessors was promptly ignored. They can smell them on T1:9, you know. Am I obvious? I did like elfgirl's comment about the sudden importance of the 39 Articles, though.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may experience the stirring of the mountains and the fecundity of the sea possible through the faith and merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ and may find in Him whatever liberty is necessary to pursue the good of His Kingdom with every iota of your being.
Voluntary Works besides, over and above God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety...
First, let's examine the very word supererogation, since we do not normally use it in conversation outside of the context of the theology of justification. Its earliest OED citation is 1526. From what I can tell, it originates from the Vulgate translation of Luke 10:35 in which the Good Samaritan leaves the man he has helped with an innkeeper while he takes care of some business. The Good Samaritan leaves a sum for the innkeeper but says that if the innkeeper needs to do anything more than the usual services for a guest (the verb for "if you should perform additional services" is supererogaveris in the Vulgate and prosdapaneses in the original. Considering the concept of which it is the origin, this suggests that the Roman Catholic doctrine of supererogation herein critiqued might originate from an exegesis of this passage in which Christ is the Good Samaritan, the man on the road is the ordinary man, and the innkeeper is the man seeking "perfection." [Though the source of the concept of "perfection" is Matthew 19:21]. Hence, the perfect man aids the cure of souls by following the commandments of Jesus, but if some additional things need to be done, it shall be for the perfect man as for the innkeeper. He shall be repaid by Jesus.
Well, this is a very strange exegesis and completely unlike any reading of this story I have ever heard, but it is the likely origin of the name (at least) of supererogation.
The doctrine itself (and Schaff is my primary authority on this) seems to be the idea of an Englishman, Alexander of Hales. If it was not his original idea, he certainly gave it its most traditional form. Alexander was a man whose influence on the Scholastics was so great that he might as well be called Doctor Doctorum , though honestly I barely have heard anything about him before now. From what I can tell, Hales was a great professor of Paris and a Franciscan of influence and papal patronage. His tendency as a theologian was to justify extant practice, no matter how innovative, and he especially emphasized the superiority of the clerical status.
The idea of the doctrine is this: God reveals in the Scriptures that certain acts (or their omission) either deserve reward or deserve punishment in whatever sense is appropriate. These acts that are either commanded or forbidden are commanded or forbidden in the form of laws, rules, acts, statutes etc. Generally, we call them by the general name of commandments. But Hales and his followers divided the commandments of the New Law (I would presume) into precepts which are obligatory on everyone and counsels (sometimes called evangelical counsels, either from their placement in the Gospels or because they often are connected with evangelism). It is not obligatory on anyone to obey counsels, but their obedience contributes to a gigantic treasury of merit on which the Church may draw to forgive the guilt of those who fail in obedience to precepts, do not have power in themselves to do the necessary penance for their failure, but are willing to do some penance to show their contrition to provide justification for the church to forgive their guilt. And, of course, Purgatory gets involved somewhere. All of this guilt forgiveness is an attempt to avoid Purgatory in which the souls are purified from remanent but not damnable guilt.
The Articulators, like the other Reformers, were highly disdainful of this doctrine. Their chief objection lay in the regula incurvata of their theology. As the Nicene Fathers sought doctrine in which Christ was just enough God and just enough man, the Reformers would not admit anything that spoke against free grace through Jesus Christ. We have argued before against Purgatory and for the impossibly high price of salvation. Although I have suggested one normally does not buy adoption or inheritance, I have not given any Scriptural basis for free grace. I find myself most convinced by the Old Testament in Isaiah 55, a possible reading at Easter Vigil, though I do not know how long it has been part of this Lectionary, since Easter Vigil is an ancient practice of recent restoration among Episcopalians at least. Hear the Word of the Lord through Isaiah, "Come for water, all who are thirsty; though you have no money, come, buy grain, and eat, come, buy wine and milk, not for money, not for a price. Why spend your money for what is not food, your earnings on what fails to satisfy? Listen to me and you will fare well, you will enjoy the fat of the land."
As in much of Isaiah, we see the life and teachings of Jesus in these verses. Water is freely offered, suggesting both the Sacrament of Holy Baptism and the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit (living water welling up such as in the story of the Samaritan Woman at the Well). Bread and wine is freely offered, suggesting both the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist and the mass feeding stories that are forerunners of the Eucharist. Enjoying the produce of the land follows listening to the Word of God, for "man does not live by bread alone but every word out of the mouth of God." Since we often see the Sacraments as the foundation of the life salvifying, i.e., in the midst of salvification, we see symbols of them being freely offered without money and price and thus we also see grace and salvation likewise freely offered. Moreover, salvation through Jesus Christ was a free offering of himself on the cross, for we say of Him that He was as a Lamb led gently to the slaughter. We did not pay Him for taking the fall for us. He gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God. It is thus dangerous and potentially erroneous to introduce anything that looks like a payment scheme into the economy of salvation. The amounts of guilt involved are too large to be accounted except in the books of God.
Great was the obedience of the martyrs and they have the full measure of blessedness in the company of the Triune God, but they have no salvific grace to provide to anyone. To which it is objected that the bishops of the Church considered libelli and the reified merit of the martyrs in determining the penance of the lapsi [Note carefully the source of the objection.] And I reply thus: the bishops possess two very confusing powers by delegation to their predecessors the Apostles. First, they possess the power to "bind and to loosen," which could be midrashic or judicial powers. The bishops are the settled judges of the Church, as Hooker might put it, and thus have the authority to decide who belongs inside and outside the carnal communion of the Church. This power, no doubt, is misused, but it is theirs. I have no idea what the extent of their spiritual authority is, though I suspect it is as efficacious as their temporal authority if in full faith and knowledge. But they possess in addition the ability to forgive and retain sins, probably on the same conditions as "binding and loosening," since these powers are introduced analogously in the Gospels. They indeed may be one and the same. But since these powers derive from delegation from Christ and the communication of the Holy Spirit, it is highly likely that if anyone's merits are related to their exercise, it would be the merits of Christ.
Thus when the bishops reconciled the lapsi , they were exercising their proper powers gained for them through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and no other act. The libelli of the martyrs thus are analogously effectual to the prayers of the saints, they only can help, being patronage and co-endorsement of our prayers, if the saints indeed do patronize us and endorse them. But to say the witness of the martyrs has any power compared to the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross would be contrary to that same witness. Did the bishops really think they were doing otherwise. As far as I can tell, they were extending Christ's mercy. Indeed, any other reading of the libelli suggests that an error of the lapsi has propagated.
For indeed the first form of libelli in the context of martyrdom originates from a decree of the Emperor Decius in the middle of the 3rd century AD. Decius commanded that all of the citizens of the cities of the Empire perform sacrifices to their local gods for the safety of the Empire. Those who sacrificed received a certificate ( libellus ), saying that they had performed the sacrifice. People who did not possess this document and refused to make sacrifice were subject to capital punishment. Christians had a variety of responses to the decree of Decius and similar decrees issued in later persecutions. Some forged libellos or obtained them from the local magistrates by bribery. Others obtained them by actually sacrificing. All of these, no doubt, had theological arguments of better or worse sorts justifying themselves. But in all cases, it was the general consensus of the Church that all who possessed libellos were apostates of greater or lesser sorts. Thus, by obtaining libellos from martyrs in prison they had aided, the lapsi were trying to get right with both God and the Emperor.
As a sign of contrition, the acts of the lapsi were admirable. They risked martyrdom by helping the martyrs. But the libelli of the martyrs had poor precedent. For in the logic of the precedent, the lapsi were making sacrifice to the martyrs in order to keep their place in the Christian commonwealth. The lapsi were better off helping the martyrs out of charity, asking for no documentation, and doing whatever additional penance the bishops mandated. Imitating the institutional logic of the present persecution was iniquitous.
Of course, I see another problem with supererogation that does not involve free grace. I am much disturbed by the division between precepts and counsels. The counsels generally seem to fall under the heading of what we often call, "the hard sayings of Jesus." For instance, see Matthew 19:10-12
"The disciples said to him, 'If that is how things stand for a man with a wife, it is better not to marry.' To this he replied, 'That is a course not everyone can accept, but only those for whom God has appointed it. For while some are incapable of marriage because they are born so, or were made so by men, there are others who have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven. Let those accept who can."
And compare it to Matthew 19:16 ff. which follows an interlude about children...
This passage begins very strangely. The disciples speculate that it is better not to marry. Why do they do this? Has Jesus said marriage leads to damnation? No. Has Jesus said marriage leads to painful boils? No. Has Jesus said women are evil? No! Jesus has said that marriage is permanent. Why is this so troubling?
I was about to put a insufficient exegesis of Deuteronomy 22 here, but I think the disciples are troubled by permanent marriage because Jesus essentially closes off the flexibility of the institution in mediating social relations and property transmission. You can't divorce because your marriage is fruitless. You can't divorce because your wife's family has insufficient standing in the community relative to your ambitions for social ascendancy. In other words, marriage is not a socioeconomic power game but something more fundamental and mystical. Close on the heels of this is Jesus' famous discourse on the eunuchs, especially those who are "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven." Now until the time of Jesus, halakhic teaching on marriage generally held it to be obligatory. One was obligated to be fruitful and multiply in lawful matrimony. These acts were mitzvot . So Jesus' counsel seems hard and superogatory, but it is also tremendously liberating. Jesus wants us to be free from the socioeconomic games that direct our minds too much on the present things and not enough on the constantly arriving kingdom of God. By making chastity a permitted form of life acceptable to God, he allows us to be free from all of the burdens of matrimony on our hearts if we choose to accept this liberty. But because these counsels liberate us in Christ Jesus and this liberation is not only permitted but made possible by God (as is suggested in Matthew), there is nothing meritorious in itself obeying the counsels.
Moreover, dividing matters into precepts and counsels makes us less inclined to the liberation of the counsels. The first son of the medieval aristocracy would feel obligated to take up arms, inherit his father's property, and marry to continue his line. His younger brother would feel obligated not to marry and enter a religious order so that there would be less of a drain on the family property from his potential children. Yet I argue that the counsels in support of celibacy and poverty are liberating. They are meant to free one from such temporal concerns. The older son should feel more liberated by the counsels as his younger brother. But because the counsels are so liberating, they obligate one to pursue the kingdom all to the stronger.
But as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7, the key to all of this is that the kingdom be furthered in the state to which God calls you, "Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God" (1 Cor. 7:24).
The medieval theologians so strongly associated perfection, obedience to counsels, and superogation with the clerical state that they passed over the work of the spirit of Christ in the ordinary man or woman in ordinary life. Moreover, they also sometimes ignored the possibility of the counsels applying well to non-clerics. But sometimes they didn't. The Third Order of the Franciscans etc. are good examples of "the work of God" flowing from the monastery into the world. I guess what I'm saying is that all Christians need an orientation toward poverty, chastity, obedience, and the liberation of the Kingdom of God. It does us no good to say that such things belong to the holy people over there who can give us some of their holiness because we need it. Holiness is the general vocation of the Christian, "be ye holy as the Lord thy God is holy."
Rev. Mr. Richard Kew of Kew Continuum has a post dated 1 October on the general need for a new call to holiness of life. I enjoy reading Rev. Mr. Kew, though I disagree with him most of the time. But I think he's right that there's a general hunger for holiness these days that has to be answered with something. Of course, as someone who recites Psalm 51 several times a day, I may be projecting my own lack of holiness on the world...
...for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required...
To these people whom the Articulators discuss here I say, "You do realize that the rich young ruler in Matthew didn't really obey all of the commandments in their fullness..." In other words, I am skeptical that anyone can love God and their neighbor with every fiber of their being, so I doubt that anyone can do more than that. And yet it is our bounden duty to love God to the uttermost and our neighbor as ourselves. Here at least, you really can't give 110%. Martyrdom, for instance, is not a gratuitous service to God, just a more fundamental expression of your love for Him.
whereas Christ saith plainly, When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.
See Luke 17:7-10. This follows Jesus telling the disciples that they essentially have no faith, since if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could do amazing things. The evangelicals sometimes say, "The Cross is very big." Their point is that even with the spirit of Christ working within us, we are still pale and pitiful creatures compared to the weight of our sins and the glory of God. The merits of Christ alone bridge the gap. We always can do more.
Question
What is a novena? Is there any good objection to an Anglican praying one? Let's just say that I have come to a fuller realization that some close connexions of mine are in deep need of prayer.
Angloblography of the Day
Titusonenine is filled with much debate about Robin Eames' lectures at VTS and the changes to the Constitution of the Church of Nigeria. I said my piece here and like all reassessors was promptly ignored. They can smell them on T1:9, you know. Am I obvious? I did like elfgirl's comment about the sudden importance of the 39 Articles, though.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may experience the stirring of the mountains and the fecundity of the sea possible through the faith and merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ and may find in Him whatever liberty is necessary to pursue the good of His Kingdom with every iota of your being.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Quick Angloblography
Paul Zahl Is An Alien Or a Hyper-Lutheran or a Desperate Dean or Something
The "F. Mulder" signature is a cute touch. I'm curious whether my present rector would let Zahl into the pulpit here. It would be the just thing to do.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may know the Truth that is out there.
The "F. Mulder" signature is a cute touch. I'm curious whether my present rector would let Zahl into the pulpit here. It would be the just thing to do.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may know the Truth that is out there.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Dionysius Areopagites
One of the more interesting things I read in college in my spare free time would have to be On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology by Dionysius Areopagites, a pious fraud of the middle of the 1st millennium of the Christian Era. As a pious fraud, Dionysius problematizes himself as a contemporary of Paul, a man who heard the great Areopagitcal address and was converted to Christ by a vision of the synthesis of the Kingdom of God with the investigations of the Stoa. Before (or really after) Tertullian said, "Quid ergo Athenas et Ierusalem? Quid ergo Academia et Ecclesia" (I'm quoting from memory), Dionysius answered, "Everything." Like physicists working with a cloud chamber, the Platonists, the Peripatetics, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and who knows what others had probed to theos with the light and particles of their modes of reasoning. But like the silly women of which Paul speaks, the philosophers were always thinking and like their Jewish parallels and contemporaries of the Wisdom literature, were little closer to the truth. Paul changed that, proclaiming to theos or theos agnostos (for indeed the sense of those words is not very different) to be God the Father, the source of all being. Presumably, Paul also proclaimed the other Persons. Paul gave the hidden electron cloud a name. To continue our analogy, Paul proclaimed the Schrodinger Equation.
Now, the funny thing about the Schrodinger Equation is that it has no analytical solution beyond the hydrogen atom and no numerical solution beyond the helium atom. And thus, I suspect, Dionysius realized that God proclaimed in the gospel which Paul taught was comprehended to the extent of the hydrogen and helium atom. Thus, Dionysius came up with an epistemology of theological humility, a way of seeking the heavier elements of God not in sensible proclamations but through a form of deeply humble engagement with the intelligible. As pious fraud, Dionysius writes to Timothy, presumably the companion of Paul, and his fellow presbyter in Hellas. In history, Dionysius likely was an ethnic Greek perhaps writing in the generation after Chalcedon. To return to our analogy, this was a time for humility. The conclusions of the first Ecumenical Councils were much like the Hartree model of the atom, which simplified the Schrodinger Equation so it could be solved for heavier elements with less trouble. But the Hartree model is an approximation with substantial errors for some elements. In a time when Christendom still felt the wounds of doctrinal winners and losers, Areopagites stood and said, "No one really wins about God."
*Christopher recently cited this anecdote about ++ St. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1942-1944.
A reporter once asked ++Archbishop William Temple: "Your Grace, the Roman Catholics have Augustine and Aquinas; the Presbyterians have Calvin; the Lutherans have Luther; the Methodists have Wesley; whom does the Church of England have?" Temple relied "Plato." (Gray Temple, Gay Unions)
It's funny that the source for this is a book by Gray Temple. Temple was keynote speaker for the Province V Retreat my sophomore year in college, when I was reading Dionysius.
But St. William Temple, I think, had it wrong (or perhaps he thought the reporter wouldn't know who Dionysius was). Our theologian is not Plato but Dionysius Areopagites. For as Augustine says in City of God , the philosophers did not actually derive the Trinity. Otherwise, they would have predicted and recognized Christ by reason. The self-revelation of God in Christ gave a name, a nature, and a mission to the God of the philosophers. Compare the Mystical Theology and the Enneads of Plotinus. One is simply easier to think through, because we understand the referents in the first, both in the sense of purely Christian referents and the referents that arise from the knowledge of Christ Himself. Paul on the Areopagus preached the fullness of God. Dionysius Areopagites, I think, made the synthesis. I can think of two important examples of Dionysius' impact on the Ecclesia Anglicana. First, Dionysius' great Latin translator was Duns Scotus. Second, Dionysius was the key source for an anonymous tract called "The Cloud of Unknowing," a rich work of early English vernacular.
So if you haven't read any Dionysius for a while, he's available at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library in a few older English translations. See if you see his influence in Anglican theology. I'll wager that the epistemological humility that suffuses Anglicanism and our odd hermeneutical techniques come not from Hooker but from the Areopagite.
I want to say something further before I close. Last week, my rector told an anecdote about the great Reformation-era mystic, St. John of the Cross. St. John was having an ecstatic vision of the Theotokos when he sensed that a beggar was knocking at his door. John pulled himself away, went to the door, and gave the beggar something to eat. He then returned and immediately comprehended the Theotokos, who said that at the moment John heard the beggar knock, his soul lay in the balance. If he had not helped the beggar, he would never see her again.
It is very important to remember that the via negativa is a business very much in the sensible world but not of the world. In Platonism, one tends to talk about participation. But participation is not merely some form of interaction with the intelligibles in whatever way they are posed for you. Plato in the Republic creates an analogy between a city and a human soul. Although some present commentators believe Plato's ideal city was more a discourse on the soul rather than politics, I see it more as an imperfect vision of the gradual communication of the fullness of being present in the intelligibles into the sensible world. The philosopher-kings help the craftsmen make crafts that are closer and closer to the crafts that God makes. Platonism Christianized thus is founded on Christ as the fullness of the intelligibles communicated into the world in human flesh. And it is to that way we are called. Thus, there is no "real" division between the active and the contemplative, the body and the soul, only our fallen and imperfect nature interrupting the seamless unity between the word and the deed, the body and the soul, and the sensible and the intelligible. As Paul says, "I believe that nothing...can separate us from the love of God."
But we fallen folks are broken and we break what should be one. We limit the potential fullness of being that the Kingdom of God offers. This is not just about theology becoming incarnate, though this is a good question to ask a contemplative like me. This is also about theology also being mystical and spiritual rather than mired in the carnal. You do not proclaim the corruptible and claim it is from the incorruptible, for by this act, you attempt pollution of what is incorruptible. You proclaim the incorruptible in the midst of the corruptible that the corruptible may be incorruptible someday. And what is the end of all of this thinking and doing? Well, I've been hearing a good stab at the answer in a variety of places, it's this bon mot by Irenaeus of Lyons,
Sounds good to me.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may live in the Grace of the super-unknowable and ineffable God who became a human being and dwelled with us, humbling Himself to death, even death on a cross, so that we might know what it means to be fully alive.
Now, the funny thing about the Schrodinger Equation is that it has no analytical solution beyond the hydrogen atom and no numerical solution beyond the helium atom. And thus, I suspect, Dionysius realized that God proclaimed in the gospel which Paul taught was comprehended to the extent of the hydrogen and helium atom. Thus, Dionysius came up with an epistemology of theological humility, a way of seeking the heavier elements of God not in sensible proclamations but through a form of deeply humble engagement with the intelligible. As pious fraud, Dionysius writes to Timothy, presumably the companion of Paul, and his fellow presbyter in Hellas. In history, Dionysius likely was an ethnic Greek perhaps writing in the generation after Chalcedon. To return to our analogy, this was a time for humility. The conclusions of the first Ecumenical Councils were much like the Hartree model of the atom, which simplified the Schrodinger Equation so it could be solved for heavier elements with less trouble. But the Hartree model is an approximation with substantial errors for some elements. In a time when Christendom still felt the wounds of doctrinal winners and losers, Areopagites stood and said, "No one really wins about God."
*Christopher recently cited this anecdote about ++ St. William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1942-1944.
A reporter once asked ++Archbishop William Temple: "Your Grace, the Roman Catholics have Augustine and Aquinas; the Presbyterians have Calvin; the Lutherans have Luther; the Methodists have Wesley; whom does the Church of England have?" Temple relied "Plato." (Gray Temple, Gay Unions)
It's funny that the source for this is a book by Gray Temple. Temple was keynote speaker for the Province V Retreat my sophomore year in college, when I was reading Dionysius.
But St. William Temple, I think, had it wrong (or perhaps he thought the reporter wouldn't know who Dionysius was). Our theologian is not Plato but Dionysius Areopagites. For as Augustine says in City of God , the philosophers did not actually derive the Trinity. Otherwise, they would have predicted and recognized Christ by reason. The self-revelation of God in Christ gave a name, a nature, and a mission to the God of the philosophers. Compare the Mystical Theology and the Enneads of Plotinus. One is simply easier to think through, because we understand the referents in the first, both in the sense of purely Christian referents and the referents that arise from the knowledge of Christ Himself. Paul on the Areopagus preached the fullness of God. Dionysius Areopagites, I think, made the synthesis. I can think of two important examples of Dionysius' impact on the Ecclesia Anglicana. First, Dionysius' great Latin translator was Duns Scotus. Second, Dionysius was the key source for an anonymous tract called "The Cloud of Unknowing," a rich work of early English vernacular.
So if you haven't read any Dionysius for a while, he's available at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library in a few older English translations. See if you see his influence in Anglican theology. I'll wager that the epistemological humility that suffuses Anglicanism and our odd hermeneutical techniques come not from Hooker but from the Areopagite.
I want to say something further before I close. Last week, my rector told an anecdote about the great Reformation-era mystic, St. John of the Cross. St. John was having an ecstatic vision of the Theotokos when he sensed that a beggar was knocking at his door. John pulled himself away, went to the door, and gave the beggar something to eat. He then returned and immediately comprehended the Theotokos, who said that at the moment John heard the beggar knock, his soul lay in the balance. If he had not helped the beggar, he would never see her again.
It is very important to remember that the via negativa is a business very much in the sensible world but not of the world. In Platonism, one tends to talk about participation. But participation is not merely some form of interaction with the intelligibles in whatever way they are posed for you. Plato in the Republic creates an analogy between a city and a human soul. Although some present commentators believe Plato's ideal city was more a discourse on the soul rather than politics, I see it more as an imperfect vision of the gradual communication of the fullness of being present in the intelligibles into the sensible world. The philosopher-kings help the craftsmen make crafts that are closer and closer to the crafts that God makes. Platonism Christianized thus is founded on Christ as the fullness of the intelligibles communicated into the world in human flesh. And it is to that way we are called. Thus, there is no "real" division between the active and the contemplative, the body and the soul, only our fallen and imperfect nature interrupting the seamless unity between the word and the deed, the body and the soul, and the sensible and the intelligible. As Paul says, "I believe that nothing...can separate us from the love of God."
But we fallen folks are broken and we break what should be one. We limit the potential fullness of being that the Kingdom of God offers. This is not just about theology becoming incarnate, though this is a good question to ask a contemplative like me. This is also about theology also being mystical and spiritual rather than mired in the carnal. You do not proclaim the corruptible and claim it is from the incorruptible, for by this act, you attempt pollution of what is incorruptible. You proclaim the incorruptible in the midst of the corruptible that the corruptible may be incorruptible someday. And what is the end of all of this thinking and doing? Well, I've been hearing a good stab at the answer in a variety of places, it's this bon mot by Irenaeus of Lyons,
For the glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in beholding God. For if the manifestation of God which is made by means of the creation, affords life to all living in the earth, much more does that revelation of the Father which comes through the Word, give life to those who see God.( Adversus Haereses , IV.20).
Sounds good to me.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may live in the Grace of the super-unknowable and ineffable God who became a human being and dwelled with us, humbling Himself to death, even death on a cross, so that we might know what it means to be fully alive.
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