The hymns were good and appropriately gender inclusive, "The God of Abraham/Sarah Praise," "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" etc. The guest preacher was excellent, taking a rather Ignatian approach to the Feeding of the Five Thousand in light of the Parable of the Talents. The Nicene Creed was said with the inclusive and slightly more accurate translation. I didn't recognize the source of the Eucharistic Prayer, but I gushed over it. There was a slight bump when we started chanting a Taize Veni Sancte Spiritus from the Epiclesis until the Great Amen, because the Great Amen was missed by almost everyone, which Randall and Archdeacon Ed taught me might affect regularity. But I notice such things because I am anal. It indeed felt like "Reasonable Service" or "Spiritual Worship," the Body and Blood overflowing in return for our thanksgiving to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the perfect plenitude of praise. After church, I spent eighty minutes lecturing on oceanography, saw an awful movie, and purchased cleaning supplies. I live in a comfortable and self-satisfied corner of the world in a relatively comfortable age (still very miserable for most of the world), but the Eucharist can be no less praegustatory of heaven than it was in former and more wretched ages. And for that, I thank God heartily.
This is Getting Loco, Ese, and It's Gotta Stop
A colleague of mine opined yesterday that we are most political about the works of our own hands (brat of our brains etc.). This might be called the Ouaididocratic Principle, since it tends toward the rule of those who give a damn ( ouai didein ). Thus, having no stake in the liberal and conservative organizations that have been striving to realign the church for their particular ends for the last three decades, I can't really get particularly worked up now that the denouement of these struggles is coming. I go through stages in dealing with every apparent outrage: (1) I briefly wish to find some way to restore De Haeritico Comburendo ; (2) I then desire more moderate canonical penalties; (3) then I want to yell a lot; (4) and finally I just want to laugh and hug the outrageous person. If the Dean of St. Vincent's wants to accuse General Convention and me by implication of departing from the apostolic faith, I hold him casually in derision. His diocese is alternately pomo and byzantine at this point. And that's just the first vexation I had since I returned from Canada.
At this point, I can understand why almost no one in Gen Y outside of their parents' power wants anything to do with TEC at this point or Anglicanism in general. If you find yourself in the wrong circumstances, you may find (these are real life examples):
(1) yourself driven out of your church because your priest at college is gay (Father Heidt, that is what I call Donatism.)
(2) unable to worship in your eucharistic community because you are sickened spiritually by conflict within it. The Holy Spirit defend such as these!
(3) unable to worship at college for fear of (1)
(4) unable to worship anywhere because you live in the same place all year and have insufficient ideological purity of one sort or another for your home diocese
(5) Unable to worship because those Episcopalians your age you know who take any of it seriously become total nutcases eventually, and you already feel too much like a nutcase as it is.
Add to this the problem of inadequate catechesis and arrogant priests and bishops (of one sort or another). The Holy Spirit forfend arrogance in deacons!
And since Christianity is finally voluntary in much of the US, most of my generation will shake off the dust from their feet. If they are conservative, they will go elsewhere. If they are liberal, they will leave and might raise their children as conservative Unitarians or something (like some Gen Xers I know).
I feel as if I've been oppressed by some outrageous sarcosic phronemation since the Octave of Christian Unity in 2003 and I want some deliverance, some "kairos moment": a day of salvation. But all I seem to find is the Lord Jesus still descending from heaven into this broken world in bread and wine and water. It will have to do.
So to the cloaks, the daggers, the malicious chatterers, the rebel chancellors, the false teachers of every stripe, and the naughty candles that dimly enlighten this world, I warn you that the Lord is coming with terrible recompense to call you to account for your management of nature and rational souls (and indeed your own). But until then, I love you. How about some Articles?
8 comments:
Caelius, a sad posting. I wish I could say or do something now, to make things better.
We've really gotten off-track, haven't we? But it doesn't have inevitably to come out that way, does it? Can't we find redemption?
Well, the Feminarian is taking a class from Eddie Gibbs and seems to be enjoying it. I find that hopeful.
Eddie Gibbs is presently inhibited in my diocese.
I had the delight to have C at my parish this weekend, as he had a Sunday off.
Afterward, he mentioned something that I've never named but struggle with. He said: "I find myself angry in worship. I don't usually notice it because I'm leading, but just being able to worship, I find myself sick from the Church." Ditto.
On those Sundays when I can't get it in me to face my sickness in the midst of the liturgy, I stay home and wait on God in silence. There's often more hope and healing there.
Welcome to the desert.
Might I ask which of these you classify me as? How about yourself? :-)
Well, the categories generally refer to other people, but I'm the nutcase referred to in #5 or the naughty candle of the last paragraph.
I wish we could help you with your nutcasehood.
We love you, too, you know. I think it will be all right in the long (and maybe even the short) run. "One day at a time" is a good thing to remember. And that the Lord Jesus does indeed descend.
But what can we do about Gen Y? Would it help if we all shut up, or does it go deeper than that?
This reflects much of what I've experienced in the Catholic church (especially the part where you literally become sick during the liturgy, or can't worship during college because you're not acceptable to the priest).
Meanwhile, now that I'm an Episcopalian, my home diocese is Albany, New York, and there's great sadness in knowing that I can likely never go back there and worship as a full part of an Episcopalian church (and certainly would never be allowed to minister, should I be ordained). I've written Bishop Daniel about this, but he hasn't deigned to respond.
And meanwhile still, the church remains what it is, the uncertain and passionate human home of the Body and Blood. Loving to worship together in humility and community seems to me the true mark of the faithful.
bls, I don't know what to do about Gen Y at this point. Just looking at the Episcopal problem alone is enough to make me anxious. But I would like to ask anyone who cares these questions:
1. What percentage (fraction etc.) of infants baptized in the church are regular communicants as high school seniors? Do you have a good idea why this number is high or low relative to unity?
2. Is a given graduating senior likely to worship in college in your tradition (not at a church like yours, just in the same tradition)? Why or why not?
3. Does your church have an educational institution within walking distance? Do students from those institutions worship at your church? How many of those students are from your tradition? Other traditions? Would you have any idea of how many students raised in your tradition attend those institutions? (You might think this is hard, but my college chaplains had a good idea of this number. Of course, they had a bit of an in, but it was a secular school.) Get a rough idea of where students from your own tradition are worshipping. See if you have any explanations now.
If you are in a Northeastern diocese and can give good and happy answers to these questions about retention, there is no demographic problem. Those dioceses baptize a high enough percentage relative to their ASA to double every 9-12 years or so. Moreover, you will have taken good care of the souls of Gen Y (and whatever is next). Otherwise, I really don't have enough data to propose solutions to the Gen Y problem.
If you live elsewhere, the story is more complex.
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