The Reformed Review, Fall 2005, "Homosexuality and the Church"

Rev. Dr. Canon Kendall Harmon linked to this a week or so ago , and I have spent valuable procrastination time reading it.

The Edtor's note states, "The Publications Committee of Western Theological Seminary asked our writers to reflect more deeply on this challenge and what can be done about it. So they do not restate old arguments, but try to move understanding deeper and the discussion to a new level."

I am afraid that there was nothing in it I had not seen before (with one notable exception), which I will mention at the proper time. But still there is much good in it.

First, it is clear that the moderate Calvinist denominations such as the RCA and PCUSA will have a more positive and Scripturally coherent view of the status of women and their potential ecclesiastical functions in the future. Patriarchy is now a bad thing, despite being at the root of Calvin's views of polity (and certainly of his successors). And Robert Gagnon is especially insistent that his proposed Biblical critique of homosexual practice does not view homosexuals as emasculated or effeminated, because women are evil or inferior (or are ordained by nature to the sadistic use of men). Robert Van Voorst, the editor of The Reformed Review notes in his closing editorial that the Evangelical Covenant Church is very much clear in their opposition to homosexual practice and yet allows women more equality within its ecclesiastical polity. Gagnon is at his best when he points out that Greco-Roman society's growing intolerance of homosexuality during 2nd and 3rd centuries (especially in elite philosophical circles, since popular feeling oscillated rather wildly) was part and parcel of a growing appreciation of women and their potential as intellectual equals.

Second, it is also clear that few in the RCA probably are going to imitate their Dutch ancestors in this way . Even Gagnon, who is the strongest anti-homosexual voice, is only interested in being counter-cultural and supporting homosexuals in incorporating their struggles for celibacy into the general martyria of the Church. Although he feels obligated to cast doubt on the ineffectiveness of reparative therapy, Gagnon is clear that it doesn't matter, for reasons I will discuss. Celibate homosexuals are imitators of Christ in his suffering on the Cross and of Paul in his privations for the faith. His millstone is spiritual, not the temporal sword, and all more terrifying in its use in his rhetoric. His rhetoric, since he is reviewing David G. Meyers and Letha Dawson Scanzoni's What God Hath Joined Together seems primarily directed at those like me, who believe they are obligated to support fratrimony/sororimony by appeal to the Scriptures, reason, and Tradition. As far as Gagnon is concerned, those such as I have thrown out the Scriptures and really are depending on an unstable Wesleyan Quadrilateral (the "balanced" Three-Legged Stool) based on experience. And thus we are stumbling-blocks for our gay and lesbian brethren.

Gagnon's critique is one I constantly bring upon myself and place before God in prayer. But it's also a critique I find answered by God in my occasional failures to order my "sexual urges" to God's will, which are rather clear and well-known distortions of an entirely righteous desire for matrimony and children. This week I was thinking that I would like to have a child. I've never thought so seriously about this as a possibility and also realized that it is impossible in my present circumstances. If homosexuality is congenital (a position which Gagnon will not admit in full, tries to cast doubt upon, and finally discards as immaterial), my "experiential" tendencies do not lead me to suppress the Scriptural witness. Instead, they lead me to seek the telos of which committed homosexual practice could be a distortion. If there is such a telos , it will bear the fruit of the Kingdom. Most interesting is that Gagnon's proposed telos is one of suffering martyria and not that of liberation. And when I speak of liberation, I do not mean the end to homosexual urges that Gagnon suspects is impossible, I mean a transformation to something higher and in accord with God's will. In a Reformed view, Christ suffered on the Cross and was justified by God and thus rose again. Paul suffered for the faith, but he acknowledged that he, too, was liberated from being a persecutor of the Faith and transformed into "the least of the Apostles."

There is much more to say about Gagnon's piece and I will not likely say half of it in justice to him and his justified concerns that the two sides do not know enough about one another's arguments. But let us first take a look at James Brownson's piece on "Gay Unions: Consistent Witness or Pastoral Accommodation? An Evangelical Pastoral Dilemma and the Unity of the Church ." Brownson leaves us in no doubt about his assumptions and worldview, which is that God intends that human sexual expression in thought, word, and deed be limited to one man and one woman united in matrimony, which he believes is the consistent witness of Scripture "as the only final rule for faith and practice." I will not concern myself with his position, because that is not the purpose of his piece. Instead, he argues for a limited diversity of approaches to homosexuality, despite his own preference for the more conservative one. The table on the fifth page is a useful summary of possible approaches to gays and lesbians by Christian communities, only suffering from the difficulties of using "consistent witness" to describe the conservative position.

Brownson's most fascinating argument is that the orientation/behavior distinction in conversations about homosexuality is a theologically false and culturally imposed one. In other words, those who are homosexually oriented are often in sinning in thought, if not in word and deed, and the church must be more supportive than asking whether one is celibate or not, since that is not the totality of chastity. Brownson is perhaps more charitable than I pose him,

"It may be easier for heterosexuals to understand [ the question of to what extent homosexual Christians should be homosocial] if they recall their own state before finding a mate and becoming married. In that state, a great deal of emotional energy is devoted to meeting and interacting with people of the opposite sex, who hold a great deal of interest. Not all of this interest is overtly, or even covertly, sexual in character. Heterosexual men like to talk with women, to joke with them, admire them, touch them, and interact with them. Heterosexual women may spend a good bit of time thinking about the men who interest them, contemplating what it would be like to be with them and to experience life together. These men and women find those of the opposite sex interesting, attractive, engaging, enjoyable to be with, stimulating. They find that being with those of the other sex calls the best out of them and inhibits some of their less than desirable characteristics. In other words, the process of falling in love is about a whole lot more than just sexual attraction, even though that may be a significant part of it."

and also:

How is the church to advise those gays for whom reparative therapy has failed, and for whom celibacy is experienced as an overwhelming burden? Here is where two distinct paths begin to diverge from each other, and difficult choices must be made—choices that are, in many respects, mutually exclusive of each other. But before exploring these two paths, it is worth making an observation about our context that must be addressed clearly as we consider these questions. We address these questions from a North American cultural context that is sexually saturated, and which upholds sexual expression as a kind of inalienable right—even an obligation. Our society devotes itself almost fanatically to the cultivation and stimulation of desire: desire primarily for goods and services, but also for sexual fulfillment (often associated with the marketing of various goods and services which will enhance sexual fulfillment, from music to clothing to automobiles to enhancements to one’s physical attractiveness). We are trained from birth onward to see ourselves as creatures with needs and to see the meaning of life as the meeting of our needs. It is not coincidental that, in such a narcissistic society, we experience enormous sexual pain and brokenness: escalating divorce, abuse, loneliness, and hurt. We must recognize that, regardless of how we interpret the will of God for the sexual expression of gays and lesbians, we come to this question from a culture that generally handles its sexuality quite badly, conceiving sexuality almost exclusively as a means to self-fulfillment, in contrast to the biblical linking of sexuality with faithfulness and fruitfulness. Our culture is not wise on this subject, and Christian perspectives on the subject may well appear rather odd to those not formed by Christian practices.

It's a nice warning and one I've heard from other Anglicans, but Brownson starts to worry me when he says, "Secondly, while there are clearly ways in which all people are called to celibacy, at least for periods of time (e.g., before marriage, or after the death of a spouse, or when one is unable to marry for a variety of reasons, or during a spouse’s illness, etc.), there are also indications in Scripture suggesting that celibacy may be easier for some than for others over the long haul. [And for others a burden]"

A discourse on the joys or burdens of celibacy are hard for me to receive from a Calvinist theologian, when Calvinism brought to these shores a very poisonous view of society in which unmarried persons (of even advanced age) are perpetual children within church and state (and must always be under the supervision of the married). To some extent, this has been moderated. There's at least one unmarried woman RCA pastor to be found on the blogosphere. But maintaining a strong concern for the sexual purity of the Body and rejecting homosexual practice as Brownson does inevitably leads to the infantilization of gays and lesbians, who will of necessity be problematized by the community. Are such persons likely to be ordained (if called)? Will their membership in the community be dependent on how much they suppress their homosocial rather than their homosexual tendencies?

To be plainer about what I mean, I think there would be one element of a more conservative Protestant denomination that would attract me: the community would be concerned by my singleness and try to fix me up with "nice, Christian girls." You may laugh. It is a highly idealized view and probably ridiculous. But for a man of my age, I suspect there at least would be subtle pressure for me to get married, so that I would be "safe" and for my wife to have babies to boost the membership rolls (hat tip to Internet Monk for that cynical view...) There is no formalized tradition of lifelong celibates in this context. Now imagine a population of those who are necessarily lifelong celibates, who probably cannot be made "safe." Even if you accept Gagnon's numbers, there might be 10 of these in a community of 500. What are they to do? Place each under the supervision of a deacon or elder as an "accountability partner" and "second family?" That would be the Puritan way (...the non-violent Puritan way).

But Brownson at least is cognizant that his vision is incomplete and is willing to admit local diversity of pastoral practice as long as his basic postulate about the Scriptural view is honored, noting " The path of consistent witness can easily devolve into congratulatory self-righteousness, hypocrisy, or a narrow and unbiblical concern with behavior only, to the neglect of the redemption of the whole person. (And most churches committed to this position can point to little effective ministry to and with gays and lesbians.)" If only Brownson would be more challenged by this last observation. Fruitfulness after all is a general theological consideration, not just one of sexual ethics.

I am afraid to tell you that Brownson is only one of three voices in this issue. The majority of the pages are dedicated by Robert Gagnon's "Why the Disagreement Over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice? A Response to Myers and Scanzoni, What God Has Joined Together?" It would be unjust for me to respond point by point to this extended critique of a work of obvious weakness, since I have not read Gagnon's meisterwerk The Bible and Homosexuality. What I know of it comes from Gray Temple's critique of it, which is strongly focused on Gagnon reading Founcault in the very ways that Gagnon constantly complains liberals read him. Having read this extended piece of Gagnon, I am inclined to find a little time and go to Fuller to read it.

But first I would like to point out the surprising moment in the whole issue, in which Gagnon refers to Ham's rape of Noah as evidence of the general anti-homosexuality of the J source in the Torah. What? Ham raped Noah? Apparently, this is not original to Gagnon. But it was surprising as it stretches the "plain meaning of the Scriptures" in fascinating ways. Why would J, who is after all so very clear about the intentions of the men of Sodom, not be clear that the reviled ancestor of the reviled Canaanites "lay with his father Noah." Why make it so euphemistic using the verb "to see?" Unfortunately, this is not Gagnon's point.

Gagnon's guiding point is that sexual dimorphism is a clear and uncontroversial fundamental underpinning of the natural order ordained by God and expounded in the Holy Scriptures and that any sexual act or desire that would diminish the dualism and complementarity of men and women is abomination (to'evah) against God. He argues that this is the consistent Biblical witness and the fundamental truth to which all Scripture that condemns homosexual acts points. Homosexuality thus is worse than polyamory and heterosexual incest though better than bestiality in Gagnon's ordering of sexual sins. But he argues that many who support fratrimony and sororimony really promote polyamory and incest (and pedophilia and ephebophilia, to boot). Briefly, I thought that Gagnon should become a Wicca, since he projects the fundamental principle of sexual dimorphism and complementarity on the Scriptures so strongly and yet rejects misogyny so firmly that his sexually dimorphic view of human beings might lead him to conclude that we are made in the image of a goddess as well as a god. Fortunately, that feeling passed.

My first critique, however, would be the fundamental principle in itself, which is not as evident in nature as the ancients thought. Gagnon is somewhat responsive to this, contemning studies of "gay sheep" but generally trying to make it clear that nature cannot be any standard for us since there is pedophilia in the animal world as well. To this I reply that in modern North American culture, we regard it as pedophilia and thus especially reprehensible for a twentysomething to marry or have intercourse with a twelve year old. This view is quite new and probably stems from the proto-Victorian revolution in both attitudes toward sexuality and childhood that took place during the 19th century. Thus, it is very hard to define "pedophilia" in the animal world. As I have written before: God's gift of reason to us can transform the dictates of natural law from merely functional relations to those that participate in the work of God, though after the Fall, this was possible only through joint participation with Christ.

Next, I am very wary of Gagnon's exposition of the Old Testament on this issue, which on one hand, acknowledges the strong association of homosexuality with Canaanite religious practice and thus idolatry and apostasy, but yet attempts to say that the Old Testament prohibitions really rest on an understanding of complementarity and not the fear of idolatry. Gagnon does not help my path through his argument by being very historicritical and talking about the importance of J's views on homosexuality. I don't really care what J thinks about homosexuality. I do care what God thinks and how He legislated for man in the covenant with Israel. And except by suggesting that homosexuality is set out as the summa culpa of the Levitical code, Gagnon cannot divorce the prohibitions of homosexuality from the discourse of religious fidelity in which the prophets place them no matter how ingeniously he quotes Ezekiel. He also makes no mention of the homosocial and potentially homosexual covenant relationship of David and Jonathan. And the eunuchs of Isaiah feature nowhere. I am quite willing to be corrected on this. No doubt, these issues are dealt with in his meisterwerk . But this piece is so critical of his opposition that you would think he might take down the prophetic inspiration of folks like me a peg. And if you make absolutist statements about the Biblical witness, you should be careful to torpedo the chief contradictory arguments. Perhaps, I missed them in the voluminous footnotes, which likely are an excellent guide to further reading of Gagnon's works.

But it is his reading of the Lord Jesus with which I take most exception. Gagnon is very clear to condemn the view that Jesus was soft on sin (and sexual sin), which is a myth likely first composed by the Pharisees. But I would like to take this opportunity to warn Gagnon that he is vulnerable here. He is right that Jesus was very clear to proclaim the Gospel to the Samaritan Woman at the Well in John 4 in terms both of promise and of condemnation. So why in Luke 7, does the Lord not tell the Centurion a few things... If you don't know what I'm talking about: read the passage. The kicker is 7:6 and 7:7. The Centurion says that he is not worthy that Jesus come under his roof. Why? Because he is a Gentile? Possibly. And that seems to be Jesus' emphasis, since He says that he has not found such faith in Israel. But let's read further, "speak the word and my servant shall be healed." The Greek and the Latin Vulgate, however, use the words pais and puer , which connote children. Pais is used for the little girl Jesus heals later in Luke. When the elders of the local synagogue come to Jesus, we hear of doulos (a slave) in indirect discourse. Yet in the centurion's voice, the slave becomes "my boy" or "my child." Now if you know your Greco-Roman funerary epigraphy, you'll know that there are cases in which young slaves become so much part of the family that they become their master's children in all but legal status and are presumably freed if they reach the age when manumission is permitted by law. Perhaps, the centurion's slave was one such case.

Moreover, what other implication could there be? Surely, the elders would have not consulted Jesus about healing the centurion's "sex slave." Well, he did pay for the synagogue. I understand that this passage is hotly debated. But Gagnon's failure to mention it here is striking. It's a clear opportunity for Gagnon to fit the Gospels fully into his case in this specific essay by dispensing with the notion that the centurion could have said, "Speak the word and my darling shall be healed." Let me note that I am not suggesting that Jesus by silence was promoting sexual exploitation of slaves in the Greco-Roman world. We don't know anything about the relationship dynamics here, except that the faith of the centurion saves "his pais " as in other healing stories. In other words, the slave is not emotionally dispensable. Whether he was treated as a child or a lover, Jesus couldn't say no to a man with such faith in his power.

There is one point at which Gagnon essentially says of the Lord that he must have condemned homosexuality in his heart if not in his lips, since there was no Jew in the centuries surrounding his earthly life who had anything good to say about it. If Gagnon is to make such arguments, I also know of no other Jew of the day who claimed to be the Son of God and claimed that he would rise to life three days after his death. I know of no other Jew of his day who promised abundant life or claimed that He was 'the Bread of Life." Some claimed to be the Messiah. But Jesus' claims were uniquely extraordinary.

Finally, Gagnon exegetes the Apostle. I take major issue with him on two counts. First, Gagnon talks about possible Hellenistic influences on Paul in understanding the intrinsic nature of homosexual orientation. Paul, Gagnon insists, might think that homosexuality was congenital but think that it didn't matter to his position. This is wrong. Paul might know of some philosophical opinions on the aetiology of homosexuality from Platonic sources. But this was no guarantor that he would have received them as true. If Gagnon is right to say that Paul was insistent on sexual complementarity as the uniquely fundamental principle of human sexual practice, it is unlikely that the Apostle would have received Aristophanes' speech in Symposium as of any merit whatsoever. Gagnon's strongest argument of the essay appears in this context, in which Gagnon notices a homology of usage and analogy of rhetoric between the ends of Romans 1 and Genesis 1.

But the rest of this is weak. When Gagnon alludes to "para physin," he fails to mention the other key use of the idea of "nature" in Romans. It's too bad. Gagnon is so insistent that we place Romans 1 in the context of Paul's discussion of grace and justification up to Romans 6. But in Romans 11, we are told that the church is an unnatural graft on the tree of salvific covenant with God. Gray Temple somewhere or other makes a great witticism, which I will paraphrase, if homosexuality is unnatural, likewise is our salvation. Of course, this is merely a witticism. But there is a deeper point here. Paul is very much a Judao-Hellenistic thinker in the mold of Philo, and thus it is very easy for him to pipe the tune of the corruption of the idolaters as opposed to the righteousness of the Jews. It is indeed necessary, for the rhetorical purpose of Paul is to turn the righteousness of Israel on its head, for just as the Greeks mock God and nature, so do the Jews mock God and the Covenant. Paul thus is playing on the homophobia of Israel, who as the Rambam (Maimonides) says much later, "Israel is not suspected of homosexuality." Philo actually says something very similar. Is the homology that Gagnon cites then really Paul's? Might it be from an earlier Judaeo-Hellenistic source? After all, it is a homology in Greek. And thus might it just be possible that it is purely rhetorical and is not some considered statement on complementarity?

On the second count, I take great issue with Gagnon's speculation that if we brought Paul here and informed him that homosexuality was congenital, he would say, "I suspected as much." We also would have to tell him about certain difficulties in his understanding of Original Sin, if the Apostle can be said to have such a notion. In other words, homosexuality's presence in nature suggests it was prior to the Fall. See why I say creationists have it easy. If the Lord gives me the opportunity, I hope to talk with both Gagnon and the Apostle about this particular issue.

What do the Scriptures say? To a great extent, Gagnon reads them correctly or at least more correctly than those he poses as his opponents. His counterpoint against the misogynistic argument is one to read, learn, and inwardly digest. But nowhere does he take on the more difficult passages (I Samuel 18, or Isaiah 56:8 with Matthew 19:10 and Acts 8:27 etc.) that might complicate his view of homosexuality or marriage in general. In some sense, Gagnon is merely a renovator of "the clobber passages." And sometimes he's merely ridiculous. Not every use of "dog" in the Bible refers to male prostitutes, for instance.

The issue closes with an editorial by Van Voorst on the future of the RCA and homosexuality. It is of interest than Van Voorst is clearly the most open of the three authors in the issue to the possibility that homosexual orientation is set from birth and immutable, but he is clear that his theological tradition presents a quandary,

"7. Our dialogue should deal with what I call the two hard facts of this debate. First, as Robert Gagnon argues in this Reformed Review issue and as RCA policy papers have stated, the Bible affirms heterosexuality as God’s norm for human life, and rejects homosexual practice as running against this norm. A growing number in the academic field of religious studies and in the church—even those who advocate same-sex liberation—now are intellectually honest enough to admit that this is the case.4 But discerning what the Bible says about homosexuality has not been a problem for us in the RCA; discerning how to use the Bible is a growing problem. However, a Reformed approach to Scripture does not allow us to neutralize the Bible’s affirmation of heterosexuality, which is clear, consistent and comprehensive, by making room alongside it for same-sex practice. A second “hard fact” is that for most same-sex oriented people, their orientation is not consciously, deliberately chosen. A strong consensus among scientists holds that it is deeply rooted in personality. For most same-sex oriented people their orientation probably cannot be changed, and their calling to live chaste lives can only be enacted by a combination of divine power and great human effort. How to relate these two hard facts should be a part of our dialogue. Some say that science rules out Scripture, others that Scripture rules out science. Perhaps a better path is to let God’s voice in Scripture have its rule among us as we continue to live by “Sola Scriptura,” but let God’s voice in nature help to inform us about how we can best relate to same-sex oriented people among us."

This sets up a sad dualism that denies the unity of all truth that I believe lies at the root of my own tradition. If God speaks through nature, He says the same things that he does in the Scriptures. Or at least, the accounts of nature and Scripture are complementary even if they appear contradictory. But at least it expresses some desire to learn better how to care for gays and lesbians in a Reformed Christian community.

So was the issue worth reading? Yes. It was good to read perspectives that were less easy to impute with the leaven of malice and sometimes show evidence of the same general struggle, buoyant certainty, and frustrating uncertainty of one's own reasoning on this issue. It was good to read Robert Gagnon and get some appreciation of his methods and biases. Thanks to the Titusoneine commentariat for recommending this and to Kendall+ for linking to this issue.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may read the Holy Scriptures to your profit, gaining for yourself refined gold that will never rust and oil on your eyes that will restore your sight.

Notes From ILEOS

No Juggling Acts Here

From the Sunday bulletin wherein is also contained the liturgy of the parish:

"[The junior high Christian education group] will meet in the Jr. High Room. Topic: The Book of Common Prayer: It's in the pew rack but do we know what's in it? Let's take a look.

We're Doing All Right These Days

It was Annual Meeting time at ILEOS recently. The meeting is split into two separate sessions on two succeeding Sundays of approximately one hour duration each. For someone used to four hour Annual Meetings at a stretch, this was a pleasant surprise. On my desk, there is now a beautifully printed volume focused on the missional activities of the parish and its finances. There is no membership information, but since I am still not sure whether ILEOS conforms to the Membership Canons of TEC, I don't think there would be anything interesting. [It actually no longer matters whether it conforms or not, because I voted in the Annual Meeting by voice. There was no need to do anything else.] Needless to say, I am now able to make a good assessment of the financial health of the parish.

There is a meme of the conservative side of the church in many denominations that goes like this: Liberal churches are bleeding membership and running themselves financially into the ground, because the current generation of churchgoers are counter-cultural, "politically incorrect," and wants the "good, ol' time religion." The mainlines have become "the church of the old" and "the church of the dying." They are living off their endowments: the wealth of past generations who would decry their support of aberrant behavior and treason to the gospel.

The more reasonable version of this is that the TEC is very good at attracting middle-aged women and other types of "older seekers," typically childless or with grown children. But it is not good at attracting families with young children.

So I thought I would test these hypotheses against the available data.

First, ILEOS is in excellent financial shape. Its greatest asset is its buildings and property, which are assessed at O($20 million). [I will use the O() notation throughout. It means "on the order of," i.e., approximately.) It derives some income from this but not extraordinary amounts and has to pay taxes on income from its parking lots (used by shoppers during the week). In a Hollywood touch for this very Hollywood church, there was less income than usual from filming on campus. There has been construction about. (My university, on the other hand, has been cleaning up on this kind of income but we unfortunately have shortfalls elsewhere.)

Its endowment is surprisingly small, less than $1 million, which surprised me greatly. I'm used to smaller churches with $1-2 million or up to $5 million for a very Anglo-Catholic parish. The budget surplus over the last four years is more than half of the endowment. And thus if we examine the P/E ratio of ecclesiastical economy (the pledge income/endowment income ratio), we find it to be about 138. So much for living off your disapproving parents. Now admittedly, the buildings are likewise the patrimony. But much of the campus was built when this was clearly an untraditional parish.

Now I know that none of this matters. When the Lord comes, we are not to be measured favorably by our assets or our pledges. But instead we hear in Revelation of Laodicea, "How rich I am! What a fortune I have made! I have everything I want.' In fact, though you do not realize it, you are a pitiful wretch, poor, blind and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire to make you truly rich, and white robes to put on to hide the shame of your nakedness, and ointment for your eyes that you may see." But I didn't start the money meme. Laodicea could be as much Houston or Plano or indeed the entire United States.

There is one more financial element I want to examine: pledging units and pledge amount. The number of units has remained relatively steady, fluctuating O(6%) in the last few years. The rector and vestry are aiming for an 8% increase next year. People do keep coming through the doors. I also should note that the difference between the number of pledge units and the maximum pledge number is O(300). This might be an indicator of communal health more than financial health. We also apparently have pledge units in distant cities. People who were introduced to TEC or Christianity by ILEOS often say that they never find a church quite like it or as comfortable again. Some of these units come to ILEOS only on holidays when they visit their relatives. The total number of these units likely small. But I've never heard of a church before where the C+Es (Christmas and Easter worshippers) pledge. Of additional interest is that the pledge amount has increased O(20%) since 2002. This I understand is a trend throughout TEC. Even as we have been bleeding membership since GC2003, the amounts pledged have outpaced inflation.

The most hopeful news I heard at ILEOS' Annual Meeting, however, did not concern finances. It concerned the Sunday School and Youth Group numbers. ILEOS has several staff responsible for children and youth, including Youth Pastors for Senior High and Junior High. The Junior High Youth Pastor actually appears to be my age and recently graduated from a local small Christian college. This investment seems to have paid off. Sunday School enrollment is up 60% or so. And the Youth Group (Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights) is so popular that they are overcrowding their designated space. The Rector feels this is one justification for a new building. I have to agree. And more importantly, this is a sign that ILEOS is attracting families with young children who will be rooted and grounded in love with us. And yes, some of these families are headed by gay or lesbian parents. It sometimes seems as if ILEOS is a church of aging hippies, but there are signs that it cannot remain that way for long.

Vestry and Diocesan Convention delegation elections were smooth voice votes on slates presented by a Nominating Committee. It was somewhat amusing hearing that the Diocesan Convention delegation is full of people who "like to stir things up." The vestry, like all vestries I know, is rather lawyer-heavy but seems to be good stewards of the church's goods. It's also a diverse crowd: men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, lesbians. They even have a youth member (16 years old or so), who serves a one-year term. In the parish where I was a teenager, this would be an impossibility (by law, I think, but they could have allowed someone a voice if not a vote). It's funny being intermediate in age between the youngest and next oldest vestry member.

OK. The question to ask now is what's wrong. There is no perfect community but the Triune God.

1. I have concerns about the liturgy of the church. This church can make even me happy-clappy, which I enjoy... The congregation sometimes applauds the sermon. These are good things or minor irritances. My major concerns are the omission of the Nicene Creed and the General Confession. We also could stand to read the Epistle more often and hear a Psalm more than once a month. I can cope. I've taken to silent recitation of the Nicene Creed after the sermon. I've also taken to picking up the BCP at certain points during the service for the recitation of appropriate private prayers, including the Prayer of Humble Access (I started doing this after a mangled celebration of Rite I a few months ago). I've also taken to being shriven from England, a situation that simultaneously acknowledges the transcendence of God and the Sacraments over space and time and demeans the incarnation at the heart of the Christian religion. At some point, I really need to talk to the Associate with responsibility over this, but I am still praying about the most humble, amicable, and Christian way to broach the subject. Let's not even think about the project to compose new liturgies and creeds. I've heard neither hide nor hair of it since I first heard of it.

To some extent, ILEOS does honor the most important concerns. In the key exception to their rather radical use of inclusive language, they baptize in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit +. This is nearly the only time when the "legal name" of the Trinity is heard in the church. As much as I hope this inconsistency stems from a desire to honor the concerns of "the weaker brethren" (like me...), I wonder how long this can last.

2. I have concerns about Christian education. I have heard the historic Creeds are criticized by the Rector in the new member classes. Having been catechized traditionally, academically, and liberally, I have to say that I prefer tradition. I prefer to know what Christians generally have believed before learning about the messiness of it all. I will never be able to say that "for two thousand years, Christians have believed X," but I am able in most cases to know and usually to justify the majority opinion. ILEOS shows an interest in bringing its peculiar brand of the Faith to the world. Its best leaven, however, lies in its parishioners, who often have opportunity to witness. Let't just say I think good catechesis might make it easier for parishioners to be leaven throughout TEC and make it hard for, um, Al Mohler to make critiques. Some days, I wish I had double-concentrated in Early Christian Literature and had some more time for ILEOS, so that I could offer Sunday morning forums on some historical theology or the wonders of the Book of Common Prayer. As it is, I feel like a half-read and half-trained wretch, who should read fewer novels and more theology. (Unfortunately, I don't do much novel-reading lately).

In summary, ILEOS often seems to be a church of the wounded. So many people I know have been harmed by other Christian communities. To some extent, such harms can be healed with soft words and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost. At other times, the wounded should be equipped with the armor of God so they cannot be so easily wounded. And, hey, it's entirely possible that ILEOS' clergy might discover that their parishioners might like their theology a little more traditionally grounded.

In summary, thanks to be God through Our Lord Jesus Christ that I have come to this place and may my going hence leave it better than my coming thither. AMEN

In my next entry, I think I will be taking on the new issue of the Reformed Review on homosexuality. So pray brethren...

Disturbing News from the Diocese of Albany

From a comment to this post.

"I returned 20 minutes ago from a diocesan church leadership workshop for the Episcopal Diocese of Albany. What I heard and observed there was an Institute of Religion and "Democracy" exhortation. The bishop used the phrase, One Church, (an IRD phrase) over and over again. His audience moaned, cried hallalujah, and murmured Amen. A local leader in the Cusillo movement was given 15 minutes to describe the success of the movement in the New York Capital district. We were sternly warned to pray ceaselessly to keep evil and Satan from entering our churches.
There was not one word about valuing diverse voices in the Episcopal Church In America. The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, which is treasured by American Episcopalians, was held up before the audience as a laughable relic of the past by the bishop. My husband, a cradle Episcopalian moderate who has been fairly ignorant about this issue till today, came away offended by the inherent censorship of the One Church (IRD) diatribe and the inherent insult of people who love Episcopal tradition.

When I asked someone who was involved in the planning of the event about diocesan connection to the IRD, they said they didn't know if it was directly connected but "...isn't Diana Knippers our Anglican leadership in the IRD?" (Rarely do moderate and progressive laymen and clergymen know the term IRD, or the name, Diana Knippers)

This is the way the Radical Right eats into the mainline churches. They know they can't come straight out with their dominionist agenda, but they keep moving the spiritually and politically ignorant further into their camp by isolating progressives and moderate voices within the fold.

It was a day well spent. I found out how the convention is loaded with conservatives and conservative issues. Now it remains to be seen if there is a body of people serious enough to effectively alter this state of affairs. "

Dianne Knippers died of cancer last year. Many progressive Episcopalians pray for her soul in obedience to the commandment, "Pray for your enemies. Bless those who curse you." That said, I would like to see a transcript of this meeting. I find it hard to believe that someone was trashing the Book of Common Prayer in general (the 1979 BCP is another matter).

Holy Thomas Cranmer, through your hand the Lord gave the beauty of common prayer to the English people. And that same hand you severed from yourself with fire in obedience to the commandment on account of your sin. Pray with us for all those of any stripe who disdain the Liturgy of the Anglican churches. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Latest Community Meme

1. When you looked in the mirror first thing this morning, what was the first thing you thought?
"Vanitas vanitatum"

2. How much cash do you have on you?
~$46

3. What's a word that rhymes with TEST?
Zest

4. Planet?
Mars. Often Earth.

5. Who is the fourth person on your missed calls?
My missed calls list is three people.

6. What is your favourite ring on your phone?
The only one it has.

7. What shirt are you wearing?
My residence house "hoodie" from college. I am presently well-known for wearing it in these parts.

8. What do you label yourself as?
A lazy idiot.

9. Name the brand of shoes you've recently worn.
Converse

10. Bright room or dark room?
Rather bright presently.

11. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Doing physics in the library.

12. What did the last text message on your phone say?
I've never received one.

13. Where is your nearest 7-11?
I know I've seen one within a few miles.

14. What's a saying you say a lot?
"Basically..."

15. Who told you they loved you last?
My mother.

16. Last furry thing you touched?
My face... (though it's not particularly so)

17. How many drugs have you done in the past three days?
None. Unless ice cream counts.

18. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed?
Four.

19. Favourite age you've been so far?

22

20. Your worst enemy?
Satan? I really wouldn't know.

21. What is your current desktop picture?
Some default Linux thing.

22. What was the last thing you said to someone?
Did you just go to the pool?

23. If you had to choose between a million bucks and being able to fly, which would you choose?
There has been some talk about risk of dissection, but I'd love to be able to fly.

24. Do you like someone?
Always. And yes I understood the question.

25. The last song you listened to?
I'm presently listening to an album called "Coronation of the First Elizabeth."

Don't You Understand That Thing Inside You Is Alive?

Thanks to Al Kimel of Pontifications, J-Tron of the Propaganda Box, and the Salty Vicar (now known as Gawain de Leuw) the fire is hot on the issue of abortion and ECUSA. J-Tron is worth reading. Al Kimel is worth reading, too. Just ignore that part where he thinks being in communion with the Bishop of Rome gives him some authority to decide what the Church is. The Salty Vicar is a bit of a muddle, because he has become too incensed at the political pro-life lobby to give an objective reading of the situation.

OK, I have a confession to make. I'm pro-life. If you were to send me a petition empowering Congress to define the beginning of human life as some point between conception and birth, you would get it signed forthwith. You also might see me trying to tack on some sort of rider involving universal health care. An America with healthcare for everyone who needs it and without abortion is a dream of mine.

My other confession is that I am not particularly loud about being pro-life. My parents are pro-choice. My school leaned pro-choice. My churches generally have been pro-choice. My present church's vestry passed a resolution about it. Put that on the chalkboard as reason #1 I might have to leave ILEOS.

But I think the reason I am not particularly loud about being pro-life is that it remains a purely academic issue for me. I've never been the cause of involuntary pregnancy (I prefer this to unplanned and unwanted, because pregnancies are rather difficult to plan and can be wanted at any time, but it's only voluntary pregnancy if you really wanted to get pregnant.) I've never known anyone involuntarily pregnant. OK, that's not true. I've known a few women who have pleasantly surprised by involuntary pregnancy. But I've never known anyone who's ever told me they were going to have an abortion. Perhaps, it is written on my face, "This man will try to talk you out of it and may volunteer to be your Lamaze coach to boot." I've always liked Lamaze. The only time abortion becomes non-academic for me is at the ballot box, where it seems pretty pointless.

What is it that Creed says? "Only in America...we kill the unborn to make ends meet." John Wilkins has something right. Abortion is a sign that we don't want to spend money on children. We don't want to spend money on their food, their clothing, their healthcare, and their primary, secondary, and tertiary educations. In the latter days of the Roman Republic, there is some indication that the aristocratic birthrate declined. My usual explanation for this is that the cost of a political career had spun so out of control that the expense required to produce two consuls could cripple the family finances. And remember that infanticide was legal at Rome. This is clearly not the entirety of the explanation, since reproduction wasn't very easy in those days anyway. But when the birthrate of the most well-fed women in a society declines precipitously, something must be going on.

But mourning the dissimulation of the powers that be is not a sufficient end to one's thinking. If the kid is alive, there is no excuse to end its life. You can't kill your born children to minimize costs, why should you be able to kill your unborn children? That's the core issue. Everything else is commentary and excuse.

What Rev. Mr. Wilkins should have said is this: We live in a deeply sinful society full of racial and economic inequity and thus iniquity. Young African-American women disproportionately abort their babies, because they are the segment of our female population that is least well-educated, least well-employed, and has the least ties to family and a social support network. In some places, this only has been true for about a generation. This about the same period in which we have had legal abortion. The reduction of abortion rates in the 1990s coincides with the widespread use of long-term intravenous birth control devices, which are cheaper over the long-term and easier to obtain (in some sense) than oral birth control. You may laugh. But when I lived in Philadelphia during the 1990s, these devices were big news for young African-American women. In addition, the 1990s were a time of economic prosperity. A rising tide is a Kolgomorov cascade for all boats, which in non-science talk, implies that a rising tide lifts the higher boats to a much greater degree than the low boats.

This is not to say that all abortions are by African-American women, but it is such a great disproportion that the greatest common ground between me, Alan Keyes, Maya Keyes (his famously lesbian daughter), and her ex-girlfriend is that abortion has been involuntarily genocidal for African-Americans. Involuntary, only because the policymakers have been reading the demography for a generation (and have been doing little about it).

At the same time, our society continues to fail children, especially those with one or no suitable parents or guardians. We slash their healthcare benefits, slash their food aid, spend too little on their education (especially in this state), and keep them in a variety of unsuitable living situations. A good foster parent is a blessing from God. A good adoptive family is two. And I want to thank all of the families, Christian and otherwise, who have given temporary and permanent hospitality to the least in our midst. But there aren't enough. There is a theory, which might be the stuff of ius naturale , that infertility and homosexuality are nature's way of providing supplementary caregivers. Thus, I am especially incensed at the potential iniquity of denying partnered gay couples the ability to adopt foster children. And those who are worried about instability just can get into line with those who support legalizing civil fratrimony and sororimony. For those who are fertile, I would urge them to consider the halakhic interpretation of the command of God "to be fruitful and multiply" and limit one's childbearing to one boy and one girl (if God wills it) at the greater mitzvah . If you want more children, consider adoption. If we are to end abortion, up to one million more children a year may need homes. Christians are commanded by Christ to give food and shelter to the least among us as we would Christ. Hmm... Well, it's an idea.

Our society continues to fail parents. Throughout the country, there are workplace cultures in which parents are looked down upon or feel obligated to spend more time away from their families to establish their equal partnership in the "team." There remains something called, "the corporate mommy track." Good daycare is so hard to find. I will admit that we may have to rethink the two-income household. But I would argue that we really may have to rethink the traditional "office" workplace. With a little bit more equipment and software, I could work from home. I presently am a student, who does rather sophisticated climatological research. I'm not arguing for complete telecommuting, but I think reduction of the hours of "face time" required in white-collar professions will free up some "quantity time" for children.

In other occupations, we must continue to insist on 40 hour weeks and paid overtime at a living wage. I swear that the only thing Walmart wouldn't do to externalize its labor costs would be to require its female employees abort. The list could go on and on.

The reason Episcopalians (either pro-choice or pro-life) tend to be more reponsive to "social concerns" about abortion is that we have a strong theological commitment to seeing that no person nor moral action exists in vacuo . This is a different thing than saying all moral judgments are subjective, because being able to observe matters in context is the truest moral objectivity. I cite the authority of the Angelic Doctor on fornication, who says that the only difference between licit sex and simple fornication is the relationship and intention of the partners. And because no moral action exists in isolation, it is hard for some of us to argue for a legal ban on abortion. For in an iniquitous society, we recognize that abortion nearly always arises from a distorted act of love. Love, as the Pope hopefully will say on Wednesday, consists in seeking the good of the object of one's love. The woman who aborts almost always seems to think: how is this child going to live? It would be bad for this child to be born. Anne Lamott, for instance, only has her Sam, because when she thought about aborting again, her church community stepped in and said that they would do all in their power to support that child before and after it was born. The distortion of love occurs when we do not know the true good of our beloved. The good of a rational being is not "never to be born" as Sophocles said (the Preacher suggests similarly in a somewhat different context in Eccl. 6:3-5), but it is to seek to know and be known within the marvelous creation of Almighty God and to partake eventually in the new creation that is to come through the victory of Christ Jesus. The second requires regeneration and sanctification. But the first just requires a little caution and a bit of painful pushing.

Rev. Mr. Wilkins says that views like mine do not respect the consciences of women. I am afraid my lack of respect for the consciences of others stems from a lack of confidence in my own. Like Paul, I constantly feel and often yield to the yearning of my flesh to do ill to myself, others, and God for some momentary satisfaction. I am fortunate that God and my neighbor are so merciful to pass over most of my faults in this regard. But it is because I know my conscience is so poor that I am willing to tell women the truth of what they would be doing if they aborted. I would wish to offer them alternatives.

I also have little respect for the consciences of the men who are co-heirs of iniquity. From what I understand, they are the ones who typically first suggest abortion. Although the archetypal abortion story involves the matter being kept secret from the father, this appears to be a myth to salve the conscience. The boyfriend offers to pay. The boyfriend offers to drive. As far as I am concerned, the boyfriend should be driving to the prenatal appointments, the Lamaze classes, and the adoption agency (if necessary). The boyfriend should be paying a half-share of the costs of the baby being born. My driving instructor used to say that you should drive a car seeing all of the cars as your money and your car as fire. If we are to be so iniquitous and churlish as to reduce babies to money, I think every heterosexually active man should take a similar viewpoint. All contraception can fail, after all.

What my social conscience does recognize is that bans on abortion per se are legally and socially reprehensible legislation. They do nothing to remove the fog of the distorted love women have for their embryos. Moreover, abortion laws do not recognize the truth they supposedly acknowledge. Although the consequences of putting the old common-law principle of quickening into effect or similar efforts would be dire, I might be amenable (if my other concerns were addressed) to a crime of "statutory murder," which made it a misdemeanor to cause death to an embryo of a certain age. But unfortunately, there is one ontological problem that arises from such a definition.

On the Ensoulment of Human Creatures

First, there is no civilly objective definition to the beginning of human life. However, I do believe Congress or a state legislature has the right to set the definition of human life arbitrarily. The age of sexual consent is arbitrary. The age of suffrage is arbitrary. There are no objective ways to decide when someone is able to consent to sex or to vote. Every distinction American statutory law makes about age is arbitrary. Unlike Shariah, we do not use puberty as an indication of anything.

Second, most views on the beginning of life talk about "ensoulment." It is yet to be a settled principle of the Magisterium (I think) or of evangelical Christian theology, but the burden of opinion on "ensoulment" states that it happens at conception. I respectfully disagree along with other Anglican moral theologians (well, that's what ++Peter Carnley says).

In the interest of full disclosure, the consequences of "ensoulment" being defined at conception are rather significant. Chemical contraception would become a deadly weapon. And embryonic "stem cell" research would be illegitimate so clearly from its means that its ends would be of no consequence.

Roman Catholics would say, "Why should you care? The Fathers were against contraception." Ah, yes. The classical Fathers certainly were against contraception. Reading various Patristic texts cited by Roman Catholics on this issue, I have noticed three things. 1. Contraception was rather dangerous in the ancient world. Its use might sterilize women against their will, because their husbands insisted. I agree that a husband or wife who insists on the sterility of a marriage against the will of the partner diminishes its sacramental quality. 2. Contraception became a license for men to have sex with prostitutes or concubines more readily. From what I can tell, fornication is the problem in this case, not what makes it easier. 3. Contraception of various methods was said to kill "potential children," whereas abortion killed "active children." The Fathers were basing this assertion on Greek medical theory, in which the seed of the man essentially was the clay from which the child was built (conservation of mass being a poor consideration in medical science of the day). Thus, a man who wasted semen in any way was wasting the material from which the soul was made, too. If we held to the principles of the Fathers, even having unprotected sex would be an act of mass murder greater than Hitler and Stalin's entire careers. NFP would be as horrific as artificial methods. Let's stop the logical contradictions here.

From the time of the classical Fathers to the invention of the microscope, opinions on the beginning of human life seem to have varied. The broad consensus of the medievalists, based on evidence from the penitentials, was forty days. Although I suspect the medievalists would have had different things to say about intentionally causing a miscarriage before forty days, their line of argument would be similar to that of the classical Fathers but they would be less certain about the medicine. The invention of the microscope had interesting consequences for moral theology. Without the Jesuits discovering "homunculi," we would never have heard the wonderful song of Monty Python fame, "Every Sperm Is Sacred."

Thus, I think the question of ensoulment must be "reassessed." Take that look of abject horror of your face. We will take two approaches, since I just nixed the ontology of Tradition. We will first consider a Biblical argument for the beginning of human life. Then we will present a supplementary argument from reason.

Being pro-life at a pro-choice parish, I have to hear every once in a while that the Bible says nothing about abortion. And this is true insofar as the only directly juridical passage is Exodus 21:22-25, which mandates that anyone who strikes a woman and causes her to miscarry owes a fine to her husband. There are some very interesting property relations suggested here, but I'll pass over it. Reason tells us that the question to pose to Scripture is not directly juridical. We want to know when a human being gets a soul. In my view, the most relevant passage to this issue is not anything in the Psalms, but three passages in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament. The Old Testament passages are Genesis 2:7, Genesis 9:4, and Ezekiel 37:1-14. In the first, God breathes on the dust of the earth and Adam becomes a living creature. In the second, Noah is forbidden to eat from which blood has not been drained, because "the life of the creature is in the blood." In the third, bones are symbolically animated from the wind coming from all directions. In the New Testament, we see a similar idea in the effective chrismation of the Apostles by the Risen Lord in John 20, "Then he breathed on them, saying, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"

The suggestion of all of these passages is life is sacred and that the medium of life is somehow located in the breath and in the blood. Medicine now knows that blood and air come to the zygote through the mother at implantation in the uterine wall. Respiration (beyond some export of wastes) is very unlikely in the first fourteen days of development. Moreover, blood exchange is impossible. The other key to these passages is that the animating quality of breath has its ultimate agency in God but is potentially communicable. Our mothers, by giving us breath, become the source of our lives. Some were arguing on Pontificator that the details of the Incarnation had some bearing on this question. The instinct seems right to me, but our ignorance is great. Jesus would have been conceived in a very interesting condition, because His body would have been animated as Adam was, by the very breath of God. Thus, one of the Gospels names both Jesus and Adam the sons of God. But the concept of synergy implies that the fullness of of His human nature was imparted by his mother, not by the provision of her seed (for the Fathers would not have agreed on this), but because she was more than a straw through which water passed. That human nature was imparted when Jesus came into contact with the circulation of her breath and her blood. From the moment, her oxygen touched His cells, He was a human being. Some Anglican moral theology comes to this position from the argument that twinning can occur at any time before implantation, thus ensuring that only implanted zygotes or blastocytes (my embryology terms aren't stellar, I'm afraid) have unique identities. The fact that the onset of cellular respiration coincides with this event is no coincidence in my mind.

From a scientific perspective, we are at a loss with regard to this issue. I tried to explain the immortality of the soul to one my colleagues recently. It's beyond the ken of our methods to detect. But let's make a quick thermodynamic argument. Life only arises because there is a potential for systemic entropy to increase in the approximated closed Earth-Sun system while life acts to minimize entropy. This allowance for a large production of negative entropy by life on Earth arises from the large difference in temperature between the Sun and the Earth. Hence, the most objective definition for life anyone can come up with is that it resists entropy or produces negative entropy. Before the concept of entropy was discovered, Joseph Priestley, the English chemist and Nonconformist preacher, noted that the reversibility of reactions, which the existence of entropy limits, was a foretaste of the resurrection of the body. From a thermodynamic perspective, the immediate result of conception and its sources do not differ substantially in entropy production. The blastocyte depends on the stored nutrients of the sperm and ovum to live until implantation. Now, it could be argued that the embryo is dependent on the negative entropy production of its mother during most of gestation, since it cannot breathe independently. However, the implanted zygote's cells do have the ability to export waste and obtain oxygen from the environment (its mother). Although its dependence does not cease, it is hard to find any other moment when it can be said to be producing negative entropy by its own will. Michael Liccione might call such an argument sophistical, but it addresses the issues I think are important.

QEDC

With these matters addressed, let us consider a couple of other important matters. First, J-Tron complains that the only Episcopal pro-life group is anti-homosexual. wb+ insists that homosexuality and abortion are somehow connected. Such a view depends on an uncritical reading of the Fathers, which I have rejected. Even if homosexual acts were objectively immoral, they would not be a form of abortion. Life doesn't work that way. Even Al Kimel says that it is one thing to bless same-sex unions and another thing for ECUSA to associate with abortion rights groups. But if you read the relevant classical Fathers literally, there is no difference whatsoever. And let's not talk about NFP...

Furthermore, I would like to strenuously disagree with Al Kimel's continued insistence that ECUSA is no longer a Church. If supporting distorted love unto death could remove such status in the eyes of her Head, the Roman Catholic Church and every other ecclesial body on Earth would be in trouble. Converting people at the point of the sword, for instance, is as objectively immoral.

But like the famous Karen B., I can't help to feel ashamed by ECUSA's joining of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights. I can't help to feel ashamed by the pro-choice stand of ILEOS' vestry. I really expect better from the heirs of a richly nuanced Anglican moral theology. Ours ought to be a strange witness that is foolishness to all. For "choice" does not stem from Christian liberty but from the larger immorality of our society. This immorality does not merely consist of the worship of one's own genitals, as an Orthodox friend of mine puts it, but in the entire ordering of American socioeconomic life. Rev. Mr. Wilkins seems to know this. But he can't go any further. I'm afraid to say that abortion is not merely personal but systemic evil. And by our countless little negligences to the ill of children, we have become the abortionists.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that the altars of Mammon and Moloch will be smitten from the earth and all those who are most like the citizenry of heaven may see the light of the Sun.

The World Written

This is a world written, do you understand? You, who were trained
To read worlds but never to write them have expunged your God’s Word
(As you clearly see it) from the surfaces of the northern wastes
And the pen marks will not last long in the mighty rains you have loosed.

This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God pantokrator , or Universal Ruler; for God [Deus] is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords; but we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of Gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: these are titles which have no respect to servants. The word God [here marks a note] usually signifies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present. He endures for ever, and is every where present; and by existing always and every where, he constitutes duration and space. Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible moment of duration is every where, certainly the Maker and Lord of all things cannot be never and no where. Every soul that has perception is, though in different times and in different organs of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There are given successive parts in duration, co-existent puts in space, but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or his thinking principle; and much less can they be found in the thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a thing that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same God, always and every where. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without substance. In him are all things contained and moved; yet neither affects the other: God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists always, and every where. Whence also he is all similar, all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all power to perceive, to understand, and to act; but in a manner not at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colours, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things. He is utterly void of all body and bodily figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard, or touched; nor ought he to be worshipped under the representation of any corporeal thing. We have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of any thing is we know not. In bodies, we see only their figures and colours, we hear only the sounds, we touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells, and taste the savours; but their inward substances are not to be known either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds: much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God. We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final cause: we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion: for we adore him as his servants; and a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. But, by way of allegory, God is said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give, to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work, to build; for all our notions of God are taken from. the ways of mankind by a certain similitude, which, though not perfect, has some likeness, however. And thus much concerning God; to discourse of whom from the appearances of things, does certainly belong to Natural Philosophy. ( Newton, General Scholium to Book III of Principia Mathematica , tr. Andrew Motte with some emendations of my own in brackets)

Marginal note: Our Pocock derives the name of deus from an Arabic word diz (and in oblique case di which signifies "lord." It in this sense that princes are called gods (Psalm 84:6 and John 10:45). And Moses is called god of his brother Aaron and the god of the king Pharaoh (Exodus 4:16 and 7:1). And in the same sense, the spirits of dead princes once were called gods by the Gentiles, but falsely because they lacked the knowledge of the Lord [lit. on account of the lack of lord]

I'll give you a chance to read the Newton. Anastasia recently (Dec 31 last) has posed to scientists some questions. Gaunilo has had some things to say about the Book of Nature, which he is convinced is out of print. So I thought I would give you some hints about how the professional and believing scientist might read the Book of Nature. The Newton passage is very interesting in that it may have been tremendously influential in mediating the relationship between science and Christianity among the English-speaking peoples. The key point is that the essence of the question of God, existence, is removed from inquiry by an appeal to immeasurability. God is infinite and eternal, spanning all space and time, and thus cannot be measured in finite times or finite spaces. From a couple of important perspectives, Newton's view is problematic.

1. It seems to be a restatement of the ontological argument. And it is to formulations like Newton's to which Kant may have responding a couple of generations after Newton's death.

2. Newton is an Arian. His account omits the fullness of the orthodox understanding of the Incarnation, in which God the Son, a full and equal participant in the immeasurable infinities, becomes measurable in the person of Jesus Christ.

Also noteworthy is Newton's discussion of the epistemological limits of the natural sciences. He effectively claims that we do not know "the inner substance" of bodies themselves but only their secondary characteristics. Admittedly, 21st century science is much closer to the inner substance of things than mere secondary characteristics. For instance, we understand color to a depth at which Newton would be astounded (and he understood color better than any scientist of his day). Although the influence of the Cambridge Platonists on Newton is debatable, the influence of alchemy remained. To some, alchemy concerns mutability and focuses on transmutation: the manipulation of secondary characteristics. But the true alchemist seeks not to manipulate but to bring order to substance: to match the secondary characteristics of bodies to their inmost order or to give the base metals of this sphere the aethereal grace of the celestial spheres to which they are related. Alchemy thus seeks not lead changed into gold but lead and gold made better. The world closes the immeasurable distance to the Form. And the natural philosopher-king stands above as servant of the God who is natural philosopher-king above all. The measure of it all is still the same: we cannot know anything fully but much in part.

Newton's discourse on God in the General Scholium often is considered the foundational text of Deism. This may be true. But in order to become such a text, it needed to be slightly misinterpreted. By implying the immeasurability of God and that our knowledge of Him was limited except through the investigation of His secondary characteristics, i.e. His works, Newton could be read as proposing a God of entirely natural religion. Such a great God surely would not need to reveal such twisted Scriptures as the ones we contemplate. But this is a leap Newton never makes. He is an Arian and so will not venerate the Son as God. There will be no crucifixes and no icons in Newton's laboratory. But his theological epistemology is tricky (as one would expect from a man who woke Locke in the night to correct his hermeneutical views.) He suggests God is known only from nature. But yet he says, "a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature." So wondrous is Creation to Newton that God at least must have a plan and likely a good one (and so be good). Thus, Newton can discard the Demiurge.

But Newton also tells us of how God is similar to man by way of allegory. We seek God in ourselves. While this was highly unorthodox in his own day and a view of Scripture I would reject, Newton is clear that the Scriptures are not silly. By referring to the usage of "god" as Lord God of Israel and Eternal, Newton recognizes the Scriptures as attempts to seek God. They are readings in themselves of the Book of Nature. They are Tradition in the sense of the scientific literature. They are to be built upon. And this is where Deism lost its weak moorings. Western notions of the God at the root of being are grounded in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The most fundamental opinions of the Holy Scriptures cannot be so easily replaced by private judgment. Newton's convictions about providence, dominion, and final causes assume something. It assumes that order does not arise of itself. (And by the way, entropy does not necessarily imply decrease in order as we understand it, only the increase in the diversity of ordering. So order just might arise of itself as time advances.)

Reading Earth History Providentially

And thus the scientist always postulates God (or no God) while reading the Book of Nature. One of the key consequences of postulating God (especially a reasonably traditional Christian view of God) is to see Earth history in terms of anthropocentric providentialism. The latest in the series is the Discovery Institute's The Privileged Planet . There are a couple of problems with this reading from a scientific perspective:

1. Our ancestors pretty much suffered during the Mesozoic. A few different turns and dinosaurs might have become sentient.

2. We have no way of knowing whether "privilege" is exclusive to this planet.

Also recall that nature doesn't act providentially on the microscale:

Darwin’s discoveries, however, were a threat to both schools of American moral philosophy. Daniel Walker Howe’s short treatment of Harvard’s problems with it says that the Unitarians thought that it meant reason no longer was in harmony with revelation. However, the Harvard moral philosophers were clever enough Biblical readers to deal with the apparent chronological problems at the beginning of the Book of Genesis. Their problem indeed stemmed from their belief in harmony, but the harmony in question was that of the world itself. For the Harvard Unitarians, nature was in balance, God had made perfect provision for every creature, and predation was a natural part of existence. They could open their Bibles and from the very beginning they could see, “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.” Darwin’s views increased the possibility of an unharmonious world that had neither enough food nor enough other resources for the creatures of the Earth. It suggested an imperfection in God’s moral government and that was more disturbing than a few rewordings in the Book of Genesis. (Caelius, "The Rejection, Subversion, and Replacement of Calvin and Hobbes: Moral Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the United States during the 19th century.")

Thus, let me warn those who read the Book of Nature that they must proceed from sacred history to natural history but not vice versa . It is sacred history that tells us we are special. Natural history is still ambiguous on the question. However, we still must allow nature to challenge our readings of sacred history. That is the role of the Book of Nature. Such a view allows me to read Genesis in the light of evolution in new and fascinating ways. But let me give you another example:

My Barber and SETI

Recently, I flew to the other side of the country to visit the rest of my immediate family. I also decided to get a haircut, because I prefer the barbers on that side of the country. Let me tell you that I really like my present haircut. My usual barber is a retired Army barber (my former barber was USMC) and a member of a local nondenominational church, which I think was founded by the late Carl McIntire. So we were engaging in the usual banter about what I did for a living, and he asked whether I wanted to work for SETI. I said that I wasn't really interested in looking for aliens that way. He said, "Well, aliens are unBiblical anyway. I know some people say they find aliens in the bible, "wheels within wheels." I replied, "Elijah" and let discourse die down to something else. Now I always wonder what would happen if aliens came to Earth. It's one thing to say the Earth was created in 4004 BC. It's another thing to deal with something clearly not of this world (or in the Scriptures). Would the aliens be deemed nephilim? Would the aliens be evangelized? Baptized? Such an encounter might affect our reading of the Creation, the Fall, and the Incarnation radically. Our current struggles with the Book of Nature only differ in degree. Sacred history is strongest when it brings the universe into its own reference frame. There is often a difficult transformation in that process, but sacred history without natural history (i.e., sacred history that rejects natural history) loses the force of sacred history ("The heavens declare the glory of God.") And likewise with sacred doctrine.

Until the next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may seek the mind of Him who became like us, little less than the angels; that you may adore Him with the all of the angels of God, the shepherds, and the Kings of the East; that you may experience the refulgent glory of His Grace that shines on everything with a radiance of which the stars are but shadows; and that your reading of the Book of Nature may incline you to give thanksgiving to God in all things.

Disappearing Post

Advice to Bloggers, Don't Title Posts in Greek
This post was originally published on the 19th of December. It's still rather relevant, considering the discussions of Titusonenine presently about a piece by Rev. Mrs. Chloe Breyer in Slate and another article in the Church Times. One commenter suggested the Virgin Birth is what really separates the orthodox and the liberal. I suspect the commenter would be disabused of that notion in his own mind by reading this blog.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent is past. And surely countless sermons on the Annunciation and the Virgin Birth were preached yesterday. I've been trying to write this post for a few weeks now and every time I try, something disastrous happens. So I'll just pray I get somewhere.

Why Do I Need the Virgin Birth?

In church on Sunday and on Reverend Ref's blog, I heard or read two sermons that seek to make Joseph the biological father of Jesus. Considering the preacher at my church has said that the things she says "would make the faculty of Seabury-Western faint" and Ref is a SWTS alum, I will consider the two preachers in question to represent a broad theological swathe of ECUSA. But somehow I don't find the idea of Joseph being Jesus' biological father palatable. I have nothing against Joseph, of course. Joseph, after all, is the exemplar for all stepfathers and adoptive fathers. I believe that he took good care of Jesus and instructed Him in the trade of carpentry (and fled with Him and Mary to Egypt, too). Joseph earned fatherhood. How else can we explain Joseph's actions in Matthew? He was going to break off the engagement quietly? Why was that? This is not to say that the birth narratives aren't ambiguous in calling Joseph Jesus' father. But the ambiguity itself seems to suggest that the Gospel writers, too, doubted as we do. I may have a volume entitled "Biology for Dummies" on my shelf, but I've known the facts and nitty-gritty details of life for about seventeen years. [And I know more biology than that would imply]. And Matthew and Luke would have had little more information than I do about the causal logic relevant to the case. It is sometimes argued that women were seen as "incubators" by the ancients. I believe Aristotle was the most eloquent proponent of this position. But it was not uncontroversial. Some thought that both male and female emitted seed. The fully developed doctrine of homunculi belongs to the 17th century (and Jesuits with microscopes), not to the ancient world.

And the existence of homunculi seems less relevant for Matthew. Matthew likely was an urban Jew. But he would have seen animals mate. Luke was a physician according to tradition. Is it possible his ambiguity comes from his own doubts as a medical scientist? But to describe the process itself, Luke uses "ἐπισκιάσει," a verb more reminiscent of the pillar of cloud that rested on the Tent of Meeting while Israel was in the wilderness than biology. Matthew and Luke knew they were describing something special. But the question remains: Why a virgin birth?

Possible reasons include:

1. "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel" (Isaiah 7:14)
Well, if you've been hanging around a church enough around this time of year, you may have heard that the translators of the Septuagint (the semi-authoritative Greek edition of the Old Testament) may have made a tiny error by translating the Hebrew word for "young woman (no virginity implied)" ( almah ) as parthenos , Greek for "virgin."

Yet there's a counterargument (from Strong of Concordance fame and others). In all other (and later) Greek versions of the Tanakh , almah is translated neanis (no implication of virginity) in all cases. The presumption was that it was done so to prevent Christological interpretations. In the LXX, almah is generally translated neanis with two exceptions: the Matriarch Rebecca as she is about to meet Isaac and the woman of Isaiah 7:14 are called parthenoi . In other words, the translators of the Septuagint seem to have used parthenos emphatically and therefore must have had to deal with the "virgin birth" implications of Isaiah 7:14. Perhaps, there was a tradition...

2. Virgin birth evades infection of Adam by cutting men out of the process. I'm not a big fan of this.

These are good old-fashioned reasons, but I would like to take a different tack and talk about the understanding of the Incarnation provided by the Nicene Creed.

The Nicene Creed has this to say concerning the nature of the Son before the Incarnation:

τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, τὸν μονογενῆ,
The son of God, the only-begotten
τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα
The one begotten of the Father
πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων,
Before all ages
φῶς ἐκ φωτός, Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ,
Light from light, true God from true God
γεννηθέντα οὐ ποιηθέντα ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί,
Begotten not made, of the same substance as the Father
διʼ οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο.
Through Him, all things came into being.

This understanding of God the Son is often called "the cosmic Christ" because the essence of his nature is entwined in the making and enduring of the cosmos. The "begetting" which is emphasized is compared to "light from light." Imagine being at a great distance from two lamps (so as not to violate conservation of energy, I do not claim this is homology). You will perceive the lamps as one light source, essentially concentrated at a point. Now, imagine that the lamps are moved apart slightly. You will perceive the lamps as two barely resolved point sources. But the lamps are of the same substance (light). This is the sense I think the Fathers had, not of God divided, added, multiplied, or subtracted but of an ever-extant God expanded.

Of the Incarnation, the Creed says:

τὸν διʼ ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους
For us, humans
καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν
And for our salvation
κατελθόντα ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν
He came down from heaven
καὶ σαρκωθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου
And he was enfleshed by the Holy Spirit
καὶ Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου
And by the Virgin Mary
καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα.
And he became human.

The problem is that the structure of the last three lines does not allow a literal translation, for it has the rhetorical form of an anaphora on καὶ combined with a chiasmus, "σαρκωθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου...Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου...ἐνανθρωπήσαντα." In other words, the Fathers were trying to emphasize the importance of "and" in the Incarnation, drawing a relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary in which the Holy Spirit was the primary doer of the verb σαρκωθέντα and the Virgin Mary the secondary doer and vice versa with "ἐνανθρωπήσαντα." Thus, it might be better translated: He became incarnate both through the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and likewise (by both the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit) became human.

Therefore, the Nicene Creed contains in its very rhetoric the idea of the synergy between God and the Virgin Mary that is essential to the Incarnation. Let us explore the possible meanings of this synergy:

1. The Incarnate Christ is as a new Creation. In other words, He becomes flesh through the Holy Spirit. Luke's usage is especially appropriate here. The womb of Mary (standing for the waters of the primordial chaos) is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, just as the Holy Spirit moved over the waters in the beginning of time. Thus, Jesus' birth is a foretaste of baptismal regeneration as well, since Jesus literally is born by water and the Holy Spirit.

2. Jesus, is fully divine and fully human, because his birth comes about by cooperation between God and a human being.

3. Reverend Ref refers to the ancient idea that the Virgin Mary is the Second Eve, saying "Yes" to God when Eve said "Yes" to disobedience to God. The Virgin Mary likewise stands in for her ancestor Adam by agreeing to act as God's vice-regent over nature as represented by her generative organs.

4. Most controversially, the Virgin Birth has some interesting implications for the controversy about Jesus' gender. Many have pointed out before me that Jesus "became a human being" through a woman alone. In other words, His human nature comes from a woman, thus He must be in some sense a woman. In order to take another look at this, let us consider the major theological justification for ambiguity about the Virgin Birth. God did promise to raise up a descendant of David as Messiah etc. Luke and Matthew are clear about the necessary genealogies. For some purposes, Jesus must have been Joseph's son. Thus, I am inclined to believe that Joseph was Jesus' biological father contrary to the order of nature. Thus, if you could go back in time and do genetic tests, I suspect they would reveal that Joseph was Jesus' father. I also am fairly sure Jesus would be revealed to be male (as far as biology could ascertain). Yet I do not think it coincidence that God became incarnate by cooperation with a woman betrothed to a man of the lineage of David. For Creation, as Dionysius Areopagites saith, is chiefly instituted by yearning. And what would be the yearning of a woman betrothed to a man pregnant with a child not fertilized by his sperm? Well, I think it's quite likely that she would yearn to give Joseph a son that would look as much like him as possible, so he would not have to raise a stranger. Or just as Dido desired "a little Aeneas," Mary yearned to create a little version of her chief loves: God and Joseph. This is something many women want. And nature often favors this desire. But through synergy with the Holy Spirit, Mary made it possible, though nature would prevent it.

Thus, Jesus might have been biologically a man and "son of David," so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, the circumstances of his birth also make him a female. Does this, too, fulfill the Scriptures? I think so. For we know Jesus to be the second Adam and thus Jesus must share somewhat in the nature of the primal androgyne. And there's also the problem that two of the required sacrificial victims of the Temple worship must be female (most others need to be male). Thus, for a full replacement of the bloody sacrifices of the Old Covenant, Jesus, the victim and priest of the Bloodless Sacrifice, would have to be both male and female.

QEDL

The preacher I heard on Sunday described Luke's account as poetry, and I admit that I have de-emphasized the beauty and wonder of the Incarnation in favor for speculations about mechanics. It's wretched that I have to do this. But I do feel that it is important to say that there was an actual Virgin Birth. Two major themes define my theology: Christ as the surprising consummation of the ritual and moral systems of signs and actions of the Old Covenant; and Christ and the Church as a foretaste of the glorious consummation of being that lies beyond time and knowledge, when "[the saints] shall rule on earth" and "God shall be all in all." And these themes are bridged by the Cross and the Empty Tomb. But without a Virgin Birth, it seems that the Incarnation falls by the wayside. The Nativity just becomes a first step to the Cross, as the carol puts it, "Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume, Breathes a life of gathering gloom; Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, Sealed in a stone-cold tomb." Better that it be a foretaste of theosis or of synergy in the work of reconciliation.

In lieu of the closing prayer of the Holy Brothers, I would like to put here the great "Proclamation of Christmas" in the Roman Martyrology (which is sung every year at one of my former parishes).

The twenty-fifth day of December.

In the 5199th year of the creation of the world, from the time when God in the
beginning created the heavens and the earth;
the 2957th year after the flood;
the 2050th year from the birth of Abraham;
the 1510th year from Moses and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the 1032nd year from David's being anointed king;
in the 65th week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the 194th Olympiad;
the 752nd year from the foundation of the city of Rome;
the 42nd year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace;
in the 6th age of the world,

JESUS CHRIST the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming, being conceived by the Holy Spirit, and nine months having passed since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary, being made flesh.

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.



Amen.

Happy Anniversary, Gentlemen

I decided to look at recent updates to Louis Crew's fine collection of materials related to the life of ECUSA, "Do Justice." Crew linked to a rather remarkable biography of two guys who met at Trinity College in 1955 and celebrated their 50th anniversary (at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine) this year. It's a story of love, family, and faith over the last fifty years. And it contains some very wise advice about the dynamics of fratrimony (and matrimony). Warning: It contains some New England snobbery, which is characteristic of some people from my ancestral diocese. On the other hand, Episcopal churches south of South of the Border can be as they describe. But so can churches north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

O King of the Nations, both Their Desire and Their Cornerstone, who makes each thing one. Come and save mankind, whom you formed from the dust.

Reasonable Service

It's been a busy week on the Greater Anglican blogosphere. Or at least the little corners I visit. Scotist has been regaling us with his thoughts on the catechism and on the Prayer of Humble Access. I remain unconvinced that Atonement Theory is an utterly and irredeemably bad thing, since my theology is strongly driven by Christ as sacrificial victim (and victor). Gaunilo is done his exams and is moving onto some research (as am I, but I'm a climatologist after all). Geekboi has found new love, making me mildly envious. Joe and Karen have been instilling hope of generous Anglican orthodoxy in the wake of the unpleasantness. And Lutherpunk has gone into a frenzy of buying liturgical resources from the Continuum. Even Rev. Canon Dr. Harmon has been posting more "No Comment"'s and "From the Do Not Take Yourself Seriously Department"'s. Now if only the gracious mercies of Christ would keep *C and C in unity and freedom from scandal, Kizzy (filia Anastasiae of In Saecula Saeculorum) in the toddler analog of the peace which passeth all understanding, and Derek from the dual perils of transit strikes and ice storms, the Holy Brothers could sleep in peace themselves. Two days until the O Antiphons!

And Now For Something Completely Different

Last night, I finished the last volume of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle , The System of the World . These are splendid books: fine companions to my obsession with the Scientific Revolution and even better than Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost , because Stephenson mixes in a little fantasy. The end of the book is spectacular, containing two wonderful epigraphs:

The first is Romans 12:1, "I beseech you, Brethren, by the Mercies of God, that you present your bodies a Living Sacrifice, Holy, Acceptable unto God; which is your Reasonable Service ( logike latria in Greek)." It prefaces a character's visit to Newgate Prison's chapel as a prisoner condemned to death for High Treason. The service of the day involves the Ordinary of Newgate preaching the message of Salvation with a coffin lying on the altar. When I look back at the Anglican past, I shudder sometimes at the very directness of the Church of England being used as an organ of the State, "The Powers Spiritual of the Realm" as Stephenson puts it. But in an age where the sword of justice was uncommonly sharp and so many were shown no mercy, the Church of England earnestly promoted Christian hope. The character in question has been told all his life of the evil of Anglican worship and finds the descriptions of the Dissenters he hung out with as a boy were correct but he does not share their judgements entirely.

The second is the speech of the Bell-Man of St. Sepulchre's (appropriately enough) to those condemned to die at Tyburn,

"All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor Sinners, who now are going to their Death, for whom this great Bell doth toll. You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears; ask Mercy of the Lord for the Salvation of your souls through the Merits, Death, and Passion of Jesus Christ, who now sits on the right Hand of God, to make intercession for as many of you as penitently return unto Him. Lord have Mercy upon you! Christ have Mercy upon you!"

We are told that St. Sepulchre used to be near the edge of the city and would be the last church people passed in former generations before reaching the execution grounds of Smithfield and Tyburn. The name of the church (i.e. Holy Sepulchre) should remind us that the closest of all flesh to Christ are those condemned to die. The innocent among them are most like Christ. The guilty (whether repentant or unrepentant) are like the two thieves condemned at his side. Christ shed his Blood so we and no one else ever would have excuse for the vengeance of blood. Thus, I usually think of Christ's Atonement not as sacrifice to God but as a sacrifice to primal necessity, as a sacrifice to all our lusts for vengeance and for power. Christ died for our sins, because of our sins, and to our sins. So when Tookie Williams came to that chamber in San Quentin, I hope that he thought to himself, "Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingly power."

Jack Shaftoe, the condemned traitor of The System of the World , most interestingly muses on repentance thus:

But, in all seriousness, he thinks he might have repented. Something happened there, in truth. A sort of porticullis clanged down, severing the long, bad part of his life from a shorter and better part of it. It is all bound up, somehow, in that procedure of eating the coin of bread. But there is a powerful point to that rite, and he reckons it has something to do with a joining together, a sharing with everyone else who's ever accepted payment in that coinage, God's Legal Tender. In sum, Jack feels strangely one with all of Christendom this morning -- which is not by any means a familiar way for him to feel -- and Christendom seems to reciprocate those tender feelings, for all of it has turned out to see him off."

Stephenson is obsessed with money, especially as far as money is a medium of relationship between supposedly unrelated people. Money becomes a force tending toward social equality in Stephenson's Baroque world. A trend that even continues into the modern era in his earlier novels. For a condemned prisoner, money is a means toward decent treatment and even an easier death. Jack is condemned as a traitor for being a false coiner. Sometimes called the King of the Vagabonds, Jack's crime makes him a counterfeit king that falsifies a key means whereby the populace is joined to the Crown. False coining is a deep usurpation of the royal prerogative and thus was appropriately considered treason: an understanding Stephenson expounds upon implicitly throughout this book, juxtaposing Jack's execution with the Trial of the Pyx taking place across town and Jack's sentencing with the Coronation of King George I.

But Stephenson has surprising theological insight by thinking about currency as a medium of relationship and seeing Panis as Nummus. (You could go in very strange directions from here.) The Eucharist is not just about God's abundant love for us but also a sharing in the joyful love of God of Christians throughout the ages. It is an act of love from them which we, too, reciprocate, adding unceasingly to the infinite love of God. As Captain Sacrament would say, Jesus, "the image of the invisible God, is not my personal savior. Thankfully, He has saved many others whom I seek to know and be known by through Him. And this is a comfort, for there are few burdens that are not known to the communion of saints. For since they are a kingdoms of priests from all the peoples of the earth (and more, I suspect), the very fullness of humanity is seen in the Body of Christ. And to those who seek Christ earnestly, know that they're all rooting for you.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life to the honor and glory of our only Mediator and Advocate Jesus Christ with the Father and the Holy Ghost, world without end.

He Was Cut Off From the Land of the Living: A Reflection for the Scotist

Scotist has a recent piece on the debate about Open Communion (or Communion Without Baptism (CWOB)). To my surprise, he is a strong proponent of CWOB and he has been debating strenuously on Pontifications in support of that position, causing folks like Father Jim Tucker to bang their heads against the keyboard. Now I am sure that I live fairly near to the center of the CWOB movement in ECUSA, so if I were as incensed about CWOB as some, I would have a serious head injury. I also know of a variety of "good" arguments from the Scriptures for CWOB, but I have been surprised never to hear any of these arguments expounded by anyone who promotes CWOB. Thus, I must conclude that the motives behind CWOB are related to "inclusivity" run amok or the obsession with "seeker sensitivity." Scotist is the only proponent of CWOB who seems to be seriously theologizing CWOB. If you were to ask me what we should do about CWOB, I would recommend sharing blessed bread among the assembly and communing the catechumens in milk and honey. But no one asks me.

Rather than argue against Scotist, which would be tiresome and strain our patience for one another during this holy season, I rather would like to focus on the subject that is at the heart of Scotist's arguments: The Baptism of the Apostles.

Aristotelian and Euripedean Drama

Comparing Aristotelian and Euripidean drama, I am faced with the question of which model is superior. In an earlier essay, I determined that Aristotelian drama is designed to aid the functioning of civil society. Hence, Aristotelian drama is, by effect, politicized. Therefore, Aristotelian drama must be structured to bring the audience from the identification of a political problem to its solution. Such a structure is built easily from the causality, ideal characters, and episodic situations of Aristotelian drama. Yet its politicization makes Aristotelian drama a special case of drama. Euripidean drama, on the other hand, is characterized by interrupted causality, repetition with a difference (déjà vu), character development over long periods of time, and extraneous problems of plot that are resolved after long periods of time. In other words, Aristotelian drama is what commonly is considered art, and Euripidean drama does an excellent job of approximating what is commonly called life. Neither is superior to the other, since they both provide a path to a different and equally important form of imitation. Within different artistic media and within individual works of art, the debate between the Aristotelian and Euripidean models provides much power to the thematic arguments of artistic works. For indeed, these models do not simply aid arguments about the boundaries between art and life, which is an issue of solely artistic interest, but the combination of Aristotelian drama’s civic value and Euripidean drama’s individual focus allows them to depict the most difficult conflicts between human beings and their societies.

["Beginning As Is Unnatural: Examining An Alternative Model to Aristotelian Drama" -- Caelius (2001)]

One of the great exegetical quests of Christianity has been the search for the harmony of the Gospels. We want these accounts to wrap up into a neat little package, whereby we can explain why John discusses foot-washing rather than the Eucharist as instituted at the Last Supper and other sundry matters. In later years, we have invoked the different ritual practices of communities and noticed the existence of multiple apostolic theologies. When I see the Gospels, I approach them slightly differently, they are in themselves harmonies, seeking to make the very Euripedean life of Jesus Christ come into Aristotelian focus. Jesus came and dwelt among us. He lived a life, but because through Him all things were made and are in the process of restoration, everything He did was suffused with meaning and in His every action meaning was suffused. John realized this, I think, for he says, "There is much else that Jesus did. If it were to be recorded in detail, I suppose the world could not hold the books that would be written."

But living life means living out of order and out of logic. Life is a non-linear system. One of the more interesting themes of art is considering the consequences of waking up five minutes earlier or five minutes later. Your entire life could change. Being Jesus I suppose did not mean avoiding non-linearity, for such was the fullness of His human nature and the affection of God for the created order that He could do nothing else but live in that way. Being Jesus, however, meant seeking glorification in all times and seasons, a passion for being Immanuel in all things. That is why the man was born blind after all. Looking across time, we can imagine that the man was born blind according to the order of nature. But Jesus sees in the non-linearity of life the need for Himself. There can be no true harmony of the Gospels, because they are searches for harmony in themselves. The analogy between Jesus and the Holy Scriptures is quite important here, because the Torah, the Prophets, the Histories, the Epistles, and Revelation are likewise searches for harmony in the Oral Torah, the history of Israel, and the life of Jesus and the Church. Text cannot fully encompass life, so it seeks Aristotelian causality in the Euripidean mess of our lives.

And thus Jesus did not live the drama of Aristotle with each action following after another in time and space, like dominoes set into motion. Instead, He acted at the necessary instant As AKMA quotes Maurice de la Taille, "He placed Himself in the order of signs." Surely, He did. And because He placed Himself in the order of signs in the midst of human life, He let the world flow over Him and through Him that He might reveal Himself to it. He very rarely tried to control events, but drew events around Him that He might be glorified.

But when his disciples looked back at His life in the wake of the Ascension and what followed (and what came before), they were as children learning their letters. The Evangelists show that the disciples were poor readers of Jesus. And through the Holy Spirit, they improved. And because the ekklesia was a body politic, they sought to understand Jesus in normative ways, unconscously or consciously intuiting Aristotelian norms, not because Aristotle created them out of nothingness, but because Aristotle gave a name to many of the ways we organize the non-linearity of all things: the dancing photons that come to our eyes and the vibrating pressure waves that beat against our eats and all else from which the proof of our senses becomes the proof of geometry or the proof of law. Thus, when the Scotist seeks to look at the Last Supper and normative for present Eucharistic practice, he repeats the action of the Apostles and the Fathers. For norm comes from the Latin norma , cognate with the Greek gnomon the carpenter's rule that itself is connected with nous and nomos , knowledge and law. I often have wondered what Jesus drew in the sand when the woman caught in adultery was brought before him.

“What is anything but gnosis? The story of the adulterous woman is gnosis. To write in the sand is but the means of a geometer or a carpenter with his square, as of old. The word gnomic, barely used in the English language, derives from gnomon, the carpenter’s squares in which Pythagoras first saw the beauty that was number. To have Christ draw in the sand is to compare him to Pythagoras, a mystic mathematician. Yet why do we object? Is it not written, Where were you when the foundations of the earth were laid?"

[Caelius, Katabasis (2003)]

Well, as you can see, I have my suspicions. Thus, I cannot see much justification for deriving normative practice from the apparent causality of what Jesus Himself did. The order that underlies normative practice does not cohere with how Jesus acted. Normative practice is a consequence of our finitude and the necessities of being a Church Militant sojourning in the earthly city. We do not live into the full being of God that would allow us to act meaningfully (from a cosmic perspective) according to modes of Euripedean drama. This, I think, is why the Eastern Church tends to act both normatively and economically, because they recognize that law is good but imperfect.

The question of course arises. How are we to live if Jesus is not normative? Note I did not say that Jesus' actions are not normative. I said their causality cannot be inferred to be normative. When Jesus placed Himself into the order of signs, He opened up the possibility that He could reveal many things in a single action. Thus, Jesus is the she-goat offered for the involuntary transgression of Israel, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do" and the red heifer whose ashes purify us from the pollution of the grave. But likewise He is the yearling male who opened the virgin's womb (as John of Damascus put it) and became our Passover lamb. He is both the offering to Azazel and the offering to the Lord at Yom Kippur. He is the victim and He is the priest. He is the shewbread covered with frankincense. Through signs, He can cross all boundaries and break all chains. Through signs, He can appear to us to contradict Himself. But all of these signs are individually normative, because they are in accordance with the teloi that the Church has inferred for Christ. For us, Christ may become all things that are supremely fitting and accomplish those things that we believe were necessary. Thus, when we search for what is normative, we do not seek to imitate how Christ acted but why Christ acted in a fullness that must transcend time and space and our Aristotelian assumptions about causality.

Israel Circumcised from Egypt
"When Israel was a youth, I loved him; out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1).

Exodus 4 tells us that the Lord told Moses to leave Midian and return to Egypt, now that those who sought vengeance for his murder of the overseer were dead, and the Lord further said,

"While you are on the way back to Egypt, keep in mind all the portents I have given you power to show. You are to display these before Pharaoh, but I shall make him obstinate and he will not let the people go. Then tell Pharaoh that these are the words of the Lord: Israel is my firstborn son. I tell you, let my son go to worship me. Should you refuse to let him go, I shall kill your firstborn son. On the journey, while they were encamped for the night, the Lord met Moses and would have killed him but Zipporah picked up a sharp flint, cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' genitals with it, saying 'You are my blood-bridegroom.' So the Lord let Moses alone. It was on that occasion she said, 'Blood-bridegroom by circumcision.' "

(Exodus 4:19-26).

It's quite an interesting story that appears at verse 24, isn't it? My Oxonian commentators suspect that it is an independent tradition, because it really doesn't make sense that the Lord is trying to kill Moses. But why was it inserted here? It doesn't make any logical sense. And yet it does. Because it is the prologue to the liberation of Israel from Egypt, in which the plagues "make a distinction between Israel and Egypt." The editors saw a melody in the stories of the Passover. By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they saw this melody, even though the number of plagues doesn't work out (there should be eight or nine, not ten, since circumcision takes place on the eighth day). The liberation of Israel from Egypt is at its heart a circumcision narrative. Goshen is cut off from the plagues. the cattle of Egypt are slain, the cattle of Israel survive. The doors of Israel are marked with the blood of a young male and the Angel of Death passes over. Israel is brought through the Red Sea with unmoistened foot while the chariots and horses of Pharaoh are cut off from them. Unfortunately, since much of the signifying context is lost to history, it is impossible to interpret in its fullness (why did the Midianites circumcise?). But I'll try.

I would argue that the idea of Israel as a circumcised people is central to Israel's self-understanding until the present day. It is said in the Law that certain offenders are killed but others are merely "cut off," they are exiled from the assembly and from society as a foreskin from a young male. Israel is indeed continuously circumcised by dietary practices and other legal traditions, so that there is perpetually a distinction between Israel and the nations. But at the root of circumcision lies an ancient action whereby the blood and the foreskin of one's firstborn son (the firstborn element is not essential in normative practice. Jews circumcise all males. But it is essential to this case) has the power to vanquish death and seal a form of marital union greater than that sealed by sexual congress alone. And it is this action that lies at the heart of the Passover. Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone that in Hosea, Israel is not merely son but also bride, "I shall betroth you to myself, making you faithful, and you will know the Lord" (Hosea 2:20). Circumcision is inextricable from the sacral marriage. And thus the earthly prototype of the heavenly marriage banquet only could be the Passover Seder.

Simultaneous Sacraments

In the death and resurrection narratives, the Euripidean flow of life requires that the Apostles receive two sacraments nearly simultaneously: Baptism-Chrismation and Holy Eucharist.

1. Baptism-Chrismation: "Because we have died with Christ, we also believe we will live with Him." In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says that the disciples will abandon him to fulfill the words of Zechariah 13:7, "Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered." And Zechariah says further, "It will happen throughout the land that two-thirds of the people will be struck down and die, while one third of them will be left there. Then I shall pass this third through the fire. I will refine them as silver is refined and assay them as gold is assayed. They will invoke me by my name..." On one hand, it is necessary that Christ be circumcised from Israel, cut off from the people and despised and rejected of men. He is the Passover victim, after all. He is the bloody foreskin that seals the sacral marriage. On the other hand, the disciples, too, die as He dies, cutting themselves off from the assembly of the true God by abandoning Him and refusing to join Him in death. But they, too, share his grief and mourn his sufferings and death. And in one sense, for them and perhaps for us, their baptisms are somehow incomplete until their deaths because they did not embrace the full measure of His death. But they are restored to Him at his rising, and He breathes and says to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." If Christ is the Life they rejected, His Life is restored to them in the essence of life: the breath of God. And thus the baptism of repentance begun in them in John and strengthened through Christ's death is completed in the appearance of the resurrected Christ among the Apostles.

2. Holy Eucharist. People have been saying some fairly bizarre things about the Last Supper on Pontifications. But in this particular argument, we only need to understand the Last Supper as a formal and ritual offering of Jesus as the Passover victim within the walls of the city, done through the media of bread and wine, in order to point to the actual offering of Himself to the authorities outside the city in Gethsemane and to death at Golgotha. There a variety of very odd things about this action. But the key moment is the explication of the wine, "This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, shed for many." The blood of Israel's covenant was the blood of the Passover lamb and the blood of the circumcision. In the Euripedean flow of life, causality must by necessity be either interrupted or extended. The Eucharist cannot be instituted in a moment. It must be instituted over time by actions in the midst of complex politics and ritual frameworks to do what is necessary, i.e., that Christ offer Himself for the reconciliation of the worlds to God. Nor can the Apostles be baptized in a moment, because the essence of baptism cannot exist outside of the presence of the risen Christ. The Sacraments were instituted by process, but once those things by which they were instituted are accomplished, it is possible to refine their Euripedean complexity to the ordered causality of Aristotelian actions. Thus the actions that frame both Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist are simultaneous, because these sacraments are essential to one another.


Quod Erat Demonstrandum, Lupa

Gaunilo suggests the English version of the title as the ending to theological essays, probably not muddles like what I have just written. But I realize at this point it may be rather difficult to determine what the point of this all is. So let's summarize, I reject CWBO, because it makes the mysteries of Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist incomprehensible to one another. At the very heart of Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist lies the truth at in order to be in relationship with someone, we must cut ourselves off from the things in us that will inhibit that relationship. Moreover, relationship depends on sharing. When we enter into Baptism, we put away the former things of our life, as Abraham broke his father's idols, so do renounce the chains that keep us from turning into the love of God. And thereby the seed of Grace is planted within us as we enter those waters, where we not only cut ourselves off from those former things and embrace the death that is their telos , we share the grief of God for the sins of the world and the powers of darkness that slew him. We share His pain. We enter into the first labor of a young woman in Bethlehem Ephrata. We enter into a circumcision in that same city. We enter into the labor of the renovation of the worlds and are cut off from our people and the circumstances of the first birth. We are despised and rejected through our participation in Christ in those waters. And emerging from those waters, we share His joy and are reborn and are chrismated by oil that gives unto us the Holy Spirit, the essence of new life. And from that moment, we join the sacral marriage, putting flesh and blood of God's Beloved Son within us to seal the sacral marriage between Christ and the Church between us all and God. To invite all to that table without considering whether they have died with Christ and intend to live with Him is an empty thing. I don't think it's the horrid and unbelievable thing others do. But I fear that it means nothing.

Yet economy enters. Because baptism is but an Aristotelian approximation of actual dying and rising with Christ, it is possible in extremely limited cases for communion of the unbaptized to be valid. It is the Tradition of the Church that those who have suffered for the faith, though unbaptized, are baptized by their blood. But otherwise, I am very wary of CWOB. I do suspect that all who sense they are dead to sin and long for Christ, though formally unbaptized, have begun the action of baptism and commune meaningfully as the Apostles did, because I believe I have seen the fruits of redemption in such people. But all of this is economy.

And I don't find this position exclusionary as others do, because the Church in its fullness must be exclusionary. To be the people of God requires suffering and purification. On this, the Biblical witness is uncompromising. What Jesus demonstrated was not inclusion, but that there was no such thing as permanent exclusion. He ate with sinners and tax collectors, because Israel regarded them as foreskin, cut off forever from the people by their great wickedness, though their wickedness was no greater than any in Israel and perhaps less. Jesus Himself became foreskin and thus was glorified to show the error of that position, not because He sought to erase all distinction between the sacred and the profane, but because He needed to reveal that Israel was firstborn not an only child. By creating distinctions between themselves and the nations, between cleanness and uncleanness, they had set the wrong boundaries between right and wrong, between those included and excluded. The royal house of priests would be bought by blood from every tribe, language, and nation as Israel was bought by the blood of Egypt and yearling lambs. As Desmond Tutu preached recently, "Jesus did not say, ‘I if I be lifted up I will draw some’, Jesus said, ‘If I be lifted up I will draw all, all, all, all, all. Black, white, yellow, rich, poor, clever, not so clever, beautiful, not so beautiful. It’s one of the most radical things. All, all, all, all, all, all, all, all. All belong. Gay, lesbian, so-called straight. All, all are meant to be held in this incredible embrace that will not let us go. All." Yet even in this vision of a prophetic man, we still must be drawn and we still must seek Him who embraces us in the sacral marriage of the Eucharistic feast.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may live joyfully in the embrace of Him who is coming to rescue us from the desolation of Zion and the wilderness of our hearts.