On this day in 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore south of New Orleans. Here is an item from New Orleans two years later that exemplifies to me a uniquely Anglican approach to mission . The article is especially good in pointing out that the high murder rate is a pre-Katrina phenomenon. Unsurprisingly, even before Katrina, civil society in New Orleans was starting to break down.
I once went to church with a man who would pray every day (and on Sundays during the free intercessions) for all of the children in the city who had died violently.
I can't say that I do the being present with those in pain thing well. But it's something to remember when you hear about people wanting to convert the lost. What about just being with those who are feeling lost and remembering those who have passed beyond all knowledge?
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Thomas Cranmer Has Left the Building
I just talked with a colleague at work, who told me he was going to "read and inwardly digest" something I sent him. He apparently is half Catholic, half Anglican... He is not going to bother to mark and learn, I guess.
So Where Do You Go To Church?
I came home yesterday to have the following conversation with my Nigerian roommate:
CS: It's hot. [ We have no air conditioning at the moment .]
MNR: Have you been indoors all day?
CS:No, I walked to church and then home and then to work.
MNR: Oh, where do you go to church?
CS: [ ILEOS ] Episcopal Church over the way [ I wave toward downtown Laodicea ]
MNR: Oh, so you are a Pentecostal?
CS: No, I'm an Anglican.
MNR: That's kind of like Catholic, right? [ Which is exactly what most Protestants say in this country. MNR is a Baptist. The Catholics I know seem to like comparing us to Lutherans. )
CS: You must be from the Catholic part of Nigeria.
MNR: Yes. Though I might know some Anglicans, I think.
CS: I've always been told there's plenty of them in Nigeria.
_______________________________________________________
The explanation for the Pentecostal guess is the use of Episcopal. MNR never has heard of Episcopalians, so he guessed it was a new Pentecostal group, being the most likely guess for something he hasn't heard of in a Nigerian context. I did not probe for name recognition of Peter Jasper Akinola, for whom we continually pray that he may not number the godly among the lawless.
CS: It's hot. [ We have no air conditioning at the moment .]
MNR: Have you been indoors all day?
CS:No, I walked to church and then home and then to work.
MNR: Oh, where do you go to church?
CS: [ ILEOS ] Episcopal Church over the way [ I wave toward downtown Laodicea ]
MNR: Oh, so you are a Pentecostal?
CS: No, I'm an Anglican.
MNR: That's kind of like Catholic, right? [ Which is exactly what most Protestants say in this country. MNR is a Baptist. The Catholics I know seem to like comparing us to Lutherans. )
CS: You must be from the Catholic part of Nigeria.
MNR: Yes. Though I might know some Anglicans, I think.
CS: I've always been told there's plenty of them in Nigeria.
_______________________________________________________
The explanation for the Pentecostal guess is the use of Episcopal. MNR never has heard of Episcopalians, so he guessed it was a new Pentecostal group, being the most likely guess for something he hasn't heard of in a Nigerian context. I did not probe for name recognition of Peter Jasper Akinola, for whom we continually pray that he may not number the godly among the lawless.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
The Summer Is Magic
That is, it is a giant vacuum of time. I've been working for the last couple of hours or so to push a paper toward readiness for submission tomorrow. I was hoping to submit two other papers by Michaelmas. As it is, I know I have to submit one paper (and possibly do a bit of work on another one submitted at the same time) by Grosstestetide (look that one up). Unfortunately, neither of these two papers are the ones I intended to submit at the beginning of the summer. Oh, and there's my fifth project, which is paying half my stipend at present. As one of the postdocs in a related field (and a church friend) said to me recently, "You're 100% funded and 450% committed."
While I do feel like a productive graduate student (if thin and stretched like butter spread over too much bread), I have to think of my thesis research, which feels a little too ghostly at the moment for my comfort. Some of what I'm doing is related to my topic, but part of me wants to have a clear research plan on paper. But frankly I don't have the time.
While I do feel like a productive graduate student (if thin and stretched like butter spread over too much bread), I have to think of my thesis research, which feels a little too ghostly at the moment for my comfort. Some of what I'm doing is related to my topic, but part of me wants to have a clear research plan on paper. But frankly I don't have the time.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Why I Love Jude Apatow Movies
Jude Apatow may be a producer, but he's a perfect example of how a producer can have a deeper creative influence than a writer or a director. I just saw Knocked Up, a film that is foul-mouthed, bare-breasted, and drug-laced and of more redeeming social value than almost anything Hollywood makes. I thought similarly about the Forty Year Old Virgin and his television series, Freaks and Geeks (somewhat cleaner). And the reason I like his productions so much is the way they draw character out of stereotypes. In what other situation would a black bouncer after being completely lambasted by a middle-class white woman in the threshold of middle age take her aside and admit that he can't let her and her pregnant sister (Katherine Heigl) into the club because, "you're old and she's pregnant" but will also tell her that he also has to enforce the club's racial quotas, too. Or in what other movie will a little girl "google" murder and look at pictures of murder victims without quite realizing the horror and the verity of their deaths. Oddly enough, I think Apatow brings us the real world. In the real world, people do not have such spectacular scripts, but they do have to confont the very same things characters in Apatow productions do. After I watch a movie like Knocked Up, most other movies seem like fantasy, which is not a bad thing.
I also like the way these movies treat marriage. It's easy to treat marriage as the inevitable boredom and conflict after the first flushes of love, partially because the first flushes of love happen years before the typical wedding day. It's also easy to treat marriage like the picture you want the kids to see as in the early years of the television sitcom, where at worst, Mommy is an incompetent. Instead, Apatow productions portray marriage as the estate entered into by two people who grow so deeply intimate with one another that such intimacy with other people in future is likely to be impossible. And it scares them. And they act out in ways designed to maintain their independence and personhood or their sexual availability. But in the end, they decide to spend their time with the person who can drive them to their deepest emotional lows and bring them to their greatest emotional highs because the only thing that presents the illusion of a better life is chemistry, which is pathetic in the end.
OK. It's not God's love for humanity expressed in Jesus Christ. But it's a good picture of the kinds of lives we lead as imperfect creatures.
Apatow's Will Ferrell movies are pure fantasy, though.
I also like the way these movies treat marriage. It's easy to treat marriage as the inevitable boredom and conflict after the first flushes of love, partially because the first flushes of love happen years before the typical wedding day. It's also easy to treat marriage like the picture you want the kids to see as in the early years of the television sitcom, where at worst, Mommy is an incompetent. Instead, Apatow productions portray marriage as the estate entered into by two people who grow so deeply intimate with one another that such intimacy with other people in future is likely to be impossible. And it scares them. And they act out in ways designed to maintain their independence and personhood or their sexual availability. But in the end, they decide to spend their time with the person who can drive them to their deepest emotional lows and bring them to their greatest emotional highs because the only thing that presents the illusion of a better life is chemistry, which is pathetic in the end.
OK. It's not God's love for humanity expressed in Jesus Christ. But it's a good picture of the kinds of lives we lead as imperfect creatures.
Apatow's Will Ferrell movies are pure fantasy, though.
I'm Not Sure How I Feel...
About the result of the ELCA Churchwide Assembly with respect to gay clergy. I come to this from a place a little closer to the ELCA than the typical Episcopalian in the CCM era. For twelve years of my life, I lived across from one of the ELCA's great seminaries in the city that was the birthplace of Lutheranism in America. While I never haunted the library there (despite the suggestion of one of my Rectors), I did learn to ride a bike on its grounds. When I was a teenager, I traveled to South Dakota and helped out with a joint Lutheran-Episcopal ministry in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, capital of the reservation of my ancestral tribe and the seat of the U.S.'s poorest county. I'll never forget Pastor Larry Petersen, the ebullient Minnesotan, who had been willing to minister to most non-Lutheran ethnic group in South Dakota. Pastor Petersen apparently reconciled with one of the Episcopal suffragan bishops of North Dakota some years ago after learning that one of the bishops' ancestors had killed the first family of one of Petersen's ancestors during the War of the Nakota against the Corruption of Sibley (usually called the Santee Uprising).
One of the Lutheran seminary students interned at my parish for a while, and he and I served together in a variety of capacities. I'll never forget his first time as subdeacon when I must have had a look of abject horror when he made no use of the water cruet during the Preparation of the Table. He was good-natured enough to accept the gentle correction of a fifteen year old boy. I imagine he's a great pastor now.
In college, a few of our peer ministers were Lutheran, including one who is now in a Ph.D. program at an institution a reader or two of this blog will know as their own. One so clearly called to the Ministry of Word and Table, he waits for the opportunity for a Synod of the ELCA to look past his sexual orientation to his call or more properly, he waits for some Synod of the ELCA to look at the love he has for another man and see the love he has for Christ and His Church.
And a few years ago, I found myself in a suburb of Houston, Texas for a summer and found a Lutheran church within walking distance. For ten Sundays, I worshipped happily and took Communion with them, even on the one Sunday of the month given over to the praise band. What surprised me was that even in a much more conservative part of the world, an old German-American pastor slipped quite liberal sentiments on the belovedness of gays and lesbians by God in his sermons.
Reading the resolution, I have to like part of it. I like that it refers to same-sex relationships as chaste. I like that it privileges the kind of same-sex relationships that I believe are appropriate for the Christian life and indeed best suited for civil peace. What I don't like is the limitation in it, a limitation that may be inherent in the Churchwide Assembly. It prays that the law not be enforced. It doesn't try to change the law. Maybe that's a victory. Maybe, the Churchwide Assembly is saying that these particular conduct standards for rostered ministers are a matter of positive law not divine law. But I warn my Lutheran brethren that the "no enforcement" bandwagon has wobbly wheels. The Episcopal Church has been in this situation for some years. What's good for Frisco isn't good for Fresno. I guess there was no way to say, "Well, we're going to pray and study for a decade but for that time, no one is to enforce this so we can have genuine discernment." That's too bad. All we are going to see is that the synods who had sort of openly gay clergy will have really openly gay clergy, and the synods who didn't will have some scared and closeted pastors.
One of the Lutheran seminary students interned at my parish for a while, and he and I served together in a variety of capacities. I'll never forget his first time as subdeacon when I must have had a look of abject horror when he made no use of the water cruet during the Preparation of the Table. He was good-natured enough to accept the gentle correction of a fifteen year old boy. I imagine he's a great pastor now.
In college, a few of our peer ministers were Lutheran, including one who is now in a Ph.D. program at an institution a reader or two of this blog will know as their own. One so clearly called to the Ministry of Word and Table, he waits for the opportunity for a Synod of the ELCA to look past his sexual orientation to his call or more properly, he waits for some Synod of the ELCA to look at the love he has for another man and see the love he has for Christ and His Church.
And a few years ago, I found myself in a suburb of Houston, Texas for a summer and found a Lutheran church within walking distance. For ten Sundays, I worshipped happily and took Communion with them, even on the one Sunday of the month given over to the praise band. What surprised me was that even in a much more conservative part of the world, an old German-American pastor slipped quite liberal sentiments on the belovedness of gays and lesbians by God in his sermons.
Reading the resolution, I have to like part of it. I like that it refers to same-sex relationships as chaste. I like that it privileges the kind of same-sex relationships that I believe are appropriate for the Christian life and indeed best suited for civil peace. What I don't like is the limitation in it, a limitation that may be inherent in the Churchwide Assembly. It prays that the law not be enforced. It doesn't try to change the law. Maybe that's a victory. Maybe, the Churchwide Assembly is saying that these particular conduct standards for rostered ministers are a matter of positive law not divine law. But I warn my Lutheran brethren that the "no enforcement" bandwagon has wobbly wheels. The Episcopal Church has been in this situation for some years. What's good for Frisco isn't good for Fresno. I guess there was no way to say, "Well, we're going to pray and study for a decade but for that time, no one is to enforce this so we can have genuine discernment." That's too bad. All we are going to see is that the synods who had sort of openly gay clergy will have really openly gay clergy, and the synods who didn't will have some scared and closeted pastors.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Blogging Has Been Light, Will Remain Light
Last Friday, I was talking with an older friend of mine about an upcoming conference in our field (she's been attending for over twenty years). I wasn't thinking about going, because I had nothing to present. My friend was saying that I needed to go and network etc. I'm thinking that my boss is a generous soul, but I'm not wasting federal money on a networking trip, nor on presenting research that I've essentially presented at two conferences.
Fast forward to this Wednesday evening, when I am writing an abstract for this conference twenty four hours before the submission deadline. Why, you might ask. Well, because I suddenly had something new to present. So because of this new project, I expect blogging will be light.
Chapter has resolved to include Abbot Cuthbert Johnson OSB in our prayers. That is all.
Fast forward to this Wednesday evening, when I am writing an abstract for this conference twenty four hours before the submission deadline. Why, you might ask. Well, because I suddenly had something new to present. So because of this new project, I expect blogging will be light.
Chapter has resolved to include Abbot Cuthbert Johnson OSB in our prayers. That is all.
Friday, July 27, 2007
One Shots
Thursday, Bloody Thursday
I've been having some health issues lately and needed some blood taken yesterday. Anyone who knows me in real life knows this is going to be fun. I have fainted a few times after blood was taken (even pinpricks) and I even fainted in a college history of science class on Harvey's Circulation of the Blood . Well, I told my doctor and nurse this, so they had me lie down and then the nurse suggested I breathe and recite some sort of mantra to myself as the blood was being taken. Thanks to *Christopher's endorsement, I went for the Jesus Prayer. No fainting. Yes!
According to Hatchett (may be a several part series)
According to Hatchett, the Prayer of St. John Chrysostom may not be of John Chrysostom, being found in later manuscripts of his eponymous Divine Liturgy but not earlier ones. I've always thought it ended abruptly and I was right. The traditional close would translate in Prayer Book language (it's used in a Eucharistic Prayer) to: "For you are gracious, O Lover of souls and to you, we give glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
I've been having some health issues lately and needed some blood taken yesterday. Anyone who knows me in real life knows this is going to be fun. I have fainted a few times after blood was taken (even pinpricks) and I even fainted in a college history of science class on Harvey's Circulation of the Blood . Well, I told my doctor and nurse this, so they had me lie down and then the nurse suggested I breathe and recite some sort of mantra to myself as the blood was being taken. Thanks to *Christopher's endorsement, I went for the Jesus Prayer. No fainting. Yes!
According to Hatchett (may be a several part series)
According to Hatchett, the Prayer of St. John Chrysostom may not be of John Chrysostom, being found in later manuscripts of his eponymous Divine Liturgy but not earlier ones. I've always thought it ended abruptly and I was right. The traditional close would translate in Prayer Book language (it's used in a Eucharistic Prayer) to: "For you are gracious, O Lover of souls and to you, we give glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
the Pope and One Big Book
On the Pope's Latest Works
I'm quite glad that the 1962 Missal will have freer use in the future. The replacement of the Missale Romanum and the early insanity associated with the Novus Ordo somewhat alienated one of my grandfathers from the Roman Catholic Church. I'm can't exactly justify his reasons, which I suspect had something to do with his own affection for the Latin tongue and a profound hatred for the folk mass, but I think many of my Roman Catholic friends will appreciate the opportunity to arrange a regular Tridentine mass wherever they can find a priest to say it. The especial benefit lies in a rich hymnody and an integrated seasonal rhythm within the old rite that is simply lacking in the new. The problems mainly lie in worries about anti-Semitism, cultural elitism, and fears of division in the faithful of the Roman rite. I've heard complaints about how this motu proprio is just going to embolden the fundamentalist RCs. I think there's a much wider set of Roman Catholics who would appreciate the old Mass than such a statement would imply.
On the latter document released by the Pope, I echo the common sentiment of lack of surprise. My reply would have to be, "If our Orders were invalid, so would yours be." Not only do I feel supremely confident in this statement on independent grounds, I am merely paraphrasing Saepius Officio .
Indeed, I was thinking of this little phrase especially, "Finally, we would have our revered brother in Christ beware lest in expressing this judgment he do injustice not only to us but to other Christians also, and among them to his own predecessors, who surely enjoyed in an equal measure with himself the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Saepius officio also contains a lovely little summary of Anglican eucharistic theology, though I'm sure it would not go down well with certain Zwinglians in our midst.
One Big Book
That's what I have to say about M.J. Hatchett's, Commentary on the American Prayer Book , which is nearly as large as my Bible and came today. It is helpfully organized to be a companion text to the 1979 BCP. Everything is in order. Indeed, there's even commentary on the Certificate. I may read a few pages before bed each night.
I'm quite glad that the 1962 Missal will have freer use in the future. The replacement of the Missale Romanum and the early insanity associated with the Novus Ordo somewhat alienated one of my grandfathers from the Roman Catholic Church. I'm can't exactly justify his reasons, which I suspect had something to do with his own affection for the Latin tongue and a profound hatred for the folk mass, but I think many of my Roman Catholic friends will appreciate the opportunity to arrange a regular Tridentine mass wherever they can find a priest to say it. The especial benefit lies in a rich hymnody and an integrated seasonal rhythm within the old rite that is simply lacking in the new. The problems mainly lie in worries about anti-Semitism, cultural elitism, and fears of division in the faithful of the Roman rite. I've heard complaints about how this motu proprio is just going to embolden the fundamentalist RCs. I think there's a much wider set of Roman Catholics who would appreciate the old Mass than such a statement would imply.
On the latter document released by the Pope, I echo the common sentiment of lack of surprise. My reply would have to be, "If our Orders were invalid, so would yours be." Not only do I feel supremely confident in this statement on independent grounds, I am merely paraphrasing Saepius Officio .
Indeed, I was thinking of this little phrase especially, "Finally, we would have our revered brother in Christ beware lest in expressing this judgment he do injustice not only to us but to other Christians also, and among them to his own predecessors, who surely enjoyed in an equal measure with himself the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Saepius officio also contains a lovely little summary of Anglican eucharistic theology, though I'm sure it would not go down well with certain Zwinglians in our midst.
One Big Book
That's what I have to say about M.J. Hatchett's, Commentary on the American Prayer Book , which is nearly as large as my Bible and came today. It is helpfully organized to be a companion text to the 1979 BCP. Everything is in order. Indeed, there's even commentary on the Certificate. I may read a few pages before bed each night.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Conference Madness
Many academics read this blog, so let's ask a few rhetorical questions:
Does one day of your conference wrap up with a discussion of advising the government about how to execute a multibillion dollar project? Note that the government is legally obligated to listen to your advice and yet present government officials believe that it is illegal for them to consider the advice as the primary influence on decisionmaking (and keep hinting at that at every conceivable opportunity).
Do presentations involve standing in the hot sun for two and a half hours, wondering why you didn't bring sunscreen or water?
Do you find vocabulary from your ecclesial life appearing occasionally in presentations but meaning completely different things?
Yes, so that's my life at present.
Today, I also made my first operational weather forecast for another planet. On that note.
Collect for Astronomy
O Lord, who is adorned with light and whose glory the heavens declare, prevent us in all our humble inquiries into Thy works. But we especially beseech Thee to favor our probings into the waters of the Deep and to give us a clear vision of thy sublime creature [ target name ]. May the instrument be tuned to its proper settings, the target be tracked precisely, and the computers read, write, and analyze without pause or error. Bless, keep, and prosper the handiwork especially of the operator, for if we be incompetents, Lord, thou and she alone may preserve our observations unto utility. This we ask, Father, through the Word and Wisdom of all the worlds, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.
Does one day of your conference wrap up with a discussion of advising the government about how to execute a multibillion dollar project? Note that the government is legally obligated to listen to your advice and yet present government officials believe that it is illegal for them to consider the advice as the primary influence on decisionmaking (and keep hinting at that at every conceivable opportunity).
Do presentations involve standing in the hot sun for two and a half hours, wondering why you didn't bring sunscreen or water?
Do you find vocabulary from your ecclesial life appearing occasionally in presentations but meaning completely different things?
Yes, so that's my life at present.
Today, I also made my first operational weather forecast for another planet. On that note.
Collect for Astronomy
O Lord, who is adorned with light and whose glory the heavens declare, prevent us in all our humble inquiries into Thy works. But we especially beseech Thee to favor our probings into the waters of the Deep and to give us a clear vision of thy sublime creature [ target name ]. May the instrument be tuned to its proper settings, the target be tracked precisely, and the computers read, write, and analyze without pause or error. Bless, keep, and prosper the handiwork especially of the operator, for if we be incompetents, Lord, thou and she alone may preserve our observations unto utility. This we ask, Father, through the Word and Wisdom of all the worlds, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Reconciliation And Free Stuff
Free Stuff
Today, I was notified that I had won $100 of Amazon.com credit out of a random drawing from a group of Cambridge University lab monkeys. Future purchases likely will include Hatchett's commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, Modern Talking's magisterial eighth album, America , and the last Harry Potter book. Sadly, this made my day. It was a very boring day of making posters for a conference next week, documenting new model features, and monitoring terrestrial and martian weather. I really can't wait for the conference next week.
Reconciliation
Lately, the local courts have been ruling that the property of certain parishes who have forcibly sought alternative episcopal oversight actually belong to the Diocese of Los Angeles. For some in this neck of the woods (such as everyone's favorite former Orange County soccer mom, Rev. Ms. Susan Russell), this turn of events has led to a bit of gloating. Observers in the wider church wonder what the consequences of these decisions shall be in the vicinity in Fresno, though these issues will require settlement in the Supreme Court of Ionia, I mean, California.
Our bishop, Jon Bruno, Anglo-Jesuit former police officer and football player, is on record as saying that he wants to reconcile with the four parishes who are squatting on diocesan property. Kristy Harding today asks a fair question: "Yes, because a lawsuit is just the way to make them want to rejoin TEC. Is this real?" Kristy doesn't doubt +Bruno's desire to reconcile. She wonders whether it will work.
It's a good point, because reconciliation usually requires at least one side (and preferably both sides) to admit their sin against the other. I really don't see this happening in these four cases.
Lately, I've been reading the harsher parts of the Rule in which St. Benedict faces the reality of living in community, not just a godly community but one with an understanding of authority and the rule in law in the midst of disordering civilization and organizing barbarism. He has to distinguish between the venially vicious, those who because of human frailty breach the requirements of the community's life and those who actually intend harm to the community's life, to the community's being. For the former, Benedict seems inclined to the Wisdom literature and depends on deprivation and corporal punishment. For the latter, the New Testament church discipline is more of an inspiration. Warning, reproof, chastisement, and finally cautery.
It's hard to extend this model. The tyranny of bishops is something that repulses the American mind, and tyranny soon becomes anything that we consider intolerable. When does the teaching authority of a bishop rise to the level of disrespect to a parish that theologically begs to differ? No one can answer this. No Episcopal bishop therefore is an abbot. No one allows a bishop the formation privileges of an abbot, for fear they will some day seriously disagree with their bishop. O Lord, bless and keep the bishop...far away from us .
I remember the example of the aftermath of the Council of Whitby in which Saint Colman resigned the see of Lindisfarne and founded a new monastery in the west of Ireland. But I think this was Colman's admission that the Celtic party no longer could minister effectively within the Province of York. And this is the generality at the root of these situations. If the Diocese of Los Angeles takes over these properties, will they be genuine centers of life and mission or will they be bulldozed and sold (as Stand Firm commenters claim)? The ball, as far as I am concerned, is in Bishop Bruno's court.
I know what I'd do. I'd go myself quietly or send trusted friends to visit the church a few times, walk about the neighborhood, read the annual reports, and think and pray carefully about whether the Kingdom of God as a whole would be better served by this parish or a new Episcopal congregation built in the ashes of this one. If the former, I would remember that those who gave in the past gave for the work and spread of the Kingdom of God. I would go to the Rector and Vestry of the parish and draw up an agreement in which the parish admitted they had no right to do what they did and the Bishop admitted that the trust of former generations was upheld in the work of the parish. The latter case would be harder but necessary. I would give the parish a year from legal finality to vacate the property, a year for both parties to plan to start again.
It's a tricky balance between avoiding handing our disputes outside the circle of those who will judge angels and dulling the effect of the temporal sword that restrains evildoers. The balance comes when we let the courts settle the issues of civil righteousness ( meum et tuum ) but let God's concerns direct how matters will play out in the end.
Today, I was notified that I had won $100 of Amazon.com credit out of a random drawing from a group of Cambridge University lab monkeys. Future purchases likely will include Hatchett's commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, Modern Talking's magisterial eighth album, America , and the last Harry Potter book. Sadly, this made my day. It was a very boring day of making posters for a conference next week, documenting new model features, and monitoring terrestrial and martian weather. I really can't wait for the conference next week.
Reconciliation
Lately, the local courts have been ruling that the property of certain parishes who have forcibly sought alternative episcopal oversight actually belong to the Diocese of Los Angeles. For some in this neck of the woods (such as everyone's favorite former Orange County soccer mom, Rev. Ms. Susan Russell), this turn of events has led to a bit of gloating. Observers in the wider church wonder what the consequences of these decisions shall be in the vicinity in Fresno, though these issues will require settlement in the Supreme Court of Ionia, I mean, California.
Our bishop, Jon Bruno, Anglo-Jesuit former police officer and football player, is on record as saying that he wants to reconcile with the four parishes who are squatting on diocesan property. Kristy Harding today asks a fair question: "Yes, because a lawsuit is just the way to make them want to rejoin TEC. Is this real?" Kristy doesn't doubt +Bruno's desire to reconcile. She wonders whether it will work.
It's a good point, because reconciliation usually requires at least one side (and preferably both sides) to admit their sin against the other. I really don't see this happening in these four cases.
Lately, I've been reading the harsher parts of the Rule in which St. Benedict faces the reality of living in community, not just a godly community but one with an understanding of authority and the rule in law in the midst of disordering civilization and organizing barbarism. He has to distinguish between the venially vicious, those who because of human frailty breach the requirements of the community's life and those who actually intend harm to the community's life, to the community's being. For the former, Benedict seems inclined to the Wisdom literature and depends on deprivation and corporal punishment. For the latter, the New Testament church discipline is more of an inspiration. Warning, reproof, chastisement, and finally cautery.
It's hard to extend this model. The tyranny of bishops is something that repulses the American mind, and tyranny soon becomes anything that we consider intolerable. When does the teaching authority of a bishop rise to the level of disrespect to a parish that theologically begs to differ? No one can answer this. No Episcopal bishop therefore is an abbot. No one allows a bishop the formation privileges of an abbot, for fear they will some day seriously disagree with their bishop. O Lord, bless and keep the bishop...far away from us .
I remember the example of the aftermath of the Council of Whitby in which Saint Colman resigned the see of Lindisfarne and founded a new monastery in the west of Ireland. But I think this was Colman's admission that the Celtic party no longer could minister effectively within the Province of York. And this is the generality at the root of these situations. If the Diocese of Los Angeles takes over these properties, will they be genuine centers of life and mission or will they be bulldozed and sold (as Stand Firm commenters claim)? The ball, as far as I am concerned, is in Bishop Bruno's court.
I know what I'd do. I'd go myself quietly or send trusted friends to visit the church a few times, walk about the neighborhood, read the annual reports, and think and pray carefully about whether the Kingdom of God as a whole would be better served by this parish or a new Episcopal congregation built in the ashes of this one. If the former, I would remember that those who gave in the past gave for the work and spread of the Kingdom of God. I would go to the Rector and Vestry of the parish and draw up an agreement in which the parish admitted they had no right to do what they did and the Bishop admitted that the trust of former generations was upheld in the work of the parish. The latter case would be harder but necessary. I would give the parish a year from legal finality to vacate the property, a year for both parties to plan to start again.
It's a tricky balance between avoiding handing our disputes outside the circle of those who will judge angels and dulling the effect of the temporal sword that restrains evildoers. The balance comes when we let the courts settle the issues of civil righteousness ( meum et tuum ) but let God's concerns direct how matters will play out in the end.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
More Replies to the Scotist
Two Exegetical Notes
I really couldn't help but notice the priority dispute in Luke was this evening's Gospel:
This passage immediately follows the institution narrative in Luke, paralleling what I was arguing from John a couple of weeks ago. Through baptism, Paul tells us in Romans 6, we stand with Christ in his trials retroactively. Thus, we are in fellowship with the apostles who dine with Christ in the upper room in our brokenness and even in our covert treason (but the example of Judas warns us against the latter state). I just want to make it clear. Jesus dines in two different ways. There are connections between his dining practices as countless exegetes of the multiple feeding episodes have pointed out. (Oh, how do I love Bede...the loaves represent the Law and the fishes the Psalms and the Prophets, so the multiple feeding episodes are within the Old Covenant but pre-figure the Eucharistic feast.)
In yet another era of overwrought and dehumanizing imperial power issuing under the cover of republican ideals at home, it seems foul to look for militarism at the heart of the Eucharist. But it is there. The Eucharistic feast is first prefigured in the victory feast in the Valley of Kidron in Genesis 14, where Melchizedek, the King of Salem (lit. the King of Peace) brings food and wine and blesses Abraham, whose enemies God Most High had delivered into his hands. This is a spoils dividing party. But when the real loot divvying comes up, we note an odd power dynamic. The King of Sodom takes everything. Abraham only demands a share for his colleagues and compensation for his expenses. It's hard to say why exactly Abraham does this, but our best guess comes from the beginning of Genesis 15, in which the Lord assures Abraham that the Lord will reward him, that is, the Lord, not the King of Sodom, will make Abraham rich.
And thus the Eucharist has this character of a spoil-dividing party. One thing to remember is what the Disciples probably think about the Kingdom on Maundy Thursday. Most likely think Jesus will lead some supernaturally-backed institution of a righteous kingdom in Israel that will smash the Gentiles. The many priority disputes therefore aren't about who gets to head the receiving line in Heaven. Instead, they are more about who will become Governor of the Transjordan. They are dealing with Him who is both the Lord and Melchizedek, and they are acting as if Jesus is the King of Sodom about to make them rich. But He shall lead captivity captive and ascend with captives in his train. The Lord gave the word, great were the company of the preachers, and the women divided the spoils. The Kingdom turned out somewhat different than expected. The Eucharist thus is both wedding banquet and a peculiar kind of victory party.
The analogy of baptism with the military induction of a Roman soldier is a Patristic trope if I remember correctly, and it's one to remenber.
I Want To Evangelize Aliens. Of Course, I Read Ephesians.
Let me point out that Augustine in City of God obsessively hoped to the time when Christ would be all in all. And yet he also writes in the very same volumes one of the most disturbing refutations of annihiliationism ever written. I find nothing in Ephesians that unambiguously implies any Pauline belief in universal salvation, nor the good premises of a bad argument, nor the good framework under bad premises that would allow me to argue for universal salvation.
I'm All For the Cognitive Content of the Creeds, Though I Follow C.S. Lewis When It Comes to Quicunque Vult
Not really much content here. I just want to be on the record that I believe God is omnipotent etc.
Jesus Offered Himself For the Hoi Polloi Amidst A Select Company
Let us suppose that Jesus offered Himself for the hoi polloi as the Scriptures do say in anticipation of universal salvation. Then why did He not share the first Eucharistic meal with a very large crowd as an example to the Church?
If Anyone Genuinely Believes They Have Received the Holy Spirit, Let Them Be Baptized
Acts 10:44 ff. Actually, it says that if the community recognizes this fact, they should be baptized. But I really do not trust discernment of spirits among Episcopalians these days. I've heard about too many parish search committee meetings...
On Exclusion
But let's be serious here. My Rector says that in order to talk across a divide, one must understand something about the motivation of one's opponent and understand that their views usually stem from good faith and genuine concern. I don't want to psychologize Scotist personally, but his arguments have provided a very fair look at the concerns of CWOB proponents. Deirdre Good's recent writings on hospitality may come from the same place.
I recall the personally disconcerting experiences of going to Mass at a Roman Catholic church and not partaking the Body and Blood of our Lord. I spend much of the Eucharistic Prayer in a mix of adoration and righteous indignation. But I also understand that if I were to commune, I would be doing something they regard as sacrilegious. The sacrilege may be entirely imaginary, but I just imagine how I would feel if my priest just had consecrated the Host and some Roman Catholic came and did something disrespectful to it, not recognizing it as the Body of Our Lord due to their erroneous blindness to the validity of Anglican orders. But... "And you shall love your neighbor as yourself..." (I've once been rejected at the rail in an Anglican church in Ireland, where the Eucharist is limited to the confirmed. I actually had been confirmed, but I was a bit younger than a typical confirmand.)
Yet exclusion is still painful. Rejection is painful. Americans spend much of their lives being evaluated, judged, scrutinized, quantified, and put within groups and put outside them. I can understand a desire that the Church be a place of greater inclusion. And so the CWOB proponents think there is a problem when most churches say, "If you're part of the club, you can come up for some food and wine." And those not in the club feel excluded, rejected, or possibly even damned. This latter idea seems to be at the root of Scotist's arguments. If we do not admit all to Communion, we say that God rejects all we do not admit. And he argues (correctly in part), we would be wrong to say so.
But rather than seeing the Church as one more place of isolation, we would be better off seeing it as a genuine community. So much community is fictionally created by where we eat, what we buy, and where we shop. Have enough money and you can be a part of something. One interesting part of my qualifying exam was when my committee said that they enjoyed seeing my enthusiasm for what I was doing. In very few arenas of life is your desire for an end considered independently from the means with which you can achieve them. But the Church is not like that. Theoretically, we take anyone willing to stand and die with Christ (with God's help).
When we commune together in the Eucharist, we say to one another, you are not just my neighbor, you are not just my brother, you are not just a random fellow human, not just another warm body. No, we say that we are all members of the same Body. We are little bits of the same organs and the same tissue with the same awe and the same goal, whose shield and reward is the Lord's. But when we give the Eucharist to the unbaptized by open invitation, we say the same thing. We presume an intimacy we have no reason to expect. It's a bit like soliciting from a stranger some fetishized action. The stranger has no idea what they're doing, but we're receiving some sort of intimate gratification.
And the understanding of which I speak is not necessarily nor optimally an intellectual one. It is easily reduced to an understanding of a need to change clothes or to change course or to have a revolution within oneself through Jesus Christ: a way of life always understood to begin with Baptism but to continue in hope through actions summarized in the Holy Eucharist. Sure, this gradual conversion doesn't work for everyone. Sure, some likely walk this path outside the Sacraments. But we always must legislate for the general cases as Ulpian says and let God work grace anyway where we have failed to shine Christ's light.
I really couldn't help but notice the priority dispute in Luke was this evening's Gospel:
“You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
This passage immediately follows the institution narrative in Luke, paralleling what I was arguing from John a couple of weeks ago. Through baptism, Paul tells us in Romans 6, we stand with Christ in his trials retroactively. Thus, we are in fellowship with the apostles who dine with Christ in the upper room in our brokenness and even in our covert treason (but the example of Judas warns us against the latter state). I just want to make it clear. Jesus dines in two different ways. There are connections between his dining practices as countless exegetes of the multiple feeding episodes have pointed out. (Oh, how do I love Bede...the loaves represent the Law and the fishes the Psalms and the Prophets, so the multiple feeding episodes are within the Old Covenant but pre-figure the Eucharistic feast.)
In yet another era of overwrought and dehumanizing imperial power issuing under the cover of republican ideals at home, it seems foul to look for militarism at the heart of the Eucharist. But it is there. The Eucharistic feast is first prefigured in the victory feast in the Valley of Kidron in Genesis 14, where Melchizedek, the King of Salem (lit. the King of Peace) brings food and wine and blesses Abraham, whose enemies God Most High had delivered into his hands. This is a spoils dividing party. But when the real loot divvying comes up, we note an odd power dynamic. The King of Sodom takes everything. Abraham only demands a share for his colleagues and compensation for his expenses. It's hard to say why exactly Abraham does this, but our best guess comes from the beginning of Genesis 15, in which the Lord assures Abraham that the Lord will reward him, that is, the Lord, not the King of Sodom, will make Abraham rich.
And thus the Eucharist has this character of a spoil-dividing party. One thing to remember is what the Disciples probably think about the Kingdom on Maundy Thursday. Most likely think Jesus will lead some supernaturally-backed institution of a righteous kingdom in Israel that will smash the Gentiles. The many priority disputes therefore aren't about who gets to head the receiving line in Heaven. Instead, they are more about who will become Governor of the Transjordan. They are dealing with Him who is both the Lord and Melchizedek, and they are acting as if Jesus is the King of Sodom about to make them rich. But He shall lead captivity captive and ascend with captives in his train. The Lord gave the word, great were the company of the preachers, and the women divided the spoils. The Kingdom turned out somewhat different than expected. The Eucharist thus is both wedding banquet and a peculiar kind of victory party.
The analogy of baptism with the military induction of a Roman soldier is a Patristic trope if I remember correctly, and it's one to remenber.
I Want To Evangelize Aliens. Of Course, I Read Ephesians.
Let me point out that Augustine in City of God obsessively hoped to the time when Christ would be all in all. And yet he also writes in the very same volumes one of the most disturbing refutations of annihiliationism ever written. I find nothing in Ephesians that unambiguously implies any Pauline belief in universal salvation, nor the good premises of a bad argument, nor the good framework under bad premises that would allow me to argue for universal salvation.
I'm All For the Cognitive Content of the Creeds, Though I Follow C.S. Lewis When It Comes to Quicunque Vult
Not really much content here. I just want to be on the record that I believe God is omnipotent etc.
Jesus Offered Himself For the Hoi Polloi Amidst A Select Company
Let us suppose that Jesus offered Himself for the hoi polloi as the Scriptures do say in anticipation of universal salvation. Then why did He not share the first Eucharistic meal with a very large crowd as an example to the Church?
If Anyone Genuinely Believes They Have Received the Holy Spirit, Let Them Be Baptized
Acts 10:44 ff. Actually, it says that if the community recognizes this fact, they should be baptized. But I really do not trust discernment of spirits among Episcopalians these days. I've heard about too many parish search committee meetings...
On Exclusion
But let's be serious here. My Rector says that in order to talk across a divide, one must understand something about the motivation of one's opponent and understand that their views usually stem from good faith and genuine concern. I don't want to psychologize Scotist personally, but his arguments have provided a very fair look at the concerns of CWOB proponents. Deirdre Good's recent writings on hospitality may come from the same place.
I recall the personally disconcerting experiences of going to Mass at a Roman Catholic church and not partaking the Body and Blood of our Lord. I spend much of the Eucharistic Prayer in a mix of adoration and righteous indignation. But I also understand that if I were to commune, I would be doing something they regard as sacrilegious. The sacrilege may be entirely imaginary, but I just imagine how I would feel if my priest just had consecrated the Host and some Roman Catholic came and did something disrespectful to it, not recognizing it as the Body of Our Lord due to their erroneous blindness to the validity of Anglican orders. But... "And you shall love your neighbor as yourself..." (I've once been rejected at the rail in an Anglican church in Ireland, where the Eucharist is limited to the confirmed. I actually had been confirmed, but I was a bit younger than a typical confirmand.)
Yet exclusion is still painful. Rejection is painful. Americans spend much of their lives being evaluated, judged, scrutinized, quantified, and put within groups and put outside them. I can understand a desire that the Church be a place of greater inclusion. And so the CWOB proponents think there is a problem when most churches say, "If you're part of the club, you can come up for some food and wine." And those not in the club feel excluded, rejected, or possibly even damned. This latter idea seems to be at the root of Scotist's arguments. If we do not admit all to Communion, we say that God rejects all we do not admit. And he argues (correctly in part), we would be wrong to say so.
But rather than seeing the Church as one more place of isolation, we would be better off seeing it as a genuine community. So much community is fictionally created by where we eat, what we buy, and where we shop. Have enough money and you can be a part of something. One interesting part of my qualifying exam was when my committee said that they enjoyed seeing my enthusiasm for what I was doing. In very few arenas of life is your desire for an end considered independently from the means with which you can achieve them. But the Church is not like that. Theoretically, we take anyone willing to stand and die with Christ (with God's help).
When we commune together in the Eucharist, we say to one another, you are not just my neighbor, you are not just my brother, you are not just a random fellow human, not just another warm body. No, we say that we are all members of the same Body. We are little bits of the same organs and the same tissue with the same awe and the same goal, whose shield and reward is the Lord's. But when we give the Eucharist to the unbaptized by open invitation, we say the same thing. We presume an intimacy we have no reason to expect. It's a bit like soliciting from a stranger some fetishized action. The stranger has no idea what they're doing, but we're receiving some sort of intimate gratification.
And the understanding of which I speak is not necessarily nor optimally an intellectual one. It is easily reduced to an understanding of a need to change clothes or to change course or to have a revolution within oneself through Jesus Christ: a way of life always understood to begin with Baptism but to continue in hope through actions summarized in the Holy Eucharist. Sure, this gradual conversion doesn't work for everyone. Sure, some likely walk this path outside the Sacraments. But we always must legislate for the general cases as Ulpian says and let God work grace anyway where we have failed to shine Christ's light.
Another Busy Day
Trying to find data about the dust storm...and watching the model start up and start up and start up until it crashes.
But first a few news items:
I learned this morning that I was now part of something called the Canon Bell Society. Well, all right. But who was Canon Bell?
This old article in Time gave me some idea. Here's some more from Andrew Cusack.
I think Canon Bell might have some words to say about the Canon Bell Society, which basically consists of all who have donated between X and 2X bucks to a particular Episcopal organization. He also might laugh very loudly at the idea of the great Low Church parish of one of his Dioceses being a member of his Society. They, after all, still do Morning Prayer as their principal Sunday service.
On a possibly related note, I found this cri du coeur interesting.
I seem to hear this very often. What is to be done?
I also see that Scotist has been posting more on CWOB, including a post titled "Dear Caelius." I probably should wade through that.
But first a few news items:
I learned this morning that I was now part of something called the Canon Bell Society. Well, all right. But who was Canon Bell?
This old article in Time gave me some idea. Here's some more from Andrew Cusack.
I think Canon Bell might have some words to say about the Canon Bell Society, which basically consists of all who have donated between X and 2X bucks to a particular Episcopal organization. He also might laugh very loudly at the idea of the great Low Church parish of one of his Dioceses being a member of his Society. They, after all, still do Morning Prayer as their principal Sunday service.
On a possibly related note, I found this cri du coeur interesting.
I seem to hear this very often. What is to be done?
I also see that Scotist has been posting more on CWOB, including a post titled "Dear Caelius." I probably should wade through that.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
What I'm Doing These Days
Did you see this item ? Well, I've been quite excited and have been spending an hour or so per day squinting at amateur telescopic images of Mars. "That's the dust cloud? Well, that or this thing over here." Tomorrow, one of my colleagues promises me we'll try to find it from observations taken a little closer to the planet. Nor is this idle curiosity. For the first time in my life, the development of a significant weather system is not a distraction from my real work but relevant to my real work. My officemate and I are trying to develop something that might be described as [ redacted ], and the first test is scheduled late in the week.
If I'm not cruising Martian weather sites (very few exist at this point), I'm usually writing. My goal is to submit three papers this summer. I still have a way to go to being a clear scientific writer, no matter what one of my advisors might say. So every once in a while, one of my senior colleagues comes by and says, "I really didn't understand this..." and I turn into a blithering idiot. Sweat more in local peer review, bleed less in actual peer review. Well, that's what Sun Tzu would say if he were a scholar.
And if I'm not writing, I am trying to get a climate model to do my fiendish bidding. It just blew up again. Oh well. Back to work.
If I'm not cruising Martian weather sites (very few exist at this point), I'm usually writing. My goal is to submit three papers this summer. I still have a way to go to being a clear scientific writer, no matter what one of my advisors might say. So every once in a while, one of my senior colleagues comes by and says, "I really didn't understand this..." and I turn into a blithering idiot. Sweat more in local peer review, bleed less in actual peer review. Well, that's what Sun Tzu would say if he were a scholar.
And if I'm not writing, I am trying to get a climate model to do my fiendish bidding. It just blew up again. Oh well. Back to work.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Thinking Bloggers and Sacerdotal Apostasy
Thinking Bloggers
*Christopher of Betwixt and Between has done me the considerable honor of naming me as a “Thinking Blogger.” Here is some information about the award.
Most people I know have been nominated for this award, so I needed to be careful to find some people I read who have not been nominated:
BLS of the Topmost Apple : bls writes on a very large variety of subjects: music, nature, the dangers of gay and lesbian life abroad, and the usual range of matters Episcopal. Unlike many blogs I read, she always provides a consistent dose of beauty among the news and commentary, bringing balance to the soul in Plato’s accounting.
Fr. Tony Clavier : the West Virginia Parson. There’s much to object to in the writings of this West Virginia parson and former Continuing Anglican bishop. He tends to overreach. His grasp of history is not as good as he would claim, and he really would do well getting to know a few working class and lower middle class gays and lesbians so that his rhetoric about the Episcopal Church and its particularity with the chattering classes would become more nuanced. With that said, he has his mind in the right place and some days, that is all I’m searching for.
Kristy Harding She was blogging at Border Episcopalian . Now she’s at Purl and Java mixed with Housewifery. There are just some times when I'm just amazed at what comes out of her head like drawing to draw a connection between the Satyricon of Petronius and the Letter to the Romans or having dreams involving critiques of the Christian bookstore industry. Her husband Leander is fairly good as well. (If the name sounds familiar, it may be because Leander’s father is a professor at TESM etc. etc.). She and I share an earnest desire to make it work with the Episcopal Church despite occasional bouts of utter bewilderment. Although there is some thinking on matters Episcopal, this blog is really an occasional core dump by fellow Millennial humanists. They consume the kinds of media I do. Amazing.
Brian McKinlay says his blog is “not so much a blog as a scrapbook.” Well, it’s pretty as a scrapbook, but it is filled with very efficient commentary on a wide variety of subjects from art to Australian church politics to environmental policy. It’s my favorite look Down Under.
Jared Cramer of Scribere est Orare . Speaking of fun Millennials… What happens when an ordained minister of the Churches of Christ decides to transplant to the Episcopal Church and enter the ordination process? Well, God has given Jared Cramer the chance to do it, and Jared has given us the chance to find out about it. I always enjoy the results.
Sacerdotal Apostasy
When I was 14, I went through a very brief phrase of reciting the Shahada (the Muslim profession of faith) while making the sign of the Cross. I vaguely recall that I was aiming for an ideally syncretic act. (I think this was the phase in which I admitted the possibility of all religions possessing some truth but Christianity commemorating the most awesome acts of God.) About the same time, I considered writing a Eucharistic Prayer with the Al-Fatihah (the opening to the Quran) following the Sursum Corda. I’m horrified to think of it, and frankly I apologize to the entire Dar al-Islam for doing it. There are better ways to do Christian liturgy than to take something Muslims say seventeen times day and use it to open an action whose underlying form and matter they openly dispute.
When I was older and in college, I read a delightful English translation of the Quran with extensive commentary by two Pakistani imams. Among my favorite tidbits were claims that the Prophet Muhammad was the promised Paraclete and that Paul had written the contested portion of the Gospel of John (the woman taken in adultery) to license Greco-Roman sexual immorality. Read enough on the Internet and you will find extensive polemic of Christians against Muslims and vice versa . And I’ll never forget reading the Muslim version of the Crucifixion, in which Jesus is whisked magically from the Cross and Judas is substituted in his place (but he looks like Jesus). I love and respect Muslims. I believe that their prayers are heard in the same place mine are heard. But I never forget that I have deep theological disagreements with them that cut to the kerygmae of both faiths. If imams want to show up for Easter (they do in these parts), I am obligated by our father Abraham’s example to give them welcome as friends, but please excuse me if I wonder why they are showing up for that particular holiday.
So I am not sure what dismays me more: that a priest in the Diocese of Olympia thinks she can be an Episcopal priest and a practicing Muslim at the same time or that her bishop thinks it’s wonderful and is imagining the interfaith possibilities. But it doesn’t matter. A moment clearly has passed. Fr. AKMA and Fr. Clavier often speak wistfully of the long era of latitudiniarianistic Anglican comprehensiveness (say that three times fast) when those who had odd thoughts and odd behaviors kept it to themselves, whether astral travel (in AKMA’s case) or homosexuality (in Fr. Clavier’s case). In the latter case, the disingenuousness of the ecclesiastical closet has harmed the Church greatly. In the former case, I doubt it’s helped. On one hand, I remember the English bishops’ anxieties about the proposed Book of Common Prayer (1786) with its crypto-Deist and crypto-Unitarian leanings that were likely not inconsistent with the beliefs of the early American episcopate. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of those English bishops had similar leanings, but they recognized that there were boundaries to their judgment that stopped at a core of belief at the heart of the earnestness of the laity. Admit their disbelief and the jig was up. The social order depended on the upper classes paying at least lip service to lower class belief. Despite the deeply disturbing roots of their motivation, the English bishops’ objections mirrored the earnest catholic objections of Seabury, whose work in the once and future Diocese of Connecticut laid the foundations for the happy homecoming of many very confused Congregationalists amid the disputes of the early 19th century. On the other hand, there is no excuse for belief being a matter of class and of education. That kind of thinking injured an Empire and will do little good for the Body. It’s a form of Gnosticism pure and simple.
But if you are to be public about disbelief and cross the boundaries of the Faith, there should be consequences. First, easier measures and then sterner measures. At some point, someone really ought to have asked careful questions to this priest in Olympia, suggested she explore Christian tradition in search of spiritual practices that fit her gifts and pointed out strong theological incompatibilities between Christianity and Islam, helped her examine her own problems with basic Christian doctrines about Jesus’ divinity. Only if she were stubborn should canonical discipline be considered. But this would require there to be some suitable authority in the Diocese of Olympia willing to give such counsel, who does not feel like a hypocrite defending creedal orthodoxy, and who is prepared for the last resort of presentment and trial. In past times, we often called this person a bishop, possessing formation privileges over his clergy. But as long as we fail to set boundaries and honor the breach of sacerdotal apostasy, we taint all of our theological development over the last half-century with a prima facie taint of heresy. We say that there’s no difference between recognizing same-sex unions, ordaining women, and any other potentially godly innovation and denying the divinity of Christ.
Many other bloggers in the neighborhood (Postulant, Bls, *Christopher) have said similar things. But I think it’s worth repeating.
*Christopher of Betwixt and Between has done me the considerable honor of naming me as a “Thinking Blogger.” Here is some information about the award.
Most people I know have been nominated for this award, so I needed to be careful to find some people I read who have not been nominated:
BLS of the Topmost Apple : bls writes on a very large variety of subjects: music, nature, the dangers of gay and lesbian life abroad, and the usual range of matters Episcopal. Unlike many blogs I read, she always provides a consistent dose of beauty among the news and commentary, bringing balance to the soul in Plato’s accounting.
Fr. Tony Clavier : the West Virginia Parson. There’s much to object to in the writings of this West Virginia parson and former Continuing Anglican bishop. He tends to overreach. His grasp of history is not as good as he would claim, and he really would do well getting to know a few working class and lower middle class gays and lesbians so that his rhetoric about the Episcopal Church and its particularity with the chattering classes would become more nuanced. With that said, he has his mind in the right place and some days, that is all I’m searching for.
Kristy Harding She was blogging at Border Episcopalian . Now she’s at Purl and Java mixed with Housewifery. There are just some times when I'm just amazed at what comes out of her head like drawing to draw a connection between the Satyricon of Petronius and the Letter to the Romans or having dreams involving critiques of the Christian bookstore industry. Her husband Leander is fairly good as well. (If the name sounds familiar, it may be because Leander’s father is a professor at TESM etc. etc.). She and I share an earnest desire to make it work with the Episcopal Church despite occasional bouts of utter bewilderment. Although there is some thinking on matters Episcopal, this blog is really an occasional core dump by fellow Millennial humanists. They consume the kinds of media I do. Amazing.
Brian McKinlay says his blog is “not so much a blog as a scrapbook.” Well, it’s pretty as a scrapbook, but it is filled with very efficient commentary on a wide variety of subjects from art to Australian church politics to environmental policy. It’s my favorite look Down Under.
Jared Cramer of Scribere est Orare . Speaking of fun Millennials… What happens when an ordained minister of the Churches of Christ decides to transplant to the Episcopal Church and enter the ordination process? Well, God has given Jared Cramer the chance to do it, and Jared has given us the chance to find out about it. I always enjoy the results.
Sacerdotal Apostasy
When I was 14, I went through a very brief phrase of reciting the Shahada (the Muslim profession of faith) while making the sign of the Cross. I vaguely recall that I was aiming for an ideally syncretic act. (I think this was the phase in which I admitted the possibility of all religions possessing some truth but Christianity commemorating the most awesome acts of God.) About the same time, I considered writing a Eucharistic Prayer with the Al-Fatihah (the opening to the Quran) following the Sursum Corda. I’m horrified to think of it, and frankly I apologize to the entire Dar al-Islam for doing it. There are better ways to do Christian liturgy than to take something Muslims say seventeen times day and use it to open an action whose underlying form and matter they openly dispute.
When I was older and in college, I read a delightful English translation of the Quran with extensive commentary by two Pakistani imams. Among my favorite tidbits were claims that the Prophet Muhammad was the promised Paraclete and that Paul had written the contested portion of the Gospel of John (the woman taken in adultery) to license Greco-Roman sexual immorality. Read enough on the Internet and you will find extensive polemic of Christians against Muslims and vice versa . And I’ll never forget reading the Muslim version of the Crucifixion, in which Jesus is whisked magically from the Cross and Judas is substituted in his place (but he looks like Jesus). I love and respect Muslims. I believe that their prayers are heard in the same place mine are heard. But I never forget that I have deep theological disagreements with them that cut to the kerygmae of both faiths. If imams want to show up for Easter (they do in these parts), I am obligated by our father Abraham’s example to give them welcome as friends, but please excuse me if I wonder why they are showing up for that particular holiday.
So I am not sure what dismays me more: that a priest in the Diocese of Olympia thinks she can be an Episcopal priest and a practicing Muslim at the same time or that her bishop thinks it’s wonderful and is imagining the interfaith possibilities. But it doesn’t matter. A moment clearly has passed. Fr. AKMA and Fr. Clavier often speak wistfully of the long era of latitudiniarianistic Anglican comprehensiveness (say that three times fast) when those who had odd thoughts and odd behaviors kept it to themselves, whether astral travel (in AKMA’s case) or homosexuality (in Fr. Clavier’s case). In the latter case, the disingenuousness of the ecclesiastical closet has harmed the Church greatly. In the former case, I doubt it’s helped. On one hand, I remember the English bishops’ anxieties about the proposed Book of Common Prayer (1786) with its crypto-Deist and crypto-Unitarian leanings that were likely not inconsistent with the beliefs of the early American episcopate. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of those English bishops had similar leanings, but they recognized that there were boundaries to their judgment that stopped at a core of belief at the heart of the earnestness of the laity. Admit their disbelief and the jig was up. The social order depended on the upper classes paying at least lip service to lower class belief. Despite the deeply disturbing roots of their motivation, the English bishops’ objections mirrored the earnest catholic objections of Seabury, whose work in the once and future Diocese of Connecticut laid the foundations for the happy homecoming of many very confused Congregationalists amid the disputes of the early 19th century. On the other hand, there is no excuse for belief being a matter of class and of education. That kind of thinking injured an Empire and will do little good for the Body. It’s a form of Gnosticism pure and simple.
But if you are to be public about disbelief and cross the boundaries of the Faith, there should be consequences. First, easier measures and then sterner measures. At some point, someone really ought to have asked careful questions to this priest in Olympia, suggested she explore Christian tradition in search of spiritual practices that fit her gifts and pointed out strong theological incompatibilities between Christianity and Islam, helped her examine her own problems with basic Christian doctrines about Jesus’ divinity. Only if she were stubborn should canonical discipline be considered. But this would require there to be some suitable authority in the Diocese of Olympia willing to give such counsel, who does not feel like a hypocrite defending creedal orthodoxy, and who is prepared for the last resort of presentment and trial. In past times, we often called this person a bishop, possessing formation privileges over his clergy. But as long as we fail to set boundaries and honor the breach of sacerdotal apostasy, we taint all of our theological development over the last half-century with a prima facie taint of heresy. We say that there’s no difference between recognizing same-sex unions, ordaining women, and any other potentially godly innovation and denying the divinity of Christ.
Many other bloggers in the neighborhood (Postulant, Bls, *Christopher) have said similar things. But I think it’s worth repeating.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Replying to the Scotist on CWOB
Scotist graciously has provided a fairly good clarification of his comments to my recent piece on CWOB. I think he still is accusing me of heresy but at least he’s doing so in a relatively straightforward fashion by which he might readily accuse most of Christendom.
If there is anything clear from Scotist’s argument to this hard-nosed and newly minted Magister Scientiae, it is that the idea of universal salvation has gone too far. While I appreciate the deep compassion of Origen, certain 19th century New England controversialists, and our dear Scotist, I cannot be swayed by appeals to God’s irresistibility or that Christian ethics and Christian hope requires us to believe in the salvation of every ktisis . While this certainly would be a mark of success, we are unprofitable servants and creation has a few warps in the old woof. And as the Article on Predestination and Election reminds us, “Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth in us in Holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.”
This particular Article (XVII, if you’re keeping score at home) is a most salutary one in that it admits predestination and election as both a blessing and a curse. And the best way to remove this particular curse is to treat all comers as if they were potentially the elect. For Scotist, this means that he would share the Eucharist with all comers in good order. For me, it means that we do not let the past unduly bear on font or table. We are not the authors of the Apostolic Tradition , who would bar unsavory persons from the waters of regeneration, despite the acts of our Lord, who admitted prostitutes and tax collectors to his service. We do not permanently excommunicate anyone and I know of no priest in this Church who would deny the unrepentant but honestly earnest for the Lord from the Sacrament at the last. Even the strictest penitentials of the ancient Church allow for this.
What I cannot admit from the Scotist’s argument is that we are mandated to hope for something that is contrary to the promises of the Holy Scriptures, which bars in sundry places for sundry reasons certain offenders from the New Jerusalem and speaks of actual non-specific people being damned. The Gospels speak of crops burning, outer darkness, and all of the other horrors which Chrysostom relishes in his sermons. Moreover, since most of us fall into the ranks of these offenders, we are clearly offered regeneration in baptism. These offenders we are but no more. We have been washed. We have been sanctified. We have been saved through Jesus Christ. The most universal salvation for which I have evidence is those who have excuse according to the light of nature as Paul says in Romans. I, like the apostles and the Articulators, know of no other name under heaven but Jesus by which we have salvation. But I have faith that the name of Jesus is written throughout the cosmos in every blade of grass and every pulsar.
And despite my vexation with a universe in which some are not brought into the fullness of the light of Christ at the end of things, I have enough confidence in God’s justice and our freedom to realize that this may just be the way things are. Why the Fall, if God is always irresistible? Why the Destruction of the Temple, if God is always irresistible? Why every horror of human being to human being, if God is always irresistible? Why does God limit his irresistibility?
When we offer communion to the baptized, we say nothing about the verity of their election, which is between them and God. Instead, we recognize their potential for election, that these persons have made a choice to subsume their identity to that of Jesus Christ, casting their crowns in the sea and prostrating themselves before the Lamb. We already have recognized the immanence of the eschaton in that by admitting them on account of their potential for election. We have no way of judging the potential of any other class of persons, though we have no grounds to assume any particular person’s state of grace.
Scotist says, “But do we know universalism--say, the doctrine that all are saved at the end of all things--is true? I do not think so. Nevertheless, Scripture leaves room for us to hope that all might be saved.” I claim that we have no such grounds for hope and indeed quite the opposite, nor is such hope incumbent on us. We have been allowed the freedom to choose damnation and to reject God’s Grace, probably because God is equivalently free. So great is God’s love for us. Nor does denial of universal salvation need have any deleterious impact on Christian ethics. We have no justification for conversion by the sword or any analogous tactic of discrimination. We are obligated to allow all the same freedom all sentient beings have received from their Creator.
If there is anything clear from Scotist’s argument to this hard-nosed and newly minted Magister Scientiae, it is that the idea of universal salvation has gone too far. While I appreciate the deep compassion of Origen, certain 19th century New England controversialists, and our dear Scotist, I cannot be swayed by appeals to God’s irresistibility or that Christian ethics and Christian hope requires us to believe in the salvation of every ktisis . While this certainly would be a mark of success, we are unprofitable servants and creation has a few warps in the old woof. And as the Article on Predestination and Election reminds us, “Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise, as they be generally set forth in us in Holy Scripture: and, in our doings, that Will of God is to be followed, which we have expressly declared unto us in the Word of God.”
This particular Article (XVII, if you’re keeping score at home) is a most salutary one in that it admits predestination and election as both a blessing and a curse. And the best way to remove this particular curse is to treat all comers as if they were potentially the elect. For Scotist, this means that he would share the Eucharist with all comers in good order. For me, it means that we do not let the past unduly bear on font or table. We are not the authors of the Apostolic Tradition , who would bar unsavory persons from the waters of regeneration, despite the acts of our Lord, who admitted prostitutes and tax collectors to his service. We do not permanently excommunicate anyone and I know of no priest in this Church who would deny the unrepentant but honestly earnest for the Lord from the Sacrament at the last. Even the strictest penitentials of the ancient Church allow for this.
What I cannot admit from the Scotist’s argument is that we are mandated to hope for something that is contrary to the promises of the Holy Scriptures, which bars in sundry places for sundry reasons certain offenders from the New Jerusalem and speaks of actual non-specific people being damned. The Gospels speak of crops burning, outer darkness, and all of the other horrors which Chrysostom relishes in his sermons. Moreover, since most of us fall into the ranks of these offenders, we are clearly offered regeneration in baptism. These offenders we are but no more. We have been washed. We have been sanctified. We have been saved through Jesus Christ. The most universal salvation for which I have evidence is those who have excuse according to the light of nature as Paul says in Romans. I, like the apostles and the Articulators, know of no other name under heaven but Jesus by which we have salvation. But I have faith that the name of Jesus is written throughout the cosmos in every blade of grass and every pulsar.
And despite my vexation with a universe in which some are not brought into the fullness of the light of Christ at the end of things, I have enough confidence in God’s justice and our freedom to realize that this may just be the way things are. Why the Fall, if God is always irresistible? Why the Destruction of the Temple, if God is always irresistible? Why every horror of human being to human being, if God is always irresistible? Why does God limit his irresistibility?
When we offer communion to the baptized, we say nothing about the verity of their election, which is between them and God. Instead, we recognize their potential for election, that these persons have made a choice to subsume their identity to that of Jesus Christ, casting their crowns in the sea and prostrating themselves before the Lamb. We already have recognized the immanence of the eschaton in that by admitting them on account of their potential for election. We have no way of judging the potential of any other class of persons, though we have no grounds to assume any particular person’s state of grace.
Scotist says, “But do we know universalism--say, the doctrine that all are saved at the end of all things--is true? I do not think so. Nevertheless, Scripture leaves room for us to hope that all might be saved.” I claim that we have no such grounds for hope and indeed quite the opposite, nor is such hope incumbent on us. We have been allowed the freedom to choose damnation and to reject God’s Grace, probably because God is equivalently free. So great is God’s love for us. Nor does denial of universal salvation need have any deleterious impact on Christian ethics. We have no justification for conversion by the sword or any analogous tactic of discrimination. We are obligated to allow all the same freedom all sentient beings have received from their Creator.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Shuffle Meme from Anastasia
Why are you taking yet another shuffle quiz?
Song: Oh! Il signore vi manda—Cavalleria Rusticana
Composer: Pietro Mascagni
Comment: In this case, a signora is involved… I like Anastasia’s shuffle memes.
What's currently in your fridge?
Song: El Condor Pasa
Artist: DJ Sammy
Comment: Not sure what this song is about. I wish there was something in my fridge that tasted as good as this sounds.
Your biggest nightmare?
Song: This Thing Called Love
Artist: Queen
Comment: It has kept me up at night, but I wouldn’t call it a nightmare.
What place would you like to visit?
Song: Grievous and the Droids –Star Wars Episode III
Composer: John Williams
Comment: I have the soundtrack and yet have not seen the movie. I’m not sure Grievous and Droids sound like fun folks to visit.
A reason to commit suicide?
Song: Cry Ophelia
Artist: Adam Cohen
Comment: Well, that’s a funny coincidence, “You say you want to live your life without tears, but we’ve been trying to do that for thousands of years.”
Why are we here?
Song: Ein Madchen oder Weibchen
Composer: W.A. Mozart
Comment: To drink wine and marry. My shuffle is a hedonist.
Something you never dared to say to anyone...?
Song: Cautioners
Artist: Jimmy Eat World
Comment: I’ve never broken up with anyone…
One thing the world really doesn't need?
Song: Vouchsafe, O Lord, To Keep Us This Day Without Sin: Dettinger Te Deum
Composer: G.F. Handel
Comment: Sin. Too late.
What's your biggest unfulfilled wish?
Song: If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
Artist: Sting
Comment: Why do I keep getting depressing love songs?
If you could invent something, what would it be?
Song: All That See Him Laugh Him to Scorn
Composer: G.F. Handel
Comment: A monitor of the attitude of other people toward me.
The last thing you say before you die?
Song: Come Holy Ghost, Our Souls Inspire
Artist: Edward Higginbottom
Comment: I really would like to go out this way, though the Gloria In Excelsis is easier to remember.
What's your destiny?
Song: Take On Me
Artist: A-ha
Comment: To race motorcycles competitively. That’s a joke.
What do you do when you're alone in an elevator?
Song: Leto Atreides II—Children of Dune
Composer: Brian Tyler
Comment: I spawn children with lucid connections to their ancestral memories and other barely natural abilities.
Why do people go fishing?
Song: Who Wants to Live Forever
Artist: Queen
Comment: Fishing is exceptionally dangerous, especially in the Grand Banks and such.
What would you do with your slaves?
Song: Fecit potentiam
Composer: John Rutter
Comment: The Lord would free any slaves I had. “He hath shown strength with his arm” is an allusion to the Exodus most of all, for the Lord “hath brought you out with a mighty hand from Egypt.”
Is there a man on the moon?
Song: Drive In, Drive Out
Artist: Dave Matthews Band
Comment: Only if you’re high.
What does hell look like?
Song: Pavane, Op. 50
Artist: Gabriel Faure
Comment: Hell is a so-so add-on to a good Requiem.
About what would you like to write a book?
Song: Grace (Anxiety)
Artist: Louderbach
Comment: Martin Luther always will surpass me on that subject…
The best thing ever is...?
Song: Hammer To Fall
Artist: Queen
Comment: I think this song is about the end of the world or just death or living in expectation of death. So the best thing ever is death. This is sounding like Anastasia’s blog.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Song: Saltwater
Artist: Chicane
Comment: To swim in the Atlantic Ocean off Ireland. It’s cold but the scenery is beautiful.
Why do you listen to music?
Song: English Pavan
Composer: Philip and Alan Crumpler
Comment: Because I like slow dances…or Hell…
What do you do when you're alone and nobody's watching?
Song: Psalm 150
Artist: John Rutter
Comment: True.
Why are other people so stupid?
Song: Have you seen me lately?
Artist: Counting Crows
Comment: Because your girlfriend thought you were cheating on tour, so she dumped you, and you keep singing about her or to her.
Last thing you ate?
Song: My apologies.
Artist: J-Tron
Comment: J-Tron is a veggie burrito. (It’s a very good veggie burrito).
Why is grass green?
Song: Et misericordia
Artist: John Rutter
Comment: By the mercies of God expressed through evolution by natural selection.
Your phone is ringing, but who's on the other end?
Song: He That Dwelleth in Heaven
Composer: G.F. Handel
Comment: God, and He’s laughing.
What should you stop doing?
Song: Battle of Little Round Top
Composer: Randy Edelman
Comment: Stop fighting the Civil War. That’s good advice for everyone in this country.
A word of advice to the readers of this quiz?
Song: Love comes again
Artist: Tiesto featuring BT
Comment: So don’t give up.
Song: Oh! Il signore vi manda—Cavalleria Rusticana
Composer: Pietro Mascagni
Comment: In this case, a signora is involved… I like Anastasia’s shuffle memes.
What's currently in your fridge?
Song: El Condor Pasa
Artist: DJ Sammy
Comment: Not sure what this song is about. I wish there was something in my fridge that tasted as good as this sounds.
Your biggest nightmare?
Song: This Thing Called Love
Artist: Queen
Comment: It has kept me up at night, but I wouldn’t call it a nightmare.
What place would you like to visit?
Song: Grievous and the Droids –Star Wars Episode III
Composer: John Williams
Comment: I have the soundtrack and yet have not seen the movie. I’m not sure Grievous and Droids sound like fun folks to visit.
A reason to commit suicide?
Song: Cry Ophelia
Artist: Adam Cohen
Comment: Well, that’s a funny coincidence, “You say you want to live your life without tears, but we’ve been trying to do that for thousands of years.”
Why are we here?
Song: Ein Madchen oder Weibchen
Composer: W.A. Mozart
Comment: To drink wine and marry. My shuffle is a hedonist.
Something you never dared to say to anyone...?
Song: Cautioners
Artist: Jimmy Eat World
Comment: I’ve never broken up with anyone…
One thing the world really doesn't need?
Song: Vouchsafe, O Lord, To Keep Us This Day Without Sin: Dettinger Te Deum
Composer: G.F. Handel
Comment: Sin. Too late.
What's your biggest unfulfilled wish?
Song: If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
Artist: Sting
Comment: Why do I keep getting depressing love songs?
If you could invent something, what would it be?
Song: All That See Him Laugh Him to Scorn
Composer: G.F. Handel
Comment: A monitor of the attitude of other people toward me.
The last thing you say before you die?
Song: Come Holy Ghost, Our Souls Inspire
Artist: Edward Higginbottom
Comment: I really would like to go out this way, though the Gloria In Excelsis is easier to remember.
What's your destiny?
Song: Take On Me
Artist: A-ha
Comment: To race motorcycles competitively. That’s a joke.
What do you do when you're alone in an elevator?
Song: Leto Atreides II—Children of Dune
Composer: Brian Tyler
Comment: I spawn children with lucid connections to their ancestral memories and other barely natural abilities.
Why do people go fishing?
Song: Who Wants to Live Forever
Artist: Queen
Comment: Fishing is exceptionally dangerous, especially in the Grand Banks and such.
What would you do with your slaves?
Song: Fecit potentiam
Composer: John Rutter
Comment: The Lord would free any slaves I had. “He hath shown strength with his arm” is an allusion to the Exodus most of all, for the Lord “hath brought you out with a mighty hand from Egypt.”
Is there a man on the moon?
Song: Drive In, Drive Out
Artist: Dave Matthews Band
Comment: Only if you’re high.
What does hell look like?
Song: Pavane, Op. 50
Artist: Gabriel Faure
Comment: Hell is a so-so add-on to a good Requiem.
About what would you like to write a book?
Song: Grace (Anxiety)
Artist: Louderbach
Comment: Martin Luther always will surpass me on that subject…
The best thing ever is...?
Song: Hammer To Fall
Artist: Queen
Comment: I think this song is about the end of the world or just death or living in expectation of death. So the best thing ever is death. This is sounding like Anastasia’s blog.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Song: Saltwater
Artist: Chicane
Comment: To swim in the Atlantic Ocean off Ireland. It’s cold but the scenery is beautiful.
Why do you listen to music?
Song: English Pavan
Composer: Philip and Alan Crumpler
Comment: Because I like slow dances…or Hell…
What do you do when you're alone and nobody's watching?
Song: Psalm 150
Artist: John Rutter
Comment: True.
Why are other people so stupid?
Song: Have you seen me lately?
Artist: Counting Crows
Comment: Because your girlfriend thought you were cheating on tour, so she dumped you, and you keep singing about her or to her.
Last thing you ate?
Song: My apologies.
Artist: J-Tron
Comment: J-Tron is a veggie burrito. (It’s a very good veggie burrito).
Why is grass green?
Song: Et misericordia
Artist: John Rutter
Comment: By the mercies of God expressed through evolution by natural selection.
Your phone is ringing, but who's on the other end?
Song: He That Dwelleth in Heaven
Composer: G.F. Handel
Comment: God, and He’s laughing.
What should you stop doing?
Song: Battle of Little Round Top
Composer: Randy Edelman
Comment: Stop fighting the Civil War. That’s good advice for everyone in this country.
A word of advice to the readers of this quiz?
Song: Love comes again
Artist: Tiesto featuring BT
Comment: So don’t give up.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Communion Without Baptism (CWOB)
Rev. Dr. Mom asked in the comments to my last entry what my thoughts on CWOB were. Well, as devoted readers of the blog probably know, I am agin’ it. I vaguely remember some conflict with the Scotist on the question, but I suspect I said little at the time that a diocesan committee will not hear provided that it is listening. But let’s take another look for the sake of completeness.
Rev. Dr. Mom says,
Every Sunday, I hear in the little break for announcements between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Table these words (or some variant), “Whoever you are and wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcome to receive the bread and wine made holy. We’re very glad you’re here.” This invitation is part and parcel of the charism of my present parish. Indeed, it might be said to be our creedal statement, since it and no other creed is said between the Sermon and the Sursum Corda. I can say with confidence that it has resulted in congregational growth. ILEOS c. 1975 was a sleepy suburban church in a small city with three other Episcopal churches. It had one principal Sunday service and an ASA you would expect. Today, it stands on the threshold of joining the very small club of Episcopal megachurches with active programs of education and social action, serving an ASA of 1400 and an active membership that drives from other states to be there. It has two principal Sunday services and two reasonably attended auxiliary services on Sunday and one on Saturday evenings. It has Daily Eucharist. Several times of the year, there are baptisms and welcoming of new members, never two or three at a time but several to a couple of dozen baptisms at once and dozens of new already baptized members. I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but from any quantitative standpoint, I belong to a healthy and growing parish. We even have a surprisingly large number of members in the 20-40 age range. There are still three other Episcopal churches in town. All remain, though I only have any knowledge about one of them.
But is CWOB necessary for growth? Well, talk to Christ Church, Plano or St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Ft. Worth, who have managed to compete quite well in the very competitive ecclesial environment of North Texas by bringing grounding and tradition to the conservative theology of their neighbors. Growth always has been a matter of the market. What plays well in Hollywoodland might not play so well elsewhere. I think it’s far more important to ask how growth and one’s values can be mutually inclusive. It very much reminds me of the old Sunday School question of whether to celebrate the Eucharist with pizza and strawberry shakes or some other food and beverage pairing. Well, all right, if the church’s purpose is to draw hordes of hungry nine year olds. But isn’t it more important to celebrate with some of the basic of most healthy foods of human civilization, the very same food and drink over which Jesus chose to give thanksgiving? Isn’t the basicness of bread and wine most representative of Body and Blood? These aren’t questions always easily answered. Imagine answering them in 14th century Greenland, where wine needed to be shipped from long distances through dangerous seas. Jared Diamon in his recent book, Collapse suggests that the Greenlanders should have been more flexible about many aspects of their medieval Christian lifestyle, which he argues doomed them to failure. How flexible must our values be if we are to grow and survive?
Looking at the Justifications
One very helpful approach to looking at CWOB is to look at its theological justification. There has been much talk on the blogs about theological justification lately. I think *Christopher is right to say that much of what we call theology traditionally is a formalization of what has arisen organically (if that’s a fair statement of his view.) But while certain things arise organically, they develop their theology simultaneously.
At the risk of making a false etiology, I’ll tell you where I think CWOB starts theologically. I’m sure part of it lies in the liturgical reforms in the era of Vatican II when there was a great deal of interest in the Eucharist’s origins as a more substantial and communal meal. Much was read again in the Gospels about Jesus’ table practices and Jesus’ feeding moments. Wait, some said. Jesus dined with sinners and outcasts. Jesus fed thousands indiscriminately. Jesus welcomed everyone to his table. Why shouldn’t we do likewise?
Others found inspiration in the prophetic tradition. The 1979 BCP marked the re-introduction of Easter Vigil to our little corner of Anglicanism. One of the suggested readings is Isaiah 55:1-11 (1-2 follows):
For these thinkers, the Eucharist is the eschatological feast freely offered to all without distinction.
Today, I heard a new argument. It focuses on the story of the Prodigal Son, in which the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a father’s unconditional forgiveness of a wayward son. The argument then justified offering the Eucharist (presumably like the fatted calf) as the birthright of all who breathe.
Challenging the Justifications
It’s not hard to get into a Scriptural battle with the proponents of CWOB. But it is hard to agree on a set of rules. Argue too strenuously that eschatological feeding practices belong to the eschaton and you will be accused of denying God’s reign in the here and now or even worse be condemned as a Neo-Platonic despiser of the body and creation. Start asking about the business of the wedding garment of Matthew 22 and you will be told that all the best scholars think Matthew added the last bit. Jesus never said anything so cruel. Mention Paul’s concerns in 1 Corinthians 11 about discerning the Body and you might hear an earful of how Paul made up Christianity, distorted everything, really didn’t get Jesus etc. Or they might say that they don’t believe in Original Sin, because it makes God too vengeful and cruel. I think of Ezekiel, “O House of Israel, why do you say I am unjust? Are you not the ones who are unjust?”
My alternative response is to look at why the first Eucharist was so exclusive (as far as we know from the Gospels). In John 6, Jesus teaches his disciples that they will have to eat and drink Him in order to have eternal life. He says this in the synagogue at Capernaum (his home base as it were) and many of his disciples say, “This is more than we can stand? How can anyone listen to such talk?” And they stop going around with Him, but the Twelve stick around. John says nothing about the institution of the Eucharist in his Passover narrative. He doesn’t have to. In John’s narrative, this moment at Capernaum is the institution of the Eucharist without breaking out the bread and wine for emphasis. Jesus even at this moment reveals that one of the Twelve will betray Him. Everything is in fast forward. But this incident sets forth an important principle: Eating with Jesus is controversial because it is open to everyone, but eating Jesus is a much different matter than eating with Jesus. In every generation, eating Jesus requires a deep sacrifice. In the generation of the apostles, it required one to go along with the idea that Jesus was in union with God, that He would die a humiliating death (and they might, too), that cannibalism was lawful in a limited and metaphorical sense.
The idea of CWOB challenges us to think about how we eat with those outside the Body. Jesus’ table practices are lessons to us about how to engage with the world. I wonder what people would think if I started going out to the Sunset Strip at 3 AM with hot meals. But as in the Prodigal Son, eating Jesus or eating the fatted calf requires us to embrace difficult things, to recognize some infirmity in our nature, to recognize that as much as God loves us, He still waits for us to embrace that love in its fullness. Like the Prodigal Son, we, too, must go and say, “Father, I have sinner before God and you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Is it any wonder that in some traditions, the newly baptized is clothed in white, washed with water, anointed with oil, and given a lighted candle. We might as well put a ring on their finger, for each baptized person is a Prodigal Son (or Daughter) and a well-beloved dinner guest, extended the unmerited and utterly inexplicable Grace of God. So Rev. Dr. Mom, I think you’re right to worry how the meaning of Baptism and the Eucharist is undermined by CWOB. And if I were on your committee, I would ask those enthusiastic about CWOB whether they think there is any difference between eating with Jesus and eating Jesus.
Rev. Dr. Mom says,
I would love to hear more of what you think of CWOB. I'm on a diocesan committee now that is studying (or trying to) the effects of the practice. Most of those on the committee believe it "essential for growth". I, however, am concerned not only with undermining the Eucharist but also with making our teaching about baptism irrelevant. Thoughts?
Every Sunday, I hear in the little break for announcements between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Table these words (or some variant), “Whoever you are and wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcome to receive the bread and wine made holy. We’re very glad you’re here.” This invitation is part and parcel of the charism of my present parish. Indeed, it might be said to be our creedal statement, since it and no other creed is said between the Sermon and the Sursum Corda. I can say with confidence that it has resulted in congregational growth. ILEOS c. 1975 was a sleepy suburban church in a small city with three other Episcopal churches. It had one principal Sunday service and an ASA you would expect. Today, it stands on the threshold of joining the very small club of Episcopal megachurches with active programs of education and social action, serving an ASA of 1400 and an active membership that drives from other states to be there. It has two principal Sunday services and two reasonably attended auxiliary services on Sunday and one on Saturday evenings. It has Daily Eucharist. Several times of the year, there are baptisms and welcoming of new members, never two or three at a time but several to a couple of dozen baptisms at once and dozens of new already baptized members. I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but from any quantitative standpoint, I belong to a healthy and growing parish. We even have a surprisingly large number of members in the 20-40 age range. There are still three other Episcopal churches in town. All remain, though I only have any knowledge about one of them.
But is CWOB necessary for growth? Well, talk to Christ Church, Plano or St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Ft. Worth, who have managed to compete quite well in the very competitive ecclesial environment of North Texas by bringing grounding and tradition to the conservative theology of their neighbors. Growth always has been a matter of the market. What plays well in Hollywoodland might not play so well elsewhere. I think it’s far more important to ask how growth and one’s values can be mutually inclusive. It very much reminds me of the old Sunday School question of whether to celebrate the Eucharist with pizza and strawberry shakes or some other food and beverage pairing. Well, all right, if the church’s purpose is to draw hordes of hungry nine year olds. But isn’t it more important to celebrate with some of the basic of most healthy foods of human civilization, the very same food and drink over which Jesus chose to give thanksgiving? Isn’t the basicness of bread and wine most representative of Body and Blood? These aren’t questions always easily answered. Imagine answering them in 14th century Greenland, where wine needed to be shipped from long distances through dangerous seas. Jared Diamon in his recent book, Collapse suggests that the Greenlanders should have been more flexible about many aspects of their medieval Christian lifestyle, which he argues doomed them to failure. How flexible must our values be if we are to grow and survive?
Looking at the Justifications
One very helpful approach to looking at CWOB is to look at its theological justification. There has been much talk on the blogs about theological justification lately. I think *Christopher is right to say that much of what we call theology traditionally is a formalization of what has arisen organically (if that’s a fair statement of his view.) But while certain things arise organically, they develop their theology simultaneously.
At the risk of making a false etiology, I’ll tell you where I think CWOB starts theologically. I’m sure part of it lies in the liturgical reforms in the era of Vatican II when there was a great deal of interest in the Eucharist’s origins as a more substantial and communal meal. Much was read again in the Gospels about Jesus’ table practices and Jesus’ feeding moments. Wait, some said. Jesus dined with sinners and outcasts. Jesus fed thousands indiscriminately. Jesus welcomed everyone to his table. Why shouldn’t we do likewise?
Others found inspiration in the prophetic tradition. The 1979 BCP marked the re-introduction of Easter Vigil to our little corner of Anglicanism. One of the suggested readings is Isaiah 55:1-11 (1-2 follows):
“Come for water, all who are thirsty; though you have no money, come, buy grain and eat; come, buy wine and milk, not for money, not for a price. Why spend your money for what is not food, your earnings on what fails to satisfy? Listen to me and you will fare well, you will enjoy the fat of the land.”
For these thinkers, the Eucharist is the eschatological feast freely offered to all without distinction.
Today, I heard a new argument. It focuses on the story of the Prodigal Son, in which the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a father’s unconditional forgiveness of a wayward son. The argument then justified offering the Eucharist (presumably like the fatted calf) as the birthright of all who breathe.
Challenging the Justifications
It’s not hard to get into a Scriptural battle with the proponents of CWOB. But it is hard to agree on a set of rules. Argue too strenuously that eschatological feeding practices belong to the eschaton and you will be accused of denying God’s reign in the here and now or even worse be condemned as a Neo-Platonic despiser of the body and creation. Start asking about the business of the wedding garment of Matthew 22 and you will be told that all the best scholars think Matthew added the last bit. Jesus never said anything so cruel. Mention Paul’s concerns in 1 Corinthians 11 about discerning the Body and you might hear an earful of how Paul made up Christianity, distorted everything, really didn’t get Jesus etc. Or they might say that they don’t believe in Original Sin, because it makes God too vengeful and cruel. I think of Ezekiel, “O House of Israel, why do you say I am unjust? Are you not the ones who are unjust?”
My alternative response is to look at why the first Eucharist was so exclusive (as far as we know from the Gospels). In John 6, Jesus teaches his disciples that they will have to eat and drink Him in order to have eternal life. He says this in the synagogue at Capernaum (his home base as it were) and many of his disciples say, “This is more than we can stand? How can anyone listen to such talk?” And they stop going around with Him, but the Twelve stick around. John says nothing about the institution of the Eucharist in his Passover narrative. He doesn’t have to. In John’s narrative, this moment at Capernaum is the institution of the Eucharist without breaking out the bread and wine for emphasis. Jesus even at this moment reveals that one of the Twelve will betray Him. Everything is in fast forward. But this incident sets forth an important principle: Eating with Jesus is controversial because it is open to everyone, but eating Jesus is a much different matter than eating with Jesus. In every generation, eating Jesus requires a deep sacrifice. In the generation of the apostles, it required one to go along with the idea that Jesus was in union with God, that He would die a humiliating death (and they might, too), that cannibalism was lawful in a limited and metaphorical sense.
The idea of CWOB challenges us to think about how we eat with those outside the Body. Jesus’ table practices are lessons to us about how to engage with the world. I wonder what people would think if I started going out to the Sunset Strip at 3 AM with hot meals. But as in the Prodigal Son, eating Jesus or eating the fatted calf requires us to embrace difficult things, to recognize some infirmity in our nature, to recognize that as much as God loves us, He still waits for us to embrace that love in its fullness. Like the Prodigal Son, we, too, must go and say, “Father, I have sinner before God and you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Is it any wonder that in some traditions, the newly baptized is clothed in white, washed with water, anointed with oil, and given a lighted candle. We might as well put a ring on their finger, for each baptized person is a Prodigal Son (or Daughter) and a well-beloved dinner guest, extended the unmerited and utterly inexplicable Grace of God. So Rev. Dr. Mom, I think you’re right to worry how the meaning of Baptism and the Eucharist is undermined by CWOB. And if I were on your committee, I would ask those enthusiastic about CWOB whether they think there is any difference between eating with Jesus and eating Jesus.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
De Iuventute in Ecclesia
Recently, my fellow parishioner, Hugo Schwyzer, provided a review of Youth Sunday at ILEOS.
This passage particularly struck me:
Hugo goes on to say that this was a daring thing to say at the pulpit of ILEOS. In retrospect, I guess it was. At the time, I was thinking: “This parish puts more resources into children and youth work than any parish I’ve ever seen, but there is clearly something deeply lacking with our catechesis.” Hugo is the nice stolid ILEOS Low Churchman, and I am the nice stolid ILEOS High Churchman, but Hugo knows the facts on the ground better than I.
But to be fair, this is a general problem. I saw it in my much more moderate parish back East. In my third confirmation class (don’t ask), Providence had thrown together a variety of upper middle class teenagers with one thing in common: they didn’t want to be there. It’s a common rite of passage in the Episcopal Church. Confirmation becomes a get out of church free card, unless there are special circumstances (clergy children). So, of course, you are going to have a few atheists. One of my classmates was quite open about it. I was horrified.
It wasn’t until about two years later when I was put in charge of preparing the parents of infants and young children for their children’s baptisms that I understood why it was difficult to instill solid Christian belief of some kind in Episcopal youth. It wasn’t MTV, materialism, or simple adolescent rebellion, because the upper middle class children of the Baby Boomers aren’t rebellious. Most of us buy into the idea that if we get into the right college, we’ll sign the same social contract that brought our parents prosperity and never worry again. Thus, we spend a tremendous amount of effort and anxiety on the process of getting into a good college. Past generations spent some of this time hoping for conversion experiences, looking for signs of election, agonizing over their salvation, considering religious vocations, or becoming involved in pietistic practices.
And it wasn’t just so much of our existential angst did not turn to the things of God. Looking at the new parents of our congregation, it was fairly clear that most of them wanted their children baptized for perfunctory reasons or else to give them a values system of some sort. I shocked these sorts deeply without even intending it. I’ll never forget one poor woman who was undoubtedly shocked when I suggested that Satan could be something more than a metaphor. The look she gave me is what I expect to receive at an accidental first contact with an alien species, “You’re not from this planet, are you? Have I even heard of your planet?” There were exceptions. I still remember one couple in particular who I think were quite happy that someone was taking baptism seriously. A couple of years later, I was sorting a batch of clothes at a local thrift store when I kept coming across fine designer labels. Those were appreciated, since they could be sold at a premium and the fashionably thrifty ladies of the neighborhood still would consider them a bargain. They were hand-me-downs but in good shape. A couple of stray nametags in the clothes revealed that I knew the donors quite well.
We very much follow the faith of our fathers and mothers. I trace my affinity with gay and lesbian Christians to my parents taking me to have dinner with one of our fellow parishioners and his partner back in the mid 1980s. I don’t remember much, but I do remember that the partner was the first person I knew to die of AIDS. Of course, it’s not foolproof, my mother will give me the accidental first contact look every once in a while for a variety of reasons. But this is the same mother who read me The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and hinted at the allegory. My father likes to think himself as a weaker brother, but I sometimes am amazed at some of the things his faith has led him to do (and my mother has supported him despite her complete vexation with the facere of the Church.). But if you see your parents not taking these things seriously, living hypocritically, clearly ridiculing deep faith, expressing constant doubts at the Creeds of the Church, constantly embracing the latest liberal program for doctrinal reform, or just going to church for some sort of social reason, you’re not likely to see anything worthwhile about the Christian faith or long for relationship with God.
Clergy and other important adults at church also can be a liability in this regard. I wonder seriously if we are not presently undermining the meaning of the Eucharist for many, not by our CWOB practices, but with some of the clergy’s constant and somewhat vague attacks on “substitutionary atonement,” by which they seem to cover almost every explication of the Cross as a means of Grace. We speak of the bread and wine made holy and use the ancient words of Institution but yet shy away from singing ever again in English, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain and hath redeemed us to God, to God by his blood, to receive honor and riches and wisdom and strength and glory and blessing…” How does the Eucharist have meaning outside the saving work of the Cross? I’m not even talking about ILEOS’ stripped down baptismal liturgy, where I think we stumble at the threshold by not shocking the adults’ systems enough with the commitment they are undertaking.
I don’t know about some of these things. But I do know that the catechesis we give children is not just what we tell them in formal settings. Even in a less doctrinally innovative church than ILEOS, our best hope of raising youth to a mature faith is showing forth with our lives what we profess with our lips on Sunday mornings. I don’t need to tell this to the parents who read this blog. From what I hear of your parenting, you will be inspirations for my own. But I think it’s something some of you might need to consider as clergy or prominent adults in the congregation. How do the youth in the parish see you? How do they see their parents? Don’t always ask what you are doing for youth. Ask instead what the youth see you doing.
This passage particularly struck me:
“She spoke of how she’d gone through our Seekers confirmation program (which I co-led from 2001 until this year) as an agnostic who flirted with atheism. As she put it, she got confirmed at the end of her frosh year in order to honor the eight-month process of Seekers, not out of any newfound certainty in her faith. Interestingly, she reported from the pulpit on Sunday that she has — at last — begun to experience a sudden openness to God. After years and years of living by the [ILEOS] creed of the “gospel of social justice”, the creed that suggests that “Jesus was a heckuva nice guy and an important advocate for change”, she’s begun to find a more evangelical faith. She found it through her school’s gospel choir, and in the rhythm and emotion of gospel, she’s opened herself up to the possibility that Jesus was and is more than a human role model.”
Hugo goes on to say that this was a daring thing to say at the pulpit of ILEOS. In retrospect, I guess it was. At the time, I was thinking: “This parish puts more resources into children and youth work than any parish I’ve ever seen, but there is clearly something deeply lacking with our catechesis.” Hugo is the nice stolid ILEOS Low Churchman, and I am the nice stolid ILEOS High Churchman, but Hugo knows the facts on the ground better than I.
But to be fair, this is a general problem. I saw it in my much more moderate parish back East. In my third confirmation class (don’t ask), Providence had thrown together a variety of upper middle class teenagers with one thing in common: they didn’t want to be there. It’s a common rite of passage in the Episcopal Church. Confirmation becomes a get out of church free card, unless there are special circumstances (clergy children). So, of course, you are going to have a few atheists. One of my classmates was quite open about it. I was horrified.
It wasn’t until about two years later when I was put in charge of preparing the parents of infants and young children for their children’s baptisms that I understood why it was difficult to instill solid Christian belief of some kind in Episcopal youth. It wasn’t MTV, materialism, or simple adolescent rebellion, because the upper middle class children of the Baby Boomers aren’t rebellious. Most of us buy into the idea that if we get into the right college, we’ll sign the same social contract that brought our parents prosperity and never worry again. Thus, we spend a tremendous amount of effort and anxiety on the process of getting into a good college. Past generations spent some of this time hoping for conversion experiences, looking for signs of election, agonizing over their salvation, considering religious vocations, or becoming involved in pietistic practices.
And it wasn’t just so much of our existential angst did not turn to the things of God. Looking at the new parents of our congregation, it was fairly clear that most of them wanted their children baptized for perfunctory reasons or else to give them a values system of some sort. I shocked these sorts deeply without even intending it. I’ll never forget one poor woman who was undoubtedly shocked when I suggested that Satan could be something more than a metaphor. The look she gave me is what I expect to receive at an accidental first contact with an alien species, “You’re not from this planet, are you? Have I even heard of your planet?” There were exceptions. I still remember one couple in particular who I think were quite happy that someone was taking baptism seriously. A couple of years later, I was sorting a batch of clothes at a local thrift store when I kept coming across fine designer labels. Those were appreciated, since they could be sold at a premium and the fashionably thrifty ladies of the neighborhood still would consider them a bargain. They were hand-me-downs but in good shape. A couple of stray nametags in the clothes revealed that I knew the donors quite well.
We very much follow the faith of our fathers and mothers. I trace my affinity with gay and lesbian Christians to my parents taking me to have dinner with one of our fellow parishioners and his partner back in the mid 1980s. I don’t remember much, but I do remember that the partner was the first person I knew to die of AIDS. Of course, it’s not foolproof, my mother will give me the accidental first contact look every once in a while for a variety of reasons. But this is the same mother who read me The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and hinted at the allegory. My father likes to think himself as a weaker brother, but I sometimes am amazed at some of the things his faith has led him to do (and my mother has supported him despite her complete vexation with the facere of the Church.). But if you see your parents not taking these things seriously, living hypocritically, clearly ridiculing deep faith, expressing constant doubts at the Creeds of the Church, constantly embracing the latest liberal program for doctrinal reform, or just going to church for some sort of social reason, you’re not likely to see anything worthwhile about the Christian faith or long for relationship with God.
Clergy and other important adults at church also can be a liability in this regard. I wonder seriously if we are not presently undermining the meaning of the Eucharist for many, not by our CWOB practices, but with some of the clergy’s constant and somewhat vague attacks on “substitutionary atonement,” by which they seem to cover almost every explication of the Cross as a means of Grace. We speak of the bread and wine made holy and use the ancient words of Institution but yet shy away from singing ever again in English, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain and hath redeemed us to God, to God by his blood, to receive honor and riches and wisdom and strength and glory and blessing…” How does the Eucharist have meaning outside the saving work of the Cross? I’m not even talking about ILEOS’ stripped down baptismal liturgy, where I think we stumble at the threshold by not shocking the adults’ systems enough with the commitment they are undertaking.
I don’t know about some of these things. But I do know that the catechesis we give children is not just what we tell them in formal settings. Even in a less doctrinally innovative church than ILEOS, our best hope of raising youth to a mature faith is showing forth with our lives what we profess with our lips on Sunday mornings. I don’t need to tell this to the parents who read this blog. From what I hear of your parenting, you will be inspirations for my own. But I think it’s something some of you might need to consider as clergy or prominent adults in the congregation. How do the youth in the parish see you? How do they see their parents? Don’t always ask what you are doing for youth. Ask instead what the youth see you doing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)