It's A Patronal Feast

I hope you all had a blessed Feast of Charles, King and Martyr today. The Charter of the Monastery contains a variety of oddments, but none more odd than the explanation for why King Charles is a patron of the Monastery,

"And the monks also shall have as their Patron, Charles Martyr, King of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland, not as some do, in order to affirm that by God, kings rule and tyrants hold the land, but as a reminder to our heirs and successors that even the most earnest and godly rulers are bound by the law and as a warning to all vindicated in equity against our heirs and successors against the shedding of their blood."

In other words, kings shouldn't overstep their bounds, but the ruled should strive for bloodless revolutions. The Charter further states that only the feast of Charles' martyrdom should be celebrated and not "other vain and sundry feasts connected with his cult" whatever they are.

I realize, of course, that in those parts of America that haven't translated the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of their blogs to completely different parts of space-time or a few extremely Anglo-Catholic parishes of a certain sort, this is not a feast day, but it still is in England, as Madpriest reminds us.

I also should note that some are quite wary of this feast in the United States, because King Charles I has come to represent nothing so much as the violation of the liberty of conscience. For instance, on the floor of St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, there is found inscribed, "Constant oral tradition affirms that near this spot a brave Scotchwoman Jane T. Geddes on the 23rd July 1637 struck the first blow in the great struggle for freedom of conscience which after a conflict of half a century ended in the establishment of civil and religious liberty." Apparently, Geddes threw a stool at the head of the Dean of the Cathedral when he tried to read from Laud's Book. This is plaque is horridly ironic. Civil and religious liberty in this case only meant the freedom to be Presbyterian. There was no religious liberty for my Roman Catholic but highly monarchist Scottish ancestors, who settled in Ontario after fighting for George III in the American Revolution. There was no religious liberty for men like William Smith, who likely fled to America without taking a degree at Aberdeen, because it was made a felony for an Episcopalian to teach school. Smith was the first Provost of what is now the University of Pennsylvania and was instrumental in founding the first University of Maryland (now St. John's College).

Speaking of Pennsylvania

I'm not going into any details until it becomes news, but it looks like that Diocese is in serious need of our prayers in the coming weeks. So please remember her in your prayers if you get a chance.

That it may please thee to illumine all bishops, priests, and
deacons, with true knowledge and understanding of thy
Word; and that both by their preaching and living, they may
set it forth, and show it accordingly,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

That it may please thee to bless and keep all thy people,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

That it may please thee to send forth laborers into thy
harvest, and to draw all mankind into thy kingdom,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

That it may please thee to give to all people increase of grace
to hear and receive thy Word, and to bring forth the fruits of
the Spirit,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

That it may please thee to bring into the way of truth all such
as have erred, and are deceived,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

Preaching the Cross

The Bishop Visited on Sunday

The Bishop of Laodicea is both larger than life and as large as life. He has one natural leg and the faith of Dorothy Day mediated by Loyola or perhaps vice versa . He also apparently spoke on the unpleasantness in the Forum, but I was not feeling well that morning and so missed the Forum.

Speaking of Episcopal Visitations

As he lay dying, John Henry Hobart, Bishop of New York, was in great pain, but he fought through his pain to give some advice to Francis Cuming, a young priest, who attended him during his last hours in the rectory of St. Peter's Binghamton, where he had been stricken in the midst of a visitation. The key advice was this, "Be sure that in all your preaching the doctrines of the Cross be introduced: no preaching is good for any thing without these." Now there has been some discussion of what these doctrines are over at Canterbury Trail. I made a little epitome of Athanasius on this account, in which the doctrines of the Cross might be summarized as:

1. The resurrection of the body incorruptible and heralded by Christ.

2. The perfection of humanity restored in Christ Jesus incarnate and humanity restored in part and then in full through Christ Jesus.

3. Friendship with God extended to both Jews and Gentiles through friendship with Christ. Recall that Abraham was a friend of God by faith according to the Epistle to the Hebrews.

4. The power of Satan, Hell, and Death broken by Christ.

5. The curse occasioned by the primal and continued disobedience removed by Christ.

Now, I happen to have an evangelical pastor of some sort in his pajamas in my living room, so I am tempted to ask him what he would say the doctrines of the Cross are, but I think I'll demure for the moment.

The interesting point came up in discussion at Canterbury Trail that younger preachers and writers are more traditional in their doctrine. My name was cited under the lay heading by bls, though she's never heard me preach. The question I had to ask myself was whether points 1-5 appear in any of my sermons.

So let me provide some example quotes out of context:

[From a sermon on the Feast of St. Anselm]

"The Good News of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is universally relevant."

"Through the covenant with Israel, the Psalmist and the writers of the Wisdom Literature did learn definite truth about what God knew would keep them from death and ensure a decent living. They learned through the minutiae of the Law and their inability or difficulty in following it to the letter the deep sinfulness of man and recoil of our being against the commandments of God. What they missed was this business was an imperfect solution, requiring that some human beings would lose their dignity in the eyes of their fellows for reasons other than sin. Before he healed a man born blind, Jesus was asked, “Did this man sin or his parents?” and He said to them that he was blind so that God might be glorified. This did not just mean that God would be glorified by healing but is a general statement on why we all are born. We are born so that our Maker be glorified in us: some works of nature are common grace, falling on the good and the wicked alike. The Law says that some choose otherness from God and death through their own fault. Jesus and the Psalmist suggest that some who appear dead, other, ignorant, and stupid in the eyes of wise are as suffused with God as much as the wise and intelligent and the righteous of the world according to the Law. And likewise with the Greeks who observe nature and seek God but achieve no knowledge of the truth that can be explained as easily as the redemptive message of Jesus Christ

And our certainty that this surprising God will be benevolent to us is his past actions and this is also the justification for our faith. These acts are generous beyond our deserving. Anselm was one of the great exponents of the atonement theory of Christ’s death, that bloody, messy, and “primitive” doctrine that I keep seeing criticized everywhere these days. That’s another sermon. But Paul and Anselm challenge our assumptions in these days of grace by reminding us that though filled by the Holy Spirit presently, we were all enemies to God who required justification through the blood of Christ. We were all dead to sin and yearning even to bring God to the same death. And God was still there. God did not say, “Ooogh, I can’t stand those sinners. I shall not endure being in Sheol. I’m going over here now. or I’m not going to Earth, it’s dirty and messy and risky and surprising.” He came, He left the place much better than he found it, He’s coming back. And it’s going to be very surprising. Amen.

[5 Easter, 2003]

"His dying and rising to life was small in scale and His resurrection at least was witnessed by very few, yet He destroyed death and changed the entire nature of the created universe."

"Yet Jesus promises that he will dwell in the Father, and we will dwell in Him. Hence, we also will dwell in the Father. At the least, this is a most wonderful promise of eternal life. Before Christ and the Spirit’s outpouring, all died according to the flesh because of the decree of God in Genesis, “My Spirit shall not remain in a man forever.” In former times, our alienation from God made it both necessary and easy for God to take His breath from us. Yet Christ now promises that we can be in God in the same way God is in us. Hence, though we will die according to the flesh, His Spirit can never be taken away from those who dwell in Him. Therefore, Christ is not just promising the Spirit to the apostles, he is giving them deep insight into eternal life."

[Last Sunday after Pentecost, 2003]

Next, when Pilate asks if he is a king, Christ responds “you say that I am” or another translation says, “‘King’ is your word.” No, Christ doesn’t say, well, king is a word that might make you understand me according to your experience. But the way Christ is speaking here is common to the Passion narratives. Admittedly, he occasionally admits being the Messiah, but as he approaches the tomb, who he is becomes much less clear. Being Messiah, by all contemporary interpretation, would imply kingship and priesthood. But not victimhood. This is a sacrificial narrative. In these few hours, the Book of Hebrews and Paul claim that Christ managed to perform the Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) sacrifice at the same time as the Passover sacrifice. Thus, by his apparent surrender to Death, the times of religious festivals are altered. In these few hours, Jesus, Judas, and a man named Jesus Barabbas all will be male yearling sheep led to the slaughter. Christ will be sacrificed both to Azazel, the demon of the desert and to God, being both the representation of human sin and its atonement. If Christ agreed that he was a king, he would be denying the wonder of his nature: the universal brought into the world for through him the world was made. He would be saying that he was just a king instead of the complexity that has driven his followers mad since his leavetaking from us.

[Vigil of All Saints, 2004]

"The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us that those faithful to God have lived stories with a similar choice of outcome. By faith, David sought the kingship and by faith he won it. Daniel’s faith cast him into the lion’s den and brought him safely out of it. But not everyone has been so lucky. The faithful have been tortured to death, flogged, imprisoned, sawed in half, and exiled to the wilderness. Their costume in the older sense of the word has been the “skins of sheep and goats.” Indeed, “The world was not worthy of them…” And while many of these tortures would have been familiar to this letter’s early Christian audience, the sufferers here are all Jews before the coming of Christ. These horror stories are all from the Old Testament. But the writer assures us that all of these faithful have won “resurrection to a better life” and “God’s approval because of their faith.” Mysteriously, we are told that these sufferers of the Old Testament “did not receive what was promised” “that only with us should they reach perfection.” It doesn’t matter. It’s clear enough that whatever a Macabee knew after he was dispatched by the forces of Antiochus Epiphanes, he knows the joy of victory in Christ offered to the presently suffering Christians.

(Note: This is very 2 Peter and Christus Victor of me. It's not the unambiguous reading.)

And I am also reminded of the reading tonight from Revelation in which we are told that the blood of the Lamb has “bought for God people of every tribe and language, nation and race.” The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that all those who were faithful to God were made perfect through Christ and the Church even if they did not know Christ and the Church.

Tuesday is also Election Day. And the Word of God illumines this secular feast as well as the sacred three days that will be completed on the same day. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that by faith kingdoms rise and fall. It is by faith and not by suffrage that the powers and evils of this world are most strongly opposed. And if we are still not satisfied by that promise, let us also remember that the regimes of this world are impermanent: that the victory that Christ won for us was not limited to eternal life with Him. Revelation promises us that the saints “shall reign on Earth.” In the end, Christ, as divine and supernatural actor, will sweep away the world driven by the analysis of reality. He will also sweep away the world driven by the activity of the powerful. He will sweep away all of those objects that do not endure that we call the world. And he will send the faithful who we commemorate on these three days to execute the commission described by the Psalmist, “to wreak vengeance on the nations and punishment on the heathen/ binding their kings with chains, putting their nobles in iron/ carrying out the judgment decreed against them— THIS IS GLORY FOR ALL HIS LOYAL SERVANTS.” Amen.

(Yes, this is my eschatological commentary on the "reality-based" kerfluffle. It sounds strange out of context).

[4 Epiphany, 2003]

"In that light, the readings today encompass time and professional vocation in order to vindicate a kairotic view of time within the full record of God’s creative and salvific acts. Not so far from Paul or the Evangelist Mark’s minds, I think, is Plato’s Republic in which we are told that each profession achieves the greatest success when the right things are done at the right time. The word for right time is, you guessed it, kairos. For Jesus, now is the right time for him to begin his ministry. Indeed, his apparent political ineptitude is intentional, for it puts him on the radar of the political authorities and will lead him to Jerusalem and the cross, the most important events to occur since the creation of the universe."

[Maundy Thursday, 2004]

What then are we doing here? Transcending the loathsomeness of feet? Forgiving? I argue that this ritual is significant for one reason. It is a ritual of true ecclesiastical discipline. This element is best seen in the dialogue between Peter and Jesus. First, Peter is confused why Jesus, the Master and Teacher of the group, is doing the washing. He does not want to humiliate the person he respects most in the world. Jesus says, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” We are inclined to put our religious leaders, whether bishops, priests, deacons or wardens, vestrymen, and Sunday School teachers on pedestals. In this ritual, the entire Church is leveled, even her Head. One cannot have a friend who is not in some way an equal. Peter, by refusing washing is refusing equality with Christ and friendship with Christ. He is refusing the love that the woman who washed Jesus’ feet is said to have in Luke’s Gospel, the same love that will make Jesus lay down his life for his friends tomorrow.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hmm...6 out of 8, though I admit some of them are rather passing references. Oh, I also should mention that if some of the references seem unusually erudite, I was preaching to college and graduate students, who would have some familiarity with these texts.

The question I want to ask is how do you preach the Cross. Do you do it intentionally, looking for some place to insert a relevant excursus on the resurrection of the body? Or do you let it flow from the Scriptures? Because I can tell you, even after reading the Scriptures even more heavily than I did while I was preaching, sometimes the Cross isn't there.

One of the common memes at ILEOS is that most preaching elsewhere neglects hard Scriptural truths about war, money, and sex. But what I don't hear at ILEOS and elsewhere in the Episcopal Church (I do leave Laodicea sometimes) are hard truths on "eternal punishments, on rivers of fire, on the venomous worm, on bonds that cannot be burst, or exterior darkness." (Chrysostom, Against the Jews, Homily 2). OK, maybe, that would be a little too much, but I think preaching closer to this vein is a part of our tradition. Is there a happy medium?

Feast of Fabian, Bishop of Rome, 250

The Anglosphere is very alight this morning, so I decided I would post an old sermon of mine for this particular day.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, Our Strength and Our Redeemer. Amen.

One irony immediately strikes me about Fabian. Although as bishop of Rome from roughly 235-250, he appointed seven deacons to record the martyrdoms in his diocese, no direct account of Fabian’s martyrdom has survived. This is especially strange, since he is traditionally considered the first martyr of the persecution of the Roman Emperor Decius. What we know of his death comes from a condolence letter by Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage to the clergy of Rome. Cyprian gives one of the strangest eulogies I’ve ever read, rejoicing “greatly that, in harmony with the integrity of his administration, an honorable consummation attended him.”

Some have suggested that Fabian died in the first flushes of persecution, from the stress of the hearings or the shock of prison. I doubt it. Cyprian’s words, while they lack personal warmth, suggest profound respect for Fabian. Respect, which I think, would have been more muted if Fabian had wilted at the first sign of trouble. Moreover, there is one story about Fabian that describes him as more than administrator or martyr. Fabian apparently had been a farmer somewhere near Rome. He had become bishop after he went to Rome for an episcopal election. Fabian was a layman. He probably was there out of simple curiosity. But as the clergy were chatting up the “suitable” candidates, waiting for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a dove descended on Fabian in the same manner as the dove of the Holy Spirit at the Baptism of Christ. Fabian, of course, was elected immediately. Whether this story is true or not, it implies that his contemporaries and successors saw something special in Fabian. Someone whose election had been so remarkable likely would have been martyred honorably or attracted charitable comment about his weakness. Moreover, I doubt anyone would tell Christ-like stories about “lousy” martyrs. It’s almost blasphemous.

Perhaps, this dove story even has entered the Lectionary through the vision of Ezra of the coronation of the martyrs in our First Lesson today. Here, coronation and martyrdom are strongly connected. I suspect the idea behind its inclusion was that the divine circumstances of Fabian’s election were perfected by the example of his martyrdom, which Cyprian seems to suggest was followed by many in Rome,

But why should we consider Fabian exemplary on account of his martyrdom? To many in the modern era, the ethic of martyrdom in the Early Church seems distinctly sick. Nietzsche, based on rather damning evidence from writings of the Church Fathers, argued that the ecstasy of the martyrs was driven not by fidelity to Christ or hope of reward but by the faith that whatever tortures they experienced on Earth they would see visited on their torturers ad infinitum at the Day of the Lord, a situation they seemed to desire with glee and malice rather than pity. For modern Christians, martyrdom is laden with complex emotions. Some of us feel guilty that we are not persecuted and cry that the Church would be better somehow if we were. Others feel that old-fashioned martyrdom would distract us from the hard work of reconciling God with humanity and healing the ills of the nations and therefore modify the terminology of martyrdom to apply it to the kind of the living rather than the kind of dying we are called to in Christ. Others feel so guilty about not being martyrs that they see persecution everywhere. But also don’t forget that there are modern Christians for whom martyrdom is not old-fashioned, who are flogged by councils, judged by governors and kings, and betrayed by their families. “Wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” their churches are bombed and even the due process and rule of unjust law, which Christ assumes in the Gospel of Matthew will be the context of his disciples, are denied to them in Sudan, in Pakistan, and elsewhere in the world.

The Good News the Gospel has today for all Christians is that martyrdom, like other things, happens. By accident, by grace, by demonic powers? Well, no. Martyrdom just happens! Christians initially are passive in the process. “They will hand you over…you will be dragged and flogged…because of me…brother will betray brother…you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Martyrdom comes looking for the martyr. Its absence is not about the martyr personally, because it is about Christ, the one to whom the martyr testifies. Moreover, the ecstasy of martyrdom is nothing for which to prepare. Total disregard for life for the sake of Christ comes not through careful consideration or a desire for vengeance or vindication, but through fidelity to the Holy Spirit who will tell the martyr what to say. And if you think this is comforting, remember that martyrs have to filter out a lot of voices to hear the Spirit.

So martyrdom happens. But why did it happen to Fabius? Fabius was the first martyr of the persecution of Decius. Decius in the most charitable reading seems to have been trying to promote a sense of national identity in the Roman Empire. Probably forced to take the throne from his predecessor by overenthusiastic subordinates in the Army, Decius was a conservative Roman aristocrat of provincial birth but probably of Italian ancestry. Because of the insecurity of his position and his concern that Roman values and national security might be in decline after the passing of the 1000th anniversary of the city of Rome, Decius made a law that ordered everyone in the Empire to offer a sacrifice of an animal or incense to the local deities in prayer for the safety of the Empire. Those who did so received a certificate. Failure to get a certificate resulted in interrogation and imprisonment, property confiscation, torture, and possibly death. Some Christians fled to the hills. Some sacrificed or bribed officials to get certificates, causing much debate about under what circumstances they should be reconciled to the Church.

What still boggles my mind is that while Decius’ order was rather flexible to local circumstances in order to join the diverse peoples of the Empire into one body, it was unacceptable for the Christians to comply by prayers for the public safety in their liturgies, something which the acts of the martyrs suggests they did anyway. But was all of that obstinacy on the Roman side? Ezra’s vision of a multitude on the Mount of Zion being crowned by the Son of God is but another viewpoint on the events John of Patmos sees in Revelation 7, A vast throng no one could count from every race, nation, tribe, and language.” Perhaps, Fabian thought that God was no local god that could join with his false fellows to unify a temporal realm and remove distinctions between peoples. In which case, this is obstinacy to praise. It is one thing to pray for public safety and the welfare of kings and those in authority, it is another thing to use religion as the unifying force of the polity and the eraser of distinctions between peoples, since the latter is the clear province of the Christian faith.

So, when Decius gave the order, who was Fabian and what did he need to do when happened to him? Fabian was the bishop. A dove had alighted on his head. He was a good shepherd, the follower of the Good Shepherd. He laid down his life to tell his fellows not to run to the hills, not to bribe, and to make the right kind of sacrifices. Amen.

Comment on Kyle Potter's Latest on the Problematized People of God...

Wow. So much here.

First, let me take on Father Abbot Creech's discussion about a "life without sex." Many of the gay and lesbians I know have substantial formation in the monastic tradition, some even took vows, though I never asked how permanent they were. The first they usually say to me when they discuss this is that celibacy is a charism, for which they have the witness of the Fathers concerning something called the eunuchmaking power, which allows one to fulfill Jesus' call to be "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven." The witness is not general. Cassian suggests that one can suppress all desire for six months at a time by careful self-denial, implying it might not be charismatic. But the general point is that celibacy, not merely chastity, is the final telos of the Christian, being the image of the Kingdom in full where there is no marriage, nor betrothal. Paul affirms this to the Corinthians but also emphasizes through his Epistles that marriage has legitimate teloi associated with it (I hate to use an Aristotelian framework for Paul, but this is how I roll.) More correctly, he asserted that marriage was better than being constantly tempted to unchastity. And these teloi of which I speak might include evangelizing one's children, which certainly has borne much fruit according to tradition. So the question I must ask is this. Imagine Paul had given different advice to the Corinthians, can you imagine the turpor among unmarried heterosexuals in the church? Can you imagine your own turpor? I am 24 years old. I believe that I am a heterosexual not called to celibacy. I restrain my problems with unchastity as best I can. It certainly has inclined me more to devotional practice and given me less abandon with respect to debauchery, but I don't think I could do so if I were completely barred from sex or any kind of intimate friendship. Father Abbot Creech is worried that the Christian community is maligned when the homosexual Christian fears loneliness, but I charge him to find some community willing to acknowledge publicly that celibate homosexuals live among them, admit that their orientation is natural but broken, and are willing to upbuild them and celebrate them publicly so that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled, "To those eunuchs who keep my covenants, I shall give a place in my house and a name better than children." Some Roman Catholics are going in this direction, but the Vatican isn't biting. I'm afraid that the public "unbridled" sexuality of gay men is considered dangerous, and the same public "unbridled" sexuality of lesbians is subversive. And the "bridle" I speak of is not the yoke of Christ in the work of celibacy. This is why the conversatives want to keep things secret and the liberals want "unions." One sees the Pauline problem, while the other adapts a Pauline solution.

Next, we have Father Tessone's "they're born like that" isn't an argument. Well, I could cite at least two instances from Chrysostom in which he infers that homosexual activity of some sort (and one of them clearly referring to pederasty) must be Satanic since it is clearly a reversal of the natural order of things which even brute beasts obey. And how do we know the natural order of things. Well, the Angelic Doctor says that marriage must be within the natural order of things, for it follows from the practices of the animals, by way of proof he cites Ulpian. And I don't think such arguments are mere dicta. They seem unrelated to us, because we keep a secular history and sacred history of things constantly in our mind, and so do not understand that Paul and the Fathers were reading the world in light of their understanding of nature. Paul's Jewish teachers likely thought that homosexuality was the curse of God upon the gentiles, to which Israel was immune unless a strayer from the way contracted it through idolatry. Who knows what they thought if they figured out their sheep were committing to'evah? The argument is not so much that they're not born like that, but that they have not contracted it through idolatry and that the order of nature is not reversed. Please, however, do not take this to mean that everything according to the natural law is lawful generally, which wouldn't fly with any authority I respect, and frankly, I understand, looking at the monkeys. Chrysostom also says, "And in a like way with those, these he also puts out of all means of defending themselves by charging them not only that they had the means of gratification, and left that which they had, and went after another, but that having dishonored that which was natural, they ran after that which was contrary to nature." (Homily 4 on the Romans), suggesting that "they're born that way" wouldn't be irrelevant to Chrysostom.

Next, we have Kyle's point about the goods of homosexual relationships do not imply God's approval of homosexuality in toto . Again, we need to return to Paul and the natural law, as we constantly must in this argument. Consider Paul's argument about buying meat in the market, which potentially had been offered for sacrifice. This is quite analogous to homosexuality, since the latter concerns sexual acts whose lawlessness is particularly connected to idolatry by Paul as even Holy Sergius and Bacchus seem to understand. Imagine homosexuality as something that is natural but "broken" as Father Abbot Creech states by its association with idolatry, which might have been true in the ancient world in a figurative sense with respect to the cult of youth and virility and sympathetic magic relating generation and education. What does Paul say concerning meat? "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof." If homosexuality exists outside of idolatry and within the fullness thereof, it should produce the "fruits of the Spirit" as the liberals claim. Thus, provided you work in a framework in which you believe homosexual can be natural, unassociated with idolatry and hatred of neighbor, and appears to bear fruit, one must ask whether it is better to have "same sex unions" or burn with lust. The argument does not exist in isolation. The man committing incest with his mother (likely his father's widow) might have had some semblance of joy, peace, and self-control in some matters, but his incest surely violated some higher principle.

I think that's enough for tonight. The Lord grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end.

Various and Sundry

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday

Strictly, today marks the secular holiday, despite local commemoration in church yesterday. King ought to be commemorated by the Church on the anniversary of his martyrdom (4 April). I can't say I ever am very enthusiastic about this particular holiday, though this has very little to do with King himself, whose sanctity of life may be controverted but whose sanctity of purpose cannot be denied. I dislike this holiday, because I fear that King's legacy has been abused by both sides of the political aisle. On one hand, the abuse by one side is rather obvious. Today, the President visited a Washington area high school, where there was a Service Day commemorating Dr. King. The President used the occasion as an opportunity to discuss how those sprucing up the school are continuing in King's footsteps. Considering that King was one of the strongest critics of American intervention in Southeast Asia, one wonders whether the President's own critics are following Dr. King more closely than these civic-minded individuals. Or whether Dr. King might have something challenging to say about the postcard writing to victims of Hurricane Katrina. I really don't think you can reduce King to a promoter of civicmindedness or volunteerism. There was far more Tocquevillean public spirit in his age than our own. Indeed, I think King's path represents a departure from those kinds of social institutions, of which the church, especially in the African-American community, had become a launching pad. At the turn of the 20th century, W.E.B. DuBois describes the African-American churches as the largest black-"owned" corporate bodies and as a catch-all for social service within the African-American community. Indeed, I know examples of African-American churches and voluntary organizations sending rather sizeable sums of money to victims of disasters who were very unlikely to be of their own races. The world King knew as a child within his own immediate circles was one of open hands, open hearts, and open backs. King himself came from an intellectual family but was quite comfortable in overalls, suggesting that he knew how to work with his hands. If the President were successful in restoring the Tocquevillean ideal wherever it used to be, he only would succeed in restoring the formative world of King.

And thus King easily could have lived his life as a pastor, facilitating these intraracial voluntary organizations and self-improvement initiatives, the so-called Atlanta Doctrine of Booker T. Washington. But King chose otherwise. He chose to diagnose the illness of the system. He fought the disabilities in law and culture that kept African-Americans from reaching their full potential in American society, and he also questioned the effects of American power over the rest of the world, the conflict with the Soviets, etc. King identified and resisted systemic evil. That's a road that many of us can't follow. But it is best to admit that was his road.

On the other side, we hear from the NAACP and other organizations with a history of association with King telling us, "the civil rights movement isn't over. Racism isn't yet vanquished." Well, of course not. But these organizations don't seem to understand why they're becoming irrelevant to my generation, particularly African-Americans. One wonders if King might become a cultural critic in the vein of Bill Cosby or whether he might be inferring some interesting things from the popularity of African-American popular culture among economically disadvantaged youth of other races. Why is racism an acceptable bugaboo of our discourse but class disparities are not?

Two Candidacies

A few days ago I learned that Randall Foster (Texanglican) had passed his canonical exams and therefore was admitted to candidacy in the Diocese of Ft. Worth. Today, I learned that the Postulant has been the Candidate since Michaelmas. These two (along with two others in the Process) are daily in my prayers and I'm happy that God is speeding them toward further dedication to His service.

Lutherpunk Asks Why We Go to Church

He also asks why we practice the Faith. He also asks us to think about those we know who don't go to church and why we care so much that they don't. So here's my answer:

1. The world is not right. The cosmos is not right. I am not right.

2. The majority of people throughout the ages have concluded (1) by inspection and intensely desired that they and the rest of the world be made right.

3. I have concluded that Jesus Christ is the way to rectitude for me and everything else, fulfilling our desires beyond our imagining.

4. A lot of other people have concluded (3) and come up with some sort of framework that explains (1), (2), and (3) and is summarized in three Creeds composed by a bunch of DWEMs and thus sounding quite DWEMish.

5. The unsummarized framework has some holes.

6. The unsummarized framework also poses my professional life as more than some independent and selfish inquiry into truth or a colossal waste of societal resources but as a way to stronger relationship with God and to my neighbor.

Many people I know who don't go to church spend their whole lives thinking but would prefer not to think about religion, so they feel very turned off and intimidated by those like me who do or else think that I don't think enough about religion. Others find themselves alienated by the facere of the church, where the mysteries at the heart of our faith become lost in the lust for mastery. I find myself often troubled by the facere of the church but strive to seek those things in which there is life and immortality. I seek God in the Word poorly proclaimed and the Eucharist poorly said, if this is necessary. What makes me happy is that many of my generation who do attend church very much strive to cultivate some humility about their practice and the state of their souls.

I can't say the life of the community is very easy for me. I am not a particularly social person. I dislike being the youngest person (usually) in the Adult Forum. I feel uncomfortable being young and single. I feel most uncomfortable about my inability to feel part of my particular church, when I was very used to feeling a part of my previous three communities. But I go every week and practice the Faith as best I can, because this is the way God has ordered me to be. I am meant to be uncomfortable in the human world.

Borrowed from Lutherpunk via Anastasia

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Drink ice wine. It was very, very good.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't have any New Year's resolutions last year. I have two this year.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes. One of my officemates, just before she defended her thesis.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
Canada.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
A girlfriend, a driver's license, and a master's degree.

7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
October 5, the date of my qualifying examination.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Passing my qualifying examination.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not submitting a paper by the end of the year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing serious.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
An album of the Psalms in Anglican Chant.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My research advisors, though I won't go into detail why.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
No one I know personally.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent + Savings

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Getting through my qualifying exam. Do you sense a theme here?

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
Headlights on Dark Roads--Snow Patrol

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
a) happier b) even steven c) slightly richer, but I am a graduate student.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Upbuilded the church of God.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Read blogs.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Relaxing.

21. Did you fall in love in 2006?
This question has been ruled a mistrial. Will retry.

22. How many one-night stands?
Moi? Non.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
A tie between Jericho and Eureka, though Big Love and Rome are very good.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Fortunately not.

25. What was the best book you read?
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
BT

27. What did you want and get?
I passed my qualifying exams.

28. What did you want and not get?
A publication in a refereed journal.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Queen First Apostle's review is spot on.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
24 was fairly boring.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A copy of the Syrian adelphepoesis liturgy.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
Dumpy graduate student.

33. What kept you sane?
The Daily Office.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Anne Hathaway. She was impossibly beautiful in the Devil Wears Prada .

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Climate change.

36. Who did you miss?
My college friends.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
No comment.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.
Checked luggage is a dangerous thing.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
For once, I'd like to be the car crash, not always just the traffic jam.



In 2007...

1. Will you be looking for a new job?
Certainly not.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?
Yes.

3. New house?
I'm going to try to avoid it.

4. What will you do different in 07?
Collaborate more.

5. New Years resolution?
Write and submit three papers. It will likely be only one.

6. What will you not be doing in 07?
Letting Sabellians get to me.

7. Any trips planned?
Not yet. Maybe I'll go to Orlando in October.

8. Wedding plans?
No.

9. Major thing on your calendar?
Oh, wait. Big event in June. Need to get on that.

10. What can't you wait for?
Holy Week.

11. What would you like to see happen differently?
I would like a friend of mine to have steady employment.

12. What about yourself will you be changing?
My antipathy to the operation of the automobile.

13. What happened in 06 that you didn't think would ever happen?
I reconnected with an old mentor.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?
No, but I'll try to spend more time with those I can?

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 06?
No.

16. Will you start or quit drinking?
I will continue drinking.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?
Hopefully.

18. Will you do charity work?
Hopefully.

19. Will you go to bars?
Almost certainly. I just hope they'll have decent hard cider.

20. Will you be nice to people you don't know?
Where possible.

21. Do you expect 07 to be a good year for you?
I expect to get a B in this course. (This is a very inside joke.)

22. How much did you change from this time last year till now?
Not much. But I have changed quite a bit in the last five years.

23. Do you plan on having a child?
I plan to avoid reproduction this year.

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?
Probably. I may make new ones.

25. Major lifestyle changes?
Hopefully nothing drastic.

26. Will you be moving?
Didn't you ask me this question. I'd prefer to avoid it.

27. What will you make sure doesn't happen in 07 that happened in 06?
I will try to avoid caffeine trips.

28. What are your New Years Eve plans?
I watched Entourage and then waited until the ball dropped.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?
Not really.

30. One wish for 07?
That we discover a terrestrial planet outside the Solar System.

Two Items from the Southern Bloggers

I hope you all are enjoying Christmas, now in its ninth day, bringing us to the Feast of Basil and Gregory Nazienzus. No vasilopita for me this year (as yet). I spent the latter part of Advent and Christmas in a nearly vegetative state and enjoyed returning to work this morning, despite a variety of technical difficulties and the fact that half of my luggage entered the Twilight Zone at some point yesterday and has yet to emerge.

Over Christmas, the blogs were fairly quiet, but Derek the Aenglican and Anastasia (and others) were discussing two issues of great interest.

Anglican Identity

Derek in a recent post opined that he didn't want to hear anything about Anglican Identity from those without grounding in the Divine Office and corporate worship. Someone I know recently said that many of the troubles we're having with Anglican Identity come from those from other Christian traditions coming in and bringing their baggage or poor catechesis with them, focusing on some aspects of Anglicanism while discarding others and thus upsetting the balance of the tradition. Upon reflection, I realized that this wasn't a matter of welcoming "the wrong sort," as some wags might have it. Instead, I think the gradual defrosting of Anglicans (especially in this country) only has exposed the decayed hulk of the devotional and corporate practice that is central to our tradition. One of my college chaplains, for instance, never had anything to do with the Office, because he said it wasn't a part of his personal devotional practice. Now I understand why he might want to encourage lay-driven Morning and Evening Prayer, especially for the seminarians in his charge, but he probably should not have pooh-poohed its importance. And, of course, the conversional aspects of the Office cannot be doubted. Indeed, the evidence always lies before us. What made Derek an Aenglican? Or why does Lutherpunk have denominational identity issues? Blame Cranmer.

Jesus And Indigenous Mediterreanean Religions

Like Anastasia, I am quite used to people being comfortable with a Jewish Jesus. Indeed, I think much of the popularity of this idea comes from the great affinity mainline Christians have for Reform and Conservative Jews, who often share much of the political outlook of the mainlines. And I can't deny that there's been some theological cross-pollination. Most sermons I hear live these days quote Rabbi Abraham Heschel for the same reason. I actually think that to some extent, Heschel's reassertion of the prophetic tradition within Judaism as a persistent social critique has had beneficial influence on Christianity. And, of course, affinity between Christians and Jews also has been a corrective for a long history of conflict, oppression, and dangerous rhetoric. So lest I launch into a grand critique of a thinker not unlike Heschel by the name of John Chrysostom and his Adversus Iudaeos , I really should address Anastasia's point about the relations between early Christianity and Indigneous Mediterranean Religions.

Anastasia says that she never speaks of Greco-Roman religion, which reflects an important reality of ancient religion. As St. Athanasius points out, each city and people of the ancient world had their own gods and own particular rites and these gods and peoples were constantly at war with another until the coming of Christianity. Of course, Athanasius' point is a little too expansive. First of all, many "separate nations" had similar gods to their neighbors on account of common ethnic origin. Mars was worshipped at Rome and Mamers was worshipped further south. Zeus and Jupiter connected the Greeks and Romans. Of course, the same god may be worshipped differently. Something tells me that a Hindu and a Siberian tribesman show different forms of reverence for the fire god Agni.

Second of all, metropolitanization and central government led to syncretism. In HBO's series Rome , Augustus' mother Atia is depicted as a worshipper of the Egyptian deity Isis and keeps a large statue of the goddess in her house. Yet she also retains the household gods of the Julian and Octavian gentes . This is a realistic portrayal of religious practice by a woman of her class. And indeed, the gradual erosion of traditional Roman religion and the embrace of foreign cults eventually became the most influential meme to explain the decline of Roman power, for do not both Tacitus and Gibbon describe Christianity as a dangerous foreign cult? And does not Augustine spend much of his time refuting this idea? However, as early as Claudius and probably earlier, it was realized that future Roman power depended on the investment of as many as possible in Roman institutions. In political terms, this meant the admission of more provincial aristocrats to the Senate and the principal magistracies and the extension of citizenship to all free persons by the early 3rd century. However, it had a fascinating impact in religious terms. Characters in Rome constantly are swearing by the "Black Stone," a focus of the cult of Cybele (or the Magna Mater). What's interesting about the Black Stone is that its presence in Rome was not private contamination of the mos maiorum of the Roman people but a matter of public policy. During the Second Punic War, the Black Stone was brought to Rome from Phrygia after consultation of the Sibylline Books.

In later days, the general policy of the Empire was that one could worship whatever deities you wanted as long as you did not cause civil disorder by disparaging the local cults of your city and worshipped the emperor. Christians usually failed on both counts, though they did pray for the Emperor. Often locals preferred that you worshipped the local gods, too. The Decian persecution, for instance, seems to have been a concerted effort to unify the Empire through religious fervor, much like a National Day of Prayer proclamation.

But note the irony. The genius of the emperor and his safety were formalized by Decius' legislation as the common deity of the Empire. And so Athanasius' point rings like a note in the cathedral of Picardy. Christ wasn't quite the first object of worship that unified mankind. The emperor was. At least ideally.

Anastasia points out that Augustus, too, might have sought to be a figure of universal veneration, especially since he called himself, "son of a god." Although Augustan propaganda played very differently in the provinces than at Rome, I would like to point out that Augustus played a very odd game with his religious status. First, he knew his strongest political protection was derived from the ordinary people of the city of Rome. His status as Augustus and tribune of the people both implied that he was sacrosanct but in touch with the interests of the little man and traditional religion. His enemies weren't religious men, but they had seen the outrage of the people at Caesar's assasination. Augustus sought to add what religious aura he could to his demogoguery. Second, Augustus posed himself as "pius." In Latin, he called himself 'filius Divi', which doesn't quite mean son of God. It means son of Divus. Up to that time, all deified humans worshipped at Rome were called by some other name. So Aeneas was worshipped as Indiges, which Livy claims is short for Juppiter Indiges (Indigenous Jupiter). Romulus was worshipped as Quirinus, probably because the original residents of the little villages out of which Rome developed likely called themselves the Quirites. Julus Caesar, when deified in 44 BC, became Divus Julius, the deified Julian. This may sound like a nitpicky point, but divus and deus are different. Augustus was not saying that he was son of an important god or the vague philosophic god popular in the smart set of the Greek world (to theos), which would have too pharaonic for the Roman mind, but that he was the heir of the great Julius Caesar, the avenger of his death, and the continuer of his general program.

In the Greek East, of which Judaea was a religiously exotic backwater and with which most of the early players would have been familiar, Augustus was far more receptive to divine honors. In Greek, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't end up being huios theoi or whatever. Such affectations were expected of great rulers. And since Augustus and his successors were legally Pharaoh in all but title, a little pharaonic pretension would be prudent.

But it occurs to me that I confuse the issue. What disturbs Christians about indigenous Mediterranean religion is that Christianity appears to have borrowed from it, possibly suggesting that incidents traditionally held to be historical are syncretic emendations. This dynamic is especially present in the debates about the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, which certainly have pagan antecedents. But if all things were equal, I could note thay many things Jesus did had Jewish antecedents or that an abundance of authors told stories about men reaching the Moon by means of rocket propulsion before the event actually happened. Roman Catholicism has an especial discomfort with indigenous Mediterranean religion because its careful assimilation of pagan practice has led to rhetoric that it is a pagan religion. You get one guess about what church is built on the ruins of the Temple of Cybele. Or you could note that the Pantheon is dedicated to all the martyrs. Or why is the Pope the Supreme Pontiff? Or why do the Neapolitans honor San Gennaro as they do? Or the Irish Brigid?

Of course, I don't have much discomfort at all with these connections. Our myths have expressed our deepest desires throughout the ages, whether you adhere to some school of psychology or believe that all false religion comes from evil spirits. The power of the Triune God is that these myths have come to life in Jesus Christ.

The Postulant Writes To His Bishop

This paragraph particularly resonated with me:

The great spiritual struggle for me right now is probably the same as it is for a lot of us in the Anglican Communion. I can easily find myself feeling anxiety, dismay over the shrill voices on the extreme ends of the current debates, and frustration that judicious argument seems powerless against misrepresentations and rhetorical sleight-of-hand. I worry that there is no middle ground between those who think that everything is essential to the faith and those who think that nothing is. What’s so insidious in all this is the diabolical urge to seek out such anxiety by spending too much time reading the blogs and news reports.

Christmas Meme

*Christopher was good enough to tag me, so rather than letting Derek or Simon Sarmiento tell me what I missed ecclesiastically this week, I'll first lighten things up.


1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?

Hot chocolate. It keeps me warm and happy. I used to hate the taste of egg nog, until I reached the age when one could add rum. Now egg nog tastes better, but I shouldn't have too much of it.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

At my parents' house, Santa doesn't wrap. At my grandmother's, Santa does wrap. I wonder if you just check a box on the Santa registration form.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?

White. The word for other colors is "tacky."

4. Do you hang mistletoe?

No. Actually, my high school hung mistletoe in the front hall every year. One then was faced with the awkward situation of never walking accompanied under the mistletoe. The custom was much honored in the breach.

5. When do you put your decorations up?

Roughly December 17...or at least that's the way it will be in my future household.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?

Linguini with clam sauce (I'm a quarter Italian, so seafood and Christmas are strongly associated.)

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?

Listening to Handel's Messiah while decorating the tree.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?

Various cultural clues. I had inklings from Calvin and Hobbes. My Jewish classmates argued against Santa for years. Finally, when I was in 3rd grade or so, my mother bought one of my Christmas presents in front of me.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

Not usually, but in my mother's famiily, it's traditional to do so after the First Mass of Christmas. So when I spend Christmas Eve with my grandmother, we do so occasionally.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?

First, my father and I argue with my mother about getting a Christmas tree. My father and I lose the argument and trudge out to get one. Then my mother generally feels ill and leaves my father, me, and my little brother to decorate the tree.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?

I still love snow, despite having shoveled out from a multiple foot snowstorm or two. But I think I would change my mind if I had to drive in it.

12. Can you ice skate?

Yes. I used to be fairly good, too. Now, I suspect it would take a few hours to get me back into shape.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?

Sega Genesis (6th grade). Between Nelson Mandela's autobiography, a popular history of the early American republuc, and Sonic the Hedgehog , I survived several days in bed with the chicken pox. I actually still have it somewhere, though I suspect it's non-functional.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?

Seeing family, especially those I only see once a year.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?

One of my aunts makes this frozen chocolate pie that has almost no ingredient that obeys the order of nature. Technically, it's made of plastic. However, it's incredibly good, and you can eat fairly large amounts of it without worrying about your waistline.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Duck pins bowling. It's a great way to entertain my little cousins.

17. What tops your tree?

A star of some sort. I can't remember its provenance.

18.Which do you prefer giving or receiving?

All theological objections notwithstanding: giving.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?

I very much dislike most of the Christmas hymnology. I became soured on it by repetition. And what I wasn't soured on, I have heard butchered too many times. Thus, my favorite Christmas song is "Of the Father's Love Begotten." I am, of course, half-kidding. Though frankly I do wish we could bring back some of the Carolingian Christmas hymns.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?

Yuck, definitely yuck.

The Four Last Things: Death

Fairly recently, I was listening to a friend talk about the many ways the Four Sundays of Advent are themed. His personal favorite marks this Sunday as Hope Sunday, a choice matched by my very positive parish. I, however, am intrigued by the theming of the weeks of Advent with the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Hell, and Heaven. MadPriest has a slightly different list, which replaces Judgment with some weird UK reference. Bosch paints on the Four Last Things, suggesting that the theme at least dates to the Reformation. How it became associated with Advent is a puzzle I'll let my more expert readers fill in. Yet I think the theme fits quite well with the penitential and apocalyptic emphasis of the season, which I am trying in some small manner to reclaim this year. So there will be some reflections during the next few weeks here, and I welcome anyone else who's interested to join in.

Death

Death and I are not particularly intimate. The very few funerals I remember attending have been for nearly complete strangers for reasons that seem appropriate at the time. But this week very much is associated for me with death. It was this week a few years ago that saw my mother's father fall asleep. And in the very same week, a relatively new student at my college (R.) and fellow communicant perished in one of the most mysterious misadventures I've ever encountered.

My grandfather and R. may have died the same week, but the circumstances of their deaths were very different. One died very much as Shakespeare describes in the Seven Ages of Man in As You Like It sans everything it seemed but joy. It wasn't what I thought would be the last thing. But when my grandfather saw the small baby (my senior cousin by order of primogeniture, quite my junior by age) who carried his name and the names of his ancestors, he verily beamed. Everything had been stripped away from a very hearty man and a very hard one, who should have died a thousand deaths during the previous few years. But joy remained of a kind that I had not seen before, even when his beloved daughters wedded or when he received an important award for his long years as a soccer coach. Something else had been there. Something else had held him back. If I should die so slowly, I only hope that joy will be left at the end.

R. died early and quickly. No one knows why. If I remain in academia, I suspect the list of puzzling deaths of promising youths will grow longer. It already has.

There's a song from that irreverent Broadway musical Avenue Q called "For Now" in which memento mori and timor mortis conturbat me are pretty much turned on their heads and the vanitas vanitatum of Solomon seems all too familiar. A character complains that his life is without purpose and his erstwhile beloved replies in concert with the Chorus, "that except for death and paying taxes, everything is only for now." Both the good and bad of life are temporary and have a final end. The chief ancient response to this situation would be to emphasize some form of secular immortality in the name of one's family, the fame of one's deeds, or the endurance of one's poetry. The first of these consumes the Old Testament, in which hope of a world to come continually grew even as God still promised the immortality of lineage to the righteous. The latter response of some Jewish and most Christian thinkers was to posit that the dead would live again in a world reformed and restored, though the exact details and the nature of the new world varied. Avenue Q embraces neither Christian nor pagan hope. Death is merely the end of a stream of variably convenient accidents.

When I was very little, I remember feeling quite uninvested in life. When I was about three, I remember distinctly wondering if I really was in my body and whether I really had to live life, whether I could stop its inexorable progress through the events that would shape my identity as it had shaped the lunching men and women sitting on the stools and behind the counter where I, too, was sitting. I can say with great enthusiasm that I no longer indulge in that type of detachment. But it does suggest the question of whither the timor mortis really arises. At the age of three, the argument between being and non-being or activity and potentiality (depending on whether one is Aristotelian or not) becomes surprisingly odd when many of the high-faluting aspects of being are completely or nearly foreign to one's experience. I'm not arguing for infanticide here, indeed quite against it, because irrespective of whether the infant etc. or anyone else ever should be able to choose non-being over being, it seems especially horrible to kill a fellow who has little way to judge whether life is anything in particular. What I sensed when I was three was that being had something to it because it had the potential of progress, not in the necessarily positive sense, just the one of growth and change to something different from before. Death, in my limited understanding, was the end to that. Death too is an end to routine as well, ending order and discipline as it ends the person. This is one of the many local expressions of entropy.

Of endings, the Apostle says, "Love shall never end, but where there are prophecies, they shall lose effect, and where there are tongues, they shall cease, and where there is knowledge, it shall become useless." (I Corinthians 13:8). Love is not just only for now. Paul is putting forth his usual teaching on spiritual gifts, but the basis of his argument is that there is a path to immortality which the grave cannot touch, founded on agape that joins this life to the next.

With the Holy Spirit and With Power: A Fable

I recently brought the attention of the latest posts by Father Baumann to the Prior, who thought the tenor of them quite judicious, but continues to be struck by the brawling that consumes the Church in Asia Minor. He has his own sides in this dispute from a doctrinal standpoint, but when I pointed out my impatience with the conservatives, he said, Peace, my son. The same Spirit blows through Asia Minor that blows through these halls. The same River washes us clean. The same Fire from heaven consumes our sacrifices. Even good doctrine should be tested, and frankly, I am not impressed by the cogency of those partisans you hang about with sometimes. You should be watching your own soul. You are overly wrothful, and not just at other members of the Body. Why were you so angry this afternoon?

I assured him that that particular vexation indeed had been treated too hastily and that I was going to show more restraint.

'Well, I certainly hope so. Nothing is worth hating one's fellows. But Father Baumann's reflections remind me of an old story. It is very ancient, dating to the foundation of this World. It concerns the first Archbishop of the See, who became convinced that there must be charismatic gifts in high abundance within his jurisdiction. His reasoning was that every time he wrote to a vestry asking for their nominations to a living, he always received an answer to the effect of, 'The Holy Spirit was very clear in suggesting N to us.' And reading the Apostle, the Archbishop supposed that gifts were provided according to the need of the Body. And thus he wondered why his See was so abundantly gifted with discernment, when he knew that there was a great deficiency of Sunday School teachers and a need for the relief of arthritis in many aged persons etc. And, of course, he always wanted to have someone to pray in tongues with him, because he believed that tongues were non-human languages and he could then learn by osmosis as it were. And so he asked the priests in charge of each parish to survey their communicants and ask such persons with spiritual gifts to present themselves to the Archbishop. Well, he was greatly disappointed. No one appeared except a man who handled venomous snakes, but the cathedral verger apparently chased the man away, and he appeared not to be a member of the Established Church anyway.

All was looking fairly grim until the Rector of Sancta Maria Victoria Nostra prope Palatinum dragged a man kicking and screaming into the cathedral. The man's gens would be known to you, but it's not as important to the story as the fact that he was a man of praetorian rank, who is protected by civil law from having hands laid him in this manner with quite stern penalties. The Archbishop was duly shocked. But the Rector said, 'He's been holding out on us, your Grace. He once mentioned something to me outside the Sacrament...' The Archbishop asked the Rector to leave off and help himself to tea in the Archepiscopal Cottage. The Archbishop then sat the retired Justice down, for such he was in civil life and asked him what this was all about.

'Well, your Grace. I was born on Terra as you know...in England and was baptized in a little parish church in the Westcountry. When I was little, the vicar used to invite the children of the parish to gather around when he baptized an infant. And during the prayers over the Font, I always felt a little queer...and queerer still when he actually baptized the child, as if my whole body was feeling the Holy Spirit come down and wash the sins away or seal the child in Christ. As I grew older, I noticed that the same queer feeling seemed associated with the Eucharist, especially with the Words of Institution and the epiclesis, as if there were static electricity drawn into the room at that moment onto the Holy Gifts. Oh, it all sounds very silly, but I developed a great reverence for the Sacrament then, which has continued all my days. And indeed, at my own Confirmation, some years later, I felt the same jolt in great measure as the Bishop laid his hands on me, and when he laid his hands on my fellow confirmands. As I grew older, this feeling drew me to the service of the altar as an acolyte and to the reading of the Word as a lector. Oh, how I feared being a Lector, but I felt as if the Holy Spirit were with me. Once, I had read the Old Testament for that day, some fiery words from Ezekiel, and afterwards, a local headmistress took me aside and informed me that she had seen a flame of fire on my shoulder as I read. O, how that filled me with fear...

'And from those days until now, I have felt so close to God in the rites of the Church through this queer feeling. It is a glorious blessing granted to so wretched a sinner as I, but it's not something I really like to talk about.'

The Archbishop asked, 'Why not? It testifies to the power and existence of God. It must have its uses. And it's greatly uncommon these days. I couldn't find anyone except a snakehandler on the entire planet.'

'Well, that's just it, your Grace. There are so many problems associated with it. First, there is the question of faith. I believe that I sense the Holy Spirit, but aren't we supposed to believe rather than see? I've always feared what would happen if it stopped. It often feels dimmer or even absent when I am not in a properly holy frame of mind. What if it were to stop altogether? Would I still believe in God? I should, shouldn't I? Second, there is the question of other experiences. My encounters with the Holy Spirit did not stop at the gates of the Church of England or this Church. The Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, and the Lutherans all seem to be gifted with it to the same extent. I've seen glimpses in non-Christian religions, too. And can you explain why the Holy Spirit seems to be associated with Mexican women making hot chocolate? This is why it's so silly. I don't have any charismatic gifts of this sort. It's endorphins or something. Third, what do you do if you go to a church and don't encounter the Holy Spirit in the ordinances. What's that supposed to mean? Do you tell them? There are some Protestants who would say that I have been associating with an unclean spirit that confuses the catholic churches from the Word of God.

'Well, my son, I guess you must have faith like anyone else. You must trust that you encounter the Holy Ghost without any certainty. But again, I say it must have its uses. Such gifts are meant to build up the Church. Why did you hide your light under a bushel?'

'Your Grace, the England of my youth was a tempestuous place ecclesially. The Church of England was rent with controversies about women priests, sexuality, and the role of non-Christian religions in national identity etc. Frankly, if I had said to anyone that I initially founded my belief that women were valid matter for ordination on my spiritual gifts, I would have been entering inadmissible evidence into the debate. Such things cannot be verified. Some would believe I was consorting with the Evil One. Others would want to use my gift for their own purposes. My gift also became rather problematic in the sexuality debates. It's a sort of ana-Donatism to believe that a gay priest must be all right with God if he celebrates validly, isn't it?'

'I suppose so. But surely there must be some use to it. The Apostle assures us that these gifts aren't given in vain, and indeed the Lord warns most strongly in the Parable of the Talents that all that we are should be used. God gave you ability to interpret the civil law and execute equity. Why did you use one gift rather than another. Because one gave you profit?'

'Most Reverend Father, surely you don't think I've done nothing? I have tried to use my gift as best I could, not as baking soda to drive others to rashness but as a way to be leaven to the Church. I have seen my gift as a spur not to fall asleep but to re-examine issues that I normally would let others opine on, and as a way to see that some questions do not have easy answers. It's why I am so happy to be a catechist here, because I am allowed to proclaim the kerygma clearly here but also can look at secondary issues and adiaphora from both sides without confusing the catechumens. In England, it would have been nearly impossible to do so with the way the controversies were so mixed together that you were convinced that everyone who was liberal on sexuality thought the Cross was utterly without power or everyone who was conservative on women's ordination believed that women were utterly barred from being Lectors or serving at the Holy Table.'

'But the gift is so uncommon. It needs to be spread through the Church. Or the very few individuals who have it must tell us about it.'

'I don't think it's as uncommon as you think. Some of the Fathers make arguments and use images that seem very familiar to me, and I can't but think that some of the intense devotion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages might have been an occasionally narcotic response. That should warn us that the gifts of the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit ought to map onto one another. I don't think it's rare today either. That headmistress likely had it. That's two in one small Devon parish, isn't it? But isn't it better that we be quiet about it? Would you rather be tossed about on every wind of doctrine or fooled by some charlatan? Wouldn't you rather have a few irenic or occasionally strident people spurred to look again in the Scriptures, to examine if the tradition we received is what it always was, and strive for Holy Wisdom? So won't you let us be, your Grace?"

The Archbishop replied dejectedly, 'I suppose so. But promise me one thing. Will you figure out some way to discern good Sunday School teachers?'"

"Ah, Brother Prior, I said, does the story really end with a joke?" "It does the way I tell it." "But is it true? Is the Church of God sustained in the way the Justice said?" The Church of God fortunately is sustained by more wonderful things than these, indeed, the fullness of the Triune God. It is not as if those of whom the Justice speaks are like the righteous ones in Jewish lore who keep this world in being. If the story is true, and I do not know whether it is true or not, it suggests that the Holy Spirit may not always speak in such a way that those who receive are certain of the One they hear. It re-asserts the ancient teachings to be skeptical of prophets and those who claim spiritual certainty of the will of God. But most importantly, it is a warning to listen carefully to everyone and to cultivate what little measure of holiness we have in this life through the merits of Our Savior in hopes of hearing what He wishes us to do. It's a lesson, my son, you should consider very well, especially when you feel the need to scream at the Fathers.

Another Addition

Confessions of A Carioca is a blog from a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin somewhere to the north of Laodicea. Considering what's going on lately, I figured I might as well have a look inside.

Fun tidbits:

1. "The Elizabethan Settlement was inherently unstable, sort of like the early versions of Windows. Now we're into a system crash, XP doesn't seem to have the answer, and Vista hasn't been released yet."

2. "[The liberals] are simultaneously correct and clueless. (If I knew how to say that in Latin, I surely would!)"

3. (On Mark Lawrence, Bishop Coadjutor-Elect of South Carolina) "We will miss him in San Joaquin, be he will take his place in the councils of the church in a powerful and effective way, and be a salubrious influence on the emerging re-invented Anglicanism."

4. "Then there was the short-lived Book of Daniel, which was overtly Episcopalian, and I actually kind of enjoyed. But it was also bizarrely Episcopalian, an exaggerated caricature of every weird thing the Episcopal Church is currently into, which is no mean feat, since the Episcopal Church is currently into some very bizarre and weird things."

5. It's All About Ecclesiology, Stupid

6. Anecdotal Taxonomy

I occupy the crack between the third and fourth category apparently...

7. "I am particularly troubled by the [Presiding] Bishop's assent to the interviewer's characterization of her position that other religions are "parallel" routes to God for those of "another culture and language." This is not only a theological train wreck (the Church being "catholic"--i.e. universal--and all), it's elitist and racist. What language or cultural vocabulary does one have to be fluent in in order to qualify to be a Christian?"

8. "Consequently, my life as an Episcopalian--working on three-and-half decades--has alway been marked by constant chagrin over the public policy resolutions passed by General Convention. It's not only that I disagree with the vast majority of them on the basis of their actual content, which I do. It's that I am opposed to any public policy resolutions as a matter of principle." (It's OK. He's talking about the praegustatory nature of the Church...)

9. On the Due Observance of Sunday

Oh, it's all good. I disagree with some of it, of course. But it's well-written and usually well-considered. It's a good thing to read if you've just read the latest salvo from his Ordinary.

Cleaning Up the Sidebar

Out with the old, in with the new. Today is St. Andrew's Day, and I therefore decided that my Advent Fast would begin today. This was decided as I was staring at sausage pizza.

The beginning of the liturgical year also is an opportunity to clean up a few matters in the sidebar.
First, Kinesis is no more. Rev. Deacon Karen wisely decided to scatter her blog to the winds before entering her first call.

I now have the correct address of Dean Kniseley's fine Entangled States. It is a good mixture of science and sermons.

A couple of new blogs enter the fray. One comes from an Anglo-Catholic priest, who claims his parish is the most traditional and orthodox parish in the Diocese of Los Angeles. But they're staying! Yay! The hike to the OC would be a bit much, but I do like Father David's blog, and I think most of you would, too. He apparently also shares one of my hobbies, writing science fiction. I had been meaning to mention the blog for a while now, but I was spurred to action by a kind promotional e-mail in my Inbox from one of Father David's parishioners.

The other is Father Tony Clavier's self-titled blog, though I think "West Virginia Parson" is a much better title. Father Clavier is fighting cancer while having some quite interesting (and convicting) thoughts about mission and the Episcopal Church. I am still working on a response to his thoughts on Anglicanism.

All right, that's it. Go read the Postulant or something. But if you do read the Postulant's entry about a Network bishop etc. etc., please know that the rumor in question is a very old one and is related to his quite enthusiastic support of a "discreet" ex-gay ministry in his cathedral city and his unmarried state. Please... Hasn't anyone ever heard of the eunouchion pneumatike ?

Father Clavier Discusses Anglicanism

Link to the original post , and I'll respond item by item.

1. Let us not forget from where our tradition of local expression, territorial basis, and community commitment comes. Someone, perhaps Thomas Cromwell, had the bright idea during the presenting dispute of the Henrician Reformation that there was just something about being emperor. It was not a particularly illogical idea. The Pantheon in Rome was not converted to Christian worship until the early 7th century, because temples were regarded as property of the Emperor, and it was not until the 7th century that the Popes felt sufficiently independent of the Emperor to subvert his jurisdiction. In Cromwell's time, Henry's nephew-in-law was the Emperor and was using his imperium in the form of an army to compel a decision in favor of the legitimacy of his aunt's marriage. If Henry became emperor in England, Ireland, Scotland, and France, the latter two realms being conceits of his, Cromwell theorized that Henry by virtue of his crown imperial (can you tell that I'm listening to Sir William Walton at the moment?) would have similar jurisdiction as the "Roman" Emperor over spiritual matters. (It's entirely possible that this theory pre-dates Cromwell, considering that Henry was anointed like a bishop at his Coronation contrary to papal legislation), and the Coronation crown was referred to as "Imperiall.") But the Act in Restraint of Appeals (1533) leaves no doubt as to a fundamental belief that England was an Empire and therefore entitled to a certain parallelism between temporal and spiritual jurisdiction,

"This realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one Supreme Head and King having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial Crown of the same."

The founding values of popular sovereignty and religious disestablishment (less ubiquitous but of the same antiquity) likewise have shaped American Episcopalians, in theology, outlook, and polity. The reconciliation of the schism over Secession would not have been so easy without the instinct to do things spiritually as it were temporally, asking only for conformity and accession to the equivalent to Constitution and Laws of the church. If Lincoln had evaded his assassin, the civil arrangements might have been nearly as amicable. As beautiful as the 1865 General Convention sounds, one only needs to read Dubois's The Souls of Black Folk and the records of South Carolina's wartime Diocesan Conventions to realize that brotherly reconciliation should have been mixed with some frank discussions. The same sins of the polity with respect to racism were visited on the church, time and time again.

It goes without saying that the influence of Anglicanism in many parts of the world including the United States can be traced to the strong association of the Church of England's missionary work with British colonization.

But there is something more to the local adaptation of Anglicanism than the spectre of Erastianism. For instance, wherefore the Episcopal Church of Scotland? The existence of such a church should have ceased after 1689 if Anglicanism simply was locally adapted to the temporalities. Anglicanism also bears the character of catholic Intramontanism. While the Pope was resisted by Henry, because Henry considered himself Supreme Head, his bishops generally held a limited view of papal power, something that surely would apply to the Ecumenical Patriarch or the Pope of Alexandria: the Church Catholic decentralized but united somehow. And it is in this odd, much-controverted, and wholly unresolved quality of "catholicity" that allows the Episcopal Church of Scotland to exist among Established Presbyterianism or the head of the Anglican Center at Rome to confirm or receive native Italians. And indeed the latter is so odd that some sort of Anglican distinctiveness must be invoked or else it must be asserted that Anglican adaptation is not merely local or territorial but catholic in the looser sense that is not solely credal or conciliar or episcopolitical or sacramental etc. but one that embraces the fullness of affairs in the name and in service of Christ as present locally. Many Anglicans don't seem to want that.

But Father Clavier is right to point out Anglicanism is not a sect etc. The definition of a sect really must be the assertion of nulla salus extra nos as opposed to nulla salus extra ecclesiam or nulla salus extra Christum. There is salvation outside of Anglicanism.

2. "It follows that we do not own our ecclesial reality..." Indeed, the Body of Christ is wider than Anglicans. Moreover, we do not construct an ecclesial reality owned only by us. Anglicans generally recognize the orders of some non-Anglicans, though limits vary. But what is important is that our concerns about the orders of others stem from concerns about apostolic succession and sacramental character and not truth games of about such things that really boil down to issues of authority. I fear that Rome's greatest objection to our scattered reception of women being valid matter for Holy Orders has little to do with the nature of the controversy (which often brings both sides close to heresy) but they really do believe our orders are valid, fear they might be wrong about women's ordination, and fear that those with certain spiritual gifts might realize this, thus weakening their authority.

"Neither our claims to be the Church, our formularies (doctrine, discipline and worship), nor our sacramental rites and ceremonies are self-generated: we didn't invent them."

And if there should be sort of re-alignment in Anglicanism, it would behoove liberals to consider these words carefully. And I would further warn that our reception process should be critical.

"Anglicanism rejects the sectarian ideal that churches are for like-minded 'saints' who agree about each others' virtue, or election, or enlightenment, or on an agenda other than the Catholic Faith as described in the Liturgy and other documents, and in the living voice of scripture, the living experience of the Tradition and the living application of sanctified reason."

It is this demand that Scripture, Tradition, and Reason be alive that is particularly interesting. Whenever someone asserts something other than a view of Scripture enthroned among the cherubim on the grounds of a trilateral or quadrilateral understanding, the common rhetorical tack becomes that Hooker or Wesley (or whoever) intended Scripture to be the final and unquestioned authority, no matter what. Let us be clear. The obsession with authorial intent is a fully modern concept, which if explained in its full sense and implications likely would dismay many of our fathers and mothers in the faith. It is closely akin to taking everything in its plain and grammatical sense as understood by English Protestants and believing that absolution by the Pope from reading something otherwise was still utterly damnable.

3. This item is a fun item. Father Clavier describes the just society grounded in Christian truth and Jesus' sovereignty. Ruth Gledhill has a story in the Times of London today about a study showing that the most irreligious democracies (i.e., those most fallen from Christian practice) have lower abortion and teen pregnancy rates, lower sexually transmitted disease rates, lower rates of juvenile and young adult mortality (like this week...), and lower homicide rates than the "religious" democracy, i.e., the US. Mayhap, it sounds that those in power honor the words of the Gospel but do not respect its power. The irreligious democracies, however, have lower birthrates...

But these points are not exactly germane, because the Lord instructs us that it will always be a losing battle. The Empire always strikes back, even if it means that the Christians become the Empire. The world will end in a big fiery cock-up, no matter what we do. I do not say this as a encouragement to inaction but because I fear what would happen if the religious left ever became the kind of political force the religious right is. The lust for mastery consumes us all. Father Clavier reminds us that Christians are the Disloyal Opposition to the Powers That Be and Emissaries of the Servant Emperor. Most Anglicans really feel drawn toward one role rather than the other. The Episcopal Church is leaning toward Disloyal Opposition, while its discontents yell that we aren't being Emissaries. The balance is slightly better in Africa, where even the Church of Nigeria's Pastoral Letters have fairly equal measures Great Commandment and Great Commission. But we're in a bad state when conservatives demean "Reign of God" as a liberal buzzword in the Presiding Bishop's correspondence to the Primate of All Nigeria.

Anglicanism as a whole might be better off reflecting how the Gospel might come with the Holy Spirit and with power in a world facing a variety of problems that will require greater cooperation among many kingdoms, peoples, and nation, not as something confused with particular national identities. We are the salt of the Earth, not the food, the leaven, not the bread. The Body of Christ is a network for good and for God. Too bad about those bonds of affection, no?

4. The Church Year is a discipline. It's a discipline we share with much of the rest of the Body. However, I do understand that is not shared with everyone. Easter and Christmas are universal (though strict Calvinists might not celebrate the latter), but the idea of season and of commemorations still strikes many originally non-Anglican evangelicals oddly in their bones.

5. One of the major tests facing Anglicanism is how corporate is corporate and to whom are we really accountable. Is it the local parish? Is it the clergy who set the corporate bar? Is it the lay leadership? Is it the diocese? The Province? The Primates? Lambeth? Father Clavier perhaps takes the approach I would take, in which the rule of belief is founded on the liturgy. It is an idea that Anglicans intuit fairly easily. But as Father AKMA points out, the divergent eucharistic liturgy of the Church is making the corporate level increasingly congregational. And Father AKMA is merely assuming that the authorized liturgies are followed. What happens when the General Confession and the Nicene Creed are no longer heard? The best question being asked by the re-asserters is "How much must 'my orthodoxy' be purged in order to fit into the corporate liturgical life of the Church?" It's not as shaggy a dog as they make it sound. Will the new arrangements of the Network mean the 1662 BCP? Will you purge those who believe in Real Presence thereby?

6. This item seems to relate the foundation of corporate practice on the Scriptures with the Triunity of God. I would add to this item that Anglicanism is really built on a careful tension between three Books: the Book of Life, the Holy Scriptures, and the Book of Nature (in that order, too). This is a concern of both Hooker and Donne, but it's not one that is really getting too much attention these days. I would argue that the natural sciences have a special status as a mediator of ecclesial discernment within our tradition, though not to the subjection of the Scriptures. This is why I have spent the last few years trying (and failing) to cultivate that sanctified mind of which Father Clavier speaks. "Caeli ennarrant..."

7. I'm not really sure what some of this item means. The basic model of Anglican clergy training is to ground the postulant for orders in the liberal arts and then treat divinity as a higher science requiring the skills developed within the septivium, but which is ideally done in combination with pastoral training. There was always a bit of tension between the Universities and the facere of the Church with this one. But I always appreciated how so many of the great bishops of the early American church received their training like apprentices with a master workman. Bishop White trained Muhlenberg and others in this way. It very much agrees with St. Hilda of Whitby's approach to theological education with its emphasis on a balance between study and pastoral work or with Benedictine ideas about balance. It also was a training in prayer as well. Muhlenberg began his training by saying Morning and Evening Prayer in St. Peter's Church. Later, he was allowed to preach under the old man's supervision. Yet he also followed White all over the place, shadowing him like an intern or a resident. Perhaps, clergy training needs to return to this model, which really did tend toward an Apostolic College. See my past comments about apostolic succession being more than laying on of hands.

8. We're still fairly new at the canonization game yet... But our tendency to speak of the laity as a particular order (rather than a general order) of ministry is suggestive of something. The fact that I can consider being a layman as my vocation for now, and the tradition of being "a churchman" is also suggestive. Is this pan-Anglican? Oh, wait, the Mother's Union is a byword in Africa...

9. This item is troublesome territory, because churches that are inclusive of the community they serve will be inward-looking. It's hard to maintain a catholic church this way. Only by citing Dominical authority does Father Clavier provide any way forward. He really should clarify what kind of inclusion he thinks the Reformers were performing, though I suspect he means something about making the Bible and the liturgy more accessible to the masses, which is now uncontroversially the kind of reform with which the Lord would agree, "The word is very near to you..." suffuses the readings for the Feast of St. Andrew. But the disagreements that consume the community presently concern the will of the Lord. My radical priests believe they have Dominical authority on their side and probably could quote copious Scripture on that score if forced to it. What keeps Anglicanism vital is the ability to listen and the ability to critique and be critiqued, to be drawn by one another toward Dominical authority. That is the only way to build an inclusive community under "the servant Emperor." A community of like-minded "right-thinking" people does not listen to dissent and does not know how to critique it, nor to accept critique.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that you may not stay up all night musing about divinity because that just makes it ever so much harder to awake for Lauds

Correction

Upon further review, MadPriest dislikes evangelicals because in his experience, they coddle the well-off, corrupt youth, and don't pay their diocesan assessments. His objection to the CUs is thus founded on the corrupting the youth bit. This must be a UK thing. Most of the evangelicals I know were "corrupted" long before college.

Events Across the Pond

MadPriest is on the warpath against Evangelicals, and frankly, he's becoming rather nasty about it. The casus Insanisacerdotalis indignantiae is the dispute in England and Scotland about university Student Unions disaffiliating Christian Unions (CUs), organizations nationally associated with the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF) on the grounds that their by-laws discriminate against non-Christians and "active" homosexuals (note that I did not use "non-celibate," "partnered" etc., because I am not clear whether the CUs are merely opposed to homosexual intimacy and intercourse or self-identification).

Five issues seem to have become entrained together by the intense convection of this dispute.

1. Whether there should be criteria for membership or leadership in a particular organization besides that they be registered students in good standing of the University. (My alma mater actually forbids student organizations to have such criteria in their by-laws with respect to membership, but not leadership if I remember correctly.)

2. Whether Christian organizations on a campus should be permitted to discuss controversial aspects of Christianity and teach with authority on the matter.

3. Since universities in the UK are generally publicly funded, there is some concern that the by-laws of the Christian Unions violate non-discrimination laws of some sort.

4. Some Christians seem incensed about the Doctrinal Statement that must be affirmed upon membership:

There is one God in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

God is sovereign in creation, revelation, redemption and final judgement.

The Bible, as originally given, is the inspired and infallible Word of God. It is the supreme authority in all matters of belief and behaviour.

Since the fall, the whole of humankind is sinful and guilty, so that everyone is subject to God's wrath and condemnation.

The Lord Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Son, is fully God; he was born of a virgin; his humanity is real and sinless; he died on the cross, was raised bodily from death and is now reigning over heaven and earth.

Sinful human beings are redeemed from the guilt, penalty and power of sin only through the sacrificial death once and for all time of their representative and substitute, Jesus Christ, the only mediator between them and God.

Those who believe in Christ are pardoned all their sins and accepted in God's sight only because of the righteousness of Christ credited to them; this justification is God's act of undeserved mercy, received solely by trust in him and not by their own efforts.

The Holy Spirit alone makes the work of Christ effective to individual sinners, enabling them to turn to God from their sin and to trust in Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit lives in all those he has regenerated. He makes them increasingly Christlike in character and behaviour and gives them power for their witness in the world.

The one holy universal church is the Body of Christ, to which all true believers belong.

The Lord Jesus Christ will return in person, to judge everyone, to execute God's just condemnation on those who have not repented and to receive the redeemed to eternal glory.

( Courtesy of the University of York Christian Union ).

The main stumbling block (my own, too) is the assertion of the infallibility of Scripture, which is a novelty introduced by the Westminster Confession of Faith. There also might be objections to Word being capitalized in the same clause, but I note that though the Articles of Religion assert Jesus Christ to be the Word of God (lit. the Word of the Father), the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral assert that the Holy Scriptures are (apparently adopting another Westminster novelty). Thus, I would agree that the Scriptures are the Word of God, provided that this is meant in some different and lower sense than Jesus Christ being the Word of God. Otherwise, the statement appears to agree with the Articles and the catholic Creeds.

5. Campus Muslim organizations are discriminatory, too. Some have asked why they get a free pass from the SUs.

-------------------------------------------

Having recently been graduated from a university with student organizations occupying political positions in a spectrum from revolutionary Catholic monarchism to revolutionary international socialism and religious organizations just as varied, I will be the first to say that a campus with a wide diversity of ideas and opinions is far more educational and fun than one in which uniformity of thought is encouraged. Once you decide that universities ought to be fair marketplaces of ideas, which is the cornerstone of academic freedom, delisting student organizations with unpopular positions is no more justified than firing professors with unpopular research. At my present institution, a controversial professor with tenure was sacked sneakily. That sneaky trick has hamstrung the institution's work in his field to the present day. But perhaps you can endure a Holocaust denier in the Political Science Department (you would hope there would be grounds for removal for misconduct in such a case), but you could not endure a student organization that promoted Holocaust denial. Well then, bring back in loco parentis . You only can make a distinction between student and professorial liberty on grounds of order or parental supervision.

But the major problem seems to arise from the public funding issue. Should the UK Government be involved with funding organizations that hold to a Cliffs' Notes version of the Westminster Confession of Faith and have discriminatory leadership requirements. In the United States, the answer would be simple. No public funding for the Christian organizations of any kind, no funding for the Muslim organizations either. In the United Kingdom, the situation becomes far more complicated, since the government funds educational foundations of the non-Established Churches (funding Catholic Schools in Scotlnd, for instance). For a Student Union to claim that the Christian Union cannot be supported on account of non-discrimination legislation is suspect in England and farcical in Scotland, where the Kirk is Established and the Catholic schools are regulated in such a way to ensure their Romanity. The Student Unions would be far better off waiting for the more obvious constitutional issues of the church-state conflict before going off on their own.

MadPriest's ire really seems to be focused on the opposition of the CUs to homosexual intimacy (see "I would like to marry gay people."). I share with him the sentiment but not the ire. Punishing or slandering someone solely or principally on account of their objections to homosexual intimacy is merely reciprocation. Mix that with the lust for mastery and you become the Empire ( qua idea) in the present age. The situation would be much different if the CUs were going seeking to replace the SUs so that organizations would be funded only if they subscribed to the Cliffs' notes version of the Westminster Confession.