The Heresy of ERD
It is never a good sign when a Sunday forum begins with the statement: “Now what I’m saying is somewhat heretical…” For the first time in recent memory, I encountered an exception to this rule, because “the doctrine” in question was the Millennium Development Goals and the heretic was the President of Episcopal Relief, Bob Radtke. While Radtke appreciates the MDGs as a useful classification of the efforts necessary to reduce global poverty, Radtke argues that the MDGs are based on a “planner” approach to development, in which first world governments and non-governmental organizations tell third world governments and people how poverty is to be alleviated. Radtke prefers the “searcher” approach in which first world organizations provide the economic resources so that third world people can bring themselves out of poverty on their own.
Anyone familiar with Habitat for Humanity will be familiar with the distinction between planners and searchers. Habitat for Humanity is an alternative to traditional “planner” public and private approaches to low income housing, in which governments and private companies build large housing complexes in depressed neighborhoods and rent them to economically distressed people who are given little incentive to maintain the property.
Habitat for Humanity is based on a searcher model. Habitat for Humanity goes into the community and identifies lots and buildings suitable for new construction or renovation. They then find people in the neighborhood who lack homes of their own and allow them to purchase a home for cost and sweat equity. Because those helped now own their own homes, they have an incentive to maintain their property and can build equity to give them leverage in the credit market.
Radtke told stories about various ERD projects, including a village improvement project in Honduras and Nets for Life, which brings mosquito nets and education about malaria to sub-Saharan Africa.
In the midst of current struggles to maintain some sense of affection between the Provinces of the Anglican Communion, it was good to remember that ERD uses Anglican churches throughout the Global South as bases of operations and sources of local expertise or as the Rector wryly put it, “The Anglican Communion does more than spread bigotry.” Although there have been attempts by the present bands of separatists to create parallel organizations to ERD such as Anglican Relief and Development Fund (a creation of the CAN), the model for these organizations is clearly ERD. The main advantage of these new organizations is their stronger relations to Provinces such as Uganda and Nigeria.
Moving
Due to space limitations, I no longer can be housed in the Mansura Sanctae Caterinae Alexandrensis at my present institution. So I have just moved into a little room not too far away. I am “borrowing” Internet connectivity (AKMA style) at the moment and will be working on obtaining some of my own.
J.K. Rowling vs. Phillip Pullman
Fr. Nick linked to BabyBlue’s defense of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. I do intend to read the whole thing, but I can’t say that I am going to be particularly enthusiastic if there’s a lot of bashing of Phillip Pullman as an author rather than as a man. I share with the Archbishop of Canterbury the sentiment that there is something deeply important about His Dark Materials that transcends Pullman’s attempt to write some sort of novelistic screed against God and Christianity. Despite Pullman’s attempts, his works are a fine illustration of Kyle Potter’s blog motto, “Because Gods who cannot raise the dead must die.” Pullman’s God is a fraud, who did not incarnate Himself as Jesus of Nazareth, making Pullman’s caricaturistic churchmen as evil as you would expect in such a world. Reading Pullman’s works leads me to appreciate greatly the God I worship.
What I suspect needles Christians about Pullman’s works is how good he is in identifying oppressive structures that we often conflate with divine authority. Patriarchy or traditional family structure do nit get much of a pass in Pullman’s world, in which the protagonist’s father and mother, despite their elite backgrounds, turn out to be the worst parents imaginable and she finds family among aliens and the marginalized of her society (and the academics…). The literary theologian might say that Lyra is Pullman’s deep desire for Jesus Christ. That Pullman’s works are one more chapter in man’s critique of God, one of the great themes of the Holy Scriptures.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
I Believe This Is Serious
Seamus MacManus would be proud...or frightened
There's A Book, Too .
Most of what I know about the Travellers is from personal experience. The Irish (especially in the West) are some of the most hospitable people on earth, but they can be xenophobic if the occasion strikes. And in the West, there is one group that bears the brunt of it. Those are the Travellers. The funny thing is that the Travellers are as native to Ireland as anyone can be in Ireland. I wouldn't be surprised if they turned out to be the Fir Bolg or the Tuatha de Danaan.
There's A Book, Too .
Most of what I know about the Travellers is from personal experience. The Irish (especially in the West) are some of the most hospitable people on earth, but they can be xenophobic if the occasion strikes. And in the West, there is one group that bears the brunt of it. Those are the Travellers. The funny thing is that the Travellers are as native to Ireland as anyone can be in Ireland. I wouldn't be surprised if they turned out to be the Fir Bolg or the Tuatha de Danaan.
Hidden Palms
I just took a look at the pilot of "Hidden Palms," a new TV show on the CW. My first thought was: "This is the OC all over again, just in Palm Springs." But while there are definite similarities between any show centered around overly beautiful teenagers in a milieu of vain bourgeois opulence, it had a couple of interesting twists to my mind.
1. The main character seems extremely well-adjusted but just came out of rehab. There will be an Alcoholics Anonymous component of this show (meetings are held at the very real St. Paul in the Desert Episcopal Church [you can read the sign]). Sadly, like all television shows in these kinds of settings, teenagers have far too easy access to alcohol.
Even better, I suspect the main character's sponsor will be a rather adorable Southern drag queen (think a shorter version of L. Crew), played by the brilliant and dimunitive Leslie Jordan.
2. Very early in the show, we see a pretty teenage girl dressed in full lab gear in her garage heat some sort of ammonium nitrate mixture on her Bunsen burner, stick in a thermistor, and then looks briefly panicked as the thermistor records the heat evolution of a reaction very much out of control, causing a small explosion. If I were 16 and knew someone like that, I would be very much in love. Of course, she instantly develops a crush on the main character, who is barely conscious of her existence. I want to know what she's working on.
The writer is Kevin Williamson of Dawson's Creek fame, and episodes will appear all summer. So if you're looking for something dramedic this summer, this might not rot your brain.
1. The main character seems extremely well-adjusted but just came out of rehab. There will be an Alcoholics Anonymous component of this show (meetings are held at the very real St. Paul in the Desert Episcopal Church [you can read the sign]). Sadly, like all television shows in these kinds of settings, teenagers have far too easy access to alcohol.
Even better, I suspect the main character's sponsor will be a rather adorable Southern drag queen (think a shorter version of L. Crew), played by the brilliant and dimunitive Leslie Jordan.
2. Very early in the show, we see a pretty teenage girl dressed in full lab gear in her garage heat some sort of ammonium nitrate mixture on her Bunsen burner, stick in a thermistor, and then looks briefly panicked as the thermistor records the heat evolution of a reaction very much out of control, causing a small explosion. If I were 16 and knew someone like that, I would be very much in love. Of course, she instantly develops a crush on the main character, who is barely conscious of her existence. I want to know what she's working on.
The writer is Kevin Williamson of Dawson's Creek fame, and episodes will appear all summer. So if you're looking for something dramedic this summer, this might not rot your brain.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Praying Amid A Series of Tubes
I think if you had told me back when I was confirmed in the primitive days of 1990 that I someday would rise every morning, link to a computer at some distance away from where I lived, and would say Morning Prayer by loading computer files onto my laptop, I imagine I would have been incredulous. In 1990, laptops were at least $2000 ($3000 in modern dollars), connection speeds in my parents' house was 1200 baud, and Morning Prayer was something used once a month for Sunday services, though our liberal catholic Rector was trying to get rid of it. Let's just say I fell in love with Evening Prayer long before Morning Prayer.
Fast forward to 2007, my mid-range laptop was ~$1000, connection speeds at my place run ~5820 kilobaud , and my Daily Office needs are filled nicely by Mission St. Clare and Oremus. Yes, I have a Book of Common Prayer in actual print. Yes, I even have a Hymnal. But these sites (or similar ones like dailyoffice.org [can't forget them]) provide invaluable service. Like any economy of scale, a few people alone have to compile the liturgy, check the Lectionary etc. Yes, I do use my BCP on occasion without the computer or as a supplement (just in case I need certain Collects), but I appreciate my mornings of Rite II with Orthodox hagiography (or occasional Monophysites...) and my evenings are filled with Church of England liberal catholic goodness. Online Office sites are not just a peculiarly Anglican phenomenon. The latest reform of the Roman Liturgy of the Hours is online at Universalis.
Praying the Office online is not the limit of "common prayer" on the Internet. I occasionally will listen to Sunday Worship and Choral Evensong on the Beeb Online (the BBC, that is). And conscious of Adorno's critique of the Radio Symphony, I initially tried to pray the service at a temporal disconnect with the congregation. I don't listen as much anymore. Liturgy requires presence. It requires incarnation. The medieval canons prescribed that the Office had to be recited while at least moving one's lips. I find it very difficult to put myself into the prayerful mode that separates the radio liturgy from a concert, especially when the music is so very beautiful... (yes, I know, there's something wrong with me).
So significant is the impact of the radio liturgy brought to the Internet on the world that BBC Sunday Worship can put entire sections of the Internet into consternation. Conservative Roman Catholics in the UK did not enjoy hearing from a gay friendly parish community in San Francisco and James Alison's preaching. But for all that, I have to appreciate the radio liturgy for its ability to teach us a little about parts of the Church we wouldn't ordinarily know. Hearing Evening Prayer from Capetown reminds us of the South African's church's creation of a sort of Modus Ngunensis. Or we could hear from Rochester Cathedral prayers for gays and lesbians to come out of the closet in peace, and think happily that bishops and cathedral deans don't always see eye to eye (glory to God!). Or we could hear the Archbishop of York using some aimless brevity as a baptismal creed and feel that at least one of the abuses of one's own parish is firmly in the Anglican mainstream. The radio liturgy brought to the Internet is no longer "the mass for shut-ins" as my father refers to certain programs on RTE in Ireland, it has become a concrete way to present the wealthier corners of the church to the other wealthy corners of the church, though they may be separated by oceans.
But what of the world of 2024? What will these very recent changes in common prayer mean for the Church as she wanders the pilgrim way further along the non-linear advance of human culture? It's difficult to say. On one hand, I think we are going to see a little bit of backlash against the digitization of our presence to one another. The worshipper of 1980 and before was quite content to sit in a pew, mumble along, throw out some pleasantries at Coffee Hour, and drop some cash in the plate. In a world filled with many possibilities for society, Christian society came with lower expectations. We can't expect this in the future. We drive more. We live further away from our neighbors. Schools draw from vast tracts of land. Workplaces as well. Technology has allowed us to put a little more distance between us. And our geographic mobility continues apace. (I probably will not be living on the Moon in 2024, but I probably will know someone who does...). Nevertheless, most people have a smaller number of good friends than their parents but claim greater intimacy with those they have.
In 2024, our preferences will be to maintain Christian society with small numbers of other individuals with a peculiar and particular prayer life. This situation soon may destroy the paradigm that has maintained common prayer since whenever we want to claim its source. It may be impossible to establish common prayer by Authority. It's nearly impossible in the Episcopal Church now. Common prayer will have to be chosen by the grassroots.
And thus I propose that common prayer should be seen in the future primarily in terms of continuity rather than unity or uniformity. For me, both my Morning and Evening Prayer represent Anglican common prayer, despite some significant differences between them. They share a grounding in the Psalms and other poetry of Holy Scripture, for instance. As long as I say the Creed and Confession once per day, their absence in a liturgy does not dismay me. The test for our future will be how we maintain continuity with tradition and a regularity of liturgical habit in a way that feeds those very desirous of society but who do not know how to be social, who do not understand how to subsume their will to a common leading, who treat their manner of life as things to be bought and sold. I do not claim it will be easy. What will be required is what I already am seeing, the creation of new ways of bringing liturgical information and information liturgically to the Internet.
Fast forward to 2007, my mid-range laptop was ~$1000, connection speeds at my place run ~5820 kilobaud , and my Daily Office needs are filled nicely by Mission St. Clare and Oremus. Yes, I have a Book of Common Prayer in actual print. Yes, I even have a Hymnal. But these sites (or similar ones like dailyoffice.org [can't forget them]) provide invaluable service. Like any economy of scale, a few people alone have to compile the liturgy, check the Lectionary etc. Yes, I do use my BCP on occasion without the computer or as a supplement (just in case I need certain Collects), but I appreciate my mornings of Rite II with Orthodox hagiography (or occasional Monophysites...) and my evenings are filled with Church of England liberal catholic goodness. Online Office sites are not just a peculiarly Anglican phenomenon. The latest reform of the Roman Liturgy of the Hours is online at Universalis.
Praying the Office online is not the limit of "common prayer" on the Internet. I occasionally will listen to Sunday Worship and Choral Evensong on the Beeb Online (the BBC, that is). And conscious of Adorno's critique of the Radio Symphony, I initially tried to pray the service at a temporal disconnect with the congregation. I don't listen as much anymore. Liturgy requires presence. It requires incarnation. The medieval canons prescribed that the Office had to be recited while at least moving one's lips. I find it very difficult to put myself into the prayerful mode that separates the radio liturgy from a concert, especially when the music is so very beautiful... (yes, I know, there's something wrong with me).
So significant is the impact of the radio liturgy brought to the Internet on the world that BBC Sunday Worship can put entire sections of the Internet into consternation. Conservative Roman Catholics in the UK did not enjoy hearing from a gay friendly parish community in San Francisco and James Alison's preaching. But for all that, I have to appreciate the radio liturgy for its ability to teach us a little about parts of the Church we wouldn't ordinarily know. Hearing Evening Prayer from Capetown reminds us of the South African's church's creation of a sort of Modus Ngunensis. Or we could hear from Rochester Cathedral prayers for gays and lesbians to come out of the closet in peace, and think happily that bishops and cathedral deans don't always see eye to eye (glory to God!). Or we could hear the Archbishop of York using some aimless brevity as a baptismal creed and feel that at least one of the abuses of one's own parish is firmly in the Anglican mainstream. The radio liturgy brought to the Internet is no longer "the mass for shut-ins" as my father refers to certain programs on RTE in Ireland, it has become a concrete way to present the wealthier corners of the church to the other wealthy corners of the church, though they may be separated by oceans.
But what of the world of 2024? What will these very recent changes in common prayer mean for the Church as she wanders the pilgrim way further along the non-linear advance of human culture? It's difficult to say. On one hand, I think we are going to see a little bit of backlash against the digitization of our presence to one another. The worshipper of 1980 and before was quite content to sit in a pew, mumble along, throw out some pleasantries at Coffee Hour, and drop some cash in the plate. In a world filled with many possibilities for society, Christian society came with lower expectations. We can't expect this in the future. We drive more. We live further away from our neighbors. Schools draw from vast tracts of land. Workplaces as well. Technology has allowed us to put a little more distance between us. And our geographic mobility continues apace. (I probably will not be living on the Moon in 2024, but I probably will know someone who does...). Nevertheless, most people have a smaller number of good friends than their parents but claim greater intimacy with those they have.
In 2024, our preferences will be to maintain Christian society with small numbers of other individuals with a peculiar and particular prayer life. This situation soon may destroy the paradigm that has maintained common prayer since whenever we want to claim its source. It may be impossible to establish common prayer by Authority. It's nearly impossible in the Episcopal Church now. Common prayer will have to be chosen by the grassroots.
And thus I propose that common prayer should be seen in the future primarily in terms of continuity rather than unity or uniformity. For me, both my Morning and Evening Prayer represent Anglican common prayer, despite some significant differences between them. They share a grounding in the Psalms and other poetry of Holy Scripture, for instance. As long as I say the Creed and Confession once per day, their absence in a liturgy does not dismay me. The test for our future will be how we maintain continuity with tradition and a regularity of liturgical habit in a way that feeds those very desirous of society but who do not know how to be social, who do not understand how to subsume their will to a common leading, who treat their manner of life as things to be bought and sold. I do not claim it will be easy. What will be required is what I already am seeing, the creation of new ways of bringing liturgical information and information liturgically to the Internet.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
The Week Ahead
"We've got problems, we don't know how to solve them, everywhere we go, we've got some skeletons that follow, we've got baggage, you know we're going to drag it where we go for everyone to see"--Good Charlotte, "Broken Hearts Parade"
You must not think I am as gregarious in person as I might appear in electronic print. Then again, I'm not particularly gregarious in this medium either. Someone asked me today about my week. The highlight of my week was a significant improvement to my novel method of processing tree ring width records from individual trees. But I couldn't think of this (and am unsure whether this was a worth a mention), I'm too consumed with quantifying our general ignorance about Martian dust devils. Whenever I'm too frustrated with this particular problem, I go read a novel. Well, at least on the weekends, when I can afford the time. This afternoon, I read The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard, a sweetly romantic tale written in prose so evanescently descriptive that you can't imagine understanding the characters or perceiving the locales even if you knew them in the flesh. The thrust of the novel was something about the maintenance of humanity in an inhumane world or else how jolly interesting it is to be a misfit in a world very soon to eviscerate the very standards by which your oddity was judged, only to find yourself still an oddity. But if you're odd, you might as well have company. Also, the Antipodes are dull and depressing. I'll say this for the last half-century. Whatever the Antipodes were fifty years ago, they are likely anything but boring now. But the novel was a happy relief from the usual space operas for which my local library has good taste. So I guess I just had a pleasant afternoon.
Two events wait in the wings this week in the Anglican Communion (particularly in the United States). The first is more sure. Next Saturday, God willing and the people consenting, Peter Jasper Akinola, Primate of All Nigeria, will install Martyn Minns as Bishop of CANA. The second is entirely the stuff of which dreams are made of and yet maybe not. Fr. Martins has suggested that this just might be the week when some new sheepfold might be erected to gather the reasserters of five Dioceses. One almost feels compelled to switch into Latin when contemplating a nearby future of denuntiantibus titterulibus ex Cantauria or nova Papa Alexandrina .
Whatever this week brings, I point you to Fr. Knisely's words :
And as you well know, I can be as guilty as this as anyone.
You must not think I am as gregarious in person as I might appear in electronic print. Then again, I'm not particularly gregarious in this medium either. Someone asked me today about my week. The highlight of my week was a significant improvement to my novel method of processing tree ring width records from individual trees. But I couldn't think of this (and am unsure whether this was a worth a mention), I'm too consumed with quantifying our general ignorance about Martian dust devils. Whenever I'm too frustrated with this particular problem, I go read a novel. Well, at least on the weekends, when I can afford the time. This afternoon, I read The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard, a sweetly romantic tale written in prose so evanescently descriptive that you can't imagine understanding the characters or perceiving the locales even if you knew them in the flesh. The thrust of the novel was something about the maintenance of humanity in an inhumane world or else how jolly interesting it is to be a misfit in a world very soon to eviscerate the very standards by which your oddity was judged, only to find yourself still an oddity. But if you're odd, you might as well have company. Also, the Antipodes are dull and depressing. I'll say this for the last half-century. Whatever the Antipodes were fifty years ago, they are likely anything but boring now. But the novel was a happy relief from the usual space operas for which my local library has good taste. So I guess I just had a pleasant afternoon.
Two events wait in the wings this week in the Anglican Communion (particularly in the United States). The first is more sure. Next Saturday, God willing and the people consenting, Peter Jasper Akinola, Primate of All Nigeria, will install Martyn Minns as Bishop of CANA. The second is entirely the stuff of which dreams are made of and yet maybe not. Fr. Martins has suggested that this just might be the week when some new sheepfold might be erected to gather the reasserters of five Dioceses. One almost feels compelled to switch into Latin when contemplating a nearby future of denuntiantibus titterulibus ex Cantauria or nova Papa Alexandrina .
Whatever this week brings, I point you to Fr. Knisely's words :
But my concern is less that we behaving badly, it’s more about what our behavior is doing to our souls. The long and protracted arguments, the claims of righteousness and charges of unrighteousness, the glee that is felt when one’s opponents misstep is slowly creating a family system that is addicted to this conflict. And this conflict seems to me to fast becoming an idol that we’re focussing our attention on rather than on serving Christ.
And as you well know, I can be as guilty as this as anyone.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Other Process
One of those enchanting perquisites of having a doorknob exposed to all comers is its ability to act as yet another locus for advertising. No public space can be immune from advertising, after all, lest the economy implode. Of course, the form of doorknob advertising must be a Thai food menu. Someday, I hope to find the form of doorknob advertisements on my doorknob, because I'm betting they serve the form of pad see ew. I believe and trust that the Triune God makes great Thai food and the doorknobs of Paradise shall have menus for this food. Amen.
My door is fortunate or otherwise to possess an additional fixture for advertising. Technically, I believe it is reserved for notices from the authorities of the Imperial University of Science and Technology, Laodicea, but today I found a small green sheet from MTV with the four most ominous words in the English language as presently spoken, "Casting New Reality Series."
I had seen notices like this before on campus. MTV is presently looking to produce the most explicit form of pornography viewable by teens and 18-35 year olds alike. It's a show about guys losing their virginity. I suppose it would be more pornographic if it involved women, but they may be producing that show for all I know.
Now, I don't mean pornographic in the sense that I expect there to be explicit sex scenes (though anything is possible). I mean pornographic in the sense that virginity is associated with the oldest and deepest of the fetishes. Note that fetish in the OED has many definitions, including: (1), "An inanimate object worshipped by primitive peoples on account of its supposed inherent magical powers, or as being animated by a spirit." and (2) "An object, a non-sexual part of the body, or a particular action which abnormally serves as the stimulus to, or the end in itself of, sexual desire." Virginity has been very much a fetish in both of these senses. One of the possible origins for temple prostitution is that the hymen is a boundary and boundaries often gain sanctity, especially if they are associated with fertility. Thus, many cultures had a belief that proper rites were required to cross the boundary (the medievalists still fight about whether the ius primae noctis ever existed, but its proponents argue it was a late survival.) Thus, the virgin would be required copulate with a priest or otherwise ritually chosen male. Eventually, this became a revenue source for temples with permanent staffs etc., but the root idea is virginity has sacral significance.
God commanded the Israelites otherwise, but the Old Testament thereby connected idolatry with loss of virginity outside of one's father's auspices. At present, many commentators are creeped out by the recent rise of "purity balls." I suspect their awkward feelings stem from the sense that certain subcultures can create a weirdly incestuous dynamic by putting the father in charge of a token of his daughter's virginity.
God revealed in Christ Jesus, however, seems to have very strange ideas about virginity. On one hand, the fetishism of virginity depends on it being lost. In patriarchal societies, it can be traded for land, for familial relationships, and other useful goods. But it must be lost at some point under the control of the contracting parties. An aged virgin in Israelite society has a far more uncertain life than a married woman. Note that God repeatedly commands charity to the widows and orphans. "Old maids" were in precarious economic straits, too. But God doesn't mention them specifically, because they were rare. Indeed, polygamous societies, such as non-mainstream Mormons and certain Muslims (Osama Bin Laden being an excellent example, though the theology is older), often develop an ethic where marrying an older virgin (whose marriage prospects are weak) is considered a charitable or even salvific act. Thus, the Lord Jesus lays down a real bombshell in Matthew, when he proclaims, "There are some who are eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom." Virginity not being used for sacral magic or to knit society together? What? I suspect the Lord's message wasn't that sex is overrated (as some present novice Roman Catholic nuns I know were wont to say). I suspect what he meant was that not losing one's virginity was the kind of deeply subversive act that could proclaim the values of the Kingdom, placing the disciple outside of sexual politics and its social relationships, allowing one to take a wider look at human society and cultivate a deeper love for God.
On the other hand, we have to remember that there is one event of Jesus' life that summons up deep imagery of virginity loss. I am talking about John 19:34, "But one of the soldiers thrust a lance into his side, and at once there was a flow of blood and water." No other Gospel speaks of this incident, and John is very insistent about its authenticity. In all the other Gospels, the analogous episode is the tearing of the veil or curtain of the Temple in two. I suspect John's point is that Jesus Himself has become the Temple (common theme of this Gospel after all..."But He was speaking of the temple of His Body." or "You will not worship on this mountain or in Jerusalem..., but the true worshippers will worship in spirit and in truth"). And thus as Ezekiel says at 47:1, "I saw water coming out the threshold of the Temple towards the east." And indeed, the drain of the Temple must have contained both water and blood from the sacrifices (and been rather foul). But the spear and the analogy of the veil tearing suggests this is marriage imagery. Christ's Body (i.e., his side) is the spotless virgin Church and both the tearing of the veil and the side piercing are promises of the Consummation. You can see why I have a lot of trouble with Jesus being exclusively and essentially male. It doesn't make sense in the light of the Scriptures.
But back to MTV... This green sheet is a casting call after all. And it's asking such questions as, "Do you get nervous around women?," "Do the girls you meet think of you more like a brother...?", and "Do you find it difficult to pull yourself away from your busy schedule...?" "Everyone has their own unique reasons why they are still a virgin..."
The reasons MTV would prefer to avoid are the religious or patriarchal ones. That would get in the way of their telos after all. The loss of virginity under their control is a means to power for them, particularly in the form of ratings/advertising revenue etc.
There's been some talk scattered around about in the last few years the vocation of singlehood or singleness. I really don't think it's helpful to think about singleness as a vocation. Very few of us are meant to be single. These are solitary hermits. Instead, the singles problematized by the Church at present might be said to be in the other Process, not discernment about ordination but discernment about the relational community in whose midst we best will offer our members to God (including our sexual ones). Indeed, it's like any vocational discernment in that way. Many of my members are strongly devoted to planetary science in service to God. My members are also devoted to regular Office. Prayer, too, is a vocation. For some, it is their main one, though some like to brew alcoholic beverages on the side. But the discernment process about the use of sexuality isn't just about sex. Potential monastics probably focus very little on "Is celibacy a good idea?" but more on "Is the community good for me? Am I good for the community?" And I very much doubt any stable matrimonial/fratrimonial/sororimonial union can be based exclusively or even primarily on the question of "Do I want to have sex with this person for the rest of my life?" I think my father once said, "Look for a good sense of humor. It's the last to go."
And so my virginity chiefly stems from my continued discernment. While I'm leaning toward the married state, being a monastic has its temptations, though I wonder if the climate is right for a monk whose labor is science funded by NASA and the NSF (I'd garden, too, or wash dishes to fulfill the Rule). I happily will admit that I am sizing up almost every eligible single woman I meet, not as a sexual partner, but as a friend and every likewise eligible good friend as a potential wife. And while I have a wishlist in my mind, I'm fairly sure that God will help me find someone for whom I will be good and who will be good for me. And if I don't ever find the right relational community (look how long it took Bishop Wolf of Rhode Island), I shall find my true union in the Body in the end. Let's see MTV make a reality show about that.
My door is fortunate or otherwise to possess an additional fixture for advertising. Technically, I believe it is reserved for notices from the authorities of the Imperial University of Science and Technology, Laodicea, but today I found a small green sheet from MTV with the four most ominous words in the English language as presently spoken, "Casting New Reality Series."
I had seen notices like this before on campus. MTV is presently looking to produce the most explicit form of pornography viewable by teens and 18-35 year olds alike. It's a show about guys losing their virginity. I suppose it would be more pornographic if it involved women, but they may be producing that show for all I know.
Now, I don't mean pornographic in the sense that I expect there to be explicit sex scenes (though anything is possible). I mean pornographic in the sense that virginity is associated with the oldest and deepest of the fetishes. Note that fetish in the OED has many definitions, including: (1), "An inanimate object worshipped by primitive peoples on account of its supposed inherent magical powers, or as being animated by a spirit." and (2) "An object, a non-sexual part of the body, or a particular action which abnormally serves as the stimulus to, or the end in itself of, sexual desire." Virginity has been very much a fetish in both of these senses. One of the possible origins for temple prostitution is that the hymen is a boundary and boundaries often gain sanctity, especially if they are associated with fertility. Thus, many cultures had a belief that proper rites were required to cross the boundary (the medievalists still fight about whether the ius primae noctis ever existed, but its proponents argue it was a late survival.) Thus, the virgin would be required copulate with a priest or otherwise ritually chosen male. Eventually, this became a revenue source for temples with permanent staffs etc., but the root idea is virginity has sacral significance.
God commanded the Israelites otherwise, but the Old Testament thereby connected idolatry with loss of virginity outside of one's father's auspices. At present, many commentators are creeped out by the recent rise of "purity balls." I suspect their awkward feelings stem from the sense that certain subcultures can create a weirdly incestuous dynamic by putting the father in charge of a token of his daughter's virginity.
God revealed in Christ Jesus, however, seems to have very strange ideas about virginity. On one hand, the fetishism of virginity depends on it being lost. In patriarchal societies, it can be traded for land, for familial relationships, and other useful goods. But it must be lost at some point under the control of the contracting parties. An aged virgin in Israelite society has a far more uncertain life than a married woman. Note that God repeatedly commands charity to the widows and orphans. "Old maids" were in precarious economic straits, too. But God doesn't mention them specifically, because they were rare. Indeed, polygamous societies, such as non-mainstream Mormons and certain Muslims (Osama Bin Laden being an excellent example, though the theology is older), often develop an ethic where marrying an older virgin (whose marriage prospects are weak) is considered a charitable or even salvific act. Thus, the Lord Jesus lays down a real bombshell in Matthew, when he proclaims, "There are some who are eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom." Virginity not being used for sacral magic or to knit society together? What? I suspect the Lord's message wasn't that sex is overrated (as some present novice Roman Catholic nuns I know were wont to say). I suspect what he meant was that not losing one's virginity was the kind of deeply subversive act that could proclaim the values of the Kingdom, placing the disciple outside of sexual politics and its social relationships, allowing one to take a wider look at human society and cultivate a deeper love for God.
On the other hand, we have to remember that there is one event of Jesus' life that summons up deep imagery of virginity loss. I am talking about John 19:34, "But one of the soldiers thrust a lance into his side, and at once there was a flow of blood and water." No other Gospel speaks of this incident, and John is very insistent about its authenticity. In all the other Gospels, the analogous episode is the tearing of the veil or curtain of the Temple in two. I suspect John's point is that Jesus Himself has become the Temple (common theme of this Gospel after all..."But He was speaking of the temple of His Body." or "You will not worship on this mountain or in Jerusalem..., but the true worshippers will worship in spirit and in truth"). And thus as Ezekiel says at 47:1, "I saw water coming out the threshold of the Temple towards the east." And indeed, the drain of the Temple must have contained both water and blood from the sacrifices (and been rather foul). But the spear and the analogy of the veil tearing suggests this is marriage imagery. Christ's Body (i.e., his side) is the spotless virgin Church and both the tearing of the veil and the side piercing are promises of the Consummation. You can see why I have a lot of trouble with Jesus being exclusively and essentially male. It doesn't make sense in the light of the Scriptures.
But back to MTV... This green sheet is a casting call after all. And it's asking such questions as, "Do you get nervous around women?," "Do the girls you meet think of you more like a brother...?", and "Do you find it difficult to pull yourself away from your busy schedule...?" "Everyone has their own unique reasons why they are still a virgin..."
The reasons MTV would prefer to avoid are the religious or patriarchal ones. That would get in the way of their telos after all. The loss of virginity under their control is a means to power for them, particularly in the form of ratings/advertising revenue etc.
There's been some talk scattered around about in the last few years the vocation of singlehood or singleness. I really don't think it's helpful to think about singleness as a vocation. Very few of us are meant to be single. These are solitary hermits. Instead, the singles problematized by the Church at present might be said to be in the other Process, not discernment about ordination but discernment about the relational community in whose midst we best will offer our members to God (including our sexual ones). Indeed, it's like any vocational discernment in that way. Many of my members are strongly devoted to planetary science in service to God. My members are also devoted to regular Office. Prayer, too, is a vocation. For some, it is their main one, though some like to brew alcoholic beverages on the side. But the discernment process about the use of sexuality isn't just about sex. Potential monastics probably focus very little on "Is celibacy a good idea?" but more on "Is the community good for me? Am I good for the community?" And I very much doubt any stable matrimonial/fratrimonial/sororimonial union can be based exclusively or even primarily on the question of "Do I want to have sex with this person for the rest of my life?" I think my father once said, "Look for a good sense of humor. It's the last to go."
And so my virginity chiefly stems from my continued discernment. While I'm leaning toward the married state, being a monastic has its temptations, though I wonder if the climate is right for a monk whose labor is science funded by NASA and the NSF (I'd garden, too, or wash dishes to fulfill the Rule). I happily will admit that I am sizing up almost every eligible single woman I meet, not as a sexual partner, but as a friend and every likewise eligible good friend as a potential wife. And while I have a wishlist in my mind, I'm fairly sure that God will help me find someone for whom I will be good and who will be good for me. And if I don't ever find the right relational community (look how long it took Bishop Wolf of Rhode Island), I shall find my true union in the Body in the end. Let's see MTV make a reality show about that.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Creator and Redeemer of All the Worlds
He is the Creator and Sustainer of all the worlds, whether those worlds are known or unknown to mankind. -sample that serves as an antiphon to J-Tron, "Via Media", My Apologies , Celtic Cross Productions, 2006.
Some interesting conversation started on Dean Knisely's blog . I have my own take on this question, because while I am not an astrobiologist per se , I do have very close interactions with them. In fact, I was accepted to a graduate program in astrobiology not too long ago. So I've had to reflect for some time on the implications of our continually growing knowledge about the conditions under which life evolved in this stellar system and on this planet and the increasing possibility that we are not so very unique in the scheme of things. What follows here is an exercise in the long view of affairs. Unless I am much mistaken, we will not confront the problem of extrasolar evangelism for a few centuries yet.
And in those centuries, the Church faces a crisis of affairs more potent than even the destruction of the western Roman Empire. I'm not sure what form it will take. On one hand, it could be an event of near human extinction in which our manipulations of the climate and planetary biogeochemistry finally reduce much of the planet to marginal human habitability for an extended period without the prospect of quick recovery. In that case, the Church may have to return to its role after the failure of Pax Romana victoriis Romanis to twist Augustus' odd phrase in the Res Gestae . But we must remember that the Church in that period was not just a caretaker of knowledge, but it was also a caretaker of values. Respect for innocent life and meum et tuum may not be upheld by law in future ages. Nor might there be much concern for the guilty. This is why it is so important for Christendom to maintain a modicum of its social teaching in the midst of regional disorders such as Zimbabwe and the military adventures of our own government. To where shall we look if it fails globally?
Alternately, our problems may be technologically soluble. Just this week, I was talking with a gentleman who raises funds for and otherwise promotes private experiments in nuclear fusion for power generation. While he admits the low likelihood of success of what he is doing, we might just get lucky. A new source of abundant energy, if properly distributed and used, would go a long way to mitigate the effects of the toxic mix of economic inequality and environmental degradation that is the wind in our door. But if technology pushes the limits of plasticity once more, we likely face another and epistemologically stranger outcome by the end of the century. Advances in biotechnology and computer science may present us with options for modifying ourselves and our children or just push us further into electronic intimacy, in which our presence to one another becomes more and more mediated by machine. C.S. Lewis envisioned that the Moon is constantly embroiled in civil war between the barren side that faces us and the fertile garden that he imagined on the other side. Of course, the "dark side" of the Moon is nothing like this. But his veiled talk of "cold marriages," where lovers construct robots with artificial gonads rather than accept in their own bodies physical intimacy and reproduction, may not be a lunatic fantasy in the world of 2090 (see the movie Demolition Man for another example). In the era which the futurists call the Singularity, I see the Church's witness to the Incarnation could be crucial. A God with us is a God who encourages us to be present and engaged with one another and with the raw physicality of the created order, even when we do not want to face them.
But in a few hundred years time, provided we are equipped for it, it will be quite easy for us to put a large transmitter array in orbit of Mercury or elsewhere and listen and look very carefully for the signs of other civilizations. Even within my lifetime, I will not be surprised to have seen evidence for the existence of a planet like our own. Three months or so of the Iraq war would pay for such a search (as it would pay for other, more fungible things). What should the Church's witness be to another sentient species? With what should we evangelize the stars?
In the words of Get Religion, astrobiology has a very strong religion ghost attached to it. Many trace the beginnings of the scientific investigation of life beyond the Earth to Giordano Bruno, who was condemned for heresy and burned at the stake in the Campo de Fiori in Rome on that account. Bruno speculated on limited evidence that the fixed stars were like the Sun and that there were an infinity of worlds orbiting their own stars. Descartes comes very close to admitting this, too, in his slightly later Treatise on Light , which remained unpublished until his death on that account. It's not clear what the nature of Bruno's heresy was, since the official record of the trial likely was suppressed and lost. A contemporary (Luigi Firpo) claimed the charges were:
The charge of interest to this work is "claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity." Considering the nature of Bruno's other theological opinions, this was a penny compared to the pound. The Catholic Encyclopedia suggests his heresies veered toward Gnostic fantasies of various sorts including various beliefs anathematized by the Fifth Ecumenical Council concerning the Holy Spirit as anima mundi . But Bruno's celebrity is not the creature of anyone who cares about these matters, so I long had the impression that it was the plurality of worlds that so dismayed the Inquisition. After all, if there were intelligent life, would it be necessary for Christ to be incarnate on all of those worlds and die over and over again? C.S. Lewis may have had Bruno at the back of his mind when he orders the universe in his Space Trilogy to be ruled by Archons, angels of God that do act like animae mundorum . However, most planets including all of those outside the Solar System do not have life, regarding it as a burden or a humiliation. Venus has human life, thanks to the Incarnation, but they do not fall thanks to the assistance of a Christian Earthman. Martians apparently don't quite have free will. And if the Venusians had fallen, God would have had to come up with some new plan. They could not be justified by faith in God in Christ. Fortunately, we do not live in Lewis' modified Neoplatonic fantasy world or Tolkien's passingly similar Arda (Old Solar and Valinorean are practically the same language, after all. If you like the Lord of the Rings , you really should read The Space Trilogy).
To this soteriological puzzle, I propose an alternate solution to Lewis'. My first inspiration for this idea is that great hymn of Athenagoras many of us sing in the evening, "O gracious light...you are worthy at all times to be praised, o Son of God, o Giver of Life, and to be glorified throughout all the worlds." The 1979 BCP translates the Greek kosmos as "all the worlds." What is interesting about this translation is that it is perhaps the most accurate of all the translations I can read. The Latin has saecula , which is ridiculous, suggesting an extent of time usually signified by the Greek aion , though "aion" in the sense of "world to come" or "age to come" is a known use. Everyone else generally translates it as "world." The New Testament speaks of three kinds of worlds, oikoumene , which I take to mean the world of the secular powers, for this is the world of "and the decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." This is the world of our limited imagination and the world of our conceits about power. There is ge , the word for soil expanded to all the inhabited land. It's very important. John, who generally does not use it as much as the other Evangelists, uses it in places such as 12:24 and 12:32, where it has soteriological relevance, connecting Christ's death to curse of the ground and evil power of the air. But otherwise, John uses kosmos , famously at the words of John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world." Τῇ ἐπαύριον βλέπει τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐρχόμενον πρὸς αὐτόν, καὶ λέγει, Ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. . The world of John's Gospel is primarily the cosmos, a word best understood in English as "order" in the sense of the "created order." Thus, if we take John 3:16 literally, for instance, we must admit that salvation is through Christ's Incarnation on earth.
Moreover, the linguistics of the Great Commissions can be read to suggest the importance of humans to the economy of salvation generally. Matthew's version commands us to evangelize every ethnos . Mark's version tells us to go through the kosmos and preach the gospel to every ktisis or created being, which is a wide commission that only St. Francis and a few others have taken seriously. In the Song of the Three Young Men, the authors encourage the whole created order to praise the Lord, matching the scope of the Markan commission. The Acts commission speaks of the ge , but an alternate translation of eschatos ge might be "end of the world" as opposed to "furthermost part of the world." For God, time and space must be quite interchangeable, so it is quite interesting how terms about space and time are quite interchangeable in the Scriptures.
But these linguistic arguments matter very little if the Evangelists operated under a limited worldview and vision of the cosmos . If in their view, we were alone, their use of cosmos really might be restricted to the Earth. Although, as we will see later, I believe in the power of prophecy to put into words visions beyond the prophetic imagination, the argument from usage has been warned against since at least Augustine's treatment of the linguistic arguments about love in City of God that still stimulate the theological imagination (see Pope Benedict's Deus Caritas est . However, in the same way that love is one, I argue that salvation is one, through Jesus Christ, and chiefly but not exclusively mediated through the missionary efforts of His Church.
For indeed, the Evangelists likely did not have a limited vision of the created order and the importance of Christ's saving work to it. Their contemporary, the Apostle Paul, stretched the limits of the Hellenistic worldview when he wrote:
And so there is to be no doubt about Paul's meaning (he isn't just talking about the natural environment on Earth), you can read Ephesians 1 or this famous line closing the book:
Yes, I realize there is nothing particularly obvious in these passages. But put into a more modern context, I suggest that we take them more seriously as encouragement to think about how Church can fulfill its commission to bring the fullness of Christ to all things in anticipation of the eschaton when we all shall be free.
Why Now?
One key mythos of science is that it constantly leads us to consider how small and insignificant we are before the infinity of the cosmos. While I admit the utility of this mythos for inculcating in us humility, I think there is a strong possibility that there is a happy medium between our insignificance and our centrality to the universe. I would argue that the human species arose at an opportune moment in the history of the universe. The primary evidence for this is chemical. The observations over the last decade of extrasolar planets have demonstrated something quite important about planets, they very much tend to form around stars with high amounts of heavy elements observed in their atmosphere, things like iron and magnesium (or carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen for that matter), which are essential for our enzymatic systems. Stellar evolution models suggest that the heavy element concentration of the stars (their metallicity) has increased over time, as the nuclear fusion processes that power the stars and their fiery destruction in supernovas gradually produce more and more heavy elements from the primal hydrogen and helium of the early Universe. These heavy elements also form the nuclei of the cores of the giant planets in our Solar System.
The Sun is a later generation star. Its initial heavy element reservoir, which condensed out to form the planets and similar bodies we know today, is a legacy of at least 500 stars by last count. Evidence for this inheritance comes from relics of these stars in the form of silicon carbide and diamond grains that formed from these stars and were blown out into the nebula out of which the Sun formed with different chemical properties than the meteorites in which they are typically found. It's possible that the Sun may be among the first generation of stars with enough heavy elements to form terrestrial planets, though that particular idea is controversial. But what if it is true? At this point, our planet had a variety of advantages:
It orbits a G-type star, which produces a significant flux of photons with energies between those necessary for electronic and vibrational transitions (tending toward low atmospheric absorption of incoming radiation). A planet orbiting a G type star at a distance at which it is generally warm enough to have water probably will not become tidally locked to its star (as Mercury and Venus in some sense have). Moreover, G-type stars have an early phase of strong UV flux followed by a period of gradual brightening, which may have been necessary for early organic synthesis and the development of photosynthesis. Although I would not go as far as James Lovelock in arguing for biological regulation of the Earth's climate, the possibility that the rate of evolution is optimized by a slowly changing radiation budget is intriguing. Moreover, if Lovelock is right, timing is crucial. Carbon dioxide (despite our hiccups) has been declining over the history of the Earth as the Sun has brightened. However, if carbon dioxide falls below 150 ppm, photosynthesis is greatly reduced. Thus in a few hundred million years, the Earth either will be too warm or too carbon-deficient for plant life.
In a few centuries, I suspect we will have a far better idea of how special we are and how early we are in the general scheme of intelligent life. One possibility is that we are among the first fruits of a brief flowering of intelligent life. In that case, the Scriptures give us hope of an eschaton in which Christ will recreate the universe and bring us into union with him. As the universe expands and we wonder if the rate of stellar enrichment in heavy elements will outpace the reduction in density, this is hope indeed. The era of the terrestial planets may be quite brief. To any civilization with our sophistication, the news we bring may be good indeed if we still hold it in sincerity.
Why Us?
The challenge of extrasolar evangelism, no doubt, will vex future theologians. After all, it's far easier for Jesus to be an "astral traveler" from the practical perspective. It would absolve us of responsibility if Jesus became incarnate for each fallen intelligent species. But my heart cries against this on several grounds. First, the universality of Christ and his sacrifice is limited by his "dying over and over again." The preacher of the Hebrews was insistent on one death alone to cleanse our conscience.
Second, the idea that Christ would have to become incarnate for each species presents problems for the principle of our equality before God. The kingdom of our God is one for every language, tribe, people, and nation. While the Creed we say today speaks of Christ becoming a human being, our future Creed may speak of the Creator becoming a creature. We have founded our principles of equality on us all being created in the image of God. Is the image of God to be found in our particular form? Or does it lie in our creative powers, truly iconic of the Creator? I won't pretend that this presents an evangelical challenge. But it will be best for our future relations with our extraterrestrial brothers and sisters if we are insistent that we are like them in the most fundamental way, that God created them in His image, and died for their sins in our common vulnerability. To argue otherwise will raise questions of superior and inferior and the spectre of exploitation. This is not to say that I am certain of this, and I think we will have to listen carefully to their stories and be prepared to have our minds changed. But I think our default assumption should be that we share the Kingdom with them through Jesus Christ, first revealed in the flesh in Bethlehem Ephrata.
Third, I fear there may be additional objections on the grounds that it will take a long time to evangelize the universe. What will happen to those who never hear the Word? In the first place, every other species will have the same opportunity as we do to know God through the order of his creation, which is evidence of the Son and therefore the Father. Those who live in this light have excuse on the day of judgment as Paul suggests. The larger problem lies in the harrowing of Hell, when Jesus supposedly preached to the "souls in prison." I still don't know how this is supposed to work with aliens.
Some also might wonder why should we be the only evangelists? If the acts of God were seen by all, it would be more efficient. But if we are among the first intelligent species, this makes some sense. We should realize these issues have arisen before. For the LORD made distinction between Israel and the nations, while proclaiming that the nations should have salvation in the seed of Abraham. At Morning Prayer lately, I have been reading the Story of the Three Young Men and the Fiery Furnace from Daniel. In this story, King Nebuchadnezzar learns of the power of the one true God through the faith in the face of death and deliverance of three of his court officials, who are Jewish. In this sense, humanity may be special, but it is an obligation. The maintenance of our habits and our faith in the darker corners of space will be a proclamation of Christ.
FutureScripture/LoveSounds
Let us conclude this fanciful set of speculations by considering a key question: if we are meant to evangelize space, how will the Scriptures speak to us if they are written from a worldview in which our present limits are very much the limits of the important universe. I would suggest that the Scriptures were revealed in such a way that this problem could be evaded by creating an analogy between outer space and the sea. Best of all, this analogy is at the very beginning of the Old Testament, where the Spirit hovers over the face of the waters. Other creation accounts suggest that God created the universe by killing the primal sea monster. Thus in the Scriptures, I think many references to the sea also could refer to outer space in the same way that many of the events of the history of Israel and Judah and the rituals of the Law also refer to life of Christ. The other planets then become islands and coastline. Think of what the Psalmist says, "The LORD is king. Let the earth rejoice and the multitude of the isles be glad!" (Psalm 97). It seems a tad redundant, but it might signify to us a wider view of creation. Or think on the words of Isaiah, "A bruised read he shall not break and a smoldering wick he shall not quench until he establishes justice on Earth and the coastlands wait for his teaching...Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the end of the earth: Let the sea and what fills it resound, the coastlands, and those who dwell in them" (Isaiah 42:3-4,10). Indeed, Isaiah is clearly referring to Earth as he knows it with Kedar and Sela giving glory. But as the Church has made a practice of Christological reading, She may in future have to practice cosmological reading. The coastlands indeed may be waiting for His teaching, groaning aloud for the revelation of the children of God. Amen.
Some interesting conversation started on Dean Knisely's blog . I have my own take on this question, because while I am not an astrobiologist per se , I do have very close interactions with them. In fact, I was accepted to a graduate program in astrobiology not too long ago. So I've had to reflect for some time on the implications of our continually growing knowledge about the conditions under which life evolved in this stellar system and on this planet and the increasing possibility that we are not so very unique in the scheme of things. What follows here is an exercise in the long view of affairs. Unless I am much mistaken, we will not confront the problem of extrasolar evangelism for a few centuries yet.
And in those centuries, the Church faces a crisis of affairs more potent than even the destruction of the western Roman Empire. I'm not sure what form it will take. On one hand, it could be an event of near human extinction in which our manipulations of the climate and planetary biogeochemistry finally reduce much of the planet to marginal human habitability for an extended period without the prospect of quick recovery. In that case, the Church may have to return to its role after the failure of Pax Romana victoriis Romanis to twist Augustus' odd phrase in the Res Gestae . But we must remember that the Church in that period was not just a caretaker of knowledge, but it was also a caretaker of values. Respect for innocent life and meum et tuum may not be upheld by law in future ages. Nor might there be much concern for the guilty. This is why it is so important for Christendom to maintain a modicum of its social teaching in the midst of regional disorders such as Zimbabwe and the military adventures of our own government. To where shall we look if it fails globally?
Alternately, our problems may be technologically soluble. Just this week, I was talking with a gentleman who raises funds for and otherwise promotes private experiments in nuclear fusion for power generation. While he admits the low likelihood of success of what he is doing, we might just get lucky. A new source of abundant energy, if properly distributed and used, would go a long way to mitigate the effects of the toxic mix of economic inequality and environmental degradation that is the wind in our door. But if technology pushes the limits of plasticity once more, we likely face another and epistemologically stranger outcome by the end of the century. Advances in biotechnology and computer science may present us with options for modifying ourselves and our children or just push us further into electronic intimacy, in which our presence to one another becomes more and more mediated by machine. C.S. Lewis envisioned that the Moon is constantly embroiled in civil war between the barren side that faces us and the fertile garden that he imagined on the other side. Of course, the "dark side" of the Moon is nothing like this. But his veiled talk of "cold marriages," where lovers construct robots with artificial gonads rather than accept in their own bodies physical intimacy and reproduction, may not be a lunatic fantasy in the world of 2090 (see the movie Demolition Man for another example). In the era which the futurists call the Singularity, I see the Church's witness to the Incarnation could be crucial. A God with us is a God who encourages us to be present and engaged with one another and with the raw physicality of the created order, even when we do not want to face them.
But in a few hundred years time, provided we are equipped for it, it will be quite easy for us to put a large transmitter array in orbit of Mercury or elsewhere and listen and look very carefully for the signs of other civilizations. Even within my lifetime, I will not be surprised to have seen evidence for the existence of a planet like our own. Three months or so of the Iraq war would pay for such a search (as it would pay for other, more fungible things). What should the Church's witness be to another sentient species? With what should we evangelize the stars?
In the words of Get Religion, astrobiology has a very strong religion ghost attached to it. Many trace the beginnings of the scientific investigation of life beyond the Earth to Giordano Bruno, who was condemned for heresy and burned at the stake in the Campo de Fiori in Rome on that account. Bruno speculated on limited evidence that the fixed stars were like the Sun and that there were an infinity of worlds orbiting their own stars. Descartes comes very close to admitting this, too, in his slightly later Treatise on Light , which remained unpublished until his death on that account. It's not clear what the nature of Bruno's heresy was, since the official record of the trial likely was suppressed and lost. A contemporary (Luigi Firpo) claimed the charges were:
"Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking against it and its ministers.
Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ's divinity and Incarnation.
Holding erroneous opinions about Christ.
Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.
Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity.
Believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes.
Dealing in magics and divination.
Denying the Virginity of Mary.
The charge of interest to this work is "claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity." Considering the nature of Bruno's other theological opinions, this was a penny compared to the pound. The Catholic Encyclopedia suggests his heresies veered toward Gnostic fantasies of various sorts including various beliefs anathematized by the Fifth Ecumenical Council concerning the Holy Spirit as anima mundi . But Bruno's celebrity is not the creature of anyone who cares about these matters, so I long had the impression that it was the plurality of worlds that so dismayed the Inquisition. After all, if there were intelligent life, would it be necessary for Christ to be incarnate on all of those worlds and die over and over again? C.S. Lewis may have had Bruno at the back of his mind when he orders the universe in his Space Trilogy to be ruled by Archons, angels of God that do act like animae mundorum . However, most planets including all of those outside the Solar System do not have life, regarding it as a burden or a humiliation. Venus has human life, thanks to the Incarnation, but they do not fall thanks to the assistance of a Christian Earthman. Martians apparently don't quite have free will. And if the Venusians had fallen, God would have had to come up with some new plan. They could not be justified by faith in God in Christ. Fortunately, we do not live in Lewis' modified Neoplatonic fantasy world or Tolkien's passingly similar Arda (Old Solar and Valinorean are practically the same language, after all. If you like the Lord of the Rings , you really should read The Space Trilogy).
To this soteriological puzzle, I propose an alternate solution to Lewis'. My first inspiration for this idea is that great hymn of Athenagoras many of us sing in the evening, "O gracious light...you are worthy at all times to be praised, o Son of God, o Giver of Life, and to be glorified throughout all the worlds." The 1979 BCP translates the Greek kosmos as "all the worlds." What is interesting about this translation is that it is perhaps the most accurate of all the translations I can read. The Latin has saecula , which is ridiculous, suggesting an extent of time usually signified by the Greek aion , though "aion" in the sense of "world to come" or "age to come" is a known use. Everyone else generally translates it as "world." The New Testament speaks of three kinds of worlds, oikoumene , which I take to mean the world of the secular powers, for this is the world of "and the decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." This is the world of our limited imagination and the world of our conceits about power. There is ge , the word for soil expanded to all the inhabited land. It's very important. John, who generally does not use it as much as the other Evangelists, uses it in places such as 12:24 and 12:32, where it has soteriological relevance, connecting Christ's death to curse of the ground and evil power of the air. But otherwise, John uses kosmos , famously at the words of John the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world." Τῇ ἐπαύριον βλέπει τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐρχόμενον πρὸς αὐτόν, καὶ λέγει, Ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. . The world of John's Gospel is primarily the cosmos, a word best understood in English as "order" in the sense of the "created order." Thus, if we take John 3:16 literally, for instance, we must admit that salvation is through Christ's Incarnation on earth.
Moreover, the linguistics of the Great Commissions can be read to suggest the importance of humans to the economy of salvation generally. Matthew's version commands us to evangelize every ethnos . Mark's version tells us to go through the kosmos and preach the gospel to every ktisis or created being, which is a wide commission that only St. Francis and a few others have taken seriously. In the Song of the Three Young Men, the authors encourage the whole created order to praise the Lord, matching the scope of the Markan commission. The Acts commission speaks of the ge , but an alternate translation of eschatos ge might be "end of the world" as opposed to "furthermost part of the world." For God, time and space must be quite interchangeable, so it is quite interesting how terms about space and time are quite interchangeable in the Scriptures.
But these linguistic arguments matter very little if the Evangelists operated under a limited worldview and vision of the cosmos . If in their view, we were alone, their use of cosmos really might be restricted to the Earth. Although, as we will see later, I believe in the power of prophecy to put into words visions beyond the prophetic imagination, the argument from usage has been warned against since at least Augustine's treatment of the linguistic arguments about love in City of God that still stimulate the theological imagination (see Pope Benedict's Deus Caritas est . However, in the same way that love is one, I argue that salvation is one, through Jesus Christ, and chiefly but not exclusively mediated through the missionary efforts of His Church.
For indeed, the Evangelists likely did not have a limited vision of the created order and the importance of Christ's saving work to it. Their contemporary, the Apostle Paul, stretched the limits of the Hellenistic worldview when he wrote:
The created universe is waiting with eager expectation for God's sons to be revealed. It was made subject to frustration, not of its own choice but by the will of him who subjected it, yet with the hope that the universe itself is to be freed from the shackles of mortality and is to enter upon the glorious liberty of the children of God. Up to the present, as we know, the whole created universe in all its parts groans as if in the pangs of childbirth." (Romans 8:19-22).
And so there is to be no doubt about Paul's meaning (he isn't just talking about the natural environment on Earth), you can read Ephesians 1 or this famous line closing the book:
"Our struggle is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark age, against the superhuman forces of evil in the celestial spheres."
Yes, I realize there is nothing particularly obvious in these passages. But put into a more modern context, I suggest that we take them more seriously as encouragement to think about how Church can fulfill its commission to bring the fullness of Christ to all things in anticipation of the eschaton when we all shall be free.
Why Now?
One key mythos of science is that it constantly leads us to consider how small and insignificant we are before the infinity of the cosmos. While I admit the utility of this mythos for inculcating in us humility, I think there is a strong possibility that there is a happy medium between our insignificance and our centrality to the universe. I would argue that the human species arose at an opportune moment in the history of the universe. The primary evidence for this is chemical. The observations over the last decade of extrasolar planets have demonstrated something quite important about planets, they very much tend to form around stars with high amounts of heavy elements observed in their atmosphere, things like iron and magnesium (or carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen for that matter), which are essential for our enzymatic systems. Stellar evolution models suggest that the heavy element concentration of the stars (their metallicity) has increased over time, as the nuclear fusion processes that power the stars and their fiery destruction in supernovas gradually produce more and more heavy elements from the primal hydrogen and helium of the early Universe. These heavy elements also form the nuclei of the cores of the giant planets in our Solar System.
The Sun is a later generation star. Its initial heavy element reservoir, which condensed out to form the planets and similar bodies we know today, is a legacy of at least 500 stars by last count. Evidence for this inheritance comes from relics of these stars in the form of silicon carbide and diamond grains that formed from these stars and were blown out into the nebula out of which the Sun formed with different chemical properties than the meteorites in which they are typically found. It's possible that the Sun may be among the first generation of stars with enough heavy elements to form terrestrial planets, though that particular idea is controversial. But what if it is true? At this point, our planet had a variety of advantages:
It orbits a G-type star, which produces a significant flux of photons with energies between those necessary for electronic and vibrational transitions (tending toward low atmospheric absorption of incoming radiation). A planet orbiting a G type star at a distance at which it is generally warm enough to have water probably will not become tidally locked to its star (as Mercury and Venus in some sense have). Moreover, G-type stars have an early phase of strong UV flux followed by a period of gradual brightening, which may have been necessary for early organic synthesis and the development of photosynthesis. Although I would not go as far as James Lovelock in arguing for biological regulation of the Earth's climate, the possibility that the rate of evolution is optimized by a slowly changing radiation budget is intriguing. Moreover, if Lovelock is right, timing is crucial. Carbon dioxide (despite our hiccups) has been declining over the history of the Earth as the Sun has brightened. However, if carbon dioxide falls below 150 ppm, photosynthesis is greatly reduced. Thus in a few hundred million years, the Earth either will be too warm or too carbon-deficient for plant life.
In a few centuries, I suspect we will have a far better idea of how special we are and how early we are in the general scheme of intelligent life. One possibility is that we are among the first fruits of a brief flowering of intelligent life. In that case, the Scriptures give us hope of an eschaton in which Christ will recreate the universe and bring us into union with him. As the universe expands and we wonder if the rate of stellar enrichment in heavy elements will outpace the reduction in density, this is hope indeed. The era of the terrestial planets may be quite brief. To any civilization with our sophistication, the news we bring may be good indeed if we still hold it in sincerity.
Why Us?
The challenge of extrasolar evangelism, no doubt, will vex future theologians. After all, it's far easier for Jesus to be an "astral traveler" from the practical perspective. It would absolve us of responsibility if Jesus became incarnate for each fallen intelligent species. But my heart cries against this on several grounds. First, the universality of Christ and his sacrifice is limited by his "dying over and over again." The preacher of the Hebrews was insistent on one death alone to cleanse our conscience.
Second, the idea that Christ would have to become incarnate for each species presents problems for the principle of our equality before God. The kingdom of our God is one for every language, tribe, people, and nation. While the Creed we say today speaks of Christ becoming a human being, our future Creed may speak of the Creator becoming a creature. We have founded our principles of equality on us all being created in the image of God. Is the image of God to be found in our particular form? Or does it lie in our creative powers, truly iconic of the Creator? I won't pretend that this presents an evangelical challenge. But it will be best for our future relations with our extraterrestrial brothers and sisters if we are insistent that we are like them in the most fundamental way, that God created them in His image, and died for their sins in our common vulnerability. To argue otherwise will raise questions of superior and inferior and the spectre of exploitation. This is not to say that I am certain of this, and I think we will have to listen carefully to their stories and be prepared to have our minds changed. But I think our default assumption should be that we share the Kingdom with them through Jesus Christ, first revealed in the flesh in Bethlehem Ephrata.
Third, I fear there may be additional objections on the grounds that it will take a long time to evangelize the universe. What will happen to those who never hear the Word? In the first place, every other species will have the same opportunity as we do to know God through the order of his creation, which is evidence of the Son and therefore the Father. Those who live in this light have excuse on the day of judgment as Paul suggests. The larger problem lies in the harrowing of Hell, when Jesus supposedly preached to the "souls in prison." I still don't know how this is supposed to work with aliens.
Some also might wonder why should we be the only evangelists? If the acts of God were seen by all, it would be more efficient. But if we are among the first intelligent species, this makes some sense. We should realize these issues have arisen before. For the LORD made distinction between Israel and the nations, while proclaiming that the nations should have salvation in the seed of Abraham. At Morning Prayer lately, I have been reading the Story of the Three Young Men and the Fiery Furnace from Daniel. In this story, King Nebuchadnezzar learns of the power of the one true God through the faith in the face of death and deliverance of three of his court officials, who are Jewish. In this sense, humanity may be special, but it is an obligation. The maintenance of our habits and our faith in the darker corners of space will be a proclamation of Christ.
FutureScripture/LoveSounds
Let us conclude this fanciful set of speculations by considering a key question: if we are meant to evangelize space, how will the Scriptures speak to us if they are written from a worldview in which our present limits are very much the limits of the important universe. I would suggest that the Scriptures were revealed in such a way that this problem could be evaded by creating an analogy between outer space and the sea. Best of all, this analogy is at the very beginning of the Old Testament, where the Spirit hovers over the face of the waters. Other creation accounts suggest that God created the universe by killing the primal sea monster. Thus in the Scriptures, I think many references to the sea also could refer to outer space in the same way that many of the events of the history of Israel and Judah and the rituals of the Law also refer to life of Christ. The other planets then become islands and coastline. Think of what the Psalmist says, "The LORD is king. Let the earth rejoice and the multitude of the isles be glad!" (Psalm 97). It seems a tad redundant, but it might signify to us a wider view of creation. Or think on the words of Isaiah, "A bruised read he shall not break and a smoldering wick he shall not quench until he establishes justice on Earth and the coastlands wait for his teaching...Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the end of the earth: Let the sea and what fills it resound, the coastlands, and those who dwell in them" (Isaiah 42:3-4,10). Indeed, Isaiah is clearly referring to Earth as he knows it with Kedar and Sela giving glory. But as the Church has made a practice of Christological reading, She may in future have to practice cosmological reading. The coastlands indeed may be waiting for His teaching, groaning aloud for the revelation of the children of God. Amen.
Updates
Item the First: Back in February, I posted an order of service for Evening Prayer without the music that made it so special. Well, gaudete populi , Julian has updated it.
Item the Second: *Christopher asked me some time ago to see what I could do with certain proposed revisions of Article VI of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. I have major writer's block on another front, so I'll get to that fairly soon. I also will have a post on theology and space aliens, which has nothing to do with this item.
Item the Third: Anthropax paid me the high compliment of contrasting my Maundy Thursday piece with the Telegraph .
Item the Fourth: That was the week that was, wasn't it?
Item the Second: *Christopher asked me some time ago to see what I could do with certain proposed revisions of Article VI of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. I have major writer's block on another front, so I'll get to that fairly soon. I also will have a post on theology and space aliens, which has nothing to do with this item.
Item the Third: Anthropax paid me the high compliment of contrasting my Maundy Thursday piece with the Telegraph .
Item the Fourth: That was the week that was, wasn't it?
Monday, April 09, 2007
The Triduum in Review
The last few days have been busy. Worst of all, I have no idea when I am going to bed tonight due to a couple of analyses I need to do in order to finish my second conference paper. On the other hand, I am enjoying various things that I wasn't doing during Lent. For instance, I am listening to DJ Panda presently.
But let's review what I did this week.
1. Thursday morning Eucharist. I basically had to teach a class on Thursday evening, so I wandered to Eucharist at 7 AM in the morning. Good sermon.
2. Friday Tenebrae. I love this service. It's one of the few services of the year that is entirely run by non-clergy staff, in this case, mainly by a gentleman I like to call "the lay clerk," who I love dearly. It's basically a mix of Scripture readings, Psalm and canticle chanting, and an amazing meditation on shadow that exemplified my favorite kind of preaching. And, of course, we have an earthquake that while technologically simple probably was designed by a Hollywood sound effects artist.
3. After Tenebrae, I stuck around for the Friday-Saturday portion of the Holy Week vigils. It was an opportunity for me to do a bit of reading. I read Bede's Holy Week sermons, Donne's Essays on Divinity (which have some long-winded but fascinating prayers), and some favorite parts of the Bible. Every hour, those watching gather for prayer. About 11 PM, one of my friends came to me, pointed at her watch, and said, "What should we do?" So we gathered and read the great Hallel , Psalm 136. I officiated at Compline at midnight, went to sleep, sang very quietly Psalm 104 as a first office (can anyone guess why?), and then officiated at the Holy Saturday Office in the form of Morning Prayer. It is always good to pray with other people, but I really need to be careful to mention page numbers at all times.
4. I then returned home and ended up getting a fauxhawk, since I really don't have enough hair for a decent mohawk at present. I apparently now have the hairstyle of a fashionable actor my age.
5. Then I returned to church for Easter Vigil. The Liturgy of the Word was done in an odd way. Each section began with one of the traditional readings concerning God's saving deeds in history, then followed a psalm or canticle, then there was a reading from some source outside of the Holy Scriptures (not the Acts of Phillip the Fair, though ;) ) about some sort of political issue related to the subject of the Scripture reading. For instance, the first section was Genesis on the creation of the world, then Magna et mirabilia (confusing me no end, because that's an apocalyptic canticle), and then we heard a portion of a speech by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth (possibly explaining Magna et mirabilia ). Father Haller likely will be dismayed (or not, I could be wrong) to hear that an excerpt from an old sermon of his, "Nothing Will Be Lost" was read to complement "Salvation Freely Offered to All." The complement to "the Valley of the Dry Bones" was a very powerful and very Scripturally infused speech by one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. The baptismal creed was the Creed of John Sentamu. (5 adult baptism, 47 new previously baptized members.)
6. Finally I returned to church on Easter morning. It was packed. The church was full for the late morning service with an overflow of 300. I think that's ~1500 people, making more than 3000 people for all four services. The subject of the sermon was how evil substitutionary atonement is. I kid you not. There were two very funny jokes at the beginning that had nothing to do with the subject of the sermon. I really don't understand it. You have a congregation at each principal service of Easter Sunday on the order of your ASA and you proclaim that "Jesus didn't die for our sins, He died because of them?" Quidem propter iniquitates et quoque pro iniquitatibus, sed resurrexit tertia die secundum Scripturas. . There was no Creed on this day, per normal .
He is risen! Alleluia!
But let's review what I did this week.
1. Thursday morning Eucharist. I basically had to teach a class on Thursday evening, so I wandered to Eucharist at 7 AM in the morning. Good sermon.
2. Friday Tenebrae. I love this service. It's one of the few services of the year that is entirely run by non-clergy staff, in this case, mainly by a gentleman I like to call "the lay clerk," who I love dearly. It's basically a mix of Scripture readings, Psalm and canticle chanting, and an amazing meditation on shadow that exemplified my favorite kind of preaching. And, of course, we have an earthquake that while technologically simple probably was designed by a Hollywood sound effects artist.
3. After Tenebrae, I stuck around for the Friday-Saturday portion of the Holy Week vigils. It was an opportunity for me to do a bit of reading. I read Bede's Holy Week sermons, Donne's Essays on Divinity (which have some long-winded but fascinating prayers), and some favorite parts of the Bible. Every hour, those watching gather for prayer. About 11 PM, one of my friends came to me, pointed at her watch, and said, "What should we do?" So we gathered and read the great Hallel , Psalm 136. I officiated at Compline at midnight, went to sleep, sang very quietly Psalm 104 as a first office (can anyone guess why?), and then officiated at the Holy Saturday Office in the form of Morning Prayer. It is always good to pray with other people, but I really need to be careful to mention page numbers at all times.
4. I then returned home and ended up getting a fauxhawk, since I really don't have enough hair for a decent mohawk at present. I apparently now have the hairstyle of a fashionable actor my age.
5. Then I returned to church for Easter Vigil. The Liturgy of the Word was done in an odd way. Each section began with one of the traditional readings concerning God's saving deeds in history, then followed a psalm or canticle, then there was a reading from some source outside of the Holy Scriptures (not the Acts of Phillip the Fair, though ;) ) about some sort of political issue related to the subject of the Scripture reading. For instance, the first section was Genesis on the creation of the world, then Magna et mirabilia (confusing me no end, because that's an apocalyptic canticle), and then we heard a portion of a speech by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth (possibly explaining Magna et mirabilia ). Father Haller likely will be dismayed (or not, I could be wrong) to hear that an excerpt from an old sermon of his, "Nothing Will Be Lost" was read to complement "Salvation Freely Offered to All." The complement to "the Valley of the Dry Bones" was a very powerful and very Scripturally infused speech by one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. The baptismal creed was the Creed of John Sentamu. (5 adult baptism, 47 new previously baptized members.)
6. Finally I returned to church on Easter morning. It was packed. The church was full for the late morning service with an overflow of 300. I think that's ~1500 people, making more than 3000 people for all four services. The subject of the sermon was how evil substitutionary atonement is. I kid you not. There were two very funny jokes at the beginning that had nothing to do with the subject of the sermon. I really don't understand it. You have a congregation at each principal service of Easter Sunday on the order of your ASA and you proclaim that "Jesus didn't die for our sins, He died because of them?" Quidem propter iniquitates et quoque pro iniquitatibus, sed resurrexit tertia die secundum Scripturas. . There was no Creed on this day, per normal .
He is risen! Alleluia!
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Article XXXI: Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross
The Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.
It's that time of year again. I'm not quite sure when I will receive the first question but some time between now and Easter Sunday, someone will ask me that most ticklish of soteriological questions. How did Jesus save us on the Cross? For the last week, The Dean of St. Alban's, Very Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Johns, has been receiving all kinds of flack from conservative evangelicals before they even read the transcript of his attack on the pet soteriological theory of the post-Reformation Protestant church, penal atonement/substitution. I thought this would be a good time for me to review what the bounds of Anglican orthodoxy might be on this question.
Thesis 1: The life of the Lord perfected in death is salvific, not merely the life, nor merely the death.
After the Nicene Creed describes the creation of the world through Christ, it says of Him, "for us and our salvation, he came down from heaven and became incarnate..." That is, His work toward our salvation is prior to his death and indeed prior to his birth. As de la Taille says, "He placed himself in the order of signs." His life proclaimed Him as the Messiah, the restorer of God's favor to Israel and the bringer of the Gentiles to the worship of the true God. I read on one of the regular blogs recently that His testing by the devil veiled the truth of his being from the Adversary. Sounds good to me. Other points could be made about the necessity of the proclamation of the Kingdom, the instruction of the disciples, the institution of the Sacraments etc.
But the Creed reminds us that the salvific work of life was nothing without the death by repeating (added by the First Council of Constantinople) that He was "crucified for us." And indeed, the Athanasian Creed likewise says, "He suffered for our salvation."
Thesis 2: The "perfect redemption" of which the Article speaks is redemption unto eternal life, analogous to the life of our foreparents Adam and Eve before the Fall, though not homologous.
The Psalmist in Psalm 49 says to those who put their trust in their wealth that they cannot buy their way out of death and live forever and ever. The price is entirely too high. I propose this can be traced to two decrees of God: (1) that by eating of the tree of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve would die, which in itself only puts Adam and Eve under the sway of natural death in sensu strictu; (2) the ground is cursed from whom humans now eat food, eventually mixing more and more of them with a curse and diluting their divine essence, sapping their lifespans as time went on. (2) is directly challenged by Christ. First, He institutes the Eucharist, whereby his divine Body and Blood are given to us as food that we may be restored to the fullness of our humanity by reconciliation with our primal bit of divinity. Second, He is crucified, thereby hanging on a piece of wood and bearing the curse of the ground for us, "Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree" says the Law. Thus, Christ redeems us in part in this life from the curse that will destroy our humanity and alienate us from our Creator, redeems us at our first death through our incorporation into his Body, and redeems many who died before his coming by his harrowing of hell.
Thesis 3: The "perfect propitiation" of which the Article speaks was required because justice is fundamental to the universe but its form was the forebearance of God to our fallen desires.
In Romans 3:25, the Apostle says of the Lord Jesus, "that God hath set [him] forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;" But why was it necessary for this to be done by ther death of Him who was very God and very man. In the beginning, God legislated mercifully, only putting Cain into exile. But Cain, fearing that his fellows would not be so merciful, asked God's protection. And so at the covenant of Noah, God established the basic form of the Lex Talionis by allusion to the primal order, but surely if it were primal, it would apply to Cain? But indeed it was primal in the sense that retributive justice follows from the natural law. Yet we were not meant to be subject to the fullness of the natural law, i.e. death. But as we mixed more and more with the creation that was good (and likely is good) but became accursed for us, we embraced retributive justice. We embraced scapegoating. We embraced collective punishment. And God could endure it no longer, so the Lord Jesus died in a way that finally could cleanse our consciences, for there is no propitiation of natural justice ("nature red in tooth and claw") so great as offering the Creator. Penal substitution is so sick and twisted as to be supremely fitting, not as a sign to us of God's wrath but to us of our great wickedness to one another and our desire for vengeance. But we also must remember that this is a reciprocal act of love for us. For indeed Abraham gave his son willingly as a sacrifice to God. So should we not feel so beloved by the reciprocal gift?
Thesis 4: The "perfect satisfaction" of which the Article speaks has the same character as the propitiation.
For as Latimer preached in a Homily on Repentance, "For he alone dyd with the sacrifice of his body and blod make satisfaction vnto the Iustice of god for our sinnes." Note further the use of satisfaction in Numbers 35 (KJV) in the context of the treatment of murder and manslaughter, where, on one hand, our desire for vengeance is recognized in the kinship role of the "revenger of blood" but the mercy of God is recognized in the idea of the city of sanctuary. This was to signify Christ, who left the sanctuary of the holy city, Jerusalem, and met death, the revenger of the blood of us all. And likewise we also know that the Lord was the true high priest and thus by his death, he has restored all us miserable offenders, destroyers of ourselves unawares by our disobedience, to the land of our possession.
It's that time of year again. I'm not quite sure when I will receive the first question but some time between now and Easter Sunday, someone will ask me that most ticklish of soteriological questions. How did Jesus save us on the Cross? For the last week, The Dean of St. Alban's, Very Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Johns, has been receiving all kinds of flack from conservative evangelicals before they even read the transcript of his attack on the pet soteriological theory of the post-Reformation Protestant church, penal atonement/substitution. I thought this would be a good time for me to review what the bounds of Anglican orthodoxy might be on this question.
Thesis 1: The life of the Lord perfected in death is salvific, not merely the life, nor merely the death.
After the Nicene Creed describes the creation of the world through Christ, it says of Him, "for us and our salvation, he came down from heaven and became incarnate..." That is, His work toward our salvation is prior to his death and indeed prior to his birth. As de la Taille says, "He placed himself in the order of signs." His life proclaimed Him as the Messiah, the restorer of God's favor to Israel and the bringer of the Gentiles to the worship of the true God. I read on one of the regular blogs recently that His testing by the devil veiled the truth of his being from the Adversary. Sounds good to me. Other points could be made about the necessity of the proclamation of the Kingdom, the instruction of the disciples, the institution of the Sacraments etc.
But the Creed reminds us that the salvific work of life was nothing without the death by repeating (added by the First Council of Constantinople) that He was "crucified for us." And indeed, the Athanasian Creed likewise says, "He suffered for our salvation."
Thesis 2: The "perfect redemption" of which the Article speaks is redemption unto eternal life, analogous to the life of our foreparents Adam and Eve before the Fall, though not homologous.
The Psalmist in Psalm 49 says to those who put their trust in their wealth that they cannot buy their way out of death and live forever and ever. The price is entirely too high. I propose this can be traced to two decrees of God: (1) that by eating of the tree of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve would die, which in itself only puts Adam and Eve under the sway of natural death in sensu strictu; (2) the ground is cursed from whom humans now eat food, eventually mixing more and more of them with a curse and diluting their divine essence, sapping their lifespans as time went on. (2) is directly challenged by Christ. First, He institutes the Eucharist, whereby his divine Body and Blood are given to us as food that we may be restored to the fullness of our humanity by reconciliation with our primal bit of divinity. Second, He is crucified, thereby hanging on a piece of wood and bearing the curse of the ground for us, "Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree" says the Law. Thus, Christ redeems us in part in this life from the curse that will destroy our humanity and alienate us from our Creator, redeems us at our first death through our incorporation into his Body, and redeems many who died before his coming by his harrowing of hell.
Thesis 3: The "perfect propitiation" of which the Article speaks was required because justice is fundamental to the universe but its form was the forebearance of God to our fallen desires.
In Romans 3:25, the Apostle says of the Lord Jesus, "that God hath set [him] forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;" But why was it necessary for this to be done by ther death of Him who was very God and very man. In the beginning, God legislated mercifully, only putting Cain into exile. But Cain, fearing that his fellows would not be so merciful, asked God's protection. And so at the covenant of Noah, God established the basic form of the Lex Talionis by allusion to the primal order, but surely if it were primal, it would apply to Cain? But indeed it was primal in the sense that retributive justice follows from the natural law. Yet we were not meant to be subject to the fullness of the natural law, i.e. death. But as we mixed more and more with the creation that was good (and likely is good) but became accursed for us, we embraced retributive justice. We embraced scapegoating. We embraced collective punishment. And God could endure it no longer, so the Lord Jesus died in a way that finally could cleanse our consciences, for there is no propitiation of natural justice ("nature red in tooth and claw") so great as offering the Creator. Penal substitution is so sick and twisted as to be supremely fitting, not as a sign to us of God's wrath but to us of our great wickedness to one another and our desire for vengeance. But we also must remember that this is a reciprocal act of love for us. For indeed Abraham gave his son willingly as a sacrifice to God. So should we not feel so beloved by the reciprocal gift?
Thesis 4: The "perfect satisfaction" of which the Article speaks has the same character as the propitiation.
For as Latimer preached in a Homily on Repentance, "For he alone dyd with the sacrifice of his body and blod make satisfaction vnto the Iustice of god for our sinnes." Note further the use of satisfaction in Numbers 35 (KJV) in the context of the treatment of murder and manslaughter, where, on one hand, our desire for vengeance is recognized in the kinship role of the "revenger of blood" but the mercy of God is recognized in the idea of the city of sanctuary. This was to signify Christ, who left the sanctuary of the holy city, Jerusalem, and met death, the revenger of the blood of us all. And likewise we also know that the Lord was the true high priest and thus by his death, he has restored all us miserable offenders, destroyers of ourselves unawares by our disobedience, to the land of our possession.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Caelius the Teaching Assistant
Well, after 2.5 hours on Thursday, 9.5 hours on Friday, and an hour or so today, I finally am done the solution set for this week's problem set. Yes, you guessed it. I now am a member of that lowest cadre of academic life: the teaching assistant. Fortunately, I have two colleagues and the class is less than thirty students, but I never realized how much time this job requires. No wonder even the best of my TAs have been cranky sometimes.
The most interesting part of this class is that it is a required course for graduate students in my field who are not in my particular sub-field. Therefore, I am now a vague authority figure for several of my friends/colleagues. Of course, I have been in the reverse position several times with both TAs and professors, but it's still weird.
In other news, I'm thinking about getting a mohawk on Holy Saturday. It depends how much time I have between the all-night vigil on Friday night and Easter Vigil proper on Saturday evening. This means that I will have a mohawk for the second straight degree ceremony. I think I might be making a habit of this.
I am a fan of intercessory prayer. Rationally, I know it doesn't work. Faithfully, I think it works quite well. For the last year I've been praying for a friend of mine who has been out of work for the last year. Well, the just Judge decided to play a nice trick on me yesterday when I found out that my friend now has some steady employment consonant with her gifts. It's not perfect. It's not miraculous. But it's what she needed. Thanks be to God.
The Monastery hasn't sold many buttons and t-shirts, but we have sold a few (including to complete strangers.) If you're interested in a button for Easter, this would be a good time to order. While I do like how they turned out, I'm afraid they may be a little too small for their purpose. At church on Sunday, one person noticed my name button. I am in some sense named Caelius after all. One friend of mine saw the other button and said, "I support Changing Attitude Nigeria. Well, OK." Indeed.
The most interesting part of this class is that it is a required course for graduate students in my field who are not in my particular sub-field. Therefore, I am now a vague authority figure for several of my friends/colleagues. Of course, I have been in the reverse position several times with both TAs and professors, but it's still weird.
In other news, I'm thinking about getting a mohawk on Holy Saturday. It depends how much time I have between the all-night vigil on Friday night and Easter Vigil proper on Saturday evening. This means that I will have a mohawk for the second straight degree ceremony. I think I might be making a habit of this.
I am a fan of intercessory prayer. Rationally, I know it doesn't work. Faithfully, I think it works quite well. For the last year I've been praying for a friend of mine who has been out of work for the last year. Well, the just Judge decided to play a nice trick on me yesterday when I found out that my friend now has some steady employment consonant with her gifts. It's not perfect. It's not miraculous. But it's what she needed. Thanks be to God.
The Monastery hasn't sold many buttons and t-shirts, but we have sold a few (including to complete strangers.) If you're interested in a button for Easter, this would be a good time to order. While I do like how they turned out, I'm afraid they may be a little too small for their purpose. At church on Sunday, one person noticed my name button. I am in some sense named Caelius after all. One friend of mine saw the other button and said, "I support Changing Attitude Nigeria. Well, OK." Indeed.
A Strange Poem For A Feast Day
When I think of Donne, I think of this poem .
I once wrote the lines below (part of a much longer work). They're a slight misreading, because I quite suspect now that Donne meant Mistress in the sense of wife, which is not to say that my reading is utterly irrelevant. The poem linked above is deeply erotic and deeply intellectual in the best sense of the word.
I once wrote the lines below (part of a much longer work). They're a slight misreading, because I quite suspect now that Donne meant Mistress in the sense of wife, which is not to say that my reading is utterly irrelevant. The poem linked above is deeply erotic and deeply intellectual in the best sense of the word.
Of all the things that created are, nothing is subtler than love
As if to balance the Love Begotten and ever o’erflowing.
There was sent into the worlds a man named Donne who, before he
Testified to the truth of the Savior and His redemptive love,
Discovered America to be the height of ecstasy.
One did not see him in Jamestown, stooped over by the pains of plague
But nevertheless he planted himself in the artisanal
Womankind of London-town and afterwards smoked some tobacco.
So if e’en the similitude of colonization licence
Sweetens, surely the act itself prefigures some dirty doings.
But Donne was not the first to conflate new land with woman newer.
From the first did Aeneas seek Lavinia’s shores, reached Italy
Took the woman from whose name was Latium, from whose womb were Latins.
Moreo’er, waylaid by the fates near Syrtean sands, the hero saw
How her peerage’s slavish jealousies burned a queen to ashes.
Blame it upon Juno’s ire against Troy’s children for Tyre’s,
But long before Hesiod drank, soil and rock were named female
As men who learned the facts of life and of agriculture conquered
Rather than stoop to foison’s producers—(somewhere is Eden).
So much would stand on fair Tellus but would it remain on Mars?
If you change the gender of the world, do you remake the rules
Which govern its denizens and do new acts of love thus arise
Unbidden from the warm dunite that undergirds the regolith?
Yet somewhere still there is Eden with questions of human nature:
Whether land’s pollution is twinned with pollution of relations?
They resist these questions, those bound to the loins of Earth, and do fear
The answers, considering it but fantasy to speculate.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
The Latest Entry in Carioca Confessions Is Interesting
I'm especially intrigued by the note to Phil, which isn't too far from what I proposed after the House of Bishops finished their latest meeting. I'll, however, risk the lawyers if catholic unity is to be built on church-backed state-sponsored violence and gross distortion of the word of God (begone ye Westminster Confession!). In other words, I've read Nigeria's report on the Listening Process. We are not amused. A few other Provinces say little better. All involved are in our prayers.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Into Great Silence
In the middle of Into Great Silence , the Carthusian monks of the Monastery of the Grand Chartreuse are having a rare meal together. One among them chants the 22nd Chapter of the Statutes of the Order, which among other things, provides that if the monks walk through a town or village on their occasional gadabouts, they are not to enter the houses of seculars. Considering the various things I have read today on the Internet, I think Saint Bruno may have been onto something there. When priests are threatening violence against one another, it was rather refreshing to hear the monks debate one aspect of the Statute in the next scene, maintaining a profound seriousness toward the importance of ritual action while simultaneously cracking jokes.
The Carthusians in some ways are the Amish of the Roman Catholic Church. Their motto is "the cross stands firm as the world turns" and they try to act as if the world has turned very slightly since their foundation. Unlike the Benedictines, they never have had a reform movement. They have electricity and the Prior uses an IBM laptop to manage the monastery's famous liqueur business, but in many other respects it is clear that they would prefer to be untouched by time, especially since they have been twice driven out of their monastery by the French government.
The movie itself is quite strange. It is interspersed with strange title frames such as, "You have seduced me, O God, and I was seduced." The cinematography is fascinated by the faces of the monks and the presence candle in their church. In fact, I would not be surprised if this is intentional: as if the posing monks are being compared with the icon of God in the silence of their house of prayer. Some might say the movie drags. I thought it was slow but generally well-paced. Particularly interesting are the scenes associated with a young novice, Marie-Pierre, an African. You first see him after you have watched the handiest of the lay brothers measure out fabric for his habit. The lay brother fits Marie-Pierre with a silent affection, especially charming as Marie-Pierre draws the black cloak of his novitiate about him. We next see Marie-Pierre being admitted as a novice before the Prior and being embraced by each member of the community in a very awkward and formal manner, but look closely and most of the monks are smiling widely. We next see the monks install Marie-Pierre in his cell, which is slightly larger than my apartment. And later, we hear Marie-Pierre chant in choir a portion of Basil's treatise on the Holy Spirit. Throughout the movie, you receive the impression that Marie-Pierre may be in a snowy realm far from the land of his birth (though that could be France for all I know) but he is finally home.
Unfortunately, this movie is likely to remain in limited release. Hopefully, the DVD will be easier to get when it comes out.
The Carthusians in some ways are the Amish of the Roman Catholic Church. Their motto is "the cross stands firm as the world turns" and they try to act as if the world has turned very slightly since their foundation. Unlike the Benedictines, they never have had a reform movement. They have electricity and the Prior uses an IBM laptop to manage the monastery's famous liqueur business, but in many other respects it is clear that they would prefer to be untouched by time, especially since they have been twice driven out of their monastery by the French government.
The movie itself is quite strange. It is interspersed with strange title frames such as, "You have seduced me, O God, and I was seduced." The cinematography is fascinated by the faces of the monks and the presence candle in their church. In fact, I would not be surprised if this is intentional: as if the posing monks are being compared with the icon of God in the silence of their house of prayer. Some might say the movie drags. I thought it was slow but generally well-paced. Particularly interesting are the scenes associated with a young novice, Marie-Pierre, an African. You first see him after you have watched the handiest of the lay brothers measure out fabric for his habit. The lay brother fits Marie-Pierre with a silent affection, especially charming as Marie-Pierre draws the black cloak of his novitiate about him. We next see Marie-Pierre being admitted as a novice before the Prior and being embraced by each member of the community in a very awkward and formal manner, but look closely and most of the monks are smiling widely. We next see the monks install Marie-Pierre in his cell, which is slightly larger than my apartment. And later, we hear Marie-Pierre chant in choir a portion of Basil's treatise on the Holy Spirit. Throughout the movie, you receive the impression that Marie-Pierre may be in a snowy realm far from the land of his birth (though that could be France for all I know) but he is finally home.
Unfortunately, this movie is likely to remain in limited release. Hopefully, the DVD will be easier to get when it comes out.
Replying to My Hard Question
Father AKMA graciously has pointed me to some commentary on his work that might interest you. Bls often says that some of the best theology is being done on the blogs, but I am heartened to see one among the relatively small number of theologians in our church trying to engage the church on this issue. I am sure there are others. I wonder if and why they have been shut out of the debate.
The first piece is an essay on the last chapter of Faithful Interpretation like a fascinating essay, very resonant with many of the conversations that go on in our particular neighborhood. I, of course, have been reading Romans lately, so I think one solution to the issue of our privy members is that the virtuous and godly manner of life is the one in which they are offered to God: either directly in the kenotic signs present in matrimony and fratrimony/sororimony or indirectly in which we forgo their use for a time or maybe even permanently in order that our other members may praise God all the more. The common critique of the mystical understanding of sexually intimate human relationships is that it is dismissive of the bodies God created. But we are likewise dismissive of the invisible things which God also made when we restrict our use of our members only to visible ends: a key failing of the natural law tradition.
He also sent me another link, but it's tricky to load. The only solution I suppose is to give myself Faithful Interpretation as an Easter present.
The first piece is an essay on the last chapter of Faithful Interpretation like a fascinating essay, very resonant with many of the conversations that go on in our particular neighborhood. I, of course, have been reading Romans lately, so I think one solution to the issue of our privy members is that the virtuous and godly manner of life is the one in which they are offered to God: either directly in the kenotic signs present in matrimony and fratrimony/sororimony or indirectly in which we forgo their use for a time or maybe even permanently in order that our other members may praise God all the more. The common critique of the mystical understanding of sexually intimate human relationships is that it is dismissive of the bodies God created. But we are likewise dismissive of the invisible things which God also made when we restrict our use of our members only to visible ends: a key failing of the natural law tradition.
He also sent me another link, but it's tricky to load. The only solution I suppose is to give myself Faithful Interpretation as an Easter present.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Sundry Matters
Graduate school is very quickly heating up again. I have two classes next term. Furthermore, I have two ongoing research projects, which really don't seem to be coming to a gracious close very soon. As you can tell from the various series on this blog, I very rarely finish anything. Indeed, I have profound trouble with completion generally. On top of that, I have two conference papers due Easter Wednesday. I'm TAing a course and volunteered to guest lecture on Easter Friday. Holy Week is my favorite week of the year, but it looks like it will be a rather unbalanced mix of work and prayer.
Tomorrow, however, I will be seeing Die Grosse Stille . If you're lucky, you may get a review.
If you get a chance, read AKMA's latest piece. It's very much in the vein of a lot of writing these days about "polity," but he makes it a bit more palatable than other dishes. I've asked him a hard question through his e-mail comment system. He also will have a piece in the Christian Century that will go online fairly soon, which he fears will lose him friends. Knowing many clergy in his Diocese, it is my profound hope that his friends there will keep an open mind. Because I suspect that there's an astonishing secret behind AKMA's life. That seven years after Rowan Williams was born, AKMA was formed by God to act as an American analog to Williams, so that one could divine Williams' thoughts by asking Adam. Some would say they are simpatico .
Well, that's a strange thought for the night. I guess the nightly phantasms came early.
Tomorrow, however, I will be seeing Die Grosse Stille . If you're lucky, you may get a review.
If you get a chance, read AKMA's latest piece. It's very much in the vein of a lot of writing these days about "polity," but he makes it a bit more palatable than other dishes. I've asked him a hard question through his e-mail comment system. He also will have a piece in the Christian Century that will go online fairly soon, which he fears will lose him friends. Knowing many clergy in his Diocese, it is my profound hope that his friends there will keep an open mind. Because I suspect that there's an astonishing secret behind AKMA's life. That seven years after Rowan Williams was born, AKMA was formed by God to act as an American analog to Williams, so that one could divine Williams' thoughts by asking Adam. Some would say they are simpatico .
Well, that's a strange thought for the night. I guess the nightly phantasms came early.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Bishops to Primates: Drop Dead (No, Scratch That)
What the House of Bishops really seems to have said to the Primates is: We propose. You dispose. We're tired of it. Your latest plan is utterly unacceptable. Oh, you seem to have the idea that you can use violation of provincial boundaries as a bargaining chip. This is illegal. This always has been illegal. Cut it out. (And in light of the Primates' Communique, they implicitly say that there's equivalence between border crossing and TEC's contribution to the dysfunction.) Send representatives to us soon for a few days. We'll pay. We'll read the Bible and roast wieners.
The major fudge of the piece concerned the desire of the Bishops to remain in Communion relationships. While I think they are right to hope that TEC might be able to maintain some important partnerships outside the Communion structure, +Rowan and Rowan's ecclesiology pretty much will not like these resolutions. He will not sacrifice the unity of the Church of England, nor the more centralized ecclesiastical structure he is letting others build about his ears. Formally, it may take some time, but a General Convention fairly near to us will have to consider whether it's truthful to say TEC is a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, because, as the Bishops tell us, General Convention has discretion over what that means.
One really hopes the Presiding Bishop did not make any extravagant promises about her influence, because if she did, she made them in vain. It appears that a coalition formed in the House between the angry moderates and the angrier liberals. Expect a minority report fairly soon. I am sure that many of the so-called "Camp Allen Bishops" do not want to be associated with this document. Collegiality be darned! The irony of this meeting is that it was held at Camp Allen. I guess there's nothing in the air or water that swings one to the right there.
But the Primates do not receive the harshest rebuke. Instead, this appears reserved for the proponents of schismatic relativity. These are the folks on the right who claim that they didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on them. Well, no. But if you substitute TEC for Plymouth Rock and "split from" for "land on," you get the general idea. Examine the heart of the entire Statement,
In other words, the ACN/CANA etc. hath said unto us that we have married ourselves to the godlessness of Western culture, which shall destroy the patriarchal family ordained by Almighty God, but we say unto them that they are no less guilty and even guiltier than we are, for they bring the same dysfunction to the Church, which they claim we shall bring unto the family. In combination with the dig at border crossing, this is a direct and crushing rebuke. Moreover, the House even further marginalizes them by claiming their numbers are small.
I did not need to go to David Virtue or Kendall Harmon or StandFirm to get an idea of the response of the conservative reasserters (that's not redundant either). I just can read my favorite deacon, Texanglican, "I have difficulty imagining a scenario now that includes the possibility of the orthodox remaining within the Episcopal church a year from now."
And I am fairly sure the Bishops know this. I am fairly sure Bishops of much different opinions were there as well. The Bishops were warned, but they felt that:
Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, read a little more carefully. On one hand, there seems to be a subtle dig at +PJA about the obscene legislation he endorses. On the other hand, they talk about violence against women and children? Where? Zimbabwe? From what I can tell, the Primates are not as a whole likely to be in favor of violence against women and children. The Bishops really should have targeted their critiques at particular Primates. How dare they sit in judgment against us for our splinters, while they walk around with entire forests? But without specifics, it's fairly weak.
What the Bishops have done here is to call us and the Communion to a stability in controversy, to theology in tension. This is possible. But it requires a very difficult compromise from us all. On one hand, we need to give the conservative reasserters a place to stand. We stack the debate when we do not allow them places to cultivate virtue as they see fit in the same way they stack the debate by not allowing those who disagree with them a place to stand. I really do not think it is possible for the Diocese of San Joaquin and the Diocese of California to live together if they insist on remaking one another in their own image. At the same time, I sympathize with the discontents in both Dioceses.
The hard solution I would pose is to encourage both sides to return to compliance with law but allow some tolerance for scandal. I see Father Haller's house blessings or Christopher's wilderness rites as the proper orientation of liberal dioceses to the blessing issue. The liberals are not on the ball theologically, though the liberal reasserters might be getting there. There will be no more gay bishops for the time being, because a bishop belongs to the whole church. As the Candidate says, bishops should not be a focus for division, but that principle should apply to bishops generally. In conservative dioceses, there will be no openly/actively/whatevery clergy. Many will not like this. But reception of the Eucharist by those in exclusive, permanent, and faithful relationships will be a matter of conscience for the communicant etc. This will be an improvement in some places. Certain dioceses will not like this, but they are those dioceses likely to leave anyway. Individual parishes also will be given space, provided they are willing to let their bishop visit and contribute to the Diocese in time and talent. Where the bishop is, there is the catholic church.
What must stop is our constant threats to leave one another, our contempt for the order of Common Prayer, and the disrespect so many of us show for the kergyma contained in the Creeds. The kerygmal heresy and anomie (!) I constantly hear is becoming tiresome. Bls calls me the future of the church. Well, I'm only one man. If we change the basic truths we teach every decade or vacuously exposit the heart of our liturgy, few in my generation or the next will be there to keep me company. If all religions are equally favored by God, God reserves no punishment for those who disdain Him and hurt and destroy his creatures, and Jesus Christ does not save us from our sins, as a certain Verulam in these parts asserts, he will appear laughable as he condemns "illegal wars" or even genocide. Already I read people who say of religion that it was useful to organize societies in the past but those times have passed. If we continue to make fatuous truth claims (as Christians of many theological stripes do), people will prefer to play World of Warcraft . (Yes, I know Fr. AKMA plays World of Warcraft , it's just an example of the many endeavors that could absorb one besides Christian practice.) The level of our faith diagnoses very well the faith we have in one another. What we should do is pray, think, work, and talk, not with a view to gather the pedarii of General Convention or whatever other body to our side but with a view to explain ourselves to those we gather to Christ. Newcomers should come to us and hear, "Yes, we're having a bit of a fight with one another. And these matters are important. But what is more important is that Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, was revealed among us in flesh, taught us how to live, and saved us from our sins on the Cross. And on that Cross, none of his bones were broken. This was to remind us that we should not want to break them, that there are very few disagreements that should break the family of God apart.
The Button
I received my button in the mail today. It looks great. I will be wearing my button a little early in order to encourage interest.
The major fudge of the piece concerned the desire of the Bishops to remain in Communion relationships. While I think they are right to hope that TEC might be able to maintain some important partnerships outside the Communion structure, +Rowan and Rowan's ecclesiology pretty much will not like these resolutions. He will not sacrifice the unity of the Church of England, nor the more centralized ecclesiastical structure he is letting others build about his ears. Formally, it may take some time, but a General Convention fairly near to us will have to consider whether it's truthful to say TEC is a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, because, as the Bishops tell us, General Convention has discretion over what that means.
One really hopes the Presiding Bishop did not make any extravagant promises about her influence, because if she did, she made them in vain. It appears that a coalition formed in the House between the angry moderates and the angrier liberals. Expect a minority report fairly soon. I am sure that many of the so-called "Camp Allen Bishops" do not want to be associated with this document. Collegiality be darned! The irony of this meeting is that it was held at Camp Allen. I guess there's nothing in the air or water that swings one to the right there.
But the Primates do not receive the harshest rebuke. Instead, this appears reserved for the proponents of schismatic relativity. These are the folks on the right who claim that they didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on them. Well, no. But if you substitute TEC for Plymouth Rock and "split from" for "land on," you get the general idea. Examine the heart of the entire Statement,
"Most important of all [the Primatial Vicar scheme] is spiritually unsound. The pastoral scheme encourages one of the worst tendencies of our Western culture, which is to break relationships when we find them difficult instead of doing the hard work necessary to repair them and be instruments of reconciliation. The real cultural phenomenon that threatens the spiritual life of our people, including marriage and family life, is the ease with which we choose to break our relationships and the vows that established them rather than seek the transformative power of the Gospel in them. We cannot accept what would be injurious to this Church and could well lead to its permanent division."
In other words, the ACN/CANA etc. hath said unto us that we have married ourselves to the godlessness of Western culture, which shall destroy the patriarchal family ordained by Almighty God, but we say unto them that they are no less guilty and even guiltier than we are, for they bring the same dysfunction to the Church, which they claim we shall bring unto the family. In combination with the dig at border crossing, this is a direct and crushing rebuke. Moreover, the House even further marginalizes them by claiming their numbers are small.
I did not need to go to David Virtue or Kendall Harmon or StandFirm to get an idea of the response of the conservative reasserters (that's not redundant either). I just can read my favorite deacon, Texanglican, "I have difficulty imagining a scenario now that includes the possibility of the orthodox remaining within the Episcopal church a year from now."
And I am fairly sure the Bishops know this. I am fairly sure Bishops of much different opinions were there as well. The Bishops were warned, but they felt that:
"It is incumbent upon us as disciples to do our best to follow Jesus in the increasing experience of the leading of the Holy Spirit. We fully understand that others in the Communion believe the same, but we do not believe that Jesus leads us to break our relationships. We proclaim the Gospel of what God has done and is doing in Christ, of the dignity of every human being, and of justice, compassion, and peace. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that stands against any violence, including violence done to women and children as well as those who are persecuted because of their differences, often in the name of God. The Dar es Salaam Communiqué is distressingly silent on this subject. And, contrary to the way the Anglican Communion Network and the American Anglican Council have represented us, we proclaim a Gospel that welcomes diversity of thought and encourages free and open theological debate as a way of seeking God's truth. If that means that others reject us and communion with us, as some have already done, we must with great regret and sorrow accept their decision."
Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, read a little more carefully. On one hand, there seems to be a subtle dig at +PJA about the obscene legislation he endorses. On the other hand, they talk about violence against women and children? Where? Zimbabwe? From what I can tell, the Primates are not as a whole likely to be in favor of violence against women and children. The Bishops really should have targeted their critiques at particular Primates. How dare they sit in judgment against us for our splinters, while they walk around with entire forests? But without specifics, it's fairly weak.
What the Bishops have done here is to call us and the Communion to a stability in controversy, to theology in tension. This is possible. But it requires a very difficult compromise from us all. On one hand, we need to give the conservative reasserters a place to stand. We stack the debate when we do not allow them places to cultivate virtue as they see fit in the same way they stack the debate by not allowing those who disagree with them a place to stand. I really do not think it is possible for the Diocese of San Joaquin and the Diocese of California to live together if they insist on remaking one another in their own image. At the same time, I sympathize with the discontents in both Dioceses.
The hard solution I would pose is to encourage both sides to return to compliance with law but allow some tolerance for scandal. I see Father Haller's house blessings or Christopher's wilderness rites as the proper orientation of liberal dioceses to the blessing issue. The liberals are not on the ball theologically, though the liberal reasserters might be getting there. There will be no more gay bishops for the time being, because a bishop belongs to the whole church. As the Candidate says, bishops should not be a focus for division, but that principle should apply to bishops generally. In conservative dioceses, there will be no openly/actively/whatevery clergy. Many will not like this. But reception of the Eucharist by those in exclusive, permanent, and faithful relationships will be a matter of conscience for the communicant etc. This will be an improvement in some places. Certain dioceses will not like this, but they are those dioceses likely to leave anyway. Individual parishes also will be given space, provided they are willing to let their bishop visit and contribute to the Diocese in time and talent. Where the bishop is, there is the catholic church.
What must stop is our constant threats to leave one another, our contempt for the order of Common Prayer, and the disrespect so many of us show for the kergyma contained in the Creeds. The kerygmal heresy and anomie (!) I constantly hear is becoming tiresome. Bls calls me the future of the church. Well, I'm only one man. If we change the basic truths we teach every decade or vacuously exposit the heart of our liturgy, few in my generation or the next will be there to keep me company. If all religions are equally favored by God, God reserves no punishment for those who disdain Him and hurt and destroy his creatures, and Jesus Christ does not save us from our sins, as a certain Verulam in these parts asserts, he will appear laughable as he condemns "illegal wars" or even genocide. Already I read people who say of religion that it was useful to organize societies in the past but those times have passed. If we continue to make fatuous truth claims (as Christians of many theological stripes do), people will prefer to play World of Warcraft . (Yes, I know Fr. AKMA plays World of Warcraft , it's just an example of the many endeavors that could absorb one besides Christian practice.) The level of our faith diagnoses very well the faith we have in one another. What we should do is pray, think, work, and talk, not with a view to gather the pedarii of General Convention or whatever other body to our side but with a view to explain ourselves to those we gather to Christ. Newcomers should come to us and hear, "Yes, we're having a bit of a fight with one another. And these matters are important. But what is more important is that Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, was revealed among us in flesh, taught us how to live, and saved us from our sins on the Cross. And on that Cross, none of his bones were broken. This was to remind us that we should not want to break them, that there are very few disagreements that should break the family of God apart.
The Button
I received my button in the mail today. It looks great. I will be wearing my button a little early in order to encourage interest.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
A Message from the Abbot
Beloved in Christ, I hope this Lenten season finds you both well and also greatly troubled. The wrath to come is never very far away and the time of trial always lies over the next horizon. And so may you be sorely tested by works of self-denial and deeply reflective on your sins. But also remember that this season also should be filled by works of mercy as the holy prophets command and likewise our holy mother Hilda. This is often difficult for us, especially for a certain ward of this house who is about to supplicate for his master's degree. How indeed shall a young man cleanse his way? It's easy to find time to meditate on our deep sinfulness, especially when we are young and the deceits of the world are so daily at our door. It is often difficult to find time for liberating the captive and minimizing our exploitation of the other.
In these last weeks, I have been thinking about the Northern Patriarchate in the 21st century to which this monastery is strangely bound by the mercies of God. I especially have been thinking about Changing Attitude Nigeria, an organization of gay and lesbian Anglicans in that country who meet together to reflect on the Word of God, praise His Holy Name, upbuild one another through prayer and fellowship, and consider the joys and obligations of their ordering by God and their place in their society. I was dismayed to learn that Changing Attitude Nigeria and similar organizations could be banned by legislation still pending in the Nigerian legislature. Worst of all, we have heard that the Primate of Nigeria, Peter Jasper Akinola, is a strong proponent of this legislation and may have initiated it himself. If this is so, we all should offer our prayers for this man, lest he place the godly among the lawless and become subject to the tribunal for the ill he wishes upon his brethren.
Here at the Monastery, we offer prayers daily for Davis Mac-Iyalla, the members of Changing Attitude Nigeria, and all gays and lesbians in Africa that the Lord may keep them in righteousness and preserve them in peace. But more can be done. In America on Tellus, there have been proposals that the Paschal feast is an opportunity for gays and lesbians to make public their presence in the churches by wearing the Arcus Imbri. Some have pointed out various difficulties with this, including the renowned BLS of the Topmost Apple. At her suggestion, our young ward has painted an icon in the ancient Powerpoint style in support of Changing Attitude Nigeria.
The figures are in the style of the famous Good News Illustrated Bible with a table pattern adapted from a tent hanging seen here . On the table lies the Holy Scriptures open to the verse of Psalm 118 that foretells gloriously the Resurrection of Jesus but also proclaims that victory over death is promised to all who declare the power of God. Note that the figures turn their head slightly toward Christ their Head, who opens the Scriptures to them.
You now can purchase this icon as a way of showing your support for Changing Attitude Nigeria, either on a t-shirt (for those who wear such things to Divine Service as is common in Laodicea) or as a button. at the Monastery's new online store. . Roughly 30% of the purchase price (all the profits) will go to Changing Attitude Nigeria. Wear them. Tell the story of Changing Attitude Nigeria. But also tell to those who do not know of the glorious resurrection unto vindication promised to those faithful to Christ Jesus.
Peace to you all in the Lord Jesus and to the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity be the glory world without end,
+Alfredus
In these last weeks, I have been thinking about the Northern Patriarchate in the 21st century to which this monastery is strangely bound by the mercies of God. I especially have been thinking about Changing Attitude Nigeria, an organization of gay and lesbian Anglicans in that country who meet together to reflect on the Word of God, praise His Holy Name, upbuild one another through prayer and fellowship, and consider the joys and obligations of their ordering by God and their place in their society. I was dismayed to learn that Changing Attitude Nigeria and similar organizations could be banned by legislation still pending in the Nigerian legislature. Worst of all, we have heard that the Primate of Nigeria, Peter Jasper Akinola, is a strong proponent of this legislation and may have initiated it himself. If this is so, we all should offer our prayers for this man, lest he place the godly among the lawless and become subject to the tribunal for the ill he wishes upon his brethren.
Here at the Monastery, we offer prayers daily for Davis Mac-Iyalla, the members of Changing Attitude Nigeria, and all gays and lesbians in Africa that the Lord may keep them in righteousness and preserve them in peace. But more can be done. In America on Tellus, there have been proposals that the Paschal feast is an opportunity for gays and lesbians to make public their presence in the churches by wearing the Arcus Imbri. Some have pointed out various difficulties with this, including the renowned BLS of the Topmost Apple. At her suggestion, our young ward has painted an icon in the ancient Powerpoint style in support of Changing Attitude Nigeria.
The figures are in the style of the famous Good News Illustrated Bible with a table pattern adapted from a tent hanging seen here . On the table lies the Holy Scriptures open to the verse of Psalm 118 that foretells gloriously the Resurrection of Jesus but also proclaims that victory over death is promised to all who declare the power of God. Note that the figures turn their head slightly toward Christ their Head, who opens the Scriptures to them.
You now can purchase this icon as a way of showing your support for Changing Attitude Nigeria, either on a t-shirt (for those who wear such things to Divine Service as is common in Laodicea) or as a button. at the Monastery's new online store. . Roughly 30% of the purchase price (all the profits) will go to Changing Attitude Nigeria. Wear them. Tell the story of Changing Attitude Nigeria. But also tell to those who do not know of the glorious resurrection unto vindication promised to those faithful to Christ Jesus.
Peace to you all in the Lord Jesus and to the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity be the glory world without end,
+Alfredus
Monday, March 05, 2007
More Canadian Humor (Lambeth I.10 Edition)
The Bishops of Qu'Apelle and Saskatoon Aren't Going To Be Happy About This I also think polygamy is illegal in Lebanon, too.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Now That's What I Call Quality
I returned home this evening to find Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance bookmarked with a green pamphlet: " 'Contraception': Abortion in Disguise." I wonder which one of my roommates is reading Pirsig at the moment.
And Now For Something Completely Different
Today, the Rector mentioned in his sermon that he was still mulling over why he received a standing ovation after last week's sermon. He then read a letter from a parishioner, a gay man who almost had been driven to suicide in his adolescence by his Baptist upbringing. Some time later, he found ILEOS and was baptized there last year. He presently was discerning whether he wanted to be confirmed, especially after the Primates' Meeting in Tanzania. But when he saw so many enthusiastically applauding the Rector's sermon last week, he felt that he would be welcome in the Episcopal Church. The crux of the sermon was that "four graces of ILEOS were under attack":
Problems abound here. The universalistic spin on common grace ignores that Jesus' point about common grace and God's providence in general was intended to demonstrate that we have no advantages before God in consequence of our birth. A Jew in isolation has no merit in himself just for being a Jew, nor a Muslim (likewise claiming descent from Abraham), nor an American, nor an Afrikaner, nor the countless other peoples that claimed being the chosen people of God made their injustice justice. The chosen people of God instead are those who do his will. And though I suspect this will not be a popular sentiment, a key part of His will is participation in Jesus Christ, which is not to say that there are not Jews and Muslims and Buddhists etc. who participate in his will revealed in nature or their scriptures. In fact, many seem to show the fruit of prevention by Christ far more clearly than some Christians, because Jesus is also the Wisdom of God at the heart of the world. But there remains something crucial about Christianity.
And, of course, let us not forget the third grace, which if universally implemented, would require a complete revolution in Christian identity. Wesley may have called the Eucharist the sacrament of conversion, but he preached in an era in which it was highly normative for people to be baptized as infants. Moreover, the Eucharist is the sacrament of conversion in that it is the visitation of Christ, the most fully of all human beings. It turns us to God in the most intimate way possible and reveals to us our imperfections. Despite a recent Salon article that suggests that it can convert the skeptical unbaptized, I still continue my objections to open communion. The inclusion of the Lord's dining fellowship should teach us not to wall ourselves from the evils of the world but live in hospitality with those with whom we differ. But we also should recall the table in the Upper Room, where Judas (as baptized as the rest of the Disciples) ate unworthily and was driven to great evil. An overly inclusive table could be a spiritual danger. And if that is what open communion is doing, it's bad hospitality.
As for the second grace, I doubt that this was really challenged in the Primates' Meeting. Many of the strident Global South Provinces ordain women to the priesthood. I understand that in Uganda the ordination of women seemed especially culturally appropriate. If certain conservative bishops and priests in their dioceses in ECUSA are as misogynistic as some liberal Episcopalians claim, they may find themselves quite uncomfortable in the future as their friends may continue to think that ordaining women is not a serious matter of doctrine or ontology but simply a matter of culture.
What the Primates' Meeting challenges is the fourth grace. Let us be clear. The Episcopal Church envisioned by the Primates in their pneumatological unity (a sort of average for theological purposes that smears much subtlety and disagreement) is one in which same sex unions are not blessed by the church (in public or in private or in Timbuktu, definitely not in Timbuktu) and those in such unions are not admitted to Holy Orders. Of course, some Primates would prefer far more repression, encouraging exclusion from lay leadership and reparative therapy. I still am unsure what Lambeth I.10 mandates for those ordained before they entered into same sex unions, but +VGR being degraded (though not deposed) follows fairly logically. But if they quote Lambeth I.10 to us as law, they have asked the letter of the law and no further. The Rector is right to see this as an attack. Complying with Lambeth I.10 would change the community he pastors radically. Even if much of the lay leadership weren't excluded, they would feel unwelcome.
So the sermon was a mixed bag. And so when much of the congregation rose around me in applause, I stayed seated and reflective. I do not applaud after sermons, not necessarily to follow Chrysostom's ban on applause in church, which could violate the Scriptural mandate to encourage one another at potentially appropriate times, but because God is the approver of the sermon. But the man who wrote to the Rector saw the incident as a measure of his dignity in that place, which is not something I want to deny him.
More Related
I still have no idea of what really is happening with the Nigerian legislation, but I am now a frequent (but very friendly) lurker here. This week I felt very frustrated with the whole issue. I have no influence with Martyn Minns or Peter Akinola. So I wrote the Archbishop of Canterbury's Press Officer an e-mail. I am afraid that no copy was saved for posterity, but I basically told the Archbishop of Canterbury that I thought it was obscene that the Anglican Church in Nigeria was promoting legislation that would prohibit the activities of Changing Attitude Nigeria, which just seemed like a bunch of Evangelical Anglicans who happen to be gay and have meetings very much Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (like the CU in the UK). I said that the legislation was analogous to the Conventicle Act. Good times. The Archbishop of Canterbury, of course, has not responded to me personally nor publicly on the issue, possibly because he has been too occupied with General Synod. But he may surprise us yet. Doesn't he know that liberal Episcopalians revere his words in this country. I barely heard anything specific about the Scriptures in today's sermon, but one of the Archbishop's essays was the central theme?
And Now For Something Completely Different
Today, the Rector mentioned in his sermon that he was still mulling over why he received a standing ovation after last week's sermon. He then read a letter from a parishioner, a gay man who almost had been driven to suicide in his adolescence by his Baptist upbringing. Some time later, he found ILEOS and was baptized there last year. He presently was discerning whether he wanted to be confirmed, especially after the Primates' Meeting in Tanzania. But when he saw so many enthusiastically applauding the Rector's sermon last week, he felt that he would be welcome in the Episcopal Church. The crux of the sermon was that "four graces of ILEOS were under attack":
However, there are four graces I want to hold up as graces that are being tested right now as severely as Jesus’ baptismal grace was tested in the desert. One is the grace of our knowing that Christians are not advantaged before God more than Jews, Muslims, and other people. The very theology of God's universal grace which makes the sun to shine on everyone alike, that very theology of grace is under attack by conservative forces in the Anglican communion. Another is the grace of women who are ordained as clergy. There are certain bishops who are interested in regressing to a time when we will not ordain women to the priesthood. Another is the grace of open communion – “whoever you are and wherever you find yourself on the journey of faith, you are welcome to receive the bread and wine made holy”. The fourth grace I want to bring to mind is the grace of blessing same-gender unions
publicly and joyfully.
Problems abound here. The universalistic spin on common grace ignores that Jesus' point about common grace and God's providence in general was intended to demonstrate that we have no advantages before God in consequence of our birth. A Jew in isolation has no merit in himself just for being a Jew, nor a Muslim (likewise claiming descent from Abraham), nor an American, nor an Afrikaner, nor the countless other peoples that claimed being the chosen people of God made their injustice justice. The chosen people of God instead are those who do his will. And though I suspect this will not be a popular sentiment, a key part of His will is participation in Jesus Christ, which is not to say that there are not Jews and Muslims and Buddhists etc. who participate in his will revealed in nature or their scriptures. In fact, many seem to show the fruit of prevention by Christ far more clearly than some Christians, because Jesus is also the Wisdom of God at the heart of the world. But there remains something crucial about Christianity.
And, of course, let us not forget the third grace, which if universally implemented, would require a complete revolution in Christian identity. Wesley may have called the Eucharist the sacrament of conversion, but he preached in an era in which it was highly normative for people to be baptized as infants. Moreover, the Eucharist is the sacrament of conversion in that it is the visitation of Christ, the most fully of all human beings. It turns us to God in the most intimate way possible and reveals to us our imperfections. Despite a recent Salon article that suggests that it can convert the skeptical unbaptized, I still continue my objections to open communion. The inclusion of the Lord's dining fellowship should teach us not to wall ourselves from the evils of the world but live in hospitality with those with whom we differ. But we also should recall the table in the Upper Room, where Judas (as baptized as the rest of the Disciples) ate unworthily and was driven to great evil. An overly inclusive table could be a spiritual danger. And if that is what open communion is doing, it's bad hospitality.
As for the second grace, I doubt that this was really challenged in the Primates' Meeting. Many of the strident Global South Provinces ordain women to the priesthood. I understand that in Uganda the ordination of women seemed especially culturally appropriate. If certain conservative bishops and priests in their dioceses in ECUSA are as misogynistic as some liberal Episcopalians claim, they may find themselves quite uncomfortable in the future as their friends may continue to think that ordaining women is not a serious matter of doctrine or ontology but simply a matter of culture.
What the Primates' Meeting challenges is the fourth grace. Let us be clear. The Episcopal Church envisioned by the Primates in their pneumatological unity (a sort of average for theological purposes that smears much subtlety and disagreement) is one in which same sex unions are not blessed by the church (in public or in private or in Timbuktu, definitely not in Timbuktu) and those in such unions are not admitted to Holy Orders. Of course, some Primates would prefer far more repression, encouraging exclusion from lay leadership and reparative therapy. I still am unsure what Lambeth I.10 mandates for those ordained before they entered into same sex unions, but +VGR being degraded (though not deposed) follows fairly logically. But if they quote Lambeth I.10 to us as law, they have asked the letter of the law and no further. The Rector is right to see this as an attack. Complying with Lambeth I.10 would change the community he pastors radically. Even if much of the lay leadership weren't excluded, they would feel unwelcome.
So the sermon was a mixed bag. And so when much of the congregation rose around me in applause, I stayed seated and reflective. I do not applaud after sermons, not necessarily to follow Chrysostom's ban on applause in church, which could violate the Scriptural mandate to encourage one another at potentially appropriate times, but because God is the approver of the sermon. But the man who wrote to the Rector saw the incident as a measure of his dignity in that place, which is not something I want to deny him.
More Related
I still have no idea of what really is happening with the Nigerian legislation, but I am now a frequent (but very friendly) lurker here. This week I felt very frustrated with the whole issue. I have no influence with Martyn Minns or Peter Akinola. So I wrote the Archbishop of Canterbury's Press Officer an e-mail. I am afraid that no copy was saved for posterity, but I basically told the Archbishop of Canterbury that I thought it was obscene that the Anglican Church in Nigeria was promoting legislation that would prohibit the activities of Changing Attitude Nigeria, which just seemed like a bunch of Evangelical Anglicans who happen to be gay and have meetings very much Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (like the CU in the UK). I said that the legislation was analogous to the Conventicle Act. Good times. The Archbishop of Canterbury, of course, has not responded to me personally nor publicly on the issue, possibly because he has been too occupied with General Synod. But he may surprise us yet. Doesn't he know that liberal Episcopalians revere his words in this country. I barely heard anything specific about the Scriptures in today's sermon, but one of the Archbishop's essays was the central theme?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)