Here’s the thing – too many of us come to this Christian thing, this faith thing, this religion thing, this church thing not with an intent to learn (really), not in humility believing that I (we) need to be instructed on things we know little about. Instead, we come with the perhaps insecure intent to justify, support, or confirm what we want to believe already. Our culture has come to the point where we believe we can think anything we want to be true and it is therefore true, for us, and it matters not whether anyone agrees or whether real-life counters what we want to believe.
The “learning process” has changed from one of acquiring new/more knowledge from people who know far more than I do that will change me and my perceptions of truth or reality, to a process of seeking out anywhere “facts” that support what I want to believe. Sadly, for many people the anti-culture anti-intellectualism of our time reigns and they would rather simply remain ignorant.
As such, instead of giving ourselves to a teaching that challenges our preconceptions and may well demand that we align our opinion or belief to an established “truth,” we instead try to overtly or subtly change the teaching of this “truth” so that it will match up with what we can only already conceive of. We rely upon our own understanding of what is possible or our own ability to correctly discern, rather than yield to a very old and established teaching that effectively extends to multiple cultures and languages and billions of people over two millennia.
I well understand the good and arduous process of wrestling with stuff, but that is different than asserting that what I want to be true therefore is, even if just for me. What happens if we say, “I don’t know” or “I am probably wrong,” and begin there? What would happen if we give ourselves to a process that will probably turn everything we rely upon upside down? What would happen if we looked back over these past 2,009 years and step aside our own hubris and considered that what has survived all these years of trial and persecution, this wisdom, just might have something to say to us of the Truth, of God, and of God’s ways for us – not just the limited and myopic vision that we cling to?
Author Archives: blgriffith
Another Third Way
I need to be able to explain this without offending a bunch of folks, which is just impossible I know, but I need to try anyway. I just don’t know how to lay out my thoughts in a way that is precise in order to convey what I am really thinking, because right now my thoughts are a jumble in my mind. It would be too easy to land too far on one side of the argument or the other and not meaning to. Perhaps, just a series of statements and for now and leave it at that. In addition, it will be way, way too easy for me to sound like a reactionary, and I don’t mean to sound like a reactionary of any side. We’ve had way too much of that these past 6 years, already.
I keep thinking of the statement by the Mennonite pastor of Washington Christian Fellowship in D.C. that I heard one Sunday many years ago. In the context of his whole sermon, he said, “Jesus’ way is always a third way.” Ever since then, for really most of my adult life, I have always tried to look at issues and controversies, arguments and fights, accusations and declarations within the Church by asking, “What might be the completely different way that could be the third way of Jesus?” I believe that the attitudes and actions of most all things that separate us are a two-way-street. There is fault and blame on both sides, within both perspectives, attitudes, theories, theologies, visions, etc. We are human – we never get it “right” because of our limitations. So, looking for a third way to help solve the conflict or dispute or schism is where my mind goes almost automatically, now. Even though any thought of mine will really be only just another way.
After working with data over the past couple of years, there can be little debate that The Episcopal Church has suffered a tremendous decline in numbers and influence within our culture and our national life.
We have been on a 30-40 year experiment to remake this Church, and for many adherents of the experiment Christianity itself – just to very pertinent examples: retired Bishop Shelby Spong of Newark, the recently deposed priest trying to merge Christianity and Islam and seeing no conflict, the recently elected bishop of a small diocese that believes in the conflation of Christianity and Buddhism and proceeded to write his own liturgies and creedal statements.
There are plenty of other examples of leadership (clergy and lay) that are now in leadership that in years past would have been called skeptics of the faith, traditionally rendered. The skeptics may have been respected and honorably engaged to hear the why of the skepticism, but they would not been made leader of a Christian Church. It wouldn’t have made sense. Now, it is almost a virtue for a leader in this Church to be a skeptic of the foundational and traditional beliefs/principles of the Church catholic.
It’s like putting a person in charge of an airline company who doesn’t believe that aeoplanes can really go wondering through the air. The new leader believes he is on a mission to save people from the dreadful notion that we can safely go from one place to another by hurtling through high altitudes in a metal tube. What would be the result of hiring such a leader, regardless of how sincere he may be? If this happened, people would lose confidence in the airline (they have a crack-pot for a CEO), the airline would lose its place within the industry, ridership would probably tumble down drastically, and the airline would be destroyed. Of course, the solution to such a situation would be to find another CEO that actually believed that aeroplane flight is possible and safe. But, the conditions of the corporate culture at the time would not allow for the CEO’s removal.
The 30-40 year experiment continuing on in the leaders of this Church (and as a priest I have to include myself in this group) believing that the 2,000 tradition of the Church Catholic and Apostolic is obviously wrong in this modern age, that people are damaged by believing such superstitions, and that a new belief must be forged in order to save the organization and the religion (I don’t go there, however). We can look at denominations that have already gone down this path to see what the result will be. The Unitarian Universalists and the United Church of Christ can be examples for what will result if we continue with this experiment we are engaged in.
This path is also out of touch with the wantings and leanings of younger generations, so the hope that our path will divinely meet up with the rest of the people is false. The demographic data reveal this. We are beginning to see the results of the experiment and the results don’t look too good.
I’ll stop for now. I don’t know how well this has “come out.” I don’t know if this is how I really want to describe all this. But, I can say that the way the conservatives and the liberals within this Church have conducted themselves over the past 30-40 years has not worked and has resulted in schism, division, tremendous decline, and loss of good influence. A third way needs to be found.
Reflections on the God Debate
Stanley Fish in his New York Times blog gives a good review of a new book by Terry Eagleton, entitled: “Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate.â€
“…British critic Terry Eagleton asks, “Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?†His answer, elaborated in prose that is alternately witty, scabrous and angry, is that the other candidates for guidance — science, reason, liberalism, capitalism — just don’t deliver what is ultimately needed. ‘What other symbolic form,’ he queries, ‘has managed to forge such direct links between the most universal and absolute of truths and the everyday practices of countless millions of men and women?’
“…but at least religion is trying for something more than local satisfactions, for its ‘subject is nothing less than the nature and destiny of humanity itself, in relation to what it takes to be its transcendent source of life.’ And it is only that great subject, and the aspirations it generates, that can lead, Eagleton insists, to ‘a radical transformation of what we say and do.’
“The other projects, he concedes, provide various comforts and pleasures, but they are finally superficial and tend to the perpetuation of the status quo rather than to meaningful change: ‘A society of packaged fulfillment, administered desire, managerialized politics and consumerist economics is unlikely to cut to the depth where theological questions can ever be properly raised.’
“The fact that science, liberal rationalism and economic calculation can not ask — never mind answer — such questions should not be held against them, for that is not what they do.
“And, conversely, the fact that religion and theology cannot provide a technology for explaining how the material world works should not be held against them, either, for that is not what they do. When Christopher Hitchens declares that given the emergence of ‘the telescope and the microscope’ religion ‘no longer offers an explanation of anything important,’ Eagleton replies, ‘But Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place. It’s rather like saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov.’â€
The Narrative Character
The Narrative Character of our Faith
“Too many Christians are just pious versions of Ulysses Everett McGill protagonist in the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou]; that is, too many Christians have bought into the modernist valorization of scientific facts and end up reducing Christianity to just another collection of propositions. Our beliefs are encapsulated in ‘statements of faith’ that simply catalog a collection of statements about God, Jesus, the Spirit, sin, redemption, and so on. Knowledge is reduced to biblical information that can be encapsulated and encoded. And so, in more ways than one, our construal of the Christian faith has capitulated to modernity and what Lyotard calls its ‘computerization’ of knowledge, indicating a condition wherein any knowledge that cannot be translated into a simple ‘code’ or reduced to ‘data’ is abandoned. But isn’t it curious that God’s revelation to humanity is given not as a collection of propositions or facts but rather within a narrative — a grand, sweeping story from Genesis to Revelation? Is there not a sense in which we’ve forgotten that God’s primary vehicle for revelation is a story unfolded within the biblical canon?”
James K.A. Smith, PhD., Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?; pp. 74-75.
Lyotard’s “computerization of knowledge” reminds my of Polanyi’s “Tacit Knowing.”
“This is why the Scriptures must remain central for the postmodern church, for it is precisely the story of the canon of Scripture that narrates our faith… The narrative character of our faith should affect not only our proclamation and witness but also our worship and formation. …we need to know the story, and that story should be communicated when we gather as the people of God, that is, in worship. That is why the most postmodern congregations will be those that learn to be ancient, reenacting the biblical narrative. Just as Lyotard’s account of narrative knowledge shows a link between premodern and postmodern, so worship in postmodernity (which appreciates the role of narrative) should signal a recovery of liturgical tales — the narrating of creation, fall, redemption (as well as crucifixion, burial, and resurrection) in the very manner in which we worship.” (pp.75-76)
They kept saying, “Show us a sign. Give us proof. Then, we will believe.” And He responded always, “No.”
Still Waters
“Still waters run deep.” When I was in high school, a junior, I was riding up a chairlift on a ski slope with another ski-club member, a senior girl. I didn’t know her very well, not at all really. We talked a bit and then she said to me, and I was a taken aback a bit (a lot, really), she said, “You seem to have your shit together, why?” Well, I was taken aback because I knew I certainly didn’t have all my “shit” together, taken aback because she used the word “shit” (to swear was to sin in my household), and taken aback a Senior was asking me, a junior, a question like that.
I John was the Epistle reading for Morning Prayer the latter part of April. John talks a lot about our call, our obligation, our privilege to love. That word, “Love.” So much of how we understand that work in these days tends to verge almost exclusively on either sentimentality or lust of some sort. “Love” within the Christian Life is neither. Love, in an understanding that is rooted in the teachings of Jesus and really throughout the Holy Scriptures, seems to be something far more significant, difficult, meaningful, and far deeper than mere sentimentality or banal lust.
We who call ourselves Christians really do need to discover anew a definition for love other than the definition(s) determined by our culture, ingrained within us through enculturation, and vividly demonstrated by our prevailing culture. I think if “love” is our goal, our experience… if we have been re-formed into the way of life of the Body of Christ – then others cannot but notice a difference in us.
What is this kind of love – it is peace generating. Peace first within our own lives, and then from the wellspring of our experience we are able to better influence those around us and the culture for peace – inwardly, outwardly in our relationships with others, and within our national experience. Anxiety rules the hearts of so many people these days, and not just because of our economic woes-of-the-moment.
What is this kind of love – that we love even our enemies. This is profound, and profoundly difficult. In fact, I venture to say that it is nearly impossible without the renewing and reconciling endeavor of Christ within us. Too many of us that call ourselves Christian in these days have capitulated to the culture and act just like it – animosity, hostility, hatred, verbal and physical violence, abuse and manipulation, an unwillingness or inability to compromise with those with whom we disagree, a national attitude that simply says “seek out and kill our enemies.” In the end, this does not bring peace, stability, security, or freedom. The violent world looks at the Church and sees themselves. They see a better example of “Christian love” in the life of Ghandi, a Hindu. We fail to love as Christ calls us to love. Again, this is profoundly difficult and certainly not sentimentality.
What is this kind of love – I consider the welfare of others before myself.
What is this kind of love – 1 Corinthians 13:3-8a (ESV)
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
Is this how love looks among us?
Now, I don’t claim for a moment that this girl sitting next to me on the chairlift was suddenly exposed to an incredible example of God’s love by me, a 17 year old kid, but through something completely unrecognizable by me she found something different in my life – something that she didn’t have. I asked her what she meant by, “have your shit together.” She didn’t really know, but she said to me, “Still waters run deep.” The only difference I can even begin to fathom would have been the very beginnings of formation, or change within me, as a result of Jesus Christ. If we give ourselves to God and the pursuit of love as God determines it to be, God will do a renewing work within us, He will re-form us out of these worldly systems and into something profoundly deeper. It is His way, though. There are now short-cuts or alternative methods.
I think if we give ourselves to seeking the love God calls us to, the life, really, there will be a change within us that is somehow visible to a world were love has become anything but… love defined not by the whims of “trendy” born of psycho-social insecurity and not by the Author of love.
Attempt Fail
So, I tried upgrading to the newest version of Movable Type yesterday – all day yesterday. I failed. As the upgrade process when along, which really was only the beginning, my database was updated successfully, but then I had to press a button that redirected me back to Movable Type. When I did, I received a “404” error message. file “… mt.cgi not found…” or something like that. The upgrade program doesn’t see the file, for some reason, even thought the file is there.
Checked all the access rights for the cgi files. Checked access rights for the folders. Checked that file was, in fact, present. Why? This gets frustrating when everything looks as if it should work, but doesn’t.
I successfully installed a new clean version for another blog, and the interface for the new version is great.
Now, my whole self-identity is shot. I’m a failure. What’s the point of ever trying anything new, again? Just kidding, although spending a whole day on this is frustrating. I got to kind of watch while doing several movies, however. “Mars Attacks” which I love; “NightDayNightDay,” which was distubing; “Righteous Kil, which was good; part of “Matrix” – I had to go for a run at that point; and finally “Harry Potter and something-or-another.” I fell asleep.
Keeping Holy Ground
From this months issue of Christianity Today (May 2009):
Keeping Holy Ground Holy
The average person is not at all repelled by Gothic or Romanewque architecture,” says Robert Jaeger, executive director of Partners for Sacred Places, a nondenominational nonprofit that preserves and renews historic church buildings in the U.S. “The average person finds the symbolism and the craftsmanship compelling, beautiful, and comforting.”
There’s a desire out there to connect with something ancient, something transcendent,” asays Ed Stetzer, director of Lifeway Research and author of Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them. “there’s a hunger to move beyond a bland evangelcialism into something with more historic roots.”
Last year, a LifeWay survey commissioned by the Cornerstone Knowledge Network found that unchurched adults prefer Gothic church buildings to utilitarian ones, challenging the conventional wisdom that medieval-looking churches feel out-of-touch and stuffy to seekers. LifeWay showed over 1,600 unchurched adults four pictures of church buildings, ranging from mall-like to Gothic. The majority prefered the most ornate church.
“The study probably tells us that the appearance of a traditional church might not be the turnoff that people assumed in the seeker age,” Stetzer says.
Of course, Stetzer also notes that in North American and Europe, the congregations with the oldest buildings are the ones struggling the most to retain memers. THere’s a difference between admiring a building from the street and going inside to connect with a congregation”
Buildings don’t reach people, people reach people,” says Stetzer. [Nathan Bierma. 2009. “Keeping Holy Ground Holy – A new survey suggests seekers are not looking for user-friendly, mall-like buildings.” Christianity Today, May, pp. 36.]
For a generation (or two), the buildings provide us an opportunity for piquing interest and are a tangible invitation to enter in. We see this at my parish all the time. But, whether people stay or not depends on whether something is going on within the place. That “something” is not the building, not nice people, not a cornucopia of programs, not socio-political positions, but whether God is encountered in the midst of the people in the context of worship, the Eucharist. It is the encounter with God and the real change that such an encounter causes within that will cause people to stay.
What to do? Even the writing of the article reveals a passing way of thinking – “Seeker” is passé. Current day evangelicals are generally better in shifting with the times, but there isn’t the moderating influence of the Tradition. Here is the pressing problem with the Episcopal Church. We are the ones with the old buildings and a dwindling membership. Yet, we are the ones with all the attributes that should be attracting “seekers” of the younger generations.
We continue to be stuck, and for too many of us we continue to believe that it is “moving the furniture around,” programs, social activism, and many other things that bring people in and cause them to stay. Those things don’t, in most cases.
There has to be a lessening of “scheming” to “save us” and more of the simplicity of the foundational principles of the faith, the Tradition, that which has spiritually enlivened and feed people for two millennia, that which has survived – more about Jesus as the person He claimed (claims) to be and less of what we want to imagine Him to have been or to be coming from both the imaginations of conservatives and liberals. This also means, of course, that the architectural styles of church buildings are a bit moot – people will stay where their souls are touched by God.
John Upton
Terminology, oy
So, I have been referred to as “Rev. Griffith” more and more lately. I perfectly understand this when coming from non-Catholic church folks because they refer to their clergy in that way. But, for Episcopalians to continue to refer to clergy as “Rev. so-and-so” just shouldn’t be (see point 3 below). It is a failure of education somewhere along the line (well, there are certain other reasons that if mentioned may cause be to be labeled sexist, but never mind – see point 5 below).
Because terminology used for various clergy levels and positions, when dealing with our hyper-individualize culture, is all over the place, The Church Pension Group (CPG) has a handy “Always and Never” sheet for employees. Here are some of the rules:
1. NEVER say, “Are you an Episcopal?”
2. ALWAYS say, “Are you an Episcopalian?”
3.NEVER, NEVER, NEVER call an ordained “Reverend.” The word “the” should always go before “Reverend.” In writing, the full and correct use is “the Reverend” or “The Reverend,” depending on usage and/or the place in a sentence.
4. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER call an ordained person “a clergy.” You might say one of the following: “He/She is a clergyperson.” “He/She is ordained.” “He/She is a member of the clergy.”
5. ALWAYS ask ordained women if they want to be called Mother, Mrs., Ms., Dean, Bishop, or another title. She just might tell you that she prefers that you use her name.
6. ALWAYS ask ordained men if they want to be called Father, Mister, Dean, or Bishop, or another title. He just might tell you that he prefers that you use his name.
There are a few more…
So, this is an older and briefer list. We received an 8 page list of proper names, titles, and the hierarchical title protocol – for example, ecclesiastical rank (titles) always take precedence over military rank (titles).
Now, concerning “The Rev.” or “Rev. so-and-so,” in the Episcopal/Anglican Church, “The Rev.” is not a title, but is an adjective. “The Rev.” is a descriptive describing something about the clergyperson – he/she is kind of like revered. So, you probably wouldn’t call me “Boy Bob,” even though I am a boy.
(If any recent people that have interacted with me read this and think that I’m referring specifically to you, please don’t. This has simple been a noticeable trend I’ve noticed over the last few years.) Call me Bob or Mr. Bob or Fr. Bob, but not Rev. Bob.
Wish Fulfilments
Here are a few paragraphs from an Easter message appearing in the TimesOnline (UK), that religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill describes as an example of “Radical Orthodoxy,” by N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham.
The Church must stop trivialising Easter –
“The stories of the Resurrection are certainly not “wish-fulfilments†or the result of what dodgy social science calls “cognitive dissonanceâ€. First-century Jews who followed would-be messiahs knew that if your leader got killed by the authorities, it meant you had backed the wrong man. You then had a choice: give up the revolution or get yourself a new leader. Going around saying that he’d been raised from the dead wasn’t an option.
Unless he had been. Jesus of Nazareth was certainly dead by the Friday evening; Roman soldiers were professional killers and wouldn’t have allowed a not-quite-dead rebel leader to stay that way for long. When the first Christians told the story of what happened next, they were not saying: “I think he’s still with us in a spiritual sense†or “I think he’s gone to heavenâ€. All these have been suggested by people who have lost their historical and theological nerve.
“The historian must explain why Christianity got going in the first place, why it hailed Jesus as Messiah despite His execution (He hadn’t defeated the pagans, or rebuilt the Temple, or brought justice and peace to the world, all of which a Messiah should have done), and why the early Christian movement took the shape that it did. The only explanation that will fit the evidence is the one the early Christians insisted upon – He really had been raised from the dead. His body was not just reanimated. It was transformed, so that it was no longer subject to sickness and death.
“Let’s be clear: the stories are not about someone coming back into the present mode of life. They are about someone going on into a new sort of existence, still emphatically bodily, if anything, more so. When St Paul speaks of a “spiritual†resurrection body, he doesn’t mean “non-materialâ€, like a ghost. “Spiritual†is the sort of Greek word that tells you,not what something is made of, but what is animating it. The risen Jesus had a physical body animated by God’s life-giving Spirit. Yes, says St Paul, that same Spirit is at work in us, and will have the same effect – and in the whole world…”
“Easter has been sidelined because this message doesn’t fit our prevailing world view. For at least 200 years the West has lived on the dream that we can bring justice and beauty to the world all by ourselves.
The split between God and the “real†world has produced a public life that lurches between anarchy and tyranny, and an aesthetic that swings dramatically between sentimentalism and brutalism. But we still want to do things our own way, even though we laugh at politicians who claim to be saving the world, and artists who claim “inspiration†when they put cows in formaldehyde.
The world wants to hush up the real meaning of Easter. Death is the final weapon of the tyrant or, for that matter, the anarchist, and resurrection indicates that this weapon doesn’t have the last word.”