Speaking of traditional church architecture (see below), here are some photos I took of St. Paul’s Church in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. St. Paul’s is the parish in which I serve. I, for one, love the architecture (Upjohn and Cram).
Click here to see some photos I took during Lent (you’ll notice the purple coverings).
There is a constant stream of people coming in to look at the church whenever the doors are open. It is a fixture in the neighborhood – a traditionally working-class Roman Catholic neighborhood that is gentrifying with bunches of young, yuppy types with strollers. At times, we have “stroller-jams” before and after services. I often hear people describe St. Paul’s as “the English Church.”
Category Archives: anglican
Just for the fun of it…
You think some “conservative” Anglicans are down on The Episcopal Church. You think some American-Evangelicals are down on Anglicanism, period. Well, consider how this Fundamentalist website views The Episcopal Church, the Church of England, and Anglicanism.
Let me be like the Religious Right websites when they warn you to click on a link at your own risk.
Clink on this link at your own risk!
A foretaste of glory divine:
” The Episcopalian Religion is straight out of the pits of hell. They teach that performing the seven sacraments are absolutely essential to go to heaven. This is the same damnable heresy which Roman Catholicism teaches.”
Try experiments on my rats
I just want to repeat a portion of the C.S. Lewis quote below. I think it needs repeating:
“Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude the question, ‘What on earth is he up to now?’ will intrude. It lays one’s devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, ‘I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.”
What’s dangerous about this naïveté
A quote from the book, “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society,” by Farhad Manjoo:
“It’s important to remember that the death penalty advocates and opponents in Ross and Lepper’s study didn’t know that they were interpreting information in a skewed way. Indeed, Ross says, each of us thinks that on any given subject our views are essentially objective, the product of a dispassionate, realistic accounting of the world. This is naive realism, though, because we are incapable of recognizing the biases that operate upon us. Think of the Dartmouth and Princeton football fans I told you about earlier. When they looked at identical film clips of a game, each side ‘saw’ a different reality. They did not know – and really, could not know – that their perception of the event didn’t match the reality of it because, for them, the perception was indistinguishable from its reality. How they ‘saw’ the game was how it really was.
“What’s dangerous about this naïveté is that it spins out into our appraisals of other people. We’re jarred and offended when other people don’t agree with what, to us, is so brilliantly clear. ‘If we think we see the world the way it is,’ Ross explains, ‘then we think that reasonable people ought to agree with us. And to the extent that people disagree with us, we conclude that they are not reasonable – they’re biased’… ‘If we let you look at other people’s responses, we find that exactly to the extent that the other person disagrees with you, you think they’re biased. You think their opinion reflects biases rather than rational consideration.'” (p. 152)
Do you think this may well explain our current Anglican inability to meet one another in a form of understanding that can lead to compromise?
We do not want stagnation, but…
“Rightly or wrongly, men are conservative in their religious habits, changes comes slowly and after much thought and a period of uncertainty. Indeed, the strength of religion in human history has been due to its conservative tenacity… Much that was stated dogmatically in the nineteenth century is now having to be modified. Before changes are again made in this age we need to be certain that they are based on more secure foundations. We do not want stagnation in the life of our Church, but stability. In the restlessness and rootlessness that characterize our contemporary society changes and reforms are to be embraced with due circumspection. In Christian worship and its art the element of tradition cannot be entirely eliminated or ignored, since it is based not merely on conservatism, but also on the wisdom and experience of the past.” [emphasis mine]
(Cyril R. Pocknee, The Parson’s Handbook Revised Edition: 1965, pg xix. [First edition by Percy Dearmer, 1899])
Note: “Conservative” here, if not abundantly apparent, is “to conserve” and should not be associated with any ideological or socio-political or socio-religions notions.
Impulse of the Anglo-Catholic Movement
Fr. Tobias Haller over at In a Godward Direction picked up on my post below about Radical Welcome. Several people commented on his blog and one of his responses I thought is very important to remember as we think about High Church liturgy, Anglo-Catholicism, Tradition, young people and Baby Boomers:
I intend to spend a little time this afternoon working (and praying) on an icon of St James of Jerusalem — but want to take a moment to second what Phil observes here, as it is well in keeping with the sentiments of the Epistle of James. Orthodoxy is useless if it doesn’t lead to orthopraxy; and our worship of God is empty (however beautiful) if it doesn’t impel us and nourish us for service to Christ’s suffering body in the world.
This really was the classical impulse of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the hands of such as Pusey — not simply solemn worship, but serious mission and ministry as well. There is an untapped vein of the Spirit waiting to be opened: youth today are rebelling as much against the self-satisfaction of the Boomers as the acquisitive success orientation of their children. God willing, the church is ready to enter a new age of service and worship and mission and ministry. Christ is honored in all of these, but most especially in the ministry to the living icons who populate our cities’ streets, and labor in our fields.
The proof is in the puddin’ and if we don’t do the stuff that Jesus called us to do, as another commenter mentioned, the authenticity that is so important to younger people will be lost. Do we mean this stuff, or not? Really, do we mean it…
Radical Welcome
The blog, Fr. Jake Stops the World, which I like to read, has a new entry on “radical welcome.” Fr. Jake writes:
As the chart on page 3 of this document makes clear, “radical welcome” goes beyond being an “inviting”, or even “inclusive” Church. For instance, compare the message of those three approaches:
The message of the Inviting Church – ” Come, join our community and share our cultural values and heritage.â€
The message of the Inclusive Church – “Help us to be diverse.â€
The message of the Radically Welcoming Church – “Bring your culture, your voice, your whole self—we want to engage in truly mutual relationship.â€
Do you see the difference? Instead of a transaction, in which we assume The Other wants something we have, a radical welcome is an invitation to enter into a mutual relationship.
Is there some risk involved? Of course. And lots of fear. One of the greatest fears of the Church in general, and many of our members specifically, is the fear of change. And if we welcome in The Other, the outcasts, those who are somehow “different,” things are definately going to change. And maybe we won’t like it.
Okay, so I made a comment on his blog, which I include below:
What distinguishes what I hear as “radical welcome†from, say, the current ethos of Unitarian Universalism but with liturgy? As I looked for a faith tradition to become involved in, I chose Anglicanism (TEC) because I saw in it a means of faith that hadn’t given up on the time-honored Tradition – that which has lasted through trend and whim over the centuries – and at the same time was not caught up in “traditionalism.†There was a declaration in the BCP that “this is what we believe,†but an allowance for questioning and doubt that wasn’t tied to hyper-individualism and rebellion.
I know that at times “converts†can be the most resilient concerning change – “Look what I’ve found; now you want to change it all.†Granted, there is resistance to change always, but sometimes when resistance presents itself against “change for change’s sake,†the resistance is not a bad thing. Think God there was resistance to tearing down Grand Central Station in NYC against the “modernizers†that already tore down Penn-Station.
Jarosloav Pelikan stated, “The only alternative to Tradition is bad tradition.â€
There seems to me a compulsion among the “Baby-Boomer†generation (and yes this is a generalization) for continual change. In my dealing with the younger generations, they are frankly sick of it. Of course change is constant in their own lives, but what they seem to be seeking in a world-of-nothing-but-change is a constant – something they can hold on to and be sure of. That’s why, I think, traditional forms of church architecture, language, liturgy, hymnology, and the like are so attractive to younger people – often to the chagrin of their elders.
Jesus was most certainly radical in his inclusion and welcome of the people his culture demeaned and rejected, but it was always to be included in and welcomed into this one thing – as he defined it, the Kingdom of God. The rich-young-ruler, when he finally could not sell all that he had as Jesus demanded as a condition for following him, was not then given the option by Jesus to “just come along anyway.†The rich-young-ruler walked off, un-included. Jesus unbiasedly invited him into this forming Church, but not in order for the rich-young-ruler to help him decided what the forming Church was to become. There was an eternal constant that Jesus upheld and to which he required conformity that resulted in the capitulation of individual notions of things. I welcome anyone, even those the present culture ridicules and condemns, but I welcome them into something that is beyond me and beyond us.
So, if “radical welcome†is considered true and not just the desired imposition of yet another ideology, what am I to think as I keep hearing from young people that this generation of leadership is completely unresponsive, will not listen, will not consider what they as “the future of the Church†are truly seeking? An NYU student makes a comment that, “We really do like Rite I!†The rector shakes his head, dumbfounded that this could actually be possible, and says, “I keep hearing this, but I don’t understand it and just can’t believe it.†If the younger generations seek that which is ancient, tried and true, not trendy, and if they don’t have issues surrounding ancient stuff, “inclusive language,†male imagery, etc., etc., will your generation allow that? My experience thus far is that you will not – and I’m not what one would call a “reactionary conservative.†I’ve worked in academe for a long time now and in this Episcopal Church and to my chagrin I have found the most un-inclusive people to be those who yell “inclusion†the most. This is just my experience, for what it is worth. There’s got to be a better way.
The Anglican Covenant
This past week General Theological Seminary held a conference on the Covenant proposed by the Windsor Report as a means of preserving the Anglican Communion.
The Living Church, an independent weekly covering The Episcopal Church and Anglicanism, reported on the conference. This most recient article covering the final key-note speaker of three, The Rev. Canon Gregory Cameron, deputy secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council, is telling.
Here is the link to the article.
It seems that those who voice their opposition to any kind of formal covenant between the various provinces of the Anglican Communion may well be in the minority. Now, it will be interesting to see whether this minority will abide by the same call they make to the minority in their own midst – the conservatives – to stay with the whole.
In an ideal world, I would much rather not have to resort to a formalized covenant. We can remain together if we simply decide to. There are lots of points-of-view I strongly disagree with on both the liberal and conservative side of things, but I choose to remain with these people – even the ones I don’t like all that much. It may be that this Utopian idea has finally run its course. It may have run its course because those who have traditionally run the Anglican Communion – more liberal-minded Westerners – are now the minority as formerly subservient and intimidated rest-of-the-world representatives are exercising their vote and voicing their perspective and opposition.
Our troubles have gone into overtime, and perhaps the only way to preserve the Communion is to now formalize our relationship with one another beyond common heritage and our word and a hand-shake. From the paper that was to be presented from my former professor, J. Robert Wright, and subsequently read by GTS’s chaplain, Ellen Slone, The Living Church quoted:
“‘Without a covenant there would be even less structure for resolving differences,’ Prof. Wright wrote. ‘We would have no part in the greater Anglican Communion if we chose to disregard [the covenant,] we would have no mechanism within ourselves, and our ecumenical partners would have no understanding of what we as Anglicans believe. We need to devise a coherent structure of corporate Anglican identity.'”
Post-Fact Society
I’m reading a very interesting book right now entitle, “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society,” by Farhad Manhoo.
Just like “The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity” by Philip Jenkins foresaw (predicted) what we are experiencing in the Anglican Communion with the rise of the “Global South,” Manhoo’s book and thesis describe in eerily applicable ways what is happening within TEC and the Communion regarding our perceptions of what is going on and our attempt to assert the “truth.”
His premise is that we have come to a point in society where “facts” are no longer objective, but subjective according to what we want to be true, not necessarily what can be empirically show to be true. It depends on what “facts” we are willing to accept. As he writes, “Welcome to the Rashomon world, where the very idea of objective reality is under attack.” (p 25)
I see/hear/experience this more and more among those with whom I interact. I am amazed at how so many on the Anglican-related blogs interpret the same event in such drastically and diametrically different ways.
When we are determined to win at all costs and we refuse to accept that we may be wrong and when we listen only to those with whom we already agree, when compromise is no longer possible and acrimony and hubris rule the day, we have already failed God, ourselves, and the world. We simply play into the “worldly system” and into the schemes of the Enemy of our Faith.
The question in my mind is whether we will continue to abide by the “systems of this world” or whether we will begin to live in such a way that demonstrates some sort of legitimacy for our claim of a different kind of life in Christ for those who are yet to discover God. Again, the question applies to both the conservatives and the liberals and all in between.
None of us engaged in these battles (politically, socially, religiously) are without fault, none are without sin, none are without the need to repent (to God and one another) for the defamation of Christ’s cause that we have flaunted before the world all in the name of Christ.
Today’s L’Abri
There are a couple interesting articles in this recent issue of Christianity Today (March, 2008). One article has to do with L’Abri – a “retreat” established by Francis Schaeffer and his wife in the Alps of Switzerland. Lots of ’60’s – ’80’s young people flocked (relatively speaking) to L’Abri to debate and then sit at the feet of Schaeffer as he discussed and commented on Christian life within the West and within “Modernism.” L’Abri was a haven for those disaffected young people who had a difficult time with the common Evangelicalism and the Christian religion in general.
Schaeffer died during the 1980’s and over the years L’Abri has changed from a strongly Evangelical community within the Modernist approach to knowledge and Truth to a now Post-Modernist community that is very different from the place that Schaeffer established when he was at the helm.
I can remember back as an undergraduate in the early ’80’s dreaming of going to L’Abri. I have to admit that I still want to spend time there even as I have changed and can now feel the inner drive and throb of seeking that many a student deals with (after all, we are always students, are we not?). Frankly, I would love to have such a place here, now, and be part of such a community! It fits well within my notions of “intentional community.” The idea of being about the living of an authentic life in Christ as we strive together to not be bound by cultural convention but to understand the unplumbable depths of God’s Way.
Anyway, here is a couple paragraphs I think are insightful concerning younger folk:
[Thomas Rauchenstein, a youngish Canadian and a current L’Abri worker, commenting on Schaeffer’s presuppositions when making his arguments] “Presuppositionalism can appear to be humble, but actually it’s quite arrogant… It says, ‘You can’t critique my assumptions.’ students today have the despair of having lost that certainty.” The postmodern critique of objectivity has saturated them. “We’re at the transition point, philosophically,” said Peltier. “People talk in the language of postmodernism, but what they want from Christianity is very much modern.”
In other words, when students say they seek authenticity, what they really want it certainly, an inner knowing. Convinced that they won’t find it intellectually, many pursue that feeling of conviction through experience: in the communal life and worship at L’Abri; in the books by emerging church authors that are popular with many students, and in the charismatic worship style that – though Pentecostals have never been a significant presence – is no longer taboo here.”
I might suggest that for a significant segment of the student population, the traditional forms of worship – in the sacramental and liturgical – also enable this population to “experience” God in ways that their former/current church-culture did not provide them.