I attended the book signing event last night for Presiding Bishop Katherine’s new book A Wind and a Prayer at the Episcopal Church Center’s new “Catalyst Cafe & Book Store.” I ran into an departmental official of the Episcopal Church who I know slightly. We talked.
This official made the comment that whenever +Katherine enters a room, her presence is noticed. A quite and confident presence. You know these kinds of people. I think she does have that kind of presence. I got my book signed.
The official made a statement about the upcoming Primates meeting in Tanzania next week. There is great controversy in anticipation of the meeting because several Primates have made it clear that if +Katherine shows up, they will not sit with her or meet with her. The official said that in light of this ability of +Katherine to enter a room and woe people as her presence is felt, that when she goes to Tanzania next week she will walk into the meeting, sit down, and everything will change. Suddenly, all the blustering of these Primates will be overwhelmed by her aura, her quiet and confident presence. He doesn’t understand them!
This is the problem with many on the liberal side of the on going debates. They just really don’t get it. They haven’t up to this point, and rather than stepping back for a moment and reassessing, listening, and seeing how things are actually unfolding, they continue on in their mistaken assumptions. It reminds me of the Bush administration with respect to the Iraqi war and their understanding of the “enemy.” They just don’t get it, but think the really do.
Those Primates who are on the conservative side of the pressing issues will not be easily wooed by this women just because she has an aura about her. I hope they can be, at least so far as to sit down and get to know her, but I am not expecting it.
Category Archives: anglican
It’s all your fault!
There is a thread on Titusonenine to which I’ve posted a couple comments. One particular poster, who can argue well, posted something along the lines that “we,” meaning those who oppose the inclusion of gay people in relationships in the Church, did not start this mess, and it is the fault of the “innovators” or “reappraisers” or whatever-term-one-wants-to-use, who will not listen to the wisdom of those who will not accept the reassessment of Scripture and Tradition concerning this issue.
Phil Snyder wrote:
“One of my biggest problem with this whole ‘We spending too much time on sexuality when there’s poverty and AIDS and hunger to fight†argument is that the reasserters did not bring this up. We are not the ones who insisted we fight this. We are not the ones who refused to listen to the Anglican Communion. I wish this had never been brought up and that we were able to spend our energy on fighting hunger and poverty and AIDS in America and around the world. I weep when I think of all the money and time that we have spent fighting each other so that a very small group of people will not have their feelings hurt by having their behavior labled “sin.â€
If you want to work together to fight hunger and eliminate poverty and work with Africans to solve the problems in Africa, then stop pushing these new innovations in Christian belief and practice and repent of pushing them to start with and learn to listen to the wisdom of people who live in these countries on how to solve their problems.”
My responses follows:
I remember reading various sermons and essays by Christians during the slavery, women’s suffrage, and civil rights battles in this country. I remember the language used and the accusations made against those who advocated and fought for the end of slavery, women’s suffrage, or equal rights and those who opposed such “innovations.†The attitudes of so many during the slavery battles, and then again during the civil rights era were the same as you have stated above. If we just ignore injustice and let things remain as they are, not rocking the boat of centuries of Tradition and “correct†Biblical interpretation, then there will be no need for battles or problems or division, etc. God’s truth will reign in glory everlasting.
The Episcopal Church was pretty much silent about the slavery issue during the Civil War. Some may say that was wise, most now claim that it was not. I really can’t say, only that there does come a point where decisions need to be made and “innovations†like the end of slavery (a biblically justified condition for up to near 1,800 years, despite a very small but growing minority that championed for an end of slavery of various kinds) need to be advanced.
The Church is doing battle right now over what it considers an injustice concerning the inclusion of gay people – those who are chaste and those in mutual, life-long, and monogamous relationships – in the life of the Church. If we understand our history and don’t try to overlay our own current-day perceptions upon those people back then, the comparison between attitudes and actions now (gay issue) and back then (slavery, women’s rights, civil rights, etc), will show that the battles were as venomous and/or virtuous then as they are today over this issue.
Time will tell who is right. Time will also tell whose interpretation of Scripture will prevail and as God’s will is always done, whose opinion is truly “on God’s side†and whose is not. (Frankly, I doubt any of us are right at this point!) But, to say with incrimination that “our side†did not start this battle and that “we†are right in “our†demand to remain as the Church have always been, is like saying that those who self-justifyingly supported the continuation of slavery or the denial of women’s suffrage or racial discrimination virtuously didn’t ask for the fight and social tumult during those battles, but rather sought peace or truth or the continuation of the “Tradition†over the “innovation.â€
Emergent, Orthopraxy, and the Episcopal Church
In all of our (The Episcopal Church & Anglicanism) troubles of late, all the vast theological and pietistic controversies and differences, it is impressed upon me more and more of late that what Anglicanism provides more than anything is a sustained and impressive tradition of Orthopraxy.
This is the Prayer Book Tradition; and its contribution to world Christianity is still being realized and debated.
We do what God calls us to do in the world – love God, love our neighbors (even our enemies), care for the poor, the weak, and the oppressed, share the Good News of God’s accomplishment and offer of reconciliation with God, with one another, and with all His creation. Have four Episcopalians, and you will have five ideas of what all that means and how to accomplish it all. Our theological positions are hard to pin down and we argue incessantly about it all. This, to Evangelicals anyway, is not a very confidence engendering quality that indicates the “orthodoxy” of The Episcopal Church or Episcopalians.
We do the work of common worship. From one Anglican church to another, the particulars may be different but the form, structure, and purpose are the same! The doing of worship in the Prayer Book Tradition is our way of bringing the Body of Christ together – world before, world present, and world to come – as one body as we worship God and receive from Him our strength and renewal.
Anglicanism, since the Elizabethan Settlement at least, seems more about orthopraxis than a confirmed and official theological orthodoxy. Too many Anglican groups, despite their numbers, are demanding a codification of their understanding of a God ordained, unquestionable and timeless theological orthodoxy – whether the demand is coming from the hyper-conservative or hyper-liberal camps. Yet, what Anglicanism has offered and promised is only this: Orthopraxis as we seek together God and God’s will for us, the Church, and the world. There is an allowance of difference in theological opinion, or at least there has been.
So many people within The Episcopal Church these days, and so, so many within Evangelicalism, what to focus squarely on issues of expressed theological orthodoxy – having everyone all at the same time believe all the right things, but Anglicanism has never been about that.
This aspect of a focus on what we do as Christians (the putting into action what we believe – actions speak louder than words!) rather than all believing the same thing is very attractive to me. I don’t question that there is ultimate Truth, and that the Truth resides with an infinite God, but we as finite creatures cannot fully understand that Truth until we see Him face-to-face. As a few Evangelical pastors like to say, “That’s Bible!” This is also why I really do like the Emergent Conversation!
In a post-modern world and among a majority of people who are skeptical and cynical with regards to the Christian Church in the U.S., and who are looking for authenticity and integrity, our expression of our faith through orthopraxy is only proving and making manifest, real, and visible the Truth we claim to be seeking and living out as best we can, with God’s help. We can say whatever we want, we can demand others or even attempt to force others to believe what we believe, but I think it is only in our doing that we prove any validity to our understanding of things and our words.
Next Sunday’s Epistle Reading
**Oops, I read the wrong year. Oh well…**
Reading though next Sunday’s Epistle lesson (3rd Sunday of Epiphany, year A) from Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth, beginning at chapter 1, verses 10-17, I am made aware of the absolute relevancy of this reading, particularly when Paul writes:
“What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided?”
Today in this Church, how often do we hear, “I belong to Peter Akinola,” or “I belong Henry Luke Orombi,” or “I belong to Martin Minns,” or “I belong to Frank Lyons,” or “I belong to Bob Duncan,” or, or, or and it goes on an on.
Now, all these Episcopalians (or former Episcopalians) will say first off that, “I belong to Christ, and this is why I have aligned myself and my parish with” Akinola, Lyons, Minns, or whomever. They will accuse anyone who remains faithful to The Episcopal Church of belonging to something other than Christ. Why? Because those who remain faithful to The Episcopal Church do not agree with them on certain social matters or Scriptural interpretations, or theological positions.
Most all those who remain faithful to The Episcopal Church will claim that they, too, “belong to Christ.”
Now, I know “liberals” who do the same thing that the “conservatives” do. Neither side is innocent of all this dividing of Christ’s Body!
Why do we have the need to lay claim to something so strongly, something that is not Christ, that we are willing to see the destruction of institutions, the division and ending of all relationships, and engage in the defamation of character of all those with whom we disagree?
When Paul calls us to be of the same mind and purpose, I suspect that he means that we all are of one mind and purpose in wanting God’s will to be done upon earth as it is in heaven, not that we are all dogmatically, doctrinally, or theologically the same.
I belong to Christ. I am to love my neighbor as I love myself! It matters little to me with regard to how I relate to you, frankly, whether you agree with me or not.
Young people and faith
I listened to a bit on NPR’s Morning Edition this morning. There is a new documentary that will be appearing on PBS stations this evening by Judy Woodruff entitled “Generation Next.”
Morning Edition played a small portion of one woman’s story, a senior at Davis College. She grew up in one of the Carolinas to college professor parents and in the local Presbyterian Church. She is a religion major a Davis.
She took a semester of foreign study, which isn’t unusual for many American students. Her experience was, however. She took a semester (if I remember the time span correctly) and spent it in China, Thailand, and India. She spent the time studying and experiencing other religions – Buddhist, Hindu, and others that I don’t remember at this time. She and her fellow students lived in ashrams, in temples, and participated in the religious activities, worship, and meditation with the monks and other religious people.
She told the story of returning home before heading out on her journey and talking to a Sunday School teacher at the church of her youth. She said he asked her, “Why do you want to travel all over the world and learn about all these other religions when you can sit in my class and I can tell you why they are all wrong?” At which point she said, “That is exactly why I want to do this!”
Her faith was shaken. She had profound experiencing meditating with the Buddhist monks. She had never experienced such things before. Waking at 4:00 am and dragging her pray mat with her, she found something and it shook the foundations of her own Christian faith.
She returned home and went though a faith crisis. Now, she is back in the denomination of her youth back at Davis, but she has become a Christian “pluralist.” She believes that there is not just “one way,” but there can be many ways to God.
She also talked about going and spending time at the Taize community in France, an ecumenical Christian monastic community that attracts a lot of young people. The aspect of her Taize experience that seemed to affect her most occurred during a worship service in the chapel when the singing ended and there was an extended time of silence – 10-15 minutes of silence. She was floored, amazed, astounded over the experience. “The brothers didn’t tell you what to do in that time of silence…,†she said. You can to experience it in your own way. She said she couldn’t believe the experience of sitting with a 1,000, 2,000 young people in silent worship.
Finally, she said that for her generation, that is what they are crying out for. They are crying out for spiritual experience where they are not told what they have to believe or told answers to questions they are not asking, but they want a place where they can discover their faith and question and experience.
For too long American Christianity has failed our young people. We have failed young people and youth because of the attempt to indoctrinate them with the “facts” as the faith sees them (or, rather, as the different sectarian groups see the “facts”). We have failed them for the most part by not being adequate examples for them. We have failed them through our own insecurity, laziness, and ignorance. Our experience of God may well be genuine and our love of God sincere, but that only goes so far as we attempt to pass on the faith to the next generation.
There is little attempt to education young people and youth about how to investigate, how to navigation through, and how to explore their own faith in relation to other religions. There is little explanation of other religions other then saying how false or horrible they are. There is little determination to be examples (do as I say, not as I do seems to rule the day – hypocrisy!). There is a profound fear and mistrust among too many Christian adults concerning the intelligence of their kids. I think there is also a profound lacking of trust that God can woe effectively and draw kids, youth, and young people on His own without the all wise and discerning adults shoving the stuff down their throats.
There is also a profound lacking in the telling of the full story of Christianity. Why in the world did this woman not know about Benedictine spirituality where monks and nuns rise at 4:00 am to pray (not all, of course, and not all at that time)? Why was this woman not told of the Desert Father’s and Mother’s and mediation and contemplation? Why was she not educated effectively in her own faith, first? Probably because of a fear that she might just become a Roman Catholic (gasp), probably because of the fear that if you give kids too much information they might make a wrong decision, probably because adults just don’t do a very good job themselves, and probably because too many adults are too ignorant of their own faith’s traditions.
I applaud what this woman did, but if there had been better instruction in her own faith as she was growing up – not the kind of instruction this Sunday School teaching attempted – she may have been able to avoid her own faith crisis. Maybe she needed the faith crisis, I don’t know. But, I see too many, far too many, young people who simply jettison their faith because when they encounter so many other things via the Internet or TV or the wider world of friends and teachers through college or other information channels now open to them, they realize what has been “kept from them†in many cases. What am I trying to say?
Teach, trust, and be an example. Encourage, support, guide, and direct. Patience, trust, hope, and faith. Carefully listen, strongly challenge, and above all show how much you truly do care. Be full of integrity, honestly, and vulnerability. Just love them through their terrible times, lost times, lonely times, screw-up times, and profound times of discovery. Be an adult and don’t try to be their best-friend, but a mentor, confidant, confessor, coach.
We can teach the faith, even the exclusive claims of Jesus, without trying to withhold from them all this other stuff in the vast and wonderful world so that they don’t think we are just trying to indoctrinate them. What…what…???
I think Anglicanism and The Episcopal Church is a prime vehicular for transmitting and teaching the faith to so many unchurched young people today, if only we will realize it and actually stand for something other than eating ourselves alive through controversy “sectarian warfare.â€
Glad to be an Anglican
In reading this essay by Rev’d Dr. Leander Harding, particularly the beginning paragraphs, I remember so many of the reasons why I, as a former Pentecostal/American-Evangelical, came into this Anglican expression of the Christian faith, and why I remain and relish it so much. I remain an Evangelical, I retain Pentecostal sympathies, and I am becoming more and more a Catholic.
I am reading a book right now of a dialogue between Process theologians (“liberalâ€) and Free-Will Theist theologians (“Arminian-Evangelicalâ€). All I can say is that I am not one who is attracted to Process or Naturalist theology. My fear in all of our troubles is that there are those who would not acquiesce to such a dialogue even taking place and who would forestall such a debate because it isn’t what we already believe to be the True faith. What I see in play all too often is the worst of the tradition I left as I entered into Anglicanism.
All of us at one time or another have spouted off some heresy or another. I read this morning in the book of Acts about Gamaliel suggesting to the Sanhedrin that they simply wait to see what happens. If these guys who speak in this name are not of God, the will die away. If they are, then the Jewish elders and teachers will find themselves fighting against God. As we know, they didn’t listen. Can we head Gamaliel’s suggestion, today concern such things as women’s ordination or gay inclusion or other stuff? Anglicanism seems to have over the centuries past.
All of the “innovative†theologies that pass here and there will come and go, and in time those that are of God will remain and those that are not, will not. Over time, and time that is not measured in just a few years, people will go to where they are brought into relationship with the living God. The full and absolutely Truth of God is not to be found in any one particular Christian theology or form of worship, no matter how comforting it is to think otherwise. That isn’t a relativistic statement, but the realization that we generally get things wrong (councils err) and that in time God brings all things into His will as He reconciles all things unto Himself. God’s economy of time is not ours’ – a thousand years is as a day and all that.
I am so thrilled I found Anglicanism. I will recommend it to anyone! I am also thrilled that God has called me to be a priest in this Church, even though like Harding I was dismayed by much of what was espoused at the last General Convention ’07 – both from the liberal and conservative sides, I might add. God will have the day! Why do I need to work myself into a lather? I remain a follower of Jesus Christ, despite what some might say about me. I rest in His ability to bring all things to fruition and make all things right.
Via: Titusonenine
“Anglican”
Just for the heck of it, I’m going to attempt to keep a list of all those religious organizations that contain in their title “Anglican” or perhaps “Episcopal,” if in fact that group lays claim to an Anglican perspective. This list will not include provinces in communion with the See of Canterbury.
This group sometimes looks as strange as all those organizations that claim some sort of relationship with the Old Catholic Churches (aside from the Union of Utrecht).
Never mind, just go to the Anglicans Online list.
I love the “No way APA” website protesting the upcoming merger of the Reformed Episcopal Church with the Anglican Province in America because of the APA’s “Catholic” ways.
Anglican Orders
Pope Leo XIII’s Apostolicae Curae (On the Nullity of Anglican Orders) Promulgated September 18, 1896.
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York respond: Saepius Officio
Answer of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to the Bull Apostolicae Curae of H. H. Leo XIII on English Ordinations.
I re-read Saepius Officio this morning. Ah, yes, I am confident in my priestly ordination. Foolishly so, perhaps, but confident none-the-less. We tend to cast out each other all the time. Too bad for us.
Anglican Uniatism
I just finished reading a rather longish paper (41 pages) given by Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, for the Anglican Use Conference in 2005. It is an interesting paper tracing the developments of the Catholic expression within Anglicanism. He ends up talking about the hope of reunification of the Western Churches, particularly Rome and Canterbury.
He writes of the possibility of something like an Anglican Uniate Church where those Catholic elements remaining within Anglicanism come under papal authority but are given rights to their own liturgical traditions and some sort of self-governance.
The “Anglican Use” Roman Rites are for those Episcopalians who could not countenance the ordination of women to the priesthood, who wanted to swim the Tabor, but keep the various English traditions. The Book of Divine Worship is the result – merging strains of the Roman Rite, Sarum, and various Anglican traditions. It is an interesting book. I have a copy.
Anyway, here is the paper. I thought it was interesting reading.
Oh so trendy
I was looking through a service bulletin of a memorial liturgy that my host helped with the other day. On the inside cover was some info on the church and a bit of information on communion.
The communion bit started out, “It is the practice of The Episcopal Church that all people are welcome to come to communion…â€
No, it isn’t. When my host mentioned this to the rector – that the Canons had not changed, the Prayer Book has not changed – the rector simply said something like, “well, most everyone is doing it anyway and besides, 70% of the bishops approve it.†At which point, my host asked, “Oh really, during what General Convention was it voted on and changed?†Of course, the rector had no response because the official teaching of the Church has not changed. I really doubt that 70% of the bishops approve of such a thing. I know that our liturgics professor at General, who is young, smart, and up-and-coming, certainly does not agree with it.
As much as “liberals†(that isn’t the right designation, because so many of this group are not really liberals, but are ecclesiastical anarchists – or, perhaps, closeted Congregationalists), as much as this group of people want to complain about the “conservatives†(see above, but plug in the word “conservative†for “liberalâ€) and their violation of their ordination vows and the Canons of this Church by calling on foreign bishops to “save them†from the evil of The Episcopal Church, they themselves (the pseudo-liberals) are perhaps even worse offenders of violating the Canons, the Prayer Book, and “doing their own thing.â€
For the good ordering of the Church, the founders of this Church (who also happened to be the founders of our American form of government), created checks and balances so that what was decided in Convention for the entire Church was thoroughly vetted and well thought through. It is an amalgam of Episcopal and democratic governance that includes the clerical orders and the laity in all decision-making. It is a good thing.
So, now, throughout this Church on both sides of the great divide, we have these groups of people doing whatever they want to do, whatever feels good or right to them, and to hell with the Canons and the Book of Common Prayer. It is anarchy, and chaos is running rampant. This house will not stand.
There are ways to change the Canons and practices of this Church, so go through them. If the outcomes are not what our group likes, whether we call ourselves liberal/progressive or conservative/evangelical, or the great middle, too bad. We then have to decide whether we will be a loyal opposition or whether we will be rebellious adolescents at best and anarchists at worst. This doesn’t give any of us the right to violate vows or Canons. If it becomes too much for us to bear, then we respectfully and quietly resign our orders in this Church and seek out like-minded jurisdictions – perhaps Rome, perhaps Constantinople, perhaps Geneva, perhaps Springfield, MO, or perhaps Salt Lake City. Isn’t this what our new Presiding Bishop has suggested to Bishop Schofield of San Joaquin, and if it is true and good for him then it is true and good for this rector and all those who insist that they know better than the councils of this Church and are “doing their own thing.â€
Yes, there is a time for the loyal opposition to engage in a bit of ecclesiastical disobedience, but order must be maintained and those who violate their ordination vows and the Canons must be ready to accept the consequences of their decisions and actions.
I certainly respect those to who believe we should open communion to all people. The disciples weren’t baptized in the name of the Trinity when Jesus instituted the first communion, after all. According to Scripture, there was still a lot they did not understand about what Jesus was truly doing or who he truly was. Yet, they all did decide to give up everything and follow him (with one notable exception). There can be good theological debate on this issue, but we need to have that debate and bring the suggested changes before the General Convention to decide. Otherwise, we cease being Catholic, we cease being Episcopalian, we cease being a Church that functions in deliberation, wisdom, and good order. We become like the tradition I came out of (American Evangelical/Pentecostal/Charismatic) in which the newest trend rushes through every couple of years.