Category Archives: faith

What such things do to me

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I’ve found myself getting caught up once again in arguments with people on certain blogs that come to no good end, at least as far as I can understand. Perhaps, God in His providence does something and perhaps lurkers take away something worth while. Actually, I’ve found myself in an argument on one blog and a discussion on another, but on both of them I find myself the odd-man-out – too liberal for some and too conservative for others. At least on the more liberal blog, the discussion is civil and respectful. I wish I could say the same for the other blog.
Anyway, I’ve found myself distressed too much, again. I can’t do anything, can’t convince anyone even if I should, even as I try to persuade individuals to step back for a moment and consider the call of God to love even our enemies, to lay down our lives even unto death for a friend. Now, one might die for the sake of a friend, but how much more is love shown if one gives up life for an enemy! What love – a love of a kind demonstrated by Jesus. We are called to such a kind of love, but how difficult is it for us to understand and imagine such love in our broken world, even now in our broken Church. We do not listen well, even if we hear. We do not attend to God’s call nearly enough. We miss so much.
There was a point in my life when I nearly chucked the whole church thing. This was before I became an Episcopalian and before I discovered Anglicanism. I wouldn’t chuck God, because I experienced God on deep levels that would not allow me to simply turn away, no matter how fed up I was with church and people who claimed to be Christians.
There is part of me that feels like chucking everything all over again, but I know I cannot. I’m fed up with all the acrimony, all the stubbornness, all the self-righteous and arrogant pride, all the hypocrisy. The second chapter of Romans begins with a charge of a kind to not judge – who are we to judge in our own blindness and sin? “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” Right after Paul got those Roman listeners all riled up with “Amen’s” and “Hallelujahs” in the previous verses, he socks it to ’em by saying you folks are doing the very same things – so stop making yourselves out to be all superior and all better than and all holier than thou! Who are you!?
As I’ve gotten all sucked back into these same, tired debates and arguments… my joy leaves, my anxiety returns, and I become discouraged because I know that all of us and this Church in all our troubles continue to set a very poor example of Jesus and the love of a kind we cannot fathom but are yet called to live into and exemplify for a devastated world.
We present to the world an example of a profoundly deficient life in a Gospel that we proclaim to be all sufficient. No wonder we decrease in attendance; no wonder people pay little attention to our prognostications; no wonder they look at us and say that they really would rather go get a cup of coffee and read the New York Times than attend to their souls in the Church.
God touches souls, and they can do nothing else but respond. These institutions of ours and these battles we fight over purity, doctrinal exactitude, and perfection of life when perfection is simply not possible – it all add up to us all being like the Pharisees of old stacking up laws and regulations upon the shoulders of people looking for some kind of peace. Jesus came to take upon Himself our heavy burdens – his yoke is light. Who are we to pile them up? Jesus demands everything, and in return we are given everything made new.
I came across the following while doing some investigative work for my job. It is posted on a rector’s blog and quotes a portion of a sermon delivered by another priest. I think this is what I’ve tried to say in my head, in my deficient writing, in my arguments to people that are all caught up in the externals. Here is the source of the quote, the rector’s blog, World of Our Making.
jbell-300x225.jpg “Tom was our preacher on Sunday, and his sermon moved me and many others deeply. Speaking on the Gospel text from Mark 1:40-45, where a leper is cleansed and made whole by the gentle and willing touch of Jesus, Tom related a story about attending a recent concert by the famed violinist Joshua Bell at Avery Fisher Hall in New York.”

After an ovation from the packed house at the end of the program, Bell offered his rendition of Massenet’s “Meditation” from “Thaïs” as an encore. You could just hear the intake of breath, not only because people recognized it, but because it was so extraordinarily gracious, beautiful and soft. People were sitting forward in their chairs, there was a hush in the hall. Everybody stopped coughing if you could imagine that. Bell gets to the very end and plays a final series of ascending notes which ends with a suspended harmonic, the finger just barely touching the string. The harmonic was ethereal, as if you had climbed the stairway to the angels. It was stunning. I was in tears. And I turned to my wife and said, “How can a human being do such a thing?”
Before Jesus became the centerpiece of an institution, the alleged source of doctrine, rules, boundaries and walls, he came into a world of desperation, a world of oppression, a world of brokenness, a world in need of healing. He came to all people—the sick, the sorrowful, the excluded, and he also came to the proper, the establishment, and the winners. He came to all of them and rested his finger lightly over their lives—not the heavy hand of Caesar, not the heavy hand of the religious establishment, not the heavy hand of right opinion and doctrine, but the light, almost not-quite-there touch of grace. He put his fingers on their lives, and he played a harmonic, he played a note in their lives that no one had every played before. He took the common stuff of their instruments, which in the eyes of the world was nothing, and he touched them so gracefully that they produced a sound, a love, a community, a life, that was like a new harmonic and they became a thing of beauty.
How can we as the body of Christ, the People of God, be present in times like these? How do we turn around a long 45 year decline in membership attendance [in the Episcopal Church and other mainline denominations], and how can we turn around the moral drift of these historic times and the bitterness that is so prevalent in our land right now? How do we take all that we’ve been given, which is good, and how do we make it beautiful? How do we make it sing?
I believe that we can do it. God want’s us to do it. And the world desperately needs us to do it. And we will do it not with the heavy hand of a prideful institution. We will not do it with the pride of Caesar or the wealth of Caesar. We will not do it with wonderfully organized hierarchies of power. We will not do it with careful allocation of privileges. We will not do it with right opinion or impenetrable doctrine. We will do it by placing our fingers on people’s lives and just barely touching them, playing a note that is not a note that anyone has heard in those lives before. God working through us can give us the capacity to touch and to make music, to take our common stuff and play it higher and more beautifully than its ever been played and make of us a song.
And if we can get out of our own way and let go of all the things that stand between us, people will turn to each other as I turned to my wife, and they will say, “How can this be? How can people do this?” And the answer will be, “It’s by the grace and mercy and love, and power, of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Individually, if we yield, if we have patience, if we do not think ourselves to great or wonderful or pure, if we can believe ourselves to be wrong for but a moment, then perhaps God through Christ can heal us of our illness and teach us to love ourselves and others not as the world teaches us to “love,” but by the way God defines it, perhaps our lives will be as the sound coming from an instrument played by a master. Perhaps people can be moved. Perhaps people will see something worthwhile and true about this Gospel we proclaim. Perhaps by God’s providence people will be drawn by good examples and be saved. Perhaps.
Perhaps all those confused and hurting and searching people might turn to each other as they look upon us and say, “How can a human being do such a thing?” That’s just it – these human beings can’t but for the Grace of God, and only with God’s help.

The Joy of the Lord

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“…Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10)
Israel returns from captivity and re-discovers the Law of Moses. As they hear the Law of God read to them, they are greatly grieved. We read the above from the profit Nehemiah.
There is an aspect of the Christian faith that is Joy! Not “happiness,” that may well depend on circumstance and outside-of-self influences, but a sense of joy that is internal and not dependent on environment. Paul learned aspects of this kind of joy when he writes about being content in all things:

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” (Philippians 4:12)

“The Joy of the Lord” is something that I learned and experienced during my time in American-Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism. It is not explained by emotionalism or “enthusiasm.” It is not “euphoria;” it isn’t silliness; it is not self-deception or mania; it isn’t the temporary fix of shopping-sprees or too much drink or drug; it isn’t those common kind of things.
It comes in part from learning to hear the “still small voice of God” and from listening to the wisdom of God’s moving among the community. It is part of learning to sense the directing of the Comforter in life and receiving the grace and healing of God through the sacraments. It is putting aside our pride and rebelliousness against anything other than what we want to thing think is so. It is stepping out of our cultural proclivities of greed, selfishness, hyper-individualism, and idolatry. It is seeking to “love God with all our hearts, all of our minds, and all of our souls.” That is the first and greatest of the Commandments of All Mighty God – the first part of the summation of the Law of Moses. This joy comes from looking outside of and beyond ourselves and our own narrow interests – the second Great Commandment is like the first, “Love you neighbor as yourself.” It comes, in part, from humility, with a realistic estimation of ourselves and our condition. It comes by faith, but not blind faith.
It is a joy that those who have experienced it understand. It is very, very difficult to try to explain it to others, but there you go. There is always the possibility that it is all a figment of imaginations and nothing more than chemical reactions in the brain, but I doubt it. The associate rector of the parish through which I entered The Episcopal Church (Jim Beebe, St. Paul’s Akron, OH) said often that those who have had a genuine experience with God have a very difficult time describing it. The words are simply not there – words fail us.
I know to some people this will sound like I am lifting up certain people over others – those who have “had the experience” are better than all the rest of you who haven’t! This is not popular within a culture that demands that we cannot assert much of anything that makes some people feel deprived or less than, despite from where those feelings come. (The irony is that these feelings of affront, of insecurity, of unabated self-interest, will greatly hinder the ability of a person to actually experience this joy!) I’m not at all trying to build up a “better than thou” attitude, but the reality is that some have and some have not had such encounters of the Divine (there are always experiences that some have and some do not have). It changes not a bit the “joy of the Lord” experienced by people if we insist on not talking about such things because some people might feel excluded or lesser – what I desire is that all people have such experiences.
So, anyway, I came across this video. It reminds me of the “joy of the Lord” exemplified by my past experiences with the people I knew and with whom I met God. The beginning is some man explaining the video in an African language I do not understand, the rest is just good.

Ritual and…

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Just to be clear, I’m not trying to cast dispersion on a group of people or play into stereotypes, but I am wondering about attitudes of groups of people I’ve encountered over the years. I also know that “Ritual Studies” is not a discipline that I know a whole lot about, and I’ve forgotten a lot concerning Behaviorism and Behavior Modification.
Part of this comes from just seeing “Equus” on Broadway with Radcliff and Griffiths and what might be understood as a commentary on religion, worship, and psychosis (among other things). Part of this comes from thinking about the “vestal virgins” that brought in and ceremonially poured the “waters of baptism” into a giant font in the National Cathedral during the enthronement of Katherine Jefforts-Shori as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. Part of this comes from witnessing what seems to be a need to create all kinds of different and new forms of ritual within what is supposed to be a Christian context but often lacking any resemblance to norms of Christian Tradition and liturgical forms. Are we bound by “trendiness” and pop-ideas of “relevance?” I don’t know.
What would prompt the designer(s) of the enthronement liturgy to incorporate this kind of thing in the liturgy? In other contexts, what prompts priests or bishops or liturgists to depart from TEC Canons and the Book of Common Prayer that we vowed to uphold and abide by? Some say rebellion against convention or Tradition, some say boredom, some say a determination to remake Christianity in a new image (Spong-ish), some say a loss of faith, some say sincere interest in… you name it.
I don’t know their intent or their thought processes, so I’m not going to make some kind of declarative statement concerning their spiritual well-being or such things. Yet, why in the case of the enthronement liturgy, when they could have used a much more Anglican/Episcopal/Traditional “bringing in the waters of baptism” or something that was not perceived by many, Anglican and non-Anglican alike, as being indicative of paganism, did they use that form? Use women exclusively in the ritual, I don’t care, but why the quasi-Roman/Greek “vestal virgin-esque” dressed women carrying large urns of water? I know many people, liberal and conservative, that simply laughed at the spectacle. It was a joke, which I am pretty sure wasn’t the intent of the designer(s) of the liturgy. What was their reason or motivation? What was in the minds of those who loved it?
Anyway, it makes me wonder about the spiritual condition of people I’ve encountered in the past and still encounter today, particularly if I see my place as a priest to be about the “cure of souls.” I know I’ve mused about the generational shift taking place and the demographic differences between the desires of and worshiping “sense” of the upcoming generations contra the Baby-Boomers, but I’m trying to get beyond all that and trying to figure out foundational motivations, the conditions of the heart, the psycho-social-spiritual dynamics that prompt people to do or say or believe. When it comes to Christian worship, apologetics, theologies of all kinds, and personal experiences with the Divine, how does our “stuff” work its way out for good or for ill concerning the cause of Christ, deficiencies in Christian experience, and…
I wonder, and this is just wondering, whether groups of people may not be so much “Christian” in the traditional sense, as they are perhaps Ritualists and Behaviorists finding expression within Christian forms and traditions. This is an Anthropocentric rather than Theocentric focus or foundation.
I’m defining the following words, thusly:
“Ritualists” – simply, I’m thinking about those who put a great deal of stock in social or personal “rituals” and the significance of such rituals in creating meaning, rites of passage, and providing for interpersonal connections and social order and cohesion.
“Behaviorists” – those who believe that through some kind of behavior modification we can “reconfigure” people’s attitudes, feelings, and actions in such ways that bring about personal and social peace, harmony, and meaning.
“Christian” – the traditional notion that there is a personal, Trinitarian God, engaged with His creation, and who has provided a way for the restoration of personal relationship between humankind and God through the finished work of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Logos. Liturgical forms of Christian worship – rituals – are designed to help encourage and foster deeper encounters with the Divine.
It seems to me that there are people who gravitate to Ritualism, or a sensing or believing that in ritual people(s) find psycho-social expression and/or cultural meaning and order. By creating rituals, there is developed cultural “touch-points” that help the masses be included in the overall social context. Then, there are behavioralists that strive to use ritual to bring about their notions of what is best for society and the Modernist ideas of a continual and forward movement and progress of humanity to more Utopian expressions of society.
The people in this group, whoever they may be, at least in the West, were probably raised with a sense of at least cultural-Christianity, so they find ready expression of their ideas within the ritualistic forms of Christianity, yet without the foundational expectation or experience of personal relationship with God. As such, Christian traditions provide a means or structure for ritual and behavior modification without the emphasis on mystical ideas of the Divine. Again, a human focus rather than a Divine focus. Form without the power.
So, there may not be a necessity for abiding by Christian Tradition or norms, or a need for theological reasoning for the doing of any particular ritual beyond the temporal outcomes hoped for. Consideration of Divine intend, if present and accepted, is of lesser importance. What is their apologetic for what they do? Sometimes, the apologetic doesn’t go much beyond social ideals of identity politics or political correctness – all that we do is to make people feel welcome, included, good about themselves, and increase their sense of satisfaction or self-actualization (perhaps a la Goldstein or Maslow?).
From an anthropocentric perspective, we can do anything ritualistically that we think achieves our desired personal or social outcomes. From a Theocentric perspective, there is something else that comes into play – the desire of the Divine (as much as we are able to understand such a thing). I’ve come to truly appreciate Tradition – that which has survived over time and in many cultures – as something that might suggest a “realness” or legitimacy that new forms lack. Does God provide for ways of ritual that are given or revealed to humankind through Scripture and Tradition and are purposed not for social outcomes, but for nothing less than restoration of relationship between God and Man?

What will I be to them?

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I was talking with a group of priest friends and lay friends the other day. We were talking about, what else?, the general direction of the Church and all that. All of us are completely tired of the usurpation of most all of the Church’s focus and efforts by reactionaries on the left and right concerning power plays and same-sex relationship arguments. We are not unconcerned, however, about attitudes concerning the place of Jesus the Christ in our common understanding regarding salvation and restoration of our relationships with God, one another, and God’s creation.
Then, we talked about the rumor that the Vatican is about to initiate another Papal Personal Prelature for Anglicans (like Opus Dei) or something like the “Uniate” Churches for Anglicans (but more than simply the Anglican-Use Catholics). Some of the group I was walking with thought that if this actually happened, it would be another very big draw for Anglicans that believed in / desired the continence of the Anglican distinctives, but also wished to be align with world Catholicism rather than liberal American-Protestantism. I think such a development would have a big impact on the Anglican Communion (perhaps even someone like Rowan Williams joining on).
Someone mentioned a comment by former Fort Worth bishop Iker to “moderate conservatives” choosing to remain in The Episcopal Church (TEC) – basically he said something like, “Welcome to being the new and despised ‘conservatives’ of TEC.”
Since a good many of the “conservatives” have already left or are in the process of leaving TEC, the remaining “moderate-conservatives” or even moderates become the new bad “conservatives” that reactionary-liberals love to hate and exclude. I want to say, again, that the terms “conservative” and “liberal” break down, and many people who take upon themselves those adjectives are more pseudo than real conservatives or liberals. There is no inherent conflict between being a conservative or being a liberal, just a difference in focus and approach, IMHO. The “reactionaries” are those of any persuasion that act and react against their opponents in ways that tear apart and denigrate.
So, what will I be to them?
I suppose to many people I become one of the new bad “conservatives” because I insist on abiding by:
– The Canons and the Prayer Book (which means the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral);
– That the “Anglican Three-legged Stool” starts with Scripture as the authority (as Hooker might assert), and that Reason and Tradition are authorities that help us understand the primary authority – Scripture. This also means that for me, traditional understandings of issues with respect to biblical exegesis are not “written in stone” or “handed down” above re-evaluation and examination by the Church. Here is where the Tradition has to be taken seriously and the burden of proof for change rests upon those who seek the change. Yet, we know that our understanding of Scripture and God’s will revealed through Scripture does change over time as our ability to reason well grows with maturity and knowledge. Cosmology or the homosexual issue are but two examples.
– I do not feel in the least the need to change the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and I will assert that most people in the pews don’t either, regardless of cries by certain groups of minority opinion that we must for the sake of reasons rooted in social and political causes rather than good theological reasoning;
– I believe in the call to Holiness (even as God is Holy) in our morality, ethics, and behavior coming from God’s revelation to us, understanding that we all fall short and that God restores;
– I believe that God provided a way of restoration that many people reject because they demand their own way regardless (hyper-individualism). The way provided is referred to as salvation through Jesus Christ, alone;
– I have great respect for other cultures, languages, religions, and thought systems and like being engaged with them. I affirm that it is good to understand those different than myself and to be understood by them, but I in no way believe that it is my Christian responsibility as an Anglo-American, Euro-centric, English-speaking, white, gay, male to denigrate, deny, or put aside my heritage, religion, language, gender, sexuality, or traditions for the sake of some weak notion of “diversity” or to think that by doing so that those different than myself will feel any more welcome or valued or that they will have any more respect for me as Christian if I do. Really, what Muslim, Hindu, Jew (add your own designation) would respect me more when I deny what I really am or think that by putting aside what I believe that I am a person of integrity? Double-speak and hypocrisy reign when this happens.
I’m sure there a lots more I could write. When it all comes down to it, we get so caught up in all this crap thinking that we are capable of honestly knowing the full “will of God.” Again and again, love God with all of our hearts and love our neighbors as ourselves. Why do we get so distracted? Perhaps, it is because we are too concerned about what we will be to “them” and not concerned enough about what we are to God.

…paltry little definitions

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A quote:

“I don’t fear the questions any more. I know that they are all part of the process of coming to union with God and refusing to make an idol of anything less. The point is that during that difficult time I didn’t try to force anything. I simply lived in the desert believing that whatever life I found there was life enough for me. I believed that God was in the darkness. It is all part of the purification process and should be revered. It takes away from us our paltry little definitions of God and brings us face-to-face with the Transcendent. It is not to be feared. It is simply to be experienced. Then, God begins to live in us without benefit of recipes and rituals, laws, and “answers”—of which there are, in the final analysis, none at all.”

(Sister Joan Chittister, Benedictine nun, from “In My Own Words”)
Found it at: The Daily Dish under “Sheer Christianity”
I no longer fear the questions, either, although a bit of worry does creep in periodically. As no one intends on becoming addicted to anything, so does no one intend on losing one’s faith by dwelling too long on questions. There is a balance, as for all things. Moderation in all things. “All things are permissible, but not all things are beneficial. All things are permissible, lest one be mastered by anything.” – Paul

A good foundation

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This morning, I attempted to read through a biblical commentary covering John, chapter 17, for our Home Group meeting, tonight. I came across a piece of paper with names and phone messages written on the outside – from my time as an undergraduate at Bowling Green State University. Inside, the sheet of paper was a bible-study outline neatly printed by one of my roommates who lead a small-group for our campus ministry at BGSU – Active Christians Today (ACT). ACT is a ministry of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ fellowship/denomination, one of the historic results of the Campbellite movement.
So, as ease as it is to become distracted from one’s original intent when the Web is involved, I searched for “Cambellite” on google and came up with a website that dealt with a poster’s question of whether the Cambellite churches are cults or not. The person asked the question because Cambellite churches believe in a form of baptismal regeneration (as well as taking communion every week).
Then, an advert appeared at the top of the page: “Because a modest woman is a beautiful women.” It is an ad for “Modest Apparel” for women. I suspect a man could dress immodestly and get away with it??? Can we become any more distracted???
Anyway, back to the bible-study notes from college I discovered. A couple posts ago, “What the heck,” I woefully attempted to put into words thoughts about strong beliefs, about what Anglicanism or Christianity is not with regard to the prevailing culture (liberal or conservative) and all that. A train wreck, but I “process out loud” and it was yet another attempt to get at what I believe as I figure out what I believe.
On this bible-study outline was a verse from I Corn. 3:11:

“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

Perhaps, all the stuff from “What the heck…” dealt with the question of foundations. What is our foundation upon which we build our organizations and our own faith?
It is easy to say, of course, “Jesus Christ.” Yet, I sense that for too many people in certain segments of The Episcopal Church and within parts of Anglicanism (and Christianity all together), we are attempting to lay a new and different foundation in reality. Subtly similiar, yet profoundly askew. On the ground, when most of what we hear comes along the lines of a Christianity or a Jesus that aligns with either, 1. materialism/consumerism, nationalism, and hyper-individuality or 2. the “inclusiveness” or “diversity” mantras born out of political-correctness and identity-politics, then it seems a new foundation is being constructed. These new foundations, at least with regard to living out the Kingdom of God as Jesus described bringing us “life to the full,” will, well… fail. And, they are failing. We see the results all around us as we attempt to justify our culturally subordinate religious opinions about what is and isn’t “Christian.” We see the results particularly at present as more and more people find nothing worthwhile in our organized religion.
When our modus operandi is to point accusing fingers at anyone other than our group and our determination to rebel and our demand for self, I don’t blame people for wanting to stay away. If we lived as Christians, in whatever knowable sense God might intend for those claiming his Son, I would guess that far more people might see something far more compelling in this thing called the Christian life than they do now. Those who do claim Christ just might find themselves living a far less deficient life in the Spirit, also.
What is our foundation? The more I think about it, really, the more I come back to the simple, yet profoundly befuddling, two commands of Jesus. Frankly, this is one of my favorite parts of Rite I and I am glad I get to say it so often,

“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

So simple, yet so profoundly difficult that we chose to build other foundations so to attempt to justify our religion and our dogmatism. What shall come of the cause of Christ? What shall become of us?

What the heck

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So here’s the deal, where the heck are we as a Church (TEC), as a Communion, as a body within the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, as simple Christians living in a hurting world full of chaos and confusion?
I don’t know. I have all kinds of thoughts as certain segments of The Episcopal Church in the United States (TEC-USA) leave and attempt to take the assets with them, as the California Supreme Court rules that the departing parishes in the Diocese of Los Angeles still belong to the diocese, as other parts of TEC-USA depart to form a new Continuing Anglican denomination in North America that they believe will overwhelm TEC-USA, as Israelis and Palestinians are being killed and as people are starving to death with no hope. All that.
Churches and denominations in the U.S. and many other parts of the world have fallen so far from the call of God to be a people living out the Way of Christ. We are so caught up in socio-politics/theo-politics and our own insecurities that we demand “fact” when no such fact exists, only faith in a determined belief. We depend on this world’s way of understanding and dealing with things rather than on God.
What do we do? Our focus has moved from that which is the beginning point from which all other stuff flows. Too many people who truly want to be engaged in their faith and seeking God have simply left organized religion, because organized religion is too preoccupied with things other than engagement of the person with the Spirit of God. If we were institutionally serious about engagement with God, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in. That is the truth, as much as too many of us don’t want to face that truth. Instead of “personal relationship” (loving God with all our hearts, minds, and souls) and maturing in such a relationship (being transformed into the image of Christ), we put our faith in precepts and lists to check off and stereotypes.
Here is the way I see it at the moment: There are things going on around us that right now we have no idea whether we are acting/thinking/believing correctly or not – according to the better will of God. Only in hindsight will we know. If we want to know Truth we have to admit, and I mean really admit, that we can be absolutely wrong and be willing to listen and change. Otherwise, we are only seeking confirmation of what we have already determined to believe, whether honestly true or not. Only in hindsight will we know for sure – and perhaps not know for sure until the next generation. We have to get out of the business of asserting our “rights” and get back into the business of giving up everything. The focus can be to love God with all that we are and have and focusing on the betterment of our neighbors as we love them not as a political campaign or a social project but as people made in the very image of God as we attempt to love ourselves beyond our own insecurity and self-doubt. This isn’t possible without engagement with the Spirit of God. This isn’t possible without God’s help. It has nothing to do with politics or social policy of a particular kind or theory.
Loving God and neighbor is not about political-correctness or identity-politics or personal rights. Loving God is about finding ourselves by giving up ourselves.
An example – the spirit or ethos of Anglicanism (and this is only my thinking at the moment): Anglicanism is not at all about whether everyone is invited to sit at the table or not. Anglicanism isn’t about whether anyone has the right to receive communion or not. Anglicanism isn’t about whether we are mulit-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-generational,multi-sexual, or multi-anything. Anglicanism isn’t at all about whether we are relevant or not. Anglicanism isn’t at all about whether women have the right to Holy Orders or not. Anglicanism isn’t about whether gays are included or not. Anglicanism isn’t about whether war in Iraq is legitimate or not or whether Americans are baby-killers or defenders of liberty and freedom. Anglicanism has nothing to do with the advocacy of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, democracy, monarchies, civil rights, food distribution policy, foreign debt relief, or the Millennium Development Goals. The ideas of all these things have often supplanted what the essence of being a Christian or an Anglican is about.
Anglicanism is not about whether people feel welcome, feel affirmed, feel slighted or abused, or feel that singing in the choir is the best thing since sliced bread. Anglicanism isn’t about whether some people prefer Reformed form of Church or Catholic form of Church. Christianity is not about any of those things either, despite what much of the institutional Church and organized religious keep groping for.
Anglicanism is distinguished within greater Christianity by its willingness to make room for the arguments revolving around all those things and the strong beliefs regarding each, yet we all still come around to come together for common prayer and common fellowship despite our differences. Within Anglicanism, the freedom of wrestling with the questions and doubts in all their forms and difficulties is not stymied or even discouraged, but allowed. Does this Church believe anything? Of course! But, this Church is hesitant to demand capitulation to any one theological or pietistic preference or confession, no matter how convinced certain groups or individuals are regarding God’s view of such things.
We know in part; we understand the things of God no better than we clearly see the landscape through a glass darkly. Too many of us are unwilling to accept such limits in our understanding or vision. Some of us must assert without qualification or question or doubt that this one perspective is Absolute – is God’s very way of thinking. Some of us in order to feel special or good about ourselves (rather than loving ourselves) must then condemn all those others who do not align with our perspective, our theory, our belief or position that we cannot perceive as being anything other than God’s determined “fact.”
I have strong beliefs. I’m opinionated. I think at this point that I’m correct, in my very limited knowledge and understanding. Yet, I am also willing to admit in my limited state that I can be completely wrong. I am but a worm. What I hold most dear can be completely wrong, but if I want to honestly know Truth, I cannot cling to anything other than perhaps my belief in the source of all Truth. I am a worm that perhaps can be made to be wise. By the grace of God.
For what it’s worth…

To learn from Monks

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“If we could genuinely practice Benedict’s brand of hospitality, welcome each guest to our churches as the visitation of Christ, it might transform our guests as well as us. Instead of making th other into our image, I am invited to see the other as one who is make in God’s image and for whom Jesus Christ died.” (Dennis Okholm, Monk Habits for Everyday People)
Rule of St. Benedict 53:1 –

“All guests who present themselves are to be welcome as Christ, for he himself will say: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me.'” (Matthew 25:35)

“Awareness of mortality exerts a unique power to focus the mind and heart on essentials.” (Columba Stewart, Prayer and Community: The Benedictine Tradition)
Rule of St. Benedict 49:7 –

“Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die.”

It’s the Stupid Economy – Fact, Wisdom, and Virtue

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Tobias Haller, BSG, has written a good post on his “In a Godward Direction” blog entitled, “It’s the Stupid Economy.”
Here is a paragraph:

For The Economy is far from a single unified entity, but a chaotic system built up, sad to say, from the very worst in human nature: primarily greed and fear. These primitive emotions are not limited to Wall Street, but are well established on Main Street too; they find a place in every home and heart.

and ending with this:

I pray this nation will have the good sense to reject McCain’s fairy tale magic, and empty promise. The next generation will indeed pay dearly if we fall prey to the seductive promise that wealth can be universal, and cost no one anything. Rather let us ask more of those who have more, and redistribute the wealth that actually exists. That, we know, can work. And it does have the imprimatur of the Gospel in its favor.

He goes on to discuss the McCain accusations against Obama with regard to socialism, redistribution of wealth, and so on. At one point, Tobias brings up that which is ethical.
Last Sunday in my sermon I preached about that which the Church and the Christian experience seek, regardless of what we want both to seek. The Church and Christian experience seek these twin goals: Wisdom and Virtue – not necessarily Fact. The Old Testament reading for last week saw God speaking through Moses and telling His people Israel what they should and should not do and in the Gospel gives us his two great commandments. We approach Scripture and the Tradition and Reason for the purpose of gaining Wisdom and realizing Virtue. Too many Christians, both liberal and conservative, approach Scripture, the Tradition, and Reason for the purpose of proving something – proving their theory, proving the rightness of their agenda, proving their schema True, but the Scriptures, the Tradition, and even Reason in this context is not about proving something true, exact, as within the Scientific Method.
The Church and the Christian experience in this world and with God, well, we don’t necessarily seek Facts or Information, we seek Wisdom and Virtue. McCain and Obama (or at least their handlers) attempt to assert Fact, negatively or positively. The seeking of verifiable, provable Facts and the seeking of Wisdom are twins aspects of Knowledge, but not identical twins. The doing-of-fact-finding and the doing-of-theology complement one another, or at least they should. Too many Christians today put them at odds, resulting in either the demand that Scripture be all factually true else they can’t believe or the assertion that none of it is actually reliable so it can all be relatively dismissed. We do the same with economic theory or political theory – Socialism or Capitalism must be verifiably false or true, but they are neither. Battle back and forth if we must, but for the Christian we should seek something other – Wisdom and Virtue that allows us to live “well” within any system.
So, when it comes to the economy and politics, the Church should call for the candidates to explain how their ideas are wise and virtuous. The theories come and go, attempted in practice and only realized too late that what is on paper does not work on the ground. Wisdom, however, is beside the point of fact or exacting proof. In Wisdom, we can say that we don’t know at this particular point in time and place what is best, but we know how to seek and to discern and to judge come what may. In Virtue, we can assert that in whatever system or circumstance we find ourselves, we can act in ways that benefit all. Virtue makes any system-of-this-world work better. For the Christian, whether we live in a laissez-faire capitalist economy or a socialist economy and whether we assert that either kind of system will be our salvation is beside the point, being wise and virtuous should be our goal; and the extolling of a system that is destined to fall short of the Glory of God already because, as Tobias stated, our human nature demands it, should not be our focus.
God tells His people, do this and don’t do this. Why? So that we will grow in Wisdom and Virtue and learn to have life-to-the-full, a peaceful and joyous life despite the circumstances, despite what economic system we inhabit, despite what we desperately want to be and try to prove to be in our self-deception to be Fact.
Something like that…
When we are about living “on the ground” rather than desperately proving our point factually true… Seek Wisdom and Virtue…