Monthly Archives: July 2012

Communion Without Baptism

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Considering what is going on in the 2012 General Convention of the Episcopal Church right now with regard to resolutions related to changing the Church’s reaching to official acceptance of the unbaptized being given Holy Communion, I want to make more accessible the piece I recently wrote on the topic.

The piece that I wrote focuses to how emerging generations (younger folks) may or may not engage this issue (topic, point of contention, disagreement, fight, or whatever-else-it-might-be-called).  Primarily, what I say is that if we make this change for reasons related to “welcome” or “inclusion” or the removal of supposed “obstacles” to new people coming to our churches, that such reasons for such a fundamental change may play well with liberal-minded, Baby-Boomer sentiments, but it will be irrelevant for younger people.  Younger people deal with such issues from very different perspectives.

So that anyone who may want to read the essay/commentary without wading through irrelevent stuff, I have made a “Page” for my 2-cents worth of commentary.  Of course, you could just scroll down.

Here is the link:
http://www.hypersync.net/mt/communion-without-baptism-emer.html

For a Good Future

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We all have a part to play in the creation of a good world, a fair and just society – all for the emerging generations that are coming after us.  To be selfish, to be self-centered, to be arrogant in our assumptions that all revolves around “me” or “us” or “our generation” or for only “our people” or even for “our specific time in history” is ridiculous. It is self-deceptive and in the end self-defeating – as individuals, as a culture, as a people.

There is much to indicate that things are bad and getting worse.  If we learn from history and receive the wisdom of tradition, we know that this has always been the case.  What makes a one people different from another is, perhaps, that one dwells on the “bad and getting worse” and one dwells on “what can be.” Another difference might be this – if a people reside within a collective hubris or whether within a collective humility.

While I do not believe the locus of “salvation” rests with human endeavor, I do believe that the way humanity works and believes and behaves will certainly lead to either a good or a terrible end.  Such potential in the faces of our young people, but we as adults have an obligation and a call to make sure that the potential is realized not for ourselves or for the here-and-now, but for a good future!

The Future is Ours from Michael Marantz on Vimeo.