This Op-ed piece appeared in Sunday’s New York Times. I have said many a time that neither the Republicans nor Democrats are God’s way. The social-gospel liberals who inhabit the Democratic Party are not the way as the Religious Right conservatives of the Republican Party are not the way. The way of Jesus is always a third way. We all need to hear what Wills wrote, else we as those who follow Jesus as the Christ will forever be taken down a path that does not lead to God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven, but down a failed attempt to accomplish the vain efforts of man. I particularly like Wills’ references to things being of “different orders.” I discovered this article by way of Titusonenine.
Gary Wills writes:
The New York Times
April 9, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Christ Among the Partisans
By GARRY WILLS
THERE is no such thing as a “Christian politics.” If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: “My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here” (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program.
This is a truth that needs emphasis at a time when some Democrats, fearing that the Republicans have advanced over them by the use of religion, want to respond with a claim that Jesus is really on their side. He is not. He avoided those who would trap him into taking sides for or against the Roman occupation of Judea. He paid his taxes to the occupying power but said only, “Let Caesar have what belongs to him, and God have what belongs to him” (Matthew 22:21). He was the original proponent of a separation of church and state.
Boys
I was cleaning off my computer desktop (a Mac, of course!) and read this html file. Since I do not have kids, I do think it is hilarious!
BOYS~
Raising Boys (some new ones)
Things learned from raising Boys (honest and not kidding):
1.) A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq. ft. house 4
inches deep.
2.) If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.
3.) A 3-year old Boy’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.
4.) If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate 42 pound Boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20×20 ft. room.
5.) You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. When using a ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.
6.) The glass in windows (even double-pane) doesn’t stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.
7.) When you hear the toilet flush and the wor! ds “uh oh”, it’s already too late
8.) Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it.
9.) A six-year old boy can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year old man says they can only do it in the movies.
10.) Certain Lego’s will pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year old Boy.
11.) Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.
12.) Super glue is forever.
13.) No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming pool you still can’t walk on water.
14.) Pool filters do not like Jell-O.
15.) VCR’s do not eject “PB &J” sandwiches even though TV commercials show they do.
16.) Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.
17.) Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.
18.) You probably DO NOT want to know what that odor is.
19.) Always look in the oven before you turn it on; plastic toys do not like ovens.
20.) The fire department in Austin, TX has a 5-minute response time.
21.) The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy.
22.) It will, however, make cats dizzy.
23.) Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.
24.) 80% of Men who read this will try mixing the Clorox and brake fluid.
Those who pass this on to almost all of their friends, with or without boys do it because:
a) For those with no children – this is totally hysterical!
b) For those who already have children past this age, this is hilarious.
c) For those who have children this age, this is not funny.
d) For those who have children nearing this age, this is a warning.
e) For those who have not yet had children, this is birth control
Final Stages
I received this announcement (see below) this morning from the Anglican Communion Network concerning their intent to replace The Church Pension Group as their source for retirement, medical, life, and property insurances. Since many of them believe that The Episcopal Church is apostate, the Church Pension Group is also by association.
I remember Fr. Wright, long-time history professor at General Theological Seminary (my seminary), who related a story about his mentor. During the controversies surrounding the approval of women’s ordinations in the 1970’s, the more traditional side of the Church, especially a good part of Anglo-Catholics, could not accept the ordination of women to the priesthood. Many clergy and some parishes left and “poped” or “crossed over the Tiber.” Fr. Wright told me that his mentor, who in principle was opposed to the ordination of women, ask him, “Robert, do you know where I stand on women’s ordination?” Fr. Wright’s mentor then added, “I stand with the Pension Fund!”
There were a lot of people who “stood with the Pension Fund” over the years when our Church did things (both liberal and conservative things) that they did not approve of. Now, with this announcement, the Network moves to remove this means by which we often remained together despite our differences until cooler heads prevailed.
This is a final stage in their preparation to form a new denomination after General Convention 2006 in Columbus – if it comes to this, which I hope it does not.
I continue to be assounded by the fact that for so many Christians in this country that despite everything else, and I mean anything and everything else, that we may agree on, the issues of homosexuality and same-sex unions have now become the litmus test of whether one is a Christian or an apostate heretic. So much money, time, energy, and disregard for the impact on the lives of so many is put into recreating a wheel that if taken to its full extent will only lead to more and more division. The Charismatic Evangelical Anglicans and the Anglo-Catholics will not hold together. The pro- and anti-women’s ordination crowds will not hold together. Once division (schism) begins, it will only continue in the schismatic groups. History has shown us this fact. Yet, we waste all the time, money, and energy and learn nothing from history. The forces that oppose the advancement of the Gospel are rejoicing!
Here is the announcement:
Network Announces Retirement Plan for Clergy
The Anglican Communion Network is pleased to announce the rollout, effective April 1, of its Qualified Retirement Plan for clergy. ACN-related clergy who are not in or otherwise eligible for the Church Pension Fund of the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) are invited to enroll.
The Plan Provider selected by the Network is American Funds, highly regarded in the investment community with more than 70 years of investment experience. The Plan is a defined contribution plan and provides for annual contributions by employers of up to 20% of compensation. Covered clergy have the option to contribute additionally to the plan in accordance with federal regulations.
Contributions are vested when made, and the benefits, which are transportable, can also be augmented by rolling over into the Plan other portable retirement accounts. The plan was launched on April 1, but arrangements can be made to apply the plan retroactively to January 1, 2006.
Application forms for parishes, clergy and other organizations to join the Network are available online at www.acn-us.org/join. Applications to enroll in the Clergy Retirement Plan can be obtained by contacting Lisa Waldron, ACN Director of Accounting, at lwaldron@acn-us.org or by calling 412-325-8900 x102.
In addition, the Network anticipates announcing a retirement plan for lay employees, property and casualty insurance programs for parishes and organizations, and a group health insurance program before the end of the year. In connection with these efforts, the Network is gathering input from its members to help with the development of a health care benefits plan. Network affiliates and partners are invited to download a health insurance survey form at www.acn-us.org. Completed surveys can be faxed to 412-325-8902 or mailed to 535 Smithfield Street, Suite 910, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.
“We are excited that we are now able to offer the retirement plan for eligible clergy,†said Wicks Stephens, ACN Chancellor. “We hope by year’s end to be able to offer a whole range of benefit options for our Network constituencies, both clergy and lay.â€
The Bible
I’ve finished reading The Last Word by N.T. Wright. Very good, and while Wright tends toward the more traditional, his comments put both liberals and conservatives in their place, as any good Anglican might do.
“Biblical scholarship needs to be free to explore different meanings. This is not just the imperative of the modern scholar, always to be coming up with new theories in order to gain promotion or tenure in the university. It is also a vital necessity for the church. Any church, not least those that pride themselves on being ‘biblical,’ needs to be open to new understandings of the Bible itself. This is the only way to avoid being blown this way or that by winds of fashion, or trapped in one’s own partial readings and distorted traditions while imagining that they are full and accurate account of ‘what the Bible says.’ At the same time, however, biblical scholarship, if it is to serve the church and not merely thumb its nose at cherished points of view, needs to be constrained by loyalty to the Christian community through time and space. When a biblical scholar, or any theologian, wishes to propose a new way of looking at a well-known topic, he or she ought to sense an obligation to explain to the wider community the ways in which the fresh insight builds up, rather than threatens, the mission and life of the church.
“Such a statement will provide protests – some of which will simply indicate that the protesters are still living within the modernist paradigm, and pretending to an illusory detached ‘neutrality.’ Of course, the church has sometimes gotten it wrong, and tried to demand of its scholars an adherence to various forms of words, to ways of putting things, which ought themselves to be challenged on the basis of scripture itself. The Christian ‘rule of faith’ does not, in fact, stifle scholarship; even if it provokes the scholar to try to articulate that rule with greater accuracy and elegance, that itself will be a worthy task. Those who try to cut loose, however, discover sooner or later that when you abandon one framework of ideas you do not live thereafter in a wilderness, without any framework at all. You quickly substitute another, perhaps some philosophical scheme of thought. Likewise, those who ignore one community of discourse (say, the church) are inevitably loyal to another (perhaps some scholarly guild, or some drift on currently fashionable theology).”
(N.T. Wright, The Last Word, p.135-136)
Bring them Back
It is my understanding that technically all parish clergy in the Church of England are required to read Morning Prayer in their parish churches every morning. Whether they do so or not is something all together different, but again I understand they are supposed to.
Being at The General Theological Seminary, that offers Morning Prayer and Evensong every day, I became spoiled that these ancient monastic offices – the prayers of the hours – where so readily available. I truly came to appreciate them and the slow but deliberate effect they have on us, if we yield ourselves to their transformative power that is.
I do think we in The Episcopal Church need to bring back the Daily Offices! I know that many parish churches and many clergy, as well as lay people, do say the Daily Offices but there is no coordination, it seems. It is my intent when ever and if ever I am able to move closer to St. Paul’s Carroll St. in Brooklyn to begin the practice of reading Morning Prayer in the church once again. It is an Anglo-Catholic parish, after all, and the former home of the Cowley Fathers. Money, like always, keeps things from happening. Whether anyone else wants to participate is irrelevant, although I do hope some will. It is a wonderful way to begin the day.
It is my understanding that technically all parish clergy in the Church of England are required to read Morning Prayer in their parish churches every morning. Whether they do so or not is something all together different, but again I understand they are supposed to.
Being at The General Theological Seminary, that offers Morning Prayer and Evensong every day, I became spoiled that these ancient monastic offices – the prayers of the hours – where so readily available. I truly came to appreciate them and the slow but deliberate effect they have on us, if we yield ourselves to their transformative power that is.
I do think we in The Episcopal Church need to bring back the Daily Offices! I know that many parish churches and many clergy, as well as lay people, do say the Daily Offices but there is no coordination, it seems. It is my intent when ever and if ever I am able to move closer to St. Paul’s Carroll St. in Brooklyn to begin the practice of reading Morning Prayer in the church once again. It is an Anglo-Catholic parish, after all, and the former home of the Cowley Fathers. Money, like always, keeps things from happening. Whether anyone else wants to participate is irrelevant, although I do hope some will. It is a wonderful way to begin the day.
Oh, we now have a new priest in Christ’s Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church – The Rev. Sonia Waters. I attended her ordination to the Holy Order of Priests at Grace Church in Brooklyn Heights this morning. A wonderful service – and I got to see a lot of my former classmates, too. What a deal!
Change
I should write a book – “The Making of a Current-Day Anglo-Catholic.”
One of the many reasons I moved away from the Evangelical/Pentecostal side of the Church and into a more liturgical/sacramental side (into The Episcopal Church) begins with what I foresaw in the later 1980’s as the co-opting of Evangelicalism by the American cultural phenomena of hyper-individualism. “It’s all about ME!” “Me and Jesus!” While lip-service is given to the communal nature of the Body of Christ, the reality is that the individual, even in the midst of a mega-church crowd, is focused on his/her self and concerned with what s/he “gets out of the service.” The consumeristic nature of modern American-Evangelical churches, the willingness to engage in schism, a worship service that is basically entertainment oriented (despite the denial of such an orientation).
This infection of American hyper-individualism in the Church will only lead to further overall ecclesial chaos and separation into ever smaller groups of narrowly focused and like-minded individuals, who will be willing to separate even more once they find yet another point of disagreement.
An essence of the “catholic” nature of the Church, this side of it anyway, is that we are bound to Christians past, present, and future, and that we as individuals and even as congregations or denominations are not isolated, are not self-sufficient, are not separate from the Great Cloud of Witnesses all around us. We, also, are not free to do whatever we want – we bring ourselves into the discipline of submission to continual-community within Tradition. This aspect of the Church universal, its “catholic” nature, is what draws me to Catholicism, particularly the Anglo-Catholic expression of it.
I am not on a path leading to the Church of Rome. I do not believe that in the Vatican is the final authority. This may smack of the same “individualism” that I am moving away from. But, I think in the various pendulum swings we go through the ecclesial structures of the Church of Rome long ago swung too far into the denial of the individual. Too much authority rests in the hands of too few men, and that authority is absolute if exercised.
In Anglicanism, in Anglo-Catholicism in particular, there is more of a balance between individualism and authoritarianism (is that the right word?), at least as I’ve experienced it thus far. There is the emphasis on the universal nature of the Church and our connection and responsibility to one another, but not to the point of demanding absolute conformity or obedience. I do know that in the current Church of Rome that there is no longer the draconian authoritarianism of times past.
So, I am in the process of becoming more “catholic.” I am being formed into an Anglo-Catholic. It is a very different way of approaching the faith, God, the Church, and one another than I experienced growing up within American-Evangelicalism. It also has some great implications concerning the controversies Anglicanism is wallowing in right now. It isn’t “all about me.” It isn’t even “all about us” as in just this part of the Anglican Communion – The Episcopal Church. There has to be balance, though, and an acknowledgement that some parts of the Church will begin the move toward right change before other parts are ready for such change.
A difference
Today, I am wearing my clerical collar to work. Frankly, it has more to do with undone laundry rather than any particular ecclesial responsibility I have today.
I was walking from Penn. station to the Medical Trust and came near one of the hundreds of people passing out hand-bills for this or that restaurant or bodega. He was a Latin-American Indian, as are most. All the implications of strange cultures and languages and customs come to bear on anyone who is a foreigner (this was made all the more apparent to me when I lived in Europe).
He was standing back against the wall of a building and not handing out many hand-bills as I approached. He saw me, or perhaps he saw a white clerical collar on this person who was approaching, and came forward to give me a hand-bill. It was obvious that he approached this collared person and not all the other people passing by him. How could I not take it, even though I knew I was not going to go to this particular restaurant-bodega? I thanked him and went on my way.
People notice. People have impressions of those in white collars, whether good or bad impressions. What are we all, we who call ourselves Christians and more particularly those who have entered Holy Orders, doing in our everyday lives that add to the sense of honor and trust of those who wear such collars so that the people feel safe coming to us, as this young guy did with me – this person in white clerical collar – in the midst of hundreds of other Mid-town people? What are we doing that may cause people to avoid us, to revile us, to mistrust us?
This is the responsibility of the clergy – to be holy even as Christ was/is holy despite the fact that we will fail more often than not. We who are the representatives of Christ on earth have this high-calling to put aside ourselves and take upon ourselves the Cross, so that when people see someone in a clerical collar they know that they are safe and free to approach us, even in confession, even in a plea for help, even in passing out a hand-bill when one is shy or afraid. This is what it means to be one who points to God.
Stick it to the MAN
I love the way Jesus handles people – sometimes with the utmost compassion and gentleness and other times with withering sarcasm, accusation, and challenge.
Take, for example, this bit of writ:
The Authority of Jesus Questioned
Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”
Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or from men?”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
(Matthew 21)
Doing things “right”
I read this morning a press release from the Anglican Communion Network, the organizational network of several churches and a few dioceses opposed to the controversial decisions coming out of The Episcopal Church’s 2003 General Convention (basically, the full inclusion of gay people in the life and leadership of the Church). The Network announced their initiative for planting new churches.
As I have written (and said) many times that so much of my life and focus is in agreement with a lot of what the Network holds to, but on some very important and strategic issues we are in disagreement. Regrettably, in those disagreements the division seems almost insurmountable (at least for them – as much as it is possible with me, I will be at peace with all people despite how they respond to me).
Here, in this announcement, I have to say that the Network seems to be doing things right. Time will tell. The Episcopal Church Center has their “20/20 Vision†project to double the attendance in Episcopal churches by the year 2020. From what I can see, despite the good efforts of well intentioned people, the project is going nowhere (which may be unfair of me to say, but that is the way I perceive it). The Network at least seems to have “in its genes” the understanding and desire to expand and spread the Gospel through the pioneering of new churches.
Good for them – go for it. I wish, however, that a more open attitude with less triumphalism was also “in their genes.” Only hindsight will tell us whether their effort will be a success. Much of the leadership of the Network still seems to be more intent on division and “winner take all” then on working together for the advancement of the Gospel to all people. They would disagree, of course.
Jesus loves porn stars
Julie posted a comment on one of my previous posts about mercy, and in it she mentions a company that makes t-shirts with one of the printed sayings being “Jesus loves porn stars.”
“Mercy,” “Grace,” “Love,” “Forgiveness,” and all such notions are profoundly beyond our ability to comprehend. Truly, Jesus does love porn stars – and the vilest sorts we can imagine. Jesus loves the Hitlers, the Pol Pots, the Jeffrey Domers (sp?) of the world; He loves the multinationlists, the corporate raiders, the CEOs; He loves the child molesters, the rapists, the murderers; He loves the liars, the cheats, and the selfish – and Julie and I. In our self-righteousness, we can hardly conceive of it, even though with our words we profess it and condescend to it.
We grapple to accept it. We try. We fail. Yet, it is always present with us.