Whitehall

grace

2008-10-30T15:38:00.000-05:00

'Good Samaritan' saves crying woman's foreclosed home - CNN.com:

'Are you here to buy a house?' Marilyn Mock said.

Orr couldn't hold it in. The tears flowed. She pointed to the auction brochure at a home that didn't have a picture. 'That's my house,' she said.

Within moments, the four-bedroom, two-bath home in Pottsboro, Texas, went up for sale. People up front began casting their bids. The home that Orr purchased in September 2004 was slipping away."

what i'm up to... and a new blog

2007-09-07T14:19:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed, if you are gracious enough to be a regular reader of this blog, that I have not been writing much lately. This is due largely to the fact that I have just been made a rector (thank you; thank you), and have anyway been busy with parochial work.

It is also due to the fact that I have been working on a new blog project. This one is a collaborative effort of catholic-minded "communion conservatives". The new blog is much better than Whitehall. I encourage you to visit it here: Covenant Communion.

Does this mean that Whitehall is going away? That is not my intention. I am certainly not going to delete it any time soon. But I would encourage you to visit Covenant-Communion, and tell your friends to visit it too. It is a large collaborative effort and, it seems to me, has much potential.

the consecrations in kenya

2007-08-30T14:16:00.001-05:00

They are going on right now I think (???). You can watch it on Standfirm.

It is very interesting that Archbishop Drexel, Indiae Occedentis, is present.

the prayer book office and the office of the dead

2007-08-27T15:05:00.000-05:00

Here is something else to print, cut out, and paste into your BCP. You can make your Daily Office into an Office of the Dead by doing the following things. This can be used to pray for departed souls (e.g. immediately after they die, on the anniversaries of their deaths, regularly once a month for all your dead loved ones and acquaintances, etc.).

For priests: the Office of the Dead, when it was said, was said IN ADDITION to the Office of the Day. The complete Office of the Dead was: First Vespers, Mattins and Lauds, plus Mass of the Dead (requiem). Below are Matins and Evensong of the Dead, conforming to the outline of the Prayer Book Office. You might consider offering a Requiem Mass at your parish once a month, on the first unencumbered day, and also on that day the Office of the Dead. At one time clergy also said this office on Mondays during Advent and Lent.

This Office, more or less in this form (except, of course, Latin) is very ancient. This is evidenced not only by ancient references to it, but also by certain accretions present in the regular Daily Office, but missing from the Office of the Dead (such as confessions, absolutions, opening versicles, blessings, etc.). The Office pretty much in this form dates probably to around the 7th or 8th century, though it has antecedents going back to the second century, and perhaps even to the first.

The Confession, Absolution, and opening versicles are not said in the Office of the Dead, nor is "alleluia".

Instead of "Glory be to the Father...", there is said at the end of Psalms and Canticles:

Rest eternal * grant unto them, O Lord.
And let light perpetual * shine upon them.

AT MATTINS

Antiphon for the Invitatory [i.e. "O come, let us sing..."]:

The King to whom all things live: * O come let us worship him.

[Antiphons are said before the Psalm, and again after it -- i.e. after saying "Rest eternal * grant..." at the end of each Psalm.]

Psalms with Antiphons as follows:

1st Psalm (Ps. 5): Make thy way plan, * O Lord, before my face.
2nd Psalm (Ps. 6): Turn thee, * O Lord, and deliver my soul: for in death no man remembereth thee.
3rd Psalm (Ps. 7): Lest he devour my soul * like a lion, and tear it in pieces, while there is none to help.

1st Lesson: Wisdom 4.7-end

1st Canticle: The Song of Hezekiah (Isa. 38.10-20) as follows:

Antiphon: From the gate of hell * deliver my soul, O Lord.

1 I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave: * I am deprived of the residue of my years:
2 I said I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living: * I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world:
3 Mine age is departed, * and is now removed from me as a shepherd's tent:
4 I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: * from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
5 I reckoned till morning, that as a lion so will he break all my bones: * from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
6 Like a crane or a swallow so did I chatter: * I did mourn as a dove.
7 Mine eyes fail with looking upward: * O LORD I am oppressed; undertake for me.
8 What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me and himself hath done it: * I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.
9 O LORD by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: * so wilt thou recover me and make me to live.
10 Behold for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: * for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.
11 For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: * they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
12 The living, the living, he shall praise thee as I do this day: * the father to the children shall make known thy truth.
13 The LORD was ready to save me: therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments * all the days of our life in the house of the LORD.

Rest eternal * grant unto them, O Lord. And let light perpetual * shine upon them.

Antiphon: From the gate of hell * deliver my soul, O Lord.

2nd Lesson: 1 Cor. 15.35-end

Then is said:

V. I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me.
R. Blessed are the dead which die in the lord.

Antiphon to Benedictus [i.e. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel"]: I am * the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.

The Apostles' Creed is not said.

Then is said kneeling:

Our Father, [and the rest silently until:]
V. And lead us not into temptation.
R. But delier us from evil.

The following Psalm is not said on the day of death or burial (but is said otherwise):

Psalm 130, concluding with "Rest eternal..."

Then is said:

V. From the gate of hell,
R. Deliver HIS SOUL, O Lord.
V. May HE rest in peace.
R. Amen.
V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

The most appropriate Collect, from among those following, is said:

1 Collect
Day of Burial
Absolve, we beseech thee, O Lord, the soul of thy servant (handmaid) N., that being dead unto the world HE may live unto thee: and whatsoever HE hath done amiss in his earthly life through the frailty of the flesh, do thou in the pitifulness of thy great goodness pardon and purge away. Through...

2 On the 3rd, 7th and 30th Days After Burial
We beseech thee, O Lord, that the soul of thy servant (handmaid) N., whose body three (seven, thirty) days since we did commit unto the ground, may be made partaker of the fellowship of thine elect; and that thou wouldest pour upon HIM the continual dew of thy mercy. Through...

3 On the Anniversary
O God, to whom alone belongeth the forgiveness of sins: grant, we pray thee, to the souls of thy servants (and handmaidens), the anniversary of whose burial we now commemorate, to find a place of refreshing, and the blessedness of thy rest, and to enjoy the glory of everlasting light. Through.

4 For a Bishop or Priest
O God, who didst cause thy servant, N. for whom we pray, to enjoy the office of bishop (priest) after the order of thine Apostles: grant unto him, we beseech thee; finally to rejoice in the company of those thy Saints in heaven whose ministry he did sometime share on earth. Through.

5 For Man Departed
Incline thine ear, O Lord, unto the prayers wherewith we humbly entreat thy mercy: that the soul of thy servant N., which thou hast bidden to depart this life, may by thee be set in the abode of peace and light, and made partaker of the eternal fellowship of thine elect. Through.

6 For a Woman Departed
We beseech thee, O Lord, of thy loving kindness to have mercy on the soul of thine handmaiden N. : that being purged from all defilements of our mortal nature, she may be restored to the portion of everlasting felicity. Through.

7 For Brethren, Kinsfolk and Benefactors
The second Collect under 9 below.

8 For Father and Mother
O God, who didst command thy people, saying, Honour thy father and thy mother: of thy loving kindness have mercy on the soul(s) of my father [and my mother], and forgive [them] all [their] sins; and I humble pray thee that thou wouldest grant unto me to behold [their] face(s) in the glory of everlasting felicity. Through.

For a Father only, or for a Mother only, the Collect is said as above with the changes necessary to make it read properly.

9 In the Office of the Dead through the Year
O God, who didst cause thy servants, for whom we pray, to enjoy the dignity of the priesthood, and some to be bishops after the order of thine Apostles: grant unto them, we beseech thee, finally to rejoice in the company of those thy Saints in heaven whose ministry they did sometime share on earth. Through.

or

O God, who desirest not the death of a sinner, but rather that all mankind should be saved: we beseech thee mercifully to grant that the brethren, kinsfolk and benefactors of our congregation who have passed out of this world, may by the intercession of blessed Mary ever Virgin and of all thy Saints come to enjoy with them everlasting blessedness.

or

O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all thy faithful people: grant unto the souls of thy servants and handmains the remission of all their sins: that as they have ever desired thy merciful pardon, so by the supplications of their brethren they may receive the same. Who livest.

10 For those who rest in a Cemetery
O God, in whose mercy do reset the souls of thy faithful people: mercifully grant to thy servants and handmaids, and to all that here and in all places do rest with Christ, the remission of all their sins; that, being delivered from every bond of iniquity, they may rejoice with thee in everlasting bliss. Through.

11 For many persons Departed
O God, whose nature and property is ever to have mercy and to forgive: have compassion on the souls of thy servants and handmaids and grant unto them the remission of all their sins; that, being delivered from the bonds of this our mortal nature, they may be found worthy to pass into everlasting life. Through.

12 Another Collect for Many Persons Departed
Grant, O Lord, we pray thee, to the souls of thy servants and handmaidens thy perpetual mercy: that as they have hoped and trusted in thee, so this their hope and faith may be profitable unto them to life everlasting. Through.

V. Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord.
R. And let light perpetual shine upon them.
V. May they rest in peace.
R. Amen.

AT EVENSONG

Psalms with Antiphons as follows:

1st Psalm (Ps. 116): I will walk * before the lord in the land of the living.
2nd Psalm (Ps. 120): Woe is me, O Lord, * that I am constrained to dwell with Mesech.
3rd Psalm (Ps. 121): The Lord shall preserve thee * from all evil: yea, it is even he that shall keep thy soul.
4th Psalm (Ps. 130): If what is done amiss * thou wilt be extreme to mark, O Lord: O Lord, who may abide it?
5th Psalm (Ps. 138): Despise not, * O Lord, the works of thine own hands.

1st Lesson: Job 19.21-27

V. I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me.
R. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.

Antiphon to Magnificat: All * that the Father hath given me shall come to me: and him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.

2nd Lesson: 1 Thess. 4.13-end

Nun Dimittis is said without antiphon.

The Apostles Creed is not said.

Then is said kneeling:

Our Father, [and the rest silently until]
V. And lead us not into temptation.
R. But deliver us from evil.

The following is Psalm is not said on the day of death or burial (but is said otherwise).

Psalm 146 [concluding with "Rest eternal..."]

V. From the gate of hell,
R. Deliver HIS SOUL, O Lord.
V. May HE rest in peace.
R. Amen.
V. O Lord hear my prayer.
R. And let my cry come unto thee.
V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

Collect and conclusion as at Mattins.

obligation to say the daily office

2007-08-22T15:20:00.000-05:00

The following is from "The Obligation of the Clergy to Recite the Divine Office" by Thomas J. Williams, originally published in American Church Quarterly in 1930. It can be found here at Project Canterbury.

We are now faced with the contention of those who admit that the Prayer-Book Offices are of obligation for Priests and Deacons of the Church in England, by force of explicit enactment; but who claim that the failure of the American Church, in 1790, to repeat the requirement of the English Prayer-Book in explicit terms, abrogates for the clergy of the American Church the specific obligation of reciting Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, leaving us free to choose the form or rite we shall use in fulfilling our obligation as Catholic Priests to say the Divine Office. This contention is based on the argument from silence--an argument that can cut like a two edged sword, and has been known to cut both ways. It is freely granted that the revisers of 1790 did not explicitly reenact or refer directly to the requirement of the English Prayer-Book that the clergy shall recite the Divine Office each day. But the designation of the offices in the American Prayer-Book, since its first ratification in 1790, as "The Order of Daily Morning Prayer" and "The Order of Daily Evening Prayer," is to be interpreted in the light of the statement of the Preface to the American Prayer-Book, that "this Church is far from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship." The requirement of daily recitation by the clergy of the Divine Office is certainly an essential point of discipline and worship, inasmuch as all clerks in Holy Orders, of whatever Communion of the Holy Catholic Church, are obligated to such recitation. No one will deny that the clergy of the Roman Communion are under strict obligation to use the offices of the Roman, or other authorized, Breviary--and none other. It should be equally clear that all Priests and Deacons of the American Church are under obligation to say the Divine Office, as set forth in the Order of Daily Morning and Evening Prayer; and have no right to substitute for these authorized offices the Roman Breviary or the Orthodox Horologion.

It has been the practice of an almost unbroken line of Anglican clergy, from the Reformation to the present, to supplement the Prayer-Book Office by reciting the little hours of the old office. Such practice does not admit of question or challenge, for this has always been a matter of private devotion. Entirely different is the practice of substituting the entire Breviary for the Prayer-Book Office. Whatever an individual priest, or a community of priests, may find helpful as a matter of individual or community devotion, this can in no wise affect the obligation resting on every Priest and Deacon of the Anglican Rite, as such, to recite the Divine Office according to the authorized form set forth by authority--The Order of Daily Morning and Evening Prayer.

three questions

2007-08-18T10:09:00.000-05:00

1) Do you think (a) Episcopal and (b) Anglican clergy are under an obligation to say the Daily Office?

2) What is the origin of putting a little cross after the name of priests and before the name of bishops?

3) What is the origin of the clerical collar?

4x more psychics than priests in europe

2007-08-15T12:27:00.000-05:00

I tend to think of European godlessness as being part of a protracted Enlightenment: I imagine the Continent populated by innumerable Voltaires and Rousseaus. But this op-ed in the International Herald Tribune (stumbled on via Google's news leder) puts a different spin on things. Apparently interest in the occult, the paranormal, and diviniation is thriving in France and elsewhere. Some disturbing excerpts:

EU Commission research indicates that 52 percent of Europeans believe astrology has a scientific basis compared to a more skeptical United States and Britain, at about 31 percent each.

The main French professional clairvoyance organization, INAD (Institut National des Arts Divinatoire) says some 100,000 men and women are practicing clairvoyants in France today. This is about four times the number of Roman Catholic priests. INAD estimates that about €3.2 billion are spent annually on their advice.

You can read the rest of it here.

I suppose this is hardly surprising. Having declared God to be unscientific, science is discovering itself to be unscientific, meaning unable to provide a ground of being explanation for the world. Why wouldn't people tend to drift back towards something--even if it's anything--that would give some semblance of purpose and meaning to their lives.

saint augustine on 'works'

2007-08-08T17:00:00.000-05:00

Wouldest thou then have 'good days' and 'life,' and wouldest thou not 'refrain thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile'? Alert to the reward, slow to the work! And to whom if he does not work is the reward rendered? I would that in thy house thou wouldest render the reward even to him that does work! For to him that works not, I am sure thou dost not render it. And why? Because thou owest nothing to him that does not work! And God hath a reward proposed. What reward? 'Life and good days,' which life we shall desire, and unto which days we all strive to come. The promised reward He will give us. What reward? 'Life and good days.' And what are 'good days'? Life without end, rest without labour.

Great is the reward He hath set before us: in so great a reward as is set before us, let us see what He hath commanded us. For enkindled by the reward of so great a promise, and by the love of the reward, let us make ready at once our strength, our sides, our arms, to do His bidding.... So then in proper order, first 'depart from evil,' and 'do good;' first 'gird up thy loins,' and then 'light the lamp.' And when thou hast done this, wait in assured hope for 'life and good days.' 'Seek peace, and ensue it;' and then with a good face wilt thou say unto the Lord, 'I have done what Thou hast bidden, render me what Thou hast promised.'

(From Sermon LVIII in the Philip Schaff series)

there is no plain sense of scripture

2007-08-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

The notion that there is "a plain sense" of Scripture, and correlatively that Scripture alone should govern our life in Communion, is mistaken. It is belied by the existence of many thousands of Protestant denominations, all of which have their origin in disagreements over what Scripture says.

Rather, as Paul told Timothy, the Church is the pillar and foundation of the Truth. The Lord gave the Apostles magisterial (magister = teacher) and juridical authority, which they passed on to their successors, and which they passed on to their successors -- a process that will continue until the Lord returns in glory. It is the bishops of the Church, as successors of the Apostles, who have authority to interpret Scripture and promulgate doctrine (docere = to teach).

We may, of course, interpret it too, but only within the parameters of their interpretation.

some thoughts on current anglican events

2007-08-04T10:37:00.001-05:00

Last week there was, in Ft. Worth, a meeting of the Anglican Communion Network. There was, and continues to be, a lot of buzz around it.

One of the things that was manifest at the meeting is division in the orthodox camp -- between those wanting out now, and those calling for more patience.

What do I think? I think more patience is necessary. That doesn't mean I hold out much hope for ECUSA. ECUSA's probably lost, and lost for good. I think ECUSA is rapidly being vindicated as just another liberal protestant sect, doomed to go the way of all liberal protestant bodies: declining attendance, growing irrelevance. Ironically this is a byproduct of seeking above all else to be relevant and to increase attendance by being friendly and open to anyone and anything. Barring a miracle, I believe ECUSA is doomed. It is very rich and it will be around for yet a long time. It will become high church, syncretic Unitarianism, and it will continue its sprint to the margins of coherence. Society will regard ECUSA as society regards a demented old lady: tolerated and indulged for the sake of who she once was and because she is high-born, but an irritating embarrassment to all who remain long in her company.

So, why call for more patience from the orthodox who remain in ECUSA? Chiefly: because none of us have the authority to do what needs to be done: to create a Province of the Anglican Communion in North America that is juridically separate from ECUSA. The orthodox bishops who remain in ECUSA can't do it because they are subject to the jurisdiction of ECUSA which doesn't allow such things. This has to be done by the Primates and by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Because to be in the Anglican Communion means to be in communion with the See of Canterbury, and with the other Churches that are in communion with it.

And this takes time. And taking time is frustrating. But what do you expect? The Anglican Communion spans the globe. There are 80 million Christians in it. It moves slowly. But a process has been set in motion that will, God willing, lead to the creation of a North American Province, outside the juridical structure of ECUSA, incontrovertibly in communion with the See of Canterbury and the other Churches of the Anglican Communion. It is outlined in the Windsor Report and the Dar es Salaam Communique and Archbishop Williams' document The Challenge and Hope of Being and Anglican Today.

I understand the frustration of waiting for the Instruments of Communion to grind away while the faithful in ECUSA face inhibitions and lawsuits and various kinds of disenfranchisement. But frankly, as Christians we're called to bear witness to the truth, and we should expect that this will entail suffering. Moreover, I don't understand the the conservatives who thwart the judgment of the Instruments of Communion in their zeal for truth and purity NOW when the very basis for their critique of ECUSA is that it has thwarted the judgment of the Instruments of Communion out of love for the zeitgeist. What's the difference? If to be Anglican means to accept the doctrine and devotion of Anglicanism (and what else could it mean?), then the question becomes: who may authoritatively enunciate Anglican doctrine and set the parameters of Anglican devotion? Is it not the Instruments of Communion, and particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates, and the Lambeth Conference, since they are bishops and therefore in a special way the heirs of the Apostles?

Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.... For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life for evermore (Psalm 133)...

Unity is very important. SEEKING and PRESERVING unity is very important -- because it is the fruit of the Lord's commission of bearing witness to the truth. If we lose our unity, then we have ceased to drink from the fountainhead of truth. Clearly this is so for ECUSA: it bears witness to a lie, and the fruit of disunity within and without is slowly blossoming. It will take awhile for the juridical reality to catch up with the pneumatic reality; that's just the way of things in this vale of tears. But we should stick to the plan and continue to call ECUSA to stick to the plan too. I doubt they will, but ceasing to call because an authoritative judgment has not come on our time frame is disobedient and a refusal to hope. It won't go on forever, but it will go on for a season. We will know considerably more after September 30. And I imagine the shape of a definitive resolution to this mess will become clear at the Lambeth Conference.

What can you do? You can bear witness to the truth -- proclaim the gospel -- whether you are a layman, a deacon, priest, or bishop. You can proclaim the gospel and suffer for it. Be the lone voice at Diocesan Conventions. Be the lone voice in your parish. Be disenfranchised. Suffer. "In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials.... Without having seen him, you love him; though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with unutterable and exalted joy. As the outcome of your faith you obtain the salvation of your souls... Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you..." (1 Peter 1.6, passim).

And pray, pray, pray. Pray for the blinded souls in ECUSA. Pray for those who persecute you. Pray for the Instruments of Communion and those with authority to ACT, that they would be given wisdom and courage to do so. They have said that they will, and they've even given us some indication of benchmarks and time frames. September 30. Lambeth '08. Wait, proclaim the truth, suffer, don't presume to have authority you don't have, and don't despair of a godly outcome because the process is not unfolding according to your will. Let the Lord guide it, and when the dust settles, and you have been purified by suffering, then take stock of our situation.

my favorite day at the parish

2007-08-02T16:33:00.000-05:00

My favorite day at the parish, I believe, is Wednesday. Wednesday evening the schedule looks like this, beginning at 6:00: Evening Prayer (followed by Salve Regina), Low Mass, Angelus, and finally the Rosary. We usually have a decent group turn up for it. I think the big draw is the Rosary. Last night we prayed the Glorious Mysteries, and indeed they are glorious. Its a refreshing way to spend an evening.

the moral compass

2007-07-30T23:05:00.001-05:00

step right up and spin the wheel. See how the Episcopalians measure up.

I recommend exploring the website. Some interesting stuff here about the presence of religion in the virtual world.

bp. duncan expresses despair at network meeting

2007-07-30T22:54:00.000-05:00

"God, in His wisdom, has not used us to reform The Episcopal Church, to bring it back to its historic role and identity as a reliable and mainstream way to be a Christian. Instead The Episcopal Church has embraced de-formation – stunning innovation in Faith and Order – rather than reformation," Duncan stated.

Read it all.

the vatican goes high-tech

2007-07-30T22:48:00.000-05:00

VIENNA, Austria - Organizers of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Austria next month are offering the faithful a foretaste: daily cell phone text messages with quotes from the pontiff.

The Archdiocese of Vienna said the service, which began Sunday and will continue through the pope's Sept. 7-9 visit, will provide free excerpts of his sermons, blessings and writings.

Read it all from Yahoo News.

church of what's happening now

2007-07-30T21:25:00.001-05:00

Here's a list of the resolutions that passed at the recent Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) national Convention. There are several that mention abortion: the DoC have been pro-choice since the very moment of Roe vs. Wade. Note the resolution against overweight clergy (perhaps they'd save even more money on the church health insurance plan if they cracked down on smoking clergy, and elderly clergy, and clergy with really fast sports cars), the affirmative action resolution for racial representation among clergy (does proportional representation make St. Paul's list of qualifications in I Timothy?), the resolution restoring our connection with our food through participation in local farming initiatives, resolutions against torture, for universal children's health insurance, against big tobacco, supporting all immigration, and of course the obligitory anti-Iraq-war resolution.

Several things worry me about this list:

1. Most of these resolutions are toothless, in that they don't contain provisions about funding or delegations of responsibility to make sure this stuff gets done. A DoC pastor friend of mine who was there described them as 'feel good resolutions'. The Episcopal Church is very good about following up its resolutions with concrete action - however, I'm not sure if that makes me more or less worried about our own convention's actions.

2. Most of these resolutions are chock full of statistics and policy suggestions and the latest findings of science and culture, but they're thin on bible and theology; granted, in the DoC, most of that spadework has already been done and can be assumed; but I worry that church conventions are now expected to be more activist than reflective, more political than theological. TEC definitely suffered from the same malady in the Summer of 06. This whole grab for political relevance smacks of temptation to me. When Jesus had a chance to comment on the hot issues of His day, He said, "Render unto Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's, and unto God the things that are God's." and "My kingdom is not of this world." It was a sidestep, an attempt to refocus our minds on God rather than on today's issues. Church conventions ought to keep that example in mind. And after all, oughtn't there to be at least ONE place in our world where we set aside the divisive concerns of our temporal world and live together as citizens of an heavenly city?

faith and order anniversary

2007-07-30T21:07:00.000-05:00

... church historian and Lutheran pastor Dr. Martin Marty, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, summarized the many ecumenical accomplishments of the Faith and Order movement in the last 50 years. He cited advances such as mergers of denominational variations into united churches; the development of various state, national and world councils of churches; the number of full-communion agreements; and theological breakthroughs such as the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation.

At the same time, Marty counseled against minimizing the difficulties the movement still faces. These difficulties are not so much in the area of faith, he observed, which operates in the area of mystery, depth and amplitude but is hard to define. Rather, the "sticking points" have to do with sexual issues and authority issues, he said. These still remain communion-dividing issues within and among the churches and keep Christians from sharing the common Eucharist.

Read the whole thing here. Faith and Order has always been the theological side of the modern ecumenical movement. Dr. Marty contends the thorniest theological disagreements have been either solved or made moot, issues such as baptism, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and liturgical differences. Only ecclesiological and social issues remain. What do you Whitehallians think? Has Faith and Order brought us substantive change, or are its accomplishments, such as the influential Lima statement from 1982, merely an illusion, with real differences hiding behind vague language? What is the best measure of success in the ecumenical effort -- agreed statements and signed concordats, or common work and worship, or something else?

ingmar bergman has died

2007-07-30T17:28:00.000-05:00

Read about it here. I appreciate Bergman. His films resonate. I worry that he never saw the light, though I think Fr Kimel has disagreed with me on this point.

a word of hope from saint augustine

2007-07-28T18:21:00.000-05:00

The city which has given us birth according to the flesh still abides, God be thanked. O that it may receive a spiritual birth, and together with us pass over unto eternity! If the city which has given us birth according to the flesh abide not, yet that which has given us birth according to the Spirit abides for ever."The Lord does build up Jerusalem." Has He by sleeping brought His building to ruin, or by not keeping it, let the enemy into it? "Except the Lord keep the city, he that keeps it wakes but in vain." And what "city"? "He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." What is Israel, but the seed of Abraham? What the seed of Abraham, but Christ? "And to your seed," he says, "which is Christ." And to us what says he? "But you are Christ's, therefore Abraham's seed, heirs according to the promise." "In your seed," says He, "shall all nations be blessed." The holy city, the faithful city, the city on earth a sojourner, has its foundation in heaven. O faithful one, do not corrupt your hope, do not lose your charity,"gird up your loins," light, and hold out your lamps before you; "wait for the Lord, when He will return from the wedding." Why are you alarmed, because the kingdoms of the earth are perishing? Therefore has a heavenly kingdom been promised you, that you might not perish with the kingdoms of the earth. For it was foretold, foretold distinctly, that they should perish. For we cannot deny that it was foretold. Your Lord for whom you are waiting, has told you,"Nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom." The kingdoms of the earth have their changes; He will come of whom it is said, "and of His kingdom there shall be no end."

(From Sermon 55, on Luke 11)

another picture from the st. michael's conference

2007-07-24T15:27:00.000-05:00

father peter toon on what's most likely to happen

2007-07-24T14:45:00.000-05:00

Sadly, I have to say I agree that this seems the most likely scenario:

As things stand in July 2007, the scenario, in my view, that is most likely to happen in the USA is not that there will be the old PECUSA (as a Unitarian Liturgical Church) doing its own thing on its own, and a new "orthodox" Province in the USA, part of a 38 member Global Anglican Communion, proclaiming orthodoxy alongside the degraded old PECUSA. A more likely scenario will be that the old PECUSA continues with a few (by comparison with the liberal majority) conservative dioceses; that several African Provinces have dioceses or networks in the USA (overlapping each other and sometimes competing one with another), that there are all kinds of associations and links of parishes with other overseas bishops; that the number of small jurisdictions of continuing Anglicans of one kind or another continues and increases, even as a few of them unite with one another; and that an increasing number of Anglicans in frustration either cease to be church goers (as happened in a massive way in the 1970s with the introduction of the new liturgies and women priests) or go to Rome or Orthodox or various forms of Protestantism-especially interdenominational churches. To create a new Province in the USA will be exceptionally difficult for it will need in the USA powerful (but rarely experienced) centripetal forces and from overseas all kinds of diplomatic, theological and constitutional help and advice. And the wrath of the old PECUSA will work to make it not happen!

From here. If this is indeed the way things ago, as seems to me most likely, I think Anglicanism will have been vindicated as just another protestant denomination and perhaps it will be time to disband and join other families. A depressing thought. In the meantime, buckle down where you are, and proclaim the Gospel.

catholicity -- part one: the primitive unity

2007-07-20T22:14:00.000-05:00

The following was first published in 1947. It is from:

Catholicity:

A Study in the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West

being a Report presented to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury

E.S. Abbott
H.J. Carpenter
V.A. Demant
Gregory Dix
T.S. Eliot
A.M. Farrer
F.W. Green
A.G. Herbert
R.C. Mortimer
A.M. Ramsey
A. Reeves
C.H. Smyth
The Bishop of Southampton
L.S. Thornton

Part I, Section 1

It is inevitable that in trying to understand the problems which arise from our divisions we should look back to the primitive unity created by our Lord, and ask what sort of unity this was. It consisted no only in unity of organization or in the promise of a world-wide universality, nor yet in the bond of charity: it consisted rather in a whole via vitae which included belief, worship and morals. It is often remembered that in the seventeenth chapter of St. John our Lord prayed for the unity of His disciples: it is sometimes forgotten, however, in our modern discussions that this prayer for their unity was linked with His prayer for their sanctification in the truth: 'Sanctify them in Thy truth; Thy word is truth'. The unity of Christians, coming as it does from the unity of the Father and the Son, is interwoven with their sanctification in the truth which our Lord delivers.

The unity, in all its aspects, has sprung directly out of the entrance of God into human history in the eschatological event of Redemption. This event includes the age-long preparation of Israel for the Messiah. It has its centre in His birth, life, death and resurrection. It includes no less the church which is His Body, and the Spirit who through this Body brings tinto the world the powers of the age to come. It is vital in our believe that the Church is a part of the eschatological event, and a Divine fact. For the essence of the Church is our Lord, who is both the summing-up of the old Israel, and the head of the new Israel. Thus the members of the church do not constitute the unity themselves: rather they are brought into a unity which is there already. In the words of Archbishop Frederick Temple:

'Men speak as if Christians came first and the Church after: as if the origin of the Church was in the wills of the individuals who composed it. But, on the contrary, throughout the teaching of the Apostles, we see it is the Church that comes first, and the members of it afterwards.... In the New testament... the Kingdom of Heave is already in existence, and men are invited into it. The Church takes its origin, not in the will of man, but in the will of the Lord Jesus Christ.... Everywhere men are called int: they do not come in and make the Church by coming. They are called into that which already exists: they are recognized as members when they are within; but their membership depends on their admission, and not upon their constituting themselves into a body in the sight of the Lord'.

(from the Sermon: Catholicity and Individualism, preached at the consecration of Truro Cathedral.)

To be continued.... Comments so far?

iran arrests 14 squirrels on charges of espionage

2007-07-20T16:08:00.001-05:00

You can tell that Iran is feeling a little beleaguered these days when there are reports that Tehran may be under attack from rodents!

That is what the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported this week, that police had, ahem, "arrested" 14 squirrels on charges of espionage.

The rodents were found near the Iranian border, allegedly equipped with eavesdropping devices, according to IRNA.

When asked to confirm the story, Esmaeel Ahmadi Moghadam, the national police chief, said, "I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information." He declined to give any more details

IRNA said that the squirrels were discovered by foreign intelligence services – but were captured by police officers several weeks ago.

Read it all here.

from j.m. neale's translation of the sarum diurnal

2007-07-19T15:16:00.000-05:00

At Matins bound, at Prime reviled, condemned to death at Tierce;
Nailed to the Cross at Sexts; at Nones his blessed side they pierce;
They take him down at Vesper-tide, in grave at Compline lay;
Who henceforth bids his Church observe these seven hours alway.

convenient truth

2007-07-17T13:55:00.000-05:00

A new Anglo-Papist blogger, Jeffrey at Omnibus Sanctis. Check out his sage commentary on the motu proprio.

just because.... part 3

2007-07-15T07:32:00.001-05:00

mystical exegesis of psalm 45

2007-07-12T16:17:00.000-05:00

That's what I've been reading. Take for example verse 9 / 10: "Kings' daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of gold, wrought about with divers colours."

Richard of St. Victor writes: "O most sweet light of the purified mind, O wisdom of all the sciences, which are, as it were, honourable women to the Queen, that queen who always standeth on the right hand of God in a vesture of gold. Sometimes as a herald before a king, sometimes as a sound before the articulate word, sometimes as righteousness before the face of God, sometimes as the law in the presence of the Judge, so are these her handmaids to her, the Queen. But thou, O Queen, art thyself the immaculate law, the faithful testimony of the Lord, the lucid precept, the right judgment, the holy fear of God, the sweet meditation, herald and interpreter of the entire God."

Historical criticism is so boring.

the new religion (ecusa) and the sanctity of life

2007-07-12T11:40:00.000-05:00

The following is an insightful comment from Dave on Stand Firm's latest on the recent furor over the Rev'd Elizabeth Kaeton's grotesque fantasies:

What this whole episode has driven home to me on a visceral level is that we’re not in a debate over abstractions. We’re in a struggle where ideas have immediate and direct consequences for the soul. Our Worthy Opponents’ demand for absolute autonomy and freedom to pursue desires and to define themselves by those desires leads to a deep revulsion at the institution that most attenuates desire and freedom in the name of something higher: the family.

This is NOT just a case of one side rallying around a banner, or “cheering for the laundry.” It shows in distinct terms the practical consequences of ideas, in this case the effect of liberal “Christianity” on one’s feeling and sensitivity towards families and the intrinsic good of children. There is, of course, a connection between Kaeton’s lifestyle, her willingness to threaten Anne Kennedy, and her belief in the absolute good of abortion.

I read this essay a couple of years ago and I think I was just as repulsed by it as I was by her cruel “dream” about Anne’s children. In it she recounts the yearly ritual of a woman who has been haunted and eaten away with guilt over an abortion she had 30 years ago. But rather than pastorally guide this poor soul into the freedom of repentance and the path of healing that only Christ can provide, she affirms this woman’s actions, and constructs a grotesque new ritual (dare I say “liturgy") in which the child is memorialized and grieved over, while at the same time the action that took the child’s life is also affirmed as “sacred.” Even in the face of 30 years of grief and guilt as the result of an abortion, Kaeton couldn’t bring herself to question the absolute and intrinsic good—indeed the “sacredness” of a woman’s “right to choose.”

As if it needed saying: a basic spiritual insensitivity to life is present in both episodes, and are not just a case of one unhinged lesbian priest’s unguarded tirade. In both cases, the root moral cause is a demand for absolute freedom without qualification, and the abstract idea that animates this demand is the rejection of the propositional moral authority of Christianity proper.

Both cases demonstrate once again what’s at stake in the current debates: not just ideas, but whether or not we can build a Church and a community that cultivates a feeling for the sacredness of life, instead of a pseudo-Church that memorializes atrocities and cultivates a fixation on death.

fascinating

2007-07-11T20:37:00.000-05:00

A map of "Religious Adherents as a Percentage of All Residents" in the U.S.

unbelievable

2007-07-09T16:08:00.000-05:00

I hate posting on stuff like this because its so unedifying. But I feel some kind of deontological compulsion.

The Rev'd Elizabeth Kaeton is an ECUSA Priest in the diocese of Newark. She is the president of their standing committee. She is a partnered lesbian. She has a blog. She's an outspoken advocate of the New Religion that is the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. She is apparently a deeply troubled person.

Father Matt Kennedy is the mind behind Stand Firm. Yesterday Ms. Kaeton mused very publicly (on her blog) about Father Kennedy's wife, the Rev'd Anne Kennedy. Ms. Kaeton has decided that Mrs. Kennedy is a domestic slave, and that one day she will doubtless murder her own children, and then lay "their lifeless little bodies in a perfect row on their perfectly made beds in their perfect suburban home", and that the Kennedy children will thereby become martyrs of the feminist cause, unmasking the oppressiveness of the patriarchy at the root of traditional (=hateful) Christianity. Thus Ms. Kaeton's thoughts seem to run.

Read it all here if you like. Its shockingly gross, but also shockingly honest.

I think Ms. Kaeton probably has a diseased mind. I'd guess that she's suffered in life, probably at the hands of men. That's just a guess. But people usually don't think such horrid thoughts, nor give voice to them, out of the blue, nor even calculatedly, nor certainly out of humility, nor ever out of love. But while Ms. Kaeton's own baggage may explain why she'd think such thoughts and record them in a very public venue, it doesn't excuse her behavior. I hope she asks God and the Kennedy's for forgiveness, and I hope she can find the courage and humility to look for the help she needs to deal with the stuff in her consciousness that this vileness bubbled out of.

May God bless Father Matt and Anne Kennedy and their children, and Elizabeth Kaeton and her partner and their families.

confessions of an episcopal fundamentalist

2007-07-09T12:30:00.000-05:00

I highly recommend the Rev. Kenneth D. Aldrich's article in the July edition of The Living Church. It's available on-line here. He does a great job of stating, in terms recognizable to liberal Episcopalians, the basics of straight-up traditionalist Christianity. He could have done more with the history and character of the movement, for which I recommend you read this website. It has a great list of legitimate and scholarly fundamentalist websites at the bottom.

I wrote a letter to the Editor of TLC about this article, which I hope they publish. While researching for that letter, I came across this website from the PCA Historical Center, an Archive & Manuscript Repository for the Continuing Presbyterian Church. It had the full text of the Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910, one of the seminal statements of American Fundamentalism, which is still a good guide to the movement's theological and cultural underpinnings. According to this document, widely influential in American fundamentlism, the five "Fundamentals" of the Christian faith are these:

1. The inerrant inspiration of Holy Scripture (as I read it, this statement is compatible with the belief that the bible is inerrant in all matters of faith and morals but not necessarily so in matters historical and scientific);

2. the Virgin Birth of Christ;

3. the doctrine of a substitutionary atonement;

4. the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead;

5. the reality of the miracles reported in the Gospels.

If you believe these five things, welcome to the ranks of the Fundamentalists. The label is yours for the taking, and I suggest you do. Most of the baggage we associate with fundamentalists and their churches is not theological but comes from bad personal experiences or economic classism - wealthy East-Coast liberal churchmen sneering at the crass and unsophisticated theologies of lower-class midwesterners. The irony is that many so-called or self-styled fundamentalist churches do not themselves know thier roots or what they stand for, or their very important place in the history of this country and of the Church in America.

I note, also, since Fr. WB has started us in the sad irony department, that according to the PCA Historical Center, the 1910 Doctrinal Deliverance came as a result of some irregular ordinations (sound familiar?) of clergy who refused to affirm the virgin birth and were charged with heresy (sound familiar?), and that the charges were dismissed (sound familiar?), and that some years after this excellent stand on their part, the PCUSA General Assembly repealed the Deliverance, claiming that as a General Assembly it had no authority to say what was essential to believe and what was not (sound familiar? try getting General Convention to affirm any fundamentals! or our new Presiding Bishop, for that matter.).

from the sad ironies department

2007-07-06T16:39:00.000-05:00

You may remember the ECUSA Priest / Moslem, Dr. Ann Holmes Redding, who was the talk of the town a couple of weeks ago. Well, she's been inhibited by her ECUSA Bishop, Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island. That means she's forbidden from functioning as an ECUSA priest for the time being.

Dr. Redding stated that "The church is going to have to divorce me if it comes to that. I'm not going to go willingly." That seems like a typically contemporary Episcopalian response. "I refuse to accept that my actions have consequences! I must be allowed to do whatever I want! My actions must be affirmed, no matter what!"

The final irony is that while Dr. Redding is forbidden to teach, preach, or function at any ECUSA parish or institution, she has accepted an invitation to teach at the Roman Catholic Seattle University. What strange days these are.

another picture from the st. michael's conference

2007-07-05T18:57:00.000-05:00

"And the Light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

I can't emphasize enough how awesome an experience it was.

michael glatze is courageous

2007-07-04T21:38:00.000-05:00

This is moving. I don't want to say that all, or even most, gay people can stop being gay by some kind of decision or therapy, because I don't know what its like to be them. But for the same reason, I don't want to say that some gay people CAN'T change. There are lots of well meaning people on both sides of the theological debate who take one stance or the other for rhetorical purposes. They ought not to do so. A better approach is to listen to people's stories with empathy, and expect that they will do their best to obey Christ.

Michael Glatze's story is this:

(Hat tip: SF.)

After becoming editor of Young Gay America magazine at age 22, Glatze received numerous awards and recognition, including the National Role Model Award from the major homosexual-rights organization Equality Forum. Media gravitated toward him, leading to appearances on PBS television and MSNBC and quotes in a cover story in Time magazine called "The Battle Over Gay Teens."

He produced, with the help of PBS affiliates and Equality Forum, the first major documentary film to address homosexual teen suicide, "Jim In Bold," which toured the world and received numerous "best in festival" awards. Young Gay America's photo exhibit, telling the story of young people across North America, toured Europe, Canada and parts of the U.S.

In 2004, Glatze moved from San Francisco to Halifax in eastern Canada where his partner, Young Gay America magazine's publisher, had family. The magazine, he said, sought to provide a "virtuous counterpart" to the other newsstand media aimed at homosexual youth.

But Glatze contends "the truth was, YGA was as damaging as anything else out there, just not overtly pornographic, so more 'respected.'"

In 2005, Glatze was featured in a panel with Judy Shepard, mother of slain homosexual Matthew Shepard, at the prestigious JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

"It was after viewing my words on a videotape of that 'performance,'" he writes, "that I began to seriously doubt what I was doing with my life and influence."

"Knowing no one who I could approach with my questions and my doubts, I turned to God," he says. "I'd developed a growing relationship with God, thanks to a debilitating bout with intestinal cramps caused by the upset stomach-inducing behaviors I'd been engaged in."

Toward the end of his time with Young Gay America, Glatze said, colleagues began to notice he was going through some kind of religious experience.

Just before leaving, not fully realizing what he was doing, he wrote on his office computer his thoughts, ending with the declaration: "Homosexuality is death, and I choose life."

where have i been?

2007-07-02T20:26:00.000-05:00

Last week I was at the Saint Michael's Conference. It was incredible. Frankly, it was wonderful to get away from Episcopal nonsense and news of the same, and do something totally positive and constructive. All week I was awash in teenagers (61 of them), birettas, daily Solemn High Mass, daily Solemn Evensong, and unadulterated catholicism. I taught a class called "Christ and the Cosmos" which I meant to be a simplified theology of creation. My only regret was that I didn't have more time.

One night we had Benediction. The kids loved it. The Masses were basically English Missal masses -- a.k.a. Rite I with all the proper ceremonial poured into the cracks in the Prayer Book rubrics (the six salutations, Orate Fratres, Ecce Agnus Dei, Postcommunion, Last Gospel, etc.). One of ours priests himself made several sets of vestments -- chasubles, dalmatics, tunicles, copes -- for the Conference. They were all absolutely beautiful.

We heard about 50 confessions from the kids during the course of the week, most of them first confessions. During the last two nights of the conference, we had Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament after Compline, and stationed priests around the chapel to hear confessions in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. It was beautiful.

The kids, by and large, seemed to love pretty much everything. By the end they were weeping and swearing loyalty to new friends, wishing aloud that the conference lasted another week.

Several blogosphere friends were there, including MM of Theology of the Body, Fr Nelson of the same, Deacon Randall Foster (Texanglican), and Fr Cantrell of Apostolicity.

The picture above is from Benediction, Wednesday night. The sight of 61 teenagers all kneeling perfectly devoutly, adoring Jesus, was incredibly encouraging.

tec executive council fudges again

2007-06-29T08:48:00.000-05:00

ok, so you've heard that that Executive Council has put 4 of the most conservative, Network dioceses on notice that they must renounce changes in their constitutions that distance them from certain decisions of General Convention. Here's the original June 14 write-up from ENS.

The Executive Council bases this decision on Article 5, section one of the Consitution, according to ENS. But here's the Constitution - read the section in question -- it applies specifically to new dioceses, not necessarily (as I read it) to existing dioceses or existing constitutions. The Constitution has in fact no provision about judging or altering existing diocesan constitutions if the diocese does something 815 doesn't like. This kind of provision is lacking for a very good reason - the framers of our Constitution, many of them the same people who framed the US Constitution, recognized that such a provision would amount to tyranny; indeed, it would be the very tyranny they had just fought a war of independence to escape. The analysis by Bp. Iker is correct: this is simply an opinion of the Executive Council, another attempt by the tolerant leaders of TEC to use exisiting canons as clubs to enforce acceptance of their heterodox policies. They're more interested in power and enforcing their agenda than in being traditionally Anglican or even being simply the Executive Council. It's a free-for-all power grab up there.

Bp. Iker brings up two other excellent points: 1, that the Executive Council has never been granted the authority of judicial review or the authority to change any diocese's constitution by fiat; and 2, that resolutions adopted by both the Council AND EVEN General Convention are non-binding to start with. Add to this the fact that they're misinterpreting the canon itself, and the conclusion is clear: "this resolution is nothing more than an opinion expressed by those individuals who issued the statement. It is itself “null and void" – unenforceable and of no effect. This action is another example of the heavy-handed tactics being used by those who do not have the right to interfere in the internal constitutional process of the dioceses."

Here's the most comprehensive ENS coverage of this, including the offending passages of the 4 constitutions in question.

dennis canon upheld by appellate court; suit continues

2007-06-29T08:25:00.000-05:00

From VOL:

SANTA ANA, Calif. - July 26, 2007 - A three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, today reversed the Orange County Superior Court's prior ruling that three former Episcopal churches which disaffiliated from the national denomination in 2004 did not forfeit their property. This division of the appellate court broke with nearly thirty years of California church property law, and instead ruled that hierarchical church denominations can take over local church property by simply passing an internal rule - even if the local church is separately incorporated, bought and maintained the property. . . .

Still at issue is whether the Episcopal Church validly passed an internal rule claiming to hold local church property in trust for itself, and whether that rule applied to the three local churches. St. James, All Saints' and St. David's, as the property owners, never agreed to relinquish their property to the Episcopal Church upon ending their affiliation. St. James, All Saints' and St. David's have maintained all along that they have the right to use and possess the property they have owned and maintained for decades. Legal spokesperson, Eric C. Sohlgren, said, "This decision puts one division of the appellate court in direct conflict with other California court of appeal decisions that for almost thirty years have rejected the idea that a court must automatically defer to a church denomination in church property disputes. Under this ruling, any big church which calls itself hierarchical could try to confiscate the property of a local congregation simply by passing an internal rule. That idea offends basic principles of fairness and property ownership. St. James, All Saints' and St. David's are seriously evaluating an appeal to the California Supreme Court."

this IS interesting

2007-06-20T22:44:00.000-05:00

The Archbishop supports the decision of the Province of Kenya to provide resident Episcopal oversight for the clergy and congregations in the United States who placed themselves under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Kenya after they had arrived at the conclusion that the Episcopal Church no longer offered them the assurance of continuity with “The faith once delivered to the saints.” The provision of adequate pastoral care and episcopate oversight constitutes a deliberate and intentional effort to provide stability in an environment in which Anglicanism is being severely tested and challenged.

Read it all here.

The support of Archbishop Drexel Gomez, of the West Indies, is a very telling development. He has been largely silent hitherto about the ongoing realignment. He is an Anglo-Catholic. He is a member of the Covenant Design Group (the chairman?), tasked by the Archbishop of Canterbury with presenting to the Communion a working instantiation of Anglican ecclesiology. And he has been a proponent of ACI-style Communion-mindedness (as contrasted with the more vociferously "orthodox" stance of, for example, Archbishop Akinola, et al.). The plot thickeneth.

freeganism

2007-06-20T22:19:00.000-05:00

There was a time when such people were called "Franciscans." Then Christians got lazy. Now non-Christians do it for the sake of.....? Cool? Philanthropy? A sense of moral responsibility? Probably some combination of all of these. Is anyone doing it for the sake of Christ? (I certainly am not.) Ought we to be?

Read it all here. (NY Times.)

Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.

"i am both christian and muslim."

2007-06-20T10:45:00.000-05:00

What absolute twaddle. I can only imagine the depths of self-congratulation that must go into this "radical witness." Will she be disciplined for "abandoning the communion of this Church" by converting to Islam? Of course not. That particular charge is reserved for Anglicans who want to practice Christianity within the Episcopal Church. Read it all here.

Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.

On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.

She does both, she says, because she's Christian and Muslim.

....

Redding's bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting. Her announcement, first made through a story in her diocese's newspaper, hasn't caused much controversy yet, he said.

Some local Muslim leaders are perplexed.

just because.... part 2

2007-06-19T20:31:00.000-05:00

just because...

2007-06-17T23:05:00.001-05:00

the divine liturgy of saint james

2007-06-15T23:37:00.000-05:00

Read the whole Divine Liturgy of St. James here. Experts tell me that this is one of, if not THE, oldest liturgy in use in Christendom. Some say it came from St. James the Just, the brother of the Lord. Most agree that it dates at least to the middle of the third century, and possibly rather earlier, though of course it has evolved in some ways down through the centuries. It was edited down, for example, by St. John Chrysostom. It already takes several hours to celebrate this liturgy. I wonder what it was like BEFORE its several redactions for the sake of brevity. The liturgy is used most widely among the Orthodox at Jerusalem, and is the principle liturgy of several Eastern Churches, including both the Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Syrian Catholic Church (in communion with Rome). Here is an excerpt:

DEACON: Let none remain of the catechumens, none of the unbaptized, none of those who are unable to join with us in prayer. Look at one another. The doors. All erect; let us again pray to the Lord.

THE PRIEST SAYS THE PRAYER OF INCENSE: Sovereign Almighty, King of Glory, who knowest all things before their creation, manifest Thyself to us calling upon Thee at this holy hour, and redeem us from the shame of our transgressions; cleanse our mind and our thoughts from impure desires, from worldly deceit, from all influence of the devil; and accept from the hands of us sinners this incense, as Thou didst accept the offering of abel, and Noah, and Aaron, and Samuel, and of all Thy saints, guarding us from everything evil, and preserving us for continually pleasing, and worshipping, and glorifying Thee, the father, and thy only-begotten Son, and thy all-holy spirit, now and always, and forever.

THE READERS BEGIN THE CHERUBIC HYMN: Let all mortal flesh be silent, and stand with fear and trembling, and meditate nothing earthly within itself. For the King of kings and Lord of lords, Christ our God, comes forward to be sacrificed, and to be given for food to the faithful. And the bands of angels go before Him with every power and dominion, the many-eyed cherubim, and the six-winged seraphim, covering their faces and crying aloud the hymn, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

THE PRIEST, BRINGING IN THE HOLY GIFTS, SAYS THE PRAYER: O God, our God, who didst send forth the heavenly bread, the food of the whole world, our Lord Jesus Christ, to be a Saviour, and Redeemer, and Benefactor, blessing and sanctifying us, do Thou Thyself bless this offering, and graciously receive it to Thy altar above the skies. Remember in Thy goodness and love those who have brought it, and those for whom they have brought it, and preserve us without condemnation in the service of Thy divine mysteries: for hallowed and glorified is Thy all-honored and great name, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to all eternity.

PRIEST: Peace be to all.

DEACON: Sir, pronounce the blessing.

PRIEST: Blessed be God, who blesseth and sanctifieth us all at the presentation of the divine and pure mysteries, and giveth rest to the blessed souls among the holy and just, now and always, and to all eternity.

check out the climate ark on mt. ararat

2007-06-13T21:55:00.000-05:00

I went to GreenPeace's website for the previous post, and this story was just too good to pass up.

Judeo, Christian and Muslim religions all include the story of a great flood and Noah's Ark. It's said that as the flood subsided Noah released a dove, and the dove returned with an olive branch to show land had been found. To this day the Ark and the dove are symbols of hope.

On Mount Ararat, where some say Noah's Ark came to rest, 208 doves (one for each country) were released to dedicate the replica ark by greenpeace activists. These doves and replica come with a message called the 'Ararat Declaration'. The declaration demands that world leaders act to protect the basic human rights of life and health, both of which will be at risk for millions of people from the effects of climate change.

Read the rest. Apparently you can reserve a place for yourself and your loved ones on the Climate Ark. Or you can just send a picture. That will help keep global temperatures down, for sure. What a strong symbol for the governments of the world!

executive council prepares for communiqué response

2007-06-13T21:20:00.000-05:00

From ENS. Read the whole thing.

[Episcopal News Service] The Executive Council, the Episcopal Church's governing body between General Conventions, began its four-day meeting June 11 in New Jersey learning that a draft of a response to the Anglican Communion Primates' latest communiqué was ready for their consideration.

After the Executive Council made TEC a founding member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (formerly the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights) expressly in violation of General Convention's centrist stance on abortion, I'm not sure I trust them to do anything worthwhile in responding to the Primates. Don't look for a ground-shaking change of direction here.

The Executive Council meeting, at the Sheraton hotel in Parsippany, New Jersey, began with three hours of committee meetings on the morning of June 11 and another two hours in the late afternoon with the plenary session in between. Council had dinner with representatives of the host Diocese of Newark.

When the Windsor bishops held meetings in Texas, I read all kinds of snide comments from Anglican leftists about how the location of the meeting pretty much told them what would be said. I don't hear much of the same about this meeting in Newark.

During her remarks to the plenary session, Jefferts Schori told Council that recently she has been contemplating how language can be used to allow for "true conversation" -- what she called "non-violent language" -- or how "violent language" is used instead for "leaping to judgment."
The church, Jefferts Schori said, must consider how it interacts with the world. "How do we keep the space open so that we can truly learn from each other?" she asked.

If she spent as much time contemplating, oh, I don't know, the book of Romans or something, maybe we'd get somewhere useful. Surely the proclamation of boundaries inherent in having a sovereign God who makes demands on our behavior constitutes some manner of 'violent speech', impinging upon our freedoms to do whatever-the-heck we please. PB Schori will doubtless discourage any talk of 'commandments' or 'moral imperatives', since these are so obviously so violent as to be un-Christian. But I'm glad she's spending time thinking about how to "keep the space open." Apparently that's becoming a bigger and bigger problem for liberal parishes and dioceses. Since PB Schori is so worried about climate change, maybe we can work out an arrangement to share our churches with, say, GreenPeace. I bet the Executive Council could arrange that . . . on a weekend . . . when no one's looking.

wrap-up of the albany diocesan convention

2007-06-13T21:11:00.001-05:00

ENS basically has it right. There were attempts by Albany left-wingers to table the abortion resolution, and some heated floor discussion from the right-wingers as to which among the many good reasons to support that resolution ought to be THE reason. The motion to table was defeated by a count of about 110 to 170, and the resolution itself passed overwhelmingly by voice. So the Albany convention is pretty solidly pro-life. What it will mean practically to disassociate our diocese from the decision by the Executive Council to join the RCRC has yet to be decided - do we try to direct our diocesan contribution away from any support of the RCRC? 815 wouldn't swallow that, surely. So it may be a straw resolution, a way to get the diocese on record as being pro-life.

the general trouble with much protestantism in a nutshell

2007-06-11T15:46:00.000-05:00

From O Ye Jigs and Juleps, by Episcopalian Virginia Cary Hudson; written in 1904 when she was 10 yrs. old.

Holton Street is where I have my worse [sic] trouble. That is another part of town. That is where the Campbellites live. They asked me to their old church party and my mother made me go. And I wore my hat and it was summer, and Alice Coleman laughed because I had on my hat. I said to her, I said, "You shouldn't go in church without your hat." And she said, "You should too." and I said, "You shouldn't," and she said, "You should," and I said "You shouldn't," and she said, "Who said so?" and I said , "St. Paul said so," and she said, "He didn't" and I said, "He did," and she said, "He didn't" and I said, "He did," and she said, "Fooie on St. Paul," and that is when I slapped her. Once for St. Paul, and I slapped her for the whole state of Christ's Church universal and then I pinched her for myself. That slapping was righteous indignation, but that pinch was my own and the devil's idea.

If we get to the point where we choose our own theologies above what the scripture actually says, we're saying "Fooie on St. Paul." May we then be slapped.

the latest from jordan hylden at 'first things'

2007-06-11T15:18:00.000-05:00

Read it all here. An excellent overview of where we are, and where we might be heading. Pace folks like Father Matt Kennedy, who are apoplectic over the Lambeth Invitations, under the assumption that an invitation to Lambeth constitutes membership in the Communion, Mr. Hylden clearly lays out the thinking behind Archbishop Rowan's actions to date (if ArchBp. Rowan hasn't laid them out clearly enough himself hitherto), actions which are NOT merely placating of TEC and her heresies.

The idea all along is that the ratification of the forthcoming Covenant, once it has cleared Lambeth and the Anglican Consultative Council, will determine which Provinces will contitute the Anglican Communion from now on (not Lambeth Invitations; not some fiat from Cantuar or the Primates). What the most belicose of the conservatives fail to recognize is that TEC's actions hitherto HAVE, in point of fact, been within the bounds of our ecclesial life in the Anglican Communion. The most fundamental problem to date is how the bounds of our ecclesial life in the Anglican Communion have (and have not) been set -- not with TEC's actions per se. (TEC's actions ARE problematical, but only because the bounds of our ecclesial life have permitted those actions. Hence the bounds are the more fundamental problem.) The Covenant is meant to address this most fundamental problem.

If things fall apart before Lambeth and many the Belicose Conservatives (e.g. Nigeria) don't turn up, then the Covenant (and the future Communion) will be handed to the liberals on a silver platter. As Mr. Hylden writes:

In light of all this, one might think that orthodox Anglicans would by now have embraced the covenant process the way a drowning man grasps a life preserver—and indeed, many prominent conservatives, represented most ably by Archbishop Gomez and the theologians of the Anglican Communion Institute, have done so. But not everyone has. In fact, it may turn out to be the case that many Anglican conservatives will soon decide to abandon the Lambeth Conference and the covenant process altogether, tipping the vote count leftward and thereby allowing the liberals, quite improbably, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

via cnn

2007-06-10T22:06:00.000-05:00

In answer to a question about religion and abortion, while Rudy Giuliani was trying to explain why he's in favor of legal abortion, lightening struck the building in which he was speaking, and shut off his microphone.

Indeed.

Read it all here.

kids and money

2007-06-10T19:13:00.000-05:00

Watch this little series of interviews about teenagers and money in Los Angeles. Its from the NY Times. Our culture is messed up.

I think Lauren Greenfield (the director) is onto something. Check out her other projects here -- they all look pretty shrewed.

People (most recently Peter Kreeft) get onto me about liking Postmodern stuff. But Lauren Greenfield's work just goes to show how Christians can partner up with with Postmodern types. (I don't know Ms. Greenfield, but it wouldn't surprise me if she were an incredibly hip, Yale educated, ironical feminist.) But she clearly understands that there is something wrong about our culture -- something that is destructive of kids, and girls in particular (check out "Thin" at Ms. Greenfield's website). Christians are well positioned to see this; what's amazing is how few self-described Christians actually do.

Well done, Ms. Greenfield. Christians: learn from her.

a sign of the times

2007-06-10T18:39:00.000-05:00

I looked at the most recent issue of the Living Church today. Under the title, where it had said "An independent weekly serving Episcopalians..." it now says "An independent weekly serving catholic Anglicans..."

Fascinating. I don't dislike it. But I kinda wish it said "...serving Anglican catholics..." Then they could be a subsidiary of this blog. But seriously: it makes more sense for the noun to be "catholic" and the adjective to be "Anglican". Anglicanism is accidental. Catholicism is essential.

But let's not quibble. Well done, Living Church.

bishop jecko has died

2007-06-08T16:45:00.000-05:00

Bishop Jecko had struggled with cancer for the past year or so. Only in the last few days did it become apparent that his illness was very grave. I am grateful to God that the bishop was delivered from protracted suffering.

I knew Bishop Jecko only slightly. I sat next to him at a dinner several months ago. From all accounts, he was a godly man, and I know he was devoted to Jesus Christ, and to our Lady. The following is from the post at Stand Firm about his death.

I met Bishop Jecko only once, at Mere Anglicanism in Charleston this past January. He was seated next to Bishop Iker during lunch, where I found them talking quietly. He was a reader of this site, and has an account with us, the screen name for which was originally "Bishop Jecko," but which he later changed to "Heartbroken." I'll reluctantly close it now, so that no messages will arrive as though expecting him to be there.

I can only guess that the changing of his Stand Firm identity from "Bishop Jecko" to "Heartbroken" reflected his anguish over the state of things in our little corner of the Church. Perhaps therefore, in a small way, the bishop might be called a confessor and martyr.

"The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt thou not despise."

Rejoice that Bishop Jecko not only proved a faithful shepherd of Christ's flock, but that he offered to God the acceptable sacrifice of a troubled spirit and a broken heart, that he was graced to weep with the Lord over Jerusalem (Luke 19.41).

Grant, O Lord, to your servant Stephen, the bishop, light and peace. Grant that whatever defilements he may have contracted during his earthly life being purged and done away, he may be presented pure and without spot before you, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

the principle of arrogance

2007-06-08T15:44:00.000-05:00

Though many will continue to deny it, the principles used to justify the ordination of women as priests and bishops, when watered and cultivated, grew into the justification for homosexual priests (and bishops) and for homosexual “marriage.” Those who cannot see the clear connection and progression are, I suspect, simply blinding themselves to the plain, glaring facts of history.

Read it all in the Living Church.

take. eat.

2007-06-08T01:15:00.000-05:00

The sacrifice of the God-man, Jesus Christ, in its radical self-referentiality refuses to permit itself to be objectified in anything like a sense-empirical transaction, nor even in intellectualization. Instead it draws the independent subjectivity of the beholder into itself. As death, it kills those who witness it. The epistemological free agent is incapable of resisting its radical compulsion, and is thus incapable of remaining epistemologically free. The Cross transforms those who would circumscribe it in thought, word, or deed. All things pass away in the theanthropic sacrifice, and all things are made new in the theanthropic resurrection. What the Cross compels, therefore, is a participation in itself. The Cross is a calling to itself; it is the true and universal human vocation. (Pseudo) Dionysius the Areopagite speaks in the following way of God the Son, in his singular Gift: “Through an excess of loving goodness He transcends Himself, and descends to dwell in all things by virtue of the ecstatic power beyond all being that comes forth from Himself,” (The Divine Names, 4.13). It is therefore not in an awesome display of what we have come to call “power” that the glory of God is revealed. (Our conceptualizations themselves must be reconfigured, born again.) Just as the divine Gift is entirely gratuitous, though it cannot be withstood; so the Power and the Glory, though incapable of being resisted, are themselves manifested in their Bearer having been entirely overcome and emptied. The Greek Orthodox theologian Archimandrite Vasileios, abbot of the Athonite monastery Stavronikita, puts it this way: “…We see the glory of God, not in the form of the Pantokrator, but revealed as it appears in the act of the Father’s offering and sacrifice of the Son: in the ultimate humiliation of the Servant of God,” (Hymn of Entry, 58).

The radical nature of this Gift is further radicalized in that it is supratemporalized, manifest as such in the liturgical sacrifice of the Eucharist. That is, the Gift gives itself supratemporally on thousands of altars through the millennia, and around the world. In the catholic identification of the consecrated Eucharistic elements with the flesh of the God-man, that is with the very substantiality of the Gift, Christ is “offered to us, broken and poured out,” (Hymn of Entry, 59). The economics of sacrifice thereby become altogether one-sided. It isn’t just that Christ is given to us; it isn’t just that he is given to us broken and poured out. The sacrificial Gift of Christ is his own flesh as food, his own blood as drink. It is given as that which is taken, in the fullest possible sense; rather, that which is not merely taken, but taken and consumed. The Gift is radically appropriated by the recipient. It is internalized in the fullest sense, and in being internalized, it internalizes the recipient. Christ enters substantially into the communicant and thus brings him, in turn, into the divine economy, into the very heart of the paschal mystery. The compulsion of the sacrificial Gift manifests itself in being consumed, and in consuming the consumer. “Out of the eater came something to eat, out of the strong came something sweet,” (Judges 14.14). The experiential subject of the divine Sacrifice becomes its object, he is appropriated by the Sacrifice, and becomes the sacrificial victim in union with the Lamb, eternally offered before the throne of the Father.

It becomes clear in what sense the pure gift is beyond the horizon of expectation. The fetishized pure gift is only capable of being offered by a god. It only occurs in myth. In every case of thematized, temporal giving or sacrifice, the do ut des of paganism, the Derridean concern obtains. The gift is cancelled out by the expectation of reciprocity. It becomes, as soon as it is given and recognized, a market transaction, an exchange, and as such, a non-gift. But insofar as the pure gift only occurs in myth, insofar as it is only capable of being offered by the god, it does occur in the Christ myth. And because the holy sacrifice is God offering God, it is actual, and therefore possible. Because the sacrificial Gift is a gift of the theanthropic, of that which is very God and very man, it is capable of bridging the ontological, conceptual, and linguistic gap between the Giver and the receiver. It does so by bringing the recipient into the heart of the Gift, by transforming the receiver into that which is offered, into the Gift itself.

What is necessary is not so much a demythologizing of the event, but rather a mythologizing. It must be removed from the realm of the scientific, of the sociological. The mythologization occurs on two levels, both of which constitute instances of the signification of the Gift. First there is the pure gift itself, the sacrifice of the flesh of God which, as has been noted, is entirely self-referential. It is beyond the pale of predication and conceptual circumscription. The experiencing subject stands before the Gift on the Gift’s own terms. In terms of signifier and signified, the two are one. The signifier is that which it signifies. And the same instance of self-referentiality takes place again in the liturgical action of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the gift is disbursed. The Eucharistic elements serve as a prism, for the refraction of the divine ενέργεια. In the sacrifice, thanksgiving (ευχαριστία) is offered to God for the sacrifice itself and for the totality of divine Grace. Bread and wine are offered as symbols of our own categorical creative initiatives, as return-gifts. The offerers of the sacrifice are themselves offered in their totality, body and soul. And most fundamentally, the Eucharistic sacrifice is the Gift of God, the divine flesh offered in virtue of the sacerdotal grace of the officiant, acting in persona Christi. Therefore, it is the same Gift as that of which it is a signifier, and that which it signifies. By being at once signifier and signified, the sacrifice manifests its power of compulsion. As referend, it is beyond the horizon of expectation, utterly mythologized; yet as the term of reference, it draws itself into the economy of the same, is thematized in the realm of the categorical and becomes itself an object of experience.

good questions from the aci

2007-06-04T19:43:00.000-05:00

From here.

Enhanced Responsibility: What Happened? Three Points and Four Questions in Our Present Season

Facing the possible fracture of the Anglican Communion, the Meeting of Primates met in Dar es Salaam and there issued a Communiqué intended to prevent fragmentation both of the Communion and of The Episcopal Church (TEC) and to "promote healing and reconciliation within the Body of Christ." In particular the Primates agreed to support a pastoral response that included both a temporary Pastoral Council and a Primatial Vicar whose roles would involve maintaining order, oversight, and engagement among various parties in conflict within TEC and North America. Specifically, they agreed that the Pastoral Council would be comprised of five members: two chosen by the Primates, two by the Presiding Bishop of TEC, and one by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Further, the Windsor Bishops were to nominate two people, one of whom would be appointed by the Pastoral Council as Primatial Vicar. This proposal and its details are well-known. It is important to note that the Presiding Bishop of TEC agreed to this scheme. As Archbishop Drexel Gomez has made clear, she did not agree only to present it for further consideration. When she presented the proposal to the House of Bishops of TEC, they rejected the proposal out of hand, and requested that the Standing Committee of TEC do the same. The vehemence of the reaction of the American Bishops has been followed by utter silence on the part of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishop of TEC, the Primates, and the Windsor Bishops. No reason has been given for this silence, and no reason has been given for failure to follow through on the hard and painful work done by the Primates at Dar es Salaam. It is still the case that the Primates can make their appointments, as can the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Presiding Bishop of TEC. It also still the case that the Windsor Bishops can make their nominations to the Pastoral Council. No one with the authority to do so has rescinded these proposals. Further, in the face of silence, the fragmentation of both the Anglican Communion and TEC become increasingly likely possibilities.

From the void created by this silence has emerged the establishment of CANA, discouragement and disarray on the part of those who are committed to the sort of communion presented in the Windsor Report, and increasingly aggressive claims to autonomy on the part of those who hold the leavers of power within TEC.

Given this situation, we would make the following points and raise the following questions:

1. ACI has defended not only a collaborative understanding of the Instruments of Unity, but their integrity as well. The failure of the ABC publicly to state that the Dar es Salaam Communiqué is alive and well has been injurious to our common life. It has also been intimated in certain quarters that the adjudication of the Communiqué will be undertaken by a Joint Steering Committee of the Primates and the ACC. We trust that this rumor is mistaken. The Primates have worked hard and declared their intention, and their recommendations and requests are fully within their remit as an Instrument with enhanced responsibility, whose present character was requested by other Instruments of Communion. Lacking any clear understanding of the precise fate of the Communiqué has left the field open for manipulation and the multiplication of other initiatives, borne of fear, concern, power balancing and so on.

2. ACI has sought to work with the Windsor Report, the Covenant, and within the US, the Windsor Bishops. One can watch with curiosity and concern the proliferating of various groups within the conservative ranks, most recently, a Common Cause College of Bishops (as proposed), CANA, and others. The Anglican Communion Network would appear to have split into those bishops now headed toward the Common Cause College, and those who wish to continue on the Windsor path. But to the degree that the Windsor Bishops have no clarity about the future of the Primates' Tanzanian Communiqué, and hence a comprehensive, ordered response to their Communion life in troubled times, they will collapse altogether. Indeed, one wonders what role they might be expected to exercise in the light of such unclarity.

3. It is our understanding that the recent issuing of Lambeth invitations was done in the light of organizational concerns and the timing of the Archbishop of Canterbury's leave. The ways in which the Archbishop has reserved to himself all manner of options, discernment, and counsel regarding the ultimate character of invitations--which is his right to do--means that speculation about the character of the conference is bound to be only that. Still, it is speculation capable of generating unease and reaction that is not always constructive.

Given the fact that the Primates have been assigned "enhanced responsibility" by the Lambeth Conference itself, and given the fact that no one with the authority to do so has withdrawn their proposal to address the threat of fracture our Communion now faces, and given the fact that the claim made that these proposals do not accord with the Constitution and Canons of TEC remains no more than an unsupported assertion, we ask four questions:

1. The Primates still have warrant to make their appointments to the Pastoral Council. Why have they not done so?

2. The Archbishop of Canterbury still has the authority to make his appointment to the Pastoral
Council. Why has he not done so?

3. The Presiding Bishop of TEC still has authority to make her appointment to the Pastoral Council. Why has she not done so?

4. The Windsor Bishops still have warrant to make their nominations for Primatial Vicar. Why have they not done so?

We believe that the credibility of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Meeting of the Primates, the Presiding Bishop of TEC, and the Windsor Bishops depends upon a speedy answer to these four questions. Some may think us naïve for continuing to think these instruments of unity still have credibility. We have, however, considered the alternatives-all of which portend the end of Anglicanism as a communion of churches. We pray, therefore, that those in whose hands Providence has placed responsibility for the peace, faithfulness, and unity of the church will respond publicly and speedily to these questions that rest so heavily upon the minds and hearts of all who care about the future of the Anglican Communion.

Christopher Seitz
Philip Turner
Ephraim Radner

Officers of the Anglican Communion Institute

how does 'changing attitude' really want to change your attitude?

2007-06-04T16:39:00.001-05:00

This is deeply disturbing. For those of you who don't know, Changing Attitude is an Anglican LGBT international advocacy group. It is supported by many Anglican bishops and hierarchs, both in the U.S. and abroad. Read an AAC article about CA's positions re: sex, here. Read Changing Attitude's "Sexual Ethics: A Report of the Lesbian and Gay Clergy Consultation Working Group" here (careful, its a PDF file).

Here are some excerpts from the Changing Attitude document:

This ideal [of monogamy and faithfulness in relationships] is in tension with our common inheritance of genetic predispositions and developmental damage that compromise our capacity for relating, and often make serial commitments, and serial faithfulness, a more realistic aspiration.

Then Changing Attitude interprets the Gospel's call to "forsake all" to be a call, in some instances, to forsake one's partner or spouse:

Here we encounter the ethical value of personal growth and creativity, the commitment to risk change in allowing one’s personal identity to expand and develop. This can lead to relational failure or conflict, where one partner grows beyond the capacity of the relationship to sustain further intimacy and growth.

....to leave a failing relationship can be a creative move towards allowing oneself to discover in another relationship new experiences and a new phase of growth …

...it is important to remain open to the possiblity [sic] that brief and loving sexual engagement between mature adults in special circumstances can be occasions of grace...

The exploration of our sexual selves can be something which benefits from involvement with more than one person.

I have often asked: if you jettison one of the circumscriptions of sacramental sex, namely that it be within the context of the gender difference that Christ says was instituted by God himself at the beginning of the World (cf. Matt. 19.4-5), then what's to stop you jettisoning other circumscriptions like monogamy or lifelong fidelity, or prohibitions on consanguinity, etc. etc.? I wonder what kind of "growth" and "creativity" will come next for Anglicanism's progressives.

As disturbing as this is, nevertheless its good to see this degree of honesty. Christ, they seem to think, is incapable of delivering those whom he loves from their "genetic predispositions and developmental damage." The kind of life they advocate seems hopeless to me. Still, this is helpful. I call on Changing Attitude and other advocacy groups on the "other side" to be even more vocal and up-front about the ways in which they are working to change the attitudes and lives of Christians.

yale philosopher alvin plantinga reviews dawkins 'god delusion'

2007-06-01T14:06:00.000-05:00

[CORRECTION: And by "Yale Philosopher" of course I mean "Notre Dame Philosopher". Perhaps that was some kind of Freudian wish-fulfilment on my part. Reformed Epistemologists can sometimes run together in my head. No doubt I was thinking of Nicholas Wolterstorff.]

A choice excerpt:

His detailed arguments are all for the conclusion that it is biologically possible that these various organs and systems should have come to be by unguided Darwinian mechanisms (and some of what he says here is of considerable interest). What is truly remarkable, however, is the form of what seems to be the main argument. The premise he argues for is something like this:

1. We know of no irrefutable objections to its being biologically possible that all of life has come to be by way of unguided Darwinian processes;

and Dawkins supports that premise by trying to refute objections to its being biologically possible that life has come to be that way. His conclusion, however, is

2. All of life has come to be by way of unguided Darwinian processes.

It's worth meditating, if only for a moment, on the striking distance, here, between premise and conclusion. The premise tells us, substantially, that there are no irrefutable objections to its being possible that unguided evolution has produced all of the wonders of the living world; the conclusion is that it is true that unguided evolution has indeed produced all of those wonders. The argument form seems to be something like

We know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that p;
Therefore
p is true.

Philosophers sometimes propound invalid arguments (I've propounded a few myself); few of those arguments display the truly colossal distance between premise and conclusion sported by this one. I come into the departmental office and announce to the chairman that the dean has just authorized a $50,000 raise for me; naturally he wants to know why I think so. I tell him that we know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that the dean has done that. My guess is he'd gently suggest that it is high time for me to retire.

Read the whole thing here.

of liturgical import, from the same article

2007-05-26T16:31:00.001-05:00

Here's the whole article, referred to in the previous post.

You liturgists out there, check this out.

There are no global statistics on participation in Tridentine Masses. But in the United States — where demand appears to be higher than in much of Europe — 105 of the 176 Roman Catholic dioceses offer at least one traditional Mass each Sunday, Dunnigan said.

Ginevra Crosignani, 34, is a regular at the 10 a.m. Tridentine rite celebrated each Sunday at the Gesu e Maria church in central Rome. She says she started coming about 10 years ago and finds it a much more transcendent experience than the modern services, which she said were more like going to a "nightclub" because of the music and showman-like role of the priest.

"The New Order became a social celebration rather than a religious celebration," she said one recent Sunday as she put away the white lace scarf she wore over her head.

The pews at the Mass had been full — and more than half the people looked to be under 40.
"Before, it was more old people attached to that rite," she said. "I think young people (now) are looking for something, they're eager to find it and they don't find it in the New Order."

In a 1988 document, Pope John Paul II urged bishops to be generous in granting the so-called indults to allow the Tridentine rite to be celebrated. But many proponents say bishops have been stingy — either for personal reasons or because they simply don't have enough priests who know how to celebrate it.

To counter that, Una Voce is teaming up with the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, a traditionalist community, to run a training seminar for priests to teach them the ritual-filled Latin Mass. "We've got a waiting list now," said Dunnigan.

Similarly, the seminaries of another small traditionalist community, the Institute for Christ the King, are overflowing, said the institute's vicar general, Monsignor R. Michael Schmitz.

"There is no vocation shortage at all," he said. "On the contrary, we have so many vocations we can't take them all."

Ought we not to take such phenomena into account when we revise our own liturgies? Or is the old language really so irrelevant?

benedict to restore latin mass

2007-05-26T16:15:00.000-05:00

It was one of the most radical reforms to emerge from the Second Vatican Council. The Mass, root of Roman Catholic worship, would be celebrated in the local language and not in Latin. Now, little more than a generation later, Pope Benedict XVI is poised to revive the 16th-century Tridentine Mass.

In doing so, he will be overriding objections from some cardinals, bishops and Jews — whose complaints range from the text of the old Mass to the symbolic sweeping aside of the council's work from 1962-65. Many in the church regard Vatican II as a moment of badly needed reform and a new beginning, a view at odds with Benedict, who sees it as a renewal of church tradition.
A Vatican official, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, confirmed earlier this month that Benedict would soon relax the restrictions on celebrating the Tridentine Mass because of a "new and renewed interest" in the celebration — especially among younger Catholics.

Read the whole thing from Yahoo.

First of all, props to the young Catholics. Keep the Faith. Second, props to the Pope for leading on the way of 'conservative regression.' Apparently Catholic priests can currently only celebrate in Latin with their bishop's permission; Pope Benedict would ease these restrictions and allow them to celebrate that way whenever they want, but would stop short of requiring all Catholics to worship in Latin.

Third and most interesting for the Anglican situation, especially given the recent focus on irregular consecrations because of Lambeth non-invitations, take a look at this paragraph to see how Rome handles ecclesiastical anomalies:

Benedict also was acting, Castrillon Hoyos told bishops in Brazil, to reach out to an ultratraditionalist and schismatic group, the Society of St. Pius X, and bring it back into the Vatican's fold. The late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the society in 1969 in Switzerland, opposed to Vatican II's reforms, particularly its liturgical reforms. The Vatican excommunicated Lefebvre in 1988 after he consecrated four bishops without Rome's consent. The bishops were excommunicated as well. Benedict has been keen to reconcile with the group, which has demanded freer use of the old Mass as a precondition for normalizing relations.

We Anglicans should take a lesson: even though irregularity of ordination or consecration does not mean automatic invalidity, it is within the church's power and responsibility to then create invalidity through excommunication, lest the flock be led astray. If TEC had been faithful to do with with Spong and the first womens' and gay ordinations, we wouldn't be in this mess today.

the catholic position on same-sex relationships

2007-05-25T12:34:00.000-05:00

From Father Rowan Atkinson.

insight from archbishop gomez...

2007-05-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

The following comments from Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies, are from the Church of England Newspaper, via T19. Archbishop Gomez is one of those people who understands whats going on, who understands the stakes -- what we stand to gain, and what we stand to lose.

The more I think about it, the more I think that the fate of the Communion will most likely be decided at the next ECUSA House of Bishops meeting, in September. Of all the many meetings, statements, decisions, etc. over the past four or five years, it seems to me that THAT will be the moment of truth. (And a big part of the significance of the Sept. HoB meeting will be how the "foreign prelates" react to it, which we will know only gradually. So I don't mean that we will KNOW what's going to happen as soon as the HoB releases its statement, but only that what the ECUSA Bishops say at their meeting will fix their fate, and the fate of the Communion.)

The Episcopal Church ‘mishandled the debate on human sexuality’

By George Conger

THE EPISCOPAL Church has mishandled the debate on human sexuality by misleading the Anglican Communion about its intentions to regularise gay bishops and blessings, the Primate of the West Indies said on May 15. By placing autonomy above unity it has brought the Anglican Communion to the brink of collapse, Archbishop Drexel Gomez told the clergy of Central Florida. Archbishop Gomez criticised the leadership of the Episcopal Church for not being entirely straight forward with the Communion. "You just cannot have collegiality," he explained, "if when you meet with your colleagues you don't share."

He also chided the African-led missionary jurisdictions, the AMiA and CANA, operating in the United States, saying they were an unfortunate "anomaly." It was "most unfortunate" that the Episcopal Church had hid its intentions to regularise gay bishops and blessings, Archbishop Gomez said, as it had not seen "fit to share with the rest of the Anglican Communion what it intended on doing." During the 2003 Primates' Meeting in Gramado, Brazil "we had a long discussion on this business of [gay] blessings and samesex unions," he said. But at "no time during the meeting, did [US Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold] even indicate that a situation was developing in the Episcopal Church that would lead to the consecration of Gene Robinson." "It is not good enough as Frank [Griswold] had said that The Episcopal Church has been wrestling with this issue for 30 years and the Spirit has led them to this decision. We were unaware of the problem. It must be a shared discernment if we belong to the body," Archbishop Gomez said. ACC-13 in Nottingham was the "first time any presentation had been made by The Episcopal Church" on these issues, he argued.

At the 2003 emergency Primates' Meeting at Lambeth Palace, "We said unanimously, including Frank Griswold, if The Episcopal Church were to proceed with the consecration of Gene Robinson that it would tear the fabric of the Communion. And yet it proceeded and the fabric has been torn," he said. The consecration of Gene Robinson was "the first time in the history of Christendom that someone has been made a bishop who could not function as a bishop," Archbishop Gomez argued. "Theologically I do not consider him to be a bishop," he said. Bishop Robinson's episcopal ordination was an example of Augustine's argument, Archbishop Gomez stated that "a sacrament could be valid but non efficacious." He "has been sacramentally ordained, validly ordained as a bishop, but he cannot function as a bishop in most of the Anglican Communion."

Archbishop Gomez stated he was also "very concerned" about the formation of rival Anglican jurisdictions in the United States under the sponsorship of overseas primates. These "new groupings are anomalous in Anglicanism" he told Central Florida, adding "I tried hard at the last Primates' Meeting to find an answer to that" difficulty, which "complicates the situation." One of the triumphs of the Tanzania Primates' Meeting, he said, had been the agreement made by the onterventionist primates to turn over their US jurisdictions to an international pastoral council. "We got them to the point where they would stop. This was not easy to achieve," he said. "I thought the House of Bishops would jump at the opportunity" to end foreign interventions, but they "wouldn't look at it." The rejection of the pastoral council by the House of Bishops now makes it "twice as difficult to get this back on the table," Archbishop Gomez said. He also stated the Dar es Salaam Communiqué was the first statement by the Primates where each was asked to give their personal assent.

At prior meetings "we worked by consensus in our decisions," but Archbishop Williams "felt that the decision was so important, so critical" that all should be polled for their views. "Individually [Archbishop Williams] went around and individually every person said yes [to the Communiqué]. [Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori] said yes, but said it would be a difficult sell, but she would try." The question put to the Presiding Bishop was whether she accepted the communiqué, "and Katharine agreed to the proposal." Archbishop Gomez did not expect a decisive response from the House of Bishops to the September 30 deadline for compliance to the Primates' Communiqué. "On the basis of past actions, certainly over the past 10 years, I would presume that the Episcopal Church would seek someway of fudging it. And that would be a consistent pattern," he stated. He told the gathering that he had suggested a September 30 deadline for a response from the House of Bishops. "The intention was to give them two full meetings" before an answer was due, although Archbishop Williams had pressed for more time. The Episcopal Church "will have to make a decision" whether it will remain part of the Anglican Communion. "The official Church speaking through its General Convention places autonomy over its mission. That is the reality we have to face in the Communion," Archbishop Gomez said.

--This article appears in the Church of England Newspaper, May 25 2007 edition, page 7

bishop duncan on various things

2007-05-25T10:16:00.001-05:00

I love Bishop Duncan. This is from an interview at Catholic dot org. Read it all here. Via Stand Firm.

How do you respond when people accuse you of dividing the church?

Bishop Robert Duncan: It’s rather like a father in a family who confronts a teenager who’s acting out. And what the other members of the family say is, “Dad, don’t be so hard, you’re dividing our family.” It’s a bizarre argument, but it appeals to the modern heart and mind because it gives the modern heart and mind precisely what it wants.

That is to say, “We ought to be able to do what we want to do.” And the modern Church has no doctrine of sin and no sense of boundaries. So, I divide the church by simply saying: “Well, sin is what human beings are wired to do and from which they’ve been delivered, and the father actually has boundaries, rules and a way he wants us to live because he’s designed and called us to live that way. It’s what’s best for us.”

The other criticism that gets made is that we’re just worked up over sex. That’s not it at all. We’re actually worked up over what scripture says, and in every regard. We’ve been lax about allowing remarriages after divorce. We’ve been lax on what scripture clearly says about human life and its sanctity. We take those positions in morality because of what the word says. Because of what the Lord said.

good perspective on the invites and non-invites to lambeth

2007-05-23T22:52:00.000-05:00

Read Sarah Hey's article at Stand Firm. I agree with just about everything she says.

this is fascinating

2007-05-23T18:19:00.000-05:00

One of Israel's most prominent rabbis and kabbalists, Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri, shortly before he died at the age of 108, wrote down the name of the Messiah, and sealed it. He asked that it be opened a year later. It was recently opened. Guess what Messiah's name is. Read it all here. (Hat Tip, Taylor Marshal.)

an interesting day at the anglican circus

2007-05-22T15:23:00.001-05:00

The plot thickened interestingly today. Lambeth Conference invitations were issued. +New Hampshire was not invited, and both +Robinson and his allies immediately issued several petulant childishnesses in response. ("How dare you?!" etc. and so forth. The first version (?) of Robinson's statement actually used the punctuation "?!". Incredible.) The bishops of CANA and AMiA were also not invited. +Minns issued a measured, thoughtful statement. The press office of ++Abuja also issued a testy statement.

Here's what I think: Williams has done fine. First of all, its his prerogative. Secondly, he is working within the context of, and being guided by, the Windsor Report and the Primates' Meeting Communiques, as he and the Primates have consistently done. Those who are upset about +Minns not being invited (apparently +Minns himself isn't terribly upset) should remind themselves that these invitations are properly viewed as a step along the road to a coherent Anglican ecclesiology, and NOT as some kind of stamp of theological approval for invitees, or of theological disapproval for non-invitees. The fact is, as orthodox as +Minns and Nigeria may be, +Minns' installation was, in fact, a wrench in the careful, costly, and painstaking achievement of the Windsor Report and the various Primates' Meeting communiques (including and especially, most recently, DeS). If CANA is indeed provisional, as Akinola has insisted, then +Minns ought to be willing to sit this one out for the greater good -- even if it is an injustice for him not to be invited (and I don't think it is).

For those of you who see nothing wrong with initiatives like CANA and AMiA, and who are piping mad that +Minns wasn't invited, here's a question: fifty or a hundred years from now, what will stop the Angelus-praying, Sarum-Mass-saying Anglican Archbishop of Ft. Worth from consecrating a bishop in South Carolina because the legitimate Bishop of SC wants all of his priests to swear they believe and love the 39 Articles? I'll tell you what: a pan-Anglican agreement about WHO MAY AUTHORITATIVELY DECIDE what is, and what is not, within the bounds of our common life as Anglicans. Such an agreement, hopefully, will the Covenant be. May it come, and may it come quickly.

In the meantime, don't harass the ABC for being guided by the mind of the Communion as expressed by the Primates who have, as a group, endorsed the Windsor Report, which has asked that stuff like CANA stop happening until we can sort this stuff out -- just as much as it has asked that practicing homosexuals not be made bishops. Lambeth invitations are not about who's better, or who is more correct. They are about how we live together and order our common life. So my advice is: relax. Its okay that a good and godly bishop (Minns) was not invited. Its part of the plot.

big news expected from fort worth this afternoon

2007-05-16T13:22:00.000-05:00

Read the prognostications here.

good lord, this is some ignorant nonsense

2007-05-15T18:04:00.000-05:00

Read it all here. Or better, don't. These people assert such things as the following with regard to Father Ephraim Radner's latest essay:

I believe Ephraim Radner is mistaken on several issues right from the start in this and other pieces he has written. He revels in academic theology or what could be called abstract theology – and so he misses out on making the connections with the Christian faith as it is lived out. [Translation into normal-speak: "Radner is too concerned with some outdated mess called "rational thought" to realize its okay for people to have sex with whomever they want."] While theologians must possess the analytical tools necessary to their trade, they must also show some evidence of human engagement over the issues with which they struggle; otherwise, their theology ends up being vapid and their conclusions divorced from the incarnational roots of our Christian faith.

"Incarnational roots of our Christian faith"??? Give me a break. This is the kind of I-feel-so-warm-and-fuzzy opacity that could only come from a generation weaned on hash pipes. "Don't bother us with books, consistency, or thought."

Radner misunderstands the vocation of Christians on the local level, on the diocesan level, on the level of our national churches and provinces and Communion – and even on the broadest possible level, the worldwide church of God, expressed in the work of the multitude of the various denominations as the full Body of Christ! Our vocation as Anglicans worldwide is not the same as the vocation of the Friends (Quakers), the American Baptists, the Greek Orthodox, or the Moravians. God allots the spiritual gifts as necessary for the entire vocation of the fullness of the church. Radner’s view of the church seems the equivalent of going to the circus to watch two and a half hours of elephant acts. A decent circus has elephant acts, but it also has trapeze artists, clowns, performing seals, balancing acts, horseback riders, jugglers, and people selling popcorn. That is the way St. Paul saw the church, and that is the way Jesus chose his apostles.

What? For Radner to be accused, by ignorant kibitzers, of "misunderstanding" ecclesiology is too absurd to merit comment. (I'll comment anyway.) In fact, Radner has written a book on the subject. But Episcopal Majority would probably find it "vapid" because its too well researched, and because its preoccupation with "theology" ignores "the incarnational roots of our Christian faith". My advice to Episcopal Majority would be that they read it anyway. They might learn something. On the other hand, I applaud their honesty in admitting their view that decent churches are like circuses, with trapeze artists, clowns, and performing seals. That sounds about right for practitioners of the New Religion that is ECUSA .

The bit quoted above is followed by more chowderheaded displays of anti-logic, including a little diatribe about how its "ironic" that the same bishops who don't like women's ordination also don't like revising the list of virtues to include sex outside of marriage. I wonder what Episcopal Majority thinks "irony" means?

Then they describe the catholic position on holy orders as "fairly peculiar". How interesting. Perhaps they mean to connote the ecclesiastical sense of "peculiaris", with reference to an extra-diocesan or extra-provincial jurisdiction? But I suspect such a use would be beyond the limits of their ambition. More likely, they just mean "peculiar" in the everyday sense of "odd" or "unusual". Apparently this is just another instance of the darknening of senseless minds (Romans 1.21), of protesting wisdom on one's descent into foolishness.

St. Paul points out that mental illness and moral depravity often go together in faith communities. Calling Iker, Schofield, and Ackerman "peculiar" for their theological convictions reminds one of Schori's recent rebuke to Archbishop Akinola who, according to Schori's obscure logic, is "violating the ancient customs of the Church" by providing episcopal care to the American orthodox. As one blogger (not an Anglican) put it:

I kid you not. The female head of a church with a practicing homosexual bishop planning to "marry" his lover, a church that could accept into seminary the adulterous homosexual governor of New Jersey, a church that embraces splitting open babies' skulls and vacuuming their brains out, is complaining about violating ancient customs? Wow.

If you like Mad Magazine, you'll probably like Episcopal Majority's new article.

good questions

2007-05-14T15:31:00.000-05:00

I think the significance of what's going on now (with CANA, AMiA, etc.) is lost on most, though I and others have tried to point it out. Here is one of the first quasi-profound analyses of the ongoing saga of American Anglicanism that I've seen from the secular media. Read the whole thing here. (Via T-19.) I've often reminded myself that as bad as things may be for us now, they have been worse for others. Think of St. Athanasius and the Arian crisis of the fourth century. I've been reading a biography of St. Gregory Nazianzus, and it was much the same for him. Juridical / ecclesial chaos and political maneuverings left and right, swimming upstream culturally, at odds with secular authority, theological confusion, etc. The best we can do, I think, is to tell the truth within whatever contexts we find ourselves, and strive for personal holiness. That's really all God asks: that we turn to him, and then do our best.

___________

The reason for Akinola’s delay seems to be that he wanted there to be no doubt that the leadership of the Episcopal Church would refuse to comply with the demands of the worldwide Anglican Communion before he acted — especially the demand that it accept a “primatial vicar,” or alternative chief presiding officer, for conservatives. Once the door to a primatial vicar was closed, Akinola offered a Nigerian alternative.

Which leaves observers with certain unanswered questions. Why did Akinola establish his own Nigerian alternative rather than support the already existing Anglican Mission in America established by Archbishop Kolini? What, if anything, will mark the difference between the two missionary initiatives? Why did the Anglican Mission, for its part, send no representative to the consecration? Does this action represent a further fragmentation of the conservative opposition?

Some liberal commentators think so and point to the fact that very few congregations have actually withdrawn from the Episcopal Church. But that comment may miss the real significance of the African initiative — namely, to revitalize Anglicanism in America.

sad news

2007-05-13T22:25:00.000-05:00

Fr Binks, the head honcho of CaNN, and a fount of Anglican news and good humor, lost his mother today in a car accident. It was not only Mother's Day, but Fr Binks' mother's birthday as well.

May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Pause and say a prayer for Father and his family.

the challenge of communion: vocation deferred: father ephraim radner does it again

2007-05-11T15:26:00.000-05:00

If you haven’t read Father Ephraim Radner’s latest essay, Vocation Deferred, do it now. It is long and challenging but, as usual, well worth the time and effort, particularly for those who are concerned about or involved in the ongoing Anglican realignment.

Various people have commented on it. The comments I have read so far are at Stand Firm, and All Too Common.

In what follows, I will speak to a few of the objections to Father Ephraim’s piece that I have read from various friends. I will then offer my view of what Father Ephraim is on about, and why it is absolutely critical that Anglicans of good will take up the issues he raises.

I admit that I really like Father Ephraim's essay. For one thing, it represents one of the precious few constructive projects going on within Anglicanism – and a project with profound ramifications for Christendom at large, given our divisions since 1054. With regard to Anglicanism in particular, Radner’s essay also addresses a very deep and terminal deficiency: that we Anglicans have a radically underdeveloped and attenuated ecclesiology, practically useless. What Radner is getting at (and I agree with him) is that our ecclesiological deficiencies are more fundamental and systemically problematical than the doctrinal / confessional innovations being promulgated by ECUSA and others; that the former are a necessary condition of the latter, and therefore that the doctrinal / confessional problems will be resolvable only if the ecclesiological issues are first addressed.

Those who are concerned about confessional standards (like Texanglican's comments here and Fr Matt Kennedy's here) are right in a sense. But Radner’s project is more fundamental; the problems he is seeking to address must be addressed BEFORE any kind of confessional standards can be upheld by the Communion. For who now, at the Communion level, has the authority to promulgate them? Lambeth Resolutions, as ECUSA has correctly pointed out, are non-binding, etc. Primates ARE, as things currently stand, little more than “foreign prelates” outside their own jurisdictions. That’s not as it should be; but it’s a fact nonetheless. Because the Anglican Communion is an accident of history (though, I believe, at the same time an orchestration of divine providence), its jurisdictions at the national level remain autonomous. And autonomy, as Radner notes, is a fundamentally unchristian principle, radically at odds with the scriptural call to mutual submission and divine heteronomy in Christ. “The very discussion of the church in terms of ‘body parts’ rules out ‘autonomy’ as a working term,” says Radner. Indeed.

The irony is that the practical autonomy of Anglican jurisdictions, while jeopardizing the Communion’s catholicity, has at the same time ensured that the catholicity of Anglican jurisdictions at the local (diocesan) level has remained possible. Where would Fort Worth be without the affirmation, at the Communion level, of the “two integrities” vis-à-vis the ordination of women (most recently in the Panel of Reference’s report on Ft. Worth). Agreeing to disagree has its advantages; but it is proving fatal for the Communion per se. Radner says:

“..the smallest unit of the ‘local’, according to the Report, is the ‘diocese’. This means that bishops are the ‘local’ expression of whole (in the familiar sense of embodying the “whole church” while presiding at the Eucharist).

But the explicitly episcopal character of this representation has profound practical implications, most pointedly underlined when episcopal links are ‘visibly’ severed and ‘mutual recognition’ of episcopal communion is jeopardized or lost.”

If “autonomy” is our fundamental working principle as Anglicans, as many American prelates have touted it as being, how can we meaningfully claim communion in one lord, one faith, one baptism? Saying it doesn’t make it so. And if it is merely affirmed, while having no ramifications in the life of particular churches (provincial or diocesan), then what could communion possibly mean? Indeed it looks as though ECUSA has embraced a fundamentally hateful working definition of “love” – a definition that is basically about apathy with regard to the other. “Live and let live” is its motto, which is radically at odds with what the Lord said: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” and again, “My sheep hear my voice and FOLLOW ME.” His gift of communion was not without demands: he gives communion to those who believe in him through the teaching of the Apostles (Jn. 17.20). It is no coincidence that the foil on which turns ECUSA’s refusal of the gift of communion, with its demand of mutual submission, is ECUSA’s refusal to love gays and lesbians with the love of Christ, a love that asks a life-laid-down. And it is no coincidence that ECUSA’s intransigence comes with denials by ECUSA’s leadership of the Son’s unique communion with the Father. Such a denial, increasingly systemic within ECUSA, cuts off the grace of communion at the root.

Radner writes:

“The Windsor Report, in this regard, has forcefully taken up on this vision, and strengthened and nuanced it considerably in a particularly Anglican way by rooting the episcopal character of communion in the commending, teaching, and guarding of Scripture’s authority within the Church.”

This is manifestly true in the rites for ordination to the episcopacy in use in our BCP: “A bishop in God’s holy Church is called to be one with the apostles in… interpreting the Gospel…” and thereby “to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church.” A bishop is explicitly called to be “a faithful pastor and wholesome example for THE ENTIRE FLOCK OF CHRIST.” The rite then goes on to ask the candidate: “Will you SHARE WITH YOUR FELLOW BISHOPS in the government of the WHOLE CHURCH…?” This vision of episcopal communion is totally incompatible with the autonomy demanded by ECUSA’s prelates. Communion requires a submission to theonomy, and thus to radical heteronomy. As Radner puts it:

“It is not homophobia – fear of the ‘same’ (sex) -- that is driving this train away from communion; it is theophobia, the fear of God’s reality; and hence most truly, it is heterophobia, the fear of what is truly ‘other’, that is the culprit.”

Likewise, its no coincidence that the peril in which the Communion now finds itself are the result of ECUSA's insistence on autonomy for a particular class of folks within the Church. I am all too conscious of the sacrifice we are asking of gay and lesbian Christians. I have no doubt that the moral standards to which they are called seem impossibly austere. But the Lord assures us that the impossible holiness to which we are all called, when we embrace it even though it breaks our hearts, mysteriously becomes an easy yoke and a light burden (Mat. 11.30). I have had a few gay friends who embraced the Church’s moral teaching, and it was a powerful witness to me: they left the world and the world’s promises for the sake of Christ. They left the possibility of the consolations of having a companion with whom they could share their lives intimately – for the sake of Christ. And I know its not easy for them, but it is an unspeakably beautiful thing they have embraced, even though it means that they will appear to all eyes to suffer for it – loneliness, etc. It is a powerful witness and call to me, and I am very grateful to them for it, because of what it says about Christ’s call in MY life.

And this is what ECUSA has been called to at a corporate level: to forego its desires for the sake of the Body of Christ. Sadly, they seem to have refused that more difficult, but more beautiful, call. And although we are called to hope and pray for ECUSA’s metanoia, I'm not holding my breath. Nor should anyone else among the orthodox. We must move ahead in answering the call to communion, and hope and pray that ECUSA will join us.

This too is what the unspecified confessionalists in Radner’s essay are called to do: to lay aside their desires for a more theologically correct Communion for the sake of the integrity of the Body. Yes, truth is important, but getting it right about the ordination of women (for Anglo-Catholics), or justification by faith alone (for evangelicals), will mean very little to those who have not known Christ. On the other hand, a corporate life of mutual forbearance and submission in love will mean a great deal to those still in the world – as well as for our brothers and sisters in other communions who are concerned about the visible unity of the Body of Christ, and who also are looking for ways to inhabit the Lord's gift of communion. Radner puts it this way: the Anglican Communion can be a school…

“…for the koinonia that can only arise from a specific form of evangelism and ecclesial life that, through its outgoing reach, raises up the challenges of the Body of Christ as judgment and opportunity both.”

This is where all Anglicans are called to be “Prayer Book Catholics”, where we must admit the upbuilding reality of the English Reformation. Father Ephraim and Archbishop Rowan both put this in terms of the Benedictine Patrimony of English Christianity, from the days of Augustine, which was conserved uniquely through the English Reformation in the form of an ecclesial life of truly Common Prayer. Radner notes three elements of the Anglican ecclesial life:

“…the structuring of time away from simple production and entertainment, and towards human growth (in and through God); the character of obedience as mutual discernment and support within an ordered life in common; the commitment to full participation by all – the offering and receiving of support -- within the common life.”

What must happen now is a formal, PAN-ANGLICAN (Communion-wide) ordering of our ecclesial life of Common Prayer, a formal ordering that conserves Prayer Book Catholicism (in the best sense) in an intra-provincial way for the Communion as a whole. For the principles that we have inherited were designed for the Church of England, and have spread by historical accident and, as I noted, by divine providence far beyond the juridical borders of the Church of England.

This, I suggest, is a positive vision for the vocation of Anglicanism within the context of the whole Body of Christ, of which we have only ever claimed to be but a part. Apart from the particular agendas of the liberals, evangelicals, and catholics within the Communion, this ecclesial vision seems to be the only game in town, and indeed the only game at a catholic (= universal) level worth playing. I for one hope that some of us are still willing to take up the challenge, that the world may believe that the Father sent the Son.

this is hilarious

2007-05-10T20:11:00.000-05:00

Via Shrine of the Holy Whapping, and Theology of the Body.

christopher hitchens and douglas wilson debate

2007-05-09T08:08:00.000-05:00

"Is Christianity Good for the World?"

There will be more installments throught the month of May.

via Amy Welborn

the pope and liberation theology in the "newspaper of record"

2007-05-07T07:29:00.000-05:00

**Updated**
[See also MM's pertinent take here. And WB, perhaps I have answered or echoed your trenchant anaylsis in the comments. Thanks both.]

This article was the lead headline in the print edition of the New York Times today. In light of Pope Benedict's upcoming trip to Brazil, it considers the state of liberation theology in Latin America today (still going fairly strong, apparently). The article discusses Benedict's crackdown on LT's heretical tendencies when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The problem with LT combines elements of Marxist theory and Christian belief to suggest that Jesus was a sort of Che Guevara of the first millennium. The NYT suggests that the pope's attitudes towards LT have "softened," but this is I think a their misreading. What the pope may have acknowledged is that, in so far as LT tends the needs of the poor and downtrodden, it does what correspond to Christ's commandments: to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. That does not, however, translate into Christianity finding its fullest expression in the Marxist state.

Benedict took up the issues of LT, Marxism, and modern thought in general in his Introduction to Christianity (see the updated preface and introduction), which I have at last taken off my bookshelf and been reading. His point is to recall the uniqueness of the Christian worldview and its central faith in Christ Jesus. When it is admixed with foreign ideologies, its salvific power is seriously undermined. The NYT, like all organs of modern thought, does not see it this way. It persists in believing that there are a plurality of equally legitimate beliefs in the world, and this extends to religion. We should not speak of theology, but theologies, not orthodoxy but orthodoxies. This of course is just an updated, less vigorous, and therefore less satisfying form of Marxism. This of course is nonsense from the inside of the Christian worldview. If the way is not narrow that leads to eternal life, it is not the Way.

Benedict laments in the Intro. that Christianity missed a key opportunity in the last century to engage the world by virgorously countering the corrosive philosophies of Marxist materialism. In 1968 and again in 1989, when the world groaned under the yoke of oppression, the Church failed to make its voice heard, to proclaim the Gospel in the face of social, economic, and cultural dissolution. The instruction given by the CDF in 1984 speaks of the "impatience" of those eager for social justice (a much maligned term in the church these days) who have turned to Marxism in order to pressure society into effecting the Kingdom of Heaven. The problem is those ground-of-being assumptions that Marxism makes about the world differ wildly from those of Christianity. Marxism rests its claims on science, assuming that "science" somehow embodies an objective view of the world and of man and that if human relations can be goverened objectively, then they can be harmonized. The failure of Marxism to achieve such a goal rightly points out the failure of a scientific-materialist world view, that matter cannot provide an objective view of matter. It is the recognition that science has been coming to itself going on a century now. But does this mean we should give up on objectivity? The pluralism latent in the NYT article suggests that we ought to, but as I love to make a point of, such an attitude itself appeals implicitly to an objective order: the objectivity of no-objectivity. But this is mere incoherence. Christianity, on the other hand, recognizes that true objectivity can only be found outside of this world, the world must be considered as an object, and that perspective can only come from the Divine.

It is increasinlgy clear to me, as it was to Benedict forty years ago (the Intro was first published in 1969), that Christianity today has a golden opportunity. From an intellectual standpoint, it's never been easier to justify our faith to the world. As global politics continually show, people desperately want coherence, order, objectivity, and hope, all of which can be found in the Church, and which can only be found in the unique expression of that faith which is the unadulterated belief entrusted to the apostles by Christ. Christianity has not survived or flourished because it rests on universal myths which are reluctantly giving way to the objectivity of science, but because it in itself offers for the first time an objective perspective on the world that resonates with our experience of the world.* When we forget that, we get caught on the same slippery slope that courses straight into the abyss of nihilism.

________
*This by the way is the perspective offered by René Girard in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, but there is not room to expound on that here.

the most beautiful film ever made?

2007-05-06T22:48:00.000-05:00

Quite possibly. I am, of course, talking about Into Great Silence, which Fr Nelson has just reviewed over at Theology of the Body, and has been receiving critical plaudits and accolades left and right. That's as it should be.

I didn't say it was the "best" movie ever made, but possibly the most beautiful. I stand by that. Mainly because a film depicting people so utterly given to the Lord can't help but be beautiful, because the lives depicted are beautiful. Another striking thing about the film is how normal the brothers seem, and how happy.

Mainly I second everything Fr Nelson said. I would also add that you need to be ready to see this movie. Don't expect a typical popcorn-gobbling, grab-you-by-the-throat cinema experience. This film seduces you. First of all, there is no soundtrack. In fact, as the title suggests, there are long stretches (maybe ten minutes) with hardly a sound. And there's maybe a grand total of seven or so minutes of actual dialog in the whole, nearly three hour thing.

I lived in monasteries for a year. Watching the film felt like life in a monastery. You get antsy. You get introspective. Little details take on real or imagined significance. Periodically something intensely beautiful (usually something chanted) breaks onto the scene. You notice the weather. You become aware of being forced into a slow, subtle rhythm.

Formally, the film reinforces this "feeling of monasticism" (for lack of a better phrase). There are little passages of scripture and the Fathers periodically thrown onto the screen, e.g. "You seduced me... and I was seduced" or "Whoever does not renounce all that he has... cannot be my disciple." These sorts of passages are repeated from time to time, without commentary, and without obvious relevance to what is on the screen immediately before or after they appear. Their effect in the mind is sort of like an antiphon in the psalter. The meaning is not immediately obvious, or directly relevant to the psalm or canticle being recited. You must sit with it, and let the connections form themselves in your consciousness very slowly.

The film begins in darkness, and moves to the chapel. You notice a red light in the distance. It flickers. You come to realize, as the brothers begin to chant Mattins, that it is the sanctuary lamp, symbolizing the sacramental presence of the Lord in the tabernacle. Again, there is no commentary. You are left to percolate in the slow realization of the significance of this flickering red lamp: that Christ is literally in this place, and in this singing. Again at the end of the film, as the credits roll, there is no sound but the occasional creaking of the floor as the brothers adore Christ in darkness; and again, there is nothing on the screen but the flickering red sanctuary lamp in the distance, formally announcing the mystery of Emanuel, God with us.

The film can be frustrating to watch. But what I realized is that the experience of frustration and impatience was a manifestation of a defect in me, not the film.

The whole thing is breathtakingly beautiful and very, very moving. I saw it first on Good Friday and was blown away. Whatever you have to do to make it happen: get ready, and go see this movie.

the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

2007-05-06T11:23:00.000-05:00

Here's a "wisdom quiz" that I found on the NY Times website. Supposedly it assesses how wise you are. My score: 3.5, which is "relatively moderate wisdom."

A better measure of wisdom is offered by T. S. Eliot in his poem "East Coker," one of the Four Quartets, written after his conversion to Christianity. This is a line I turn over frequently in my mind:

"The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility. Humility is endless."

cana and the acn

2007-05-04T11:50:00.000-05:00

Is it just me, or is CANA seemingly overtaking the Anglican Communion Network as the entity best positioned to replace ECUSA as the repository of orthodox North American Anglicanism? I haven't heard much news about the Network in quite some time, but I have of course heard more and more about CANA. Also: +Minns' rhetoric seems to indicate that he is moulding CANA into a provincial shape (with himself as its primate, I would venture to guess). I mean things like this from the LA Times (read it all here):

Minns said the convocation, which he said included about 30 parishes and 50 clergy members, was the result of a "broken relationship" between the Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion. He said he planned to work closely with other groups of breakaway Episcopalians to try to bring them together.

"We are what the church used to be," Minns said. "Our desire is not to interfere with what [the Episcopal Church is] doing. We simply don't agree with it."

The message seems to be that ECUSA has become irrelevant with respect to the Communion. I tend to agree... but what's interesting is +Minns' implication that CANA is taking over.

What does this mean? It means, I think, that +Duncan is being sidelined as a potential primate. The tone of the rhetoric seems to indicate not only that realignment is definitely in the pipes, that it will happen sooner rather than later, but most significant with regard to my point here: that the "inside strategy" suggested by such things as Windsor, Camp Allen, the DeS Communique, +Stanton, the ACI, inter alia, has lost out to the more bellicose and evangelical.

What do I think about this? On some level, I'm glad something is finally happening. All the talk was indeed frustrating. On the other hand, I've made no secret of my agreeement with the "inside strategy." I'm sorry to see that it seems to have been sidelined, and that its probably now a lost cause. I also worry that the fact that CANA is the brainchild of Nigerian Anglicanism, that unpleasant things like the 39 Articles and other exclusivist, evangelical, confessional standards will be enshrined as the benchmarks of the new North American orthodoxy. I also wonder where this leaves the FIFNA folks? Will they sign on with CANA, or will they form some other thing? I can't say what I think would be better. Probably joining CANA (and insisting on Tract 90 type interpretations of the 39 Articles), as starting a new thing would mean further division.

Also note that those carrying the day (the more vociferously orthodox) do seem to have cast aside the DeS Communique, and that it IS dividing the Primates. Note that whereas ++Williams and ++Akinola were on the same page at Dar es Salaam, they no longer seem to be. These are the dangerous waters I spoke of in a post a few days ago.

Time will tell. But has anyone else sensed this shift (ACN ---> CANA) in recent weeks / months? Other thoughts?

UPDATE (May 5) -- From Fr Kendall Harmon's liveblogging of Bp Minns' sermon at his own installation: "CANA is God’s gift to orthodox Anglicans for those who cannto find a home in TEC as it is currently led." Funny, Bp Minns describes CANA in exactly the terms I would have applied to the proposals of the DeS Communique. Read Fr Kendall's liveblogging here.

UPDATE-PRIME (May 6) -- Then there is this quote from the NY Times, which gets at how the secular world perceives CANA's doings, whatever the nuanced truth may be: "The hope among leaders of the new diocese, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, is that it will eventually be recognized by the communion as its rightful representative in the United States, replacing an Episcopal Church they say has strayed from traditional Anglican teachings." Read the whole NY Times article here.

the sixth eccumenical council

2007-04-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

I've been "researching". After years of Anglican equivocation and casuistry, there's something rather refreshing about this kind of clarity in a Church Council:

Many years to Agatho, Pope of Rome! Many years to George, Patriarch of Constantinople! Many years to Theophanus, Patriarch of Antioch! Many years to the orthodox council! Many years to the orthodox Senate!

To Theodore of Pharan, the heretic, anathema! To Sergius, the heretic, anathema! To Cyrus, the heretic, anathema! To Honorius, the heretic, anathema! To Pyrthus, the heretic, anathema!

To Paul the heretic, anathema!

To Peter the heretic, anathema!

To Macarius the heretic, anathema!

To Stephen the heretic, anathema!

To Polychronius the heretic, anathema!

To Apergius of Perga the heretic, anathema!

To all heretics, anathema! To all who side with heretics, anathema!

May the faith of the Christians increase, and long years to the orthodox and Ecumenical Council.

wars and rumors of wars

2007-04-27T18:05:00.000-05:00

Read this from Father Dan Martins. Intriguing. Frightening. By comparison, I am totally out of the loop. A consequence of being an insignificant and very young, priest. I agree with everything Father Dan says. (You will have noticed my touting of the Anglican Communion Institute's writings in the last several weeks. Also: don't miss the latest ACI piece in the "Father WB's Shared Items" box at the bottom of the sidebar.)

the first orthodox martyr of the current anglican crisis?

2007-04-26T15:44:00.000-05:00

Read it all here. It looks as though Canon Rodney Hunter, 73, was murdered in Malawi for his steadfast proclamation of the catholic, orthodox faith, as received by the Anglican Church, in opposition to the strange doctrines of the liberals.

In any event: may the Saints and Angels receive him. May God grant him eternal rest and perpetual light.

the seven martyrs of the melanesian brotherhood

2007-04-23T18:04:00.000-05:00

Today (April 24) is the feast of the Seven Martyrs of the Melanesian Brotherhood, who were tortured and murdered for their proclamation of the Gospel on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 2003. (Today is the feast on the liturgical Kalendar of the Church in the Province of Melanesia; its not on the Kalendar of ECUSA.)

There is a new book by my friend Father Richard Carter, sometime chaplain of the Melanesian Brotherhood. Buy it from Amazon UK.

Also: read more about the martyrs and the context within which they bore witness to our Lord here.

Read a sermon about the martyrs preached at Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Melanesia here.

Take a moment to pray:

Lord, we adore you for your unsurpassable greatness, and for calling us to bear witness to your peace. We thank you for proclaiming yourself in the lives of your servants in the Melanesian Brotherhood; we especially thank you for the gift of your holy servants, Brothers Nathaniel Sado, Robin Lindsay, Francis Tofi, Tony Sirihi, Alfred Hill, Patteson Gatu and Ini Paratabatu. We thank you for the witness they bore in laying down their lives for the sake of your Son, to proclaim the Kingdom of your Peace. We ask that through their example and intercession, we too may be empowered to proclaim to those who yet live in darkness and fear, the Good News of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; that the whole world may come to know his salvation. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(The image above is from the cover of Father Carter's book. Buy it. Read it.)

a question for those of you who pray the daily office (or anyone really)

2007-04-22T20:50:00.000-05:00

Do you have a way to order your daily intentions? I.e. is there a system to your intercessory prayer? If so what is it? I.e. do you pray for family on Monday, clergy on Tuesday, heretics on Wednesday, the sick and suffering on Thursday, the dead on Friday, etc. etc.? How do you do it?

And a more general question: what is your daily prayer discipline? I'll tell you mine. Its straight-forward: Daily Morning and Evening Prayer (1662) (Coverdale Psalter), with the ECUSA 1979 Propers (lectionary, collects, etc.), the whole thing enriched with antiphons (from the English Office -- link in sidebar), and the Final Anthems of the BVM. Once a week or so I'll say the Litany of the Sacred Heart or something like that. Very occasionally I'll say the Rosary.

The reason I ask the first question is that I've never developed a system for intercession, so it remains sporadic and piecemeal. I have a kind of litany of proper names for whom I intercede (though not at every office). I feel the need for more order to my intercessions.

the virginia tech massacre: my sermon from today

2007-04-22T19:55:00.000-05:00

I don't normally post my own sermons, but this one is germane to current events. Also, the media commentary and hand-wringing about this tragedy are really frustrating to listen to. Here is what I say:

Today’s reading from Acts [9.1-19] begins with Saul “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” The reading ends with Saul being baptized and finding both illumination and strength.

“Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went…” that he might bind those whom he found who belonged to the Way.

And Ananias tells Saul that Saul is to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and regain his sight, and be filled with strength.

Here we see in the beginning a man filled with threats and murder, seeking to bind the disciples of Jesus. In the beginning we see Saul under the dominion of Satan, whom Jesus says “was a murderer from the beginning” (Jn. 8.44). And the Hebrew word “Satan” means accuser. And at the end of the reading we see Saul filled with the Holy Spirit, the giver of life. And the Greek word for Holy Spirit “parakletos” means Advocate. In the beginning Saul is under the dominion of the Accuser, who brings murder; and in the end he is filled with the divine Advocate, who brings life.

Last week 33 people were murdered at Virginia Tech, and our society is in the midst of a painful attempt to understand those murders. I believe that, as a culture, we lack the tools to come to terms with what was perpetrated that day, because our culture has become what many are calling “post-Christian.”

As you may know, the killer, Seung-Hui Cho, sent a rambling and vitriolic “manifesto” to NBC on the day of his rampage. While only parts of it have been released, it seems to paint a picture of an outsider, someone who was desperately lonely, who could not find a place for himself in the community in which he lived. In his writings, Cho rails against the decadence of university culture, against the promiscuity and the valuation and display of wealth, against drunkenness, and so forth. Having spent the last eight years of my life in American universities, I can tell you his description is pretty accurate – the social life of universities is libidinous and self-indulgent; it is dominated by pleasure-seeking to the exclusion of much else. And the thing is, in every university (and probably in every social-group or community) there are loners and weirdoes, people who don’t fit in – people who to some degree are ostracized by those who maintain and celebrate the dominant values of the group. My school had several of this sort of people. They didn’t get bids from fraternities; they weren’t invited to parties; they were sometimes openly ridiculed; they often sat alone in the dining hall. After awhile, usually after a year or so, they would give up trying to be a part of the group, and their desire to be accepted would be displaced by a more or less intense animus for the values of the community form which they were excluded – in the case of universities, this means that they often began to display an overt antipathy for the celebration of the passions in drunkenness, recreational drug use, and casual sex, all of which are the cornerstone of the social life of many universities. (Tom Wolfe has just written a novel about this called I am Charlotte Simmons.)

It worries me that American culture seems increasingly Dionysian. We seem increasingly to understand a healthy society to be a society in which the pleasure-seeking of its members is formally ordered and facilitated. It has become a cliché to say “It’s a free country” as a retort to those who question instances of one’s pleasure-seeking. Someone will say “you shouldn’t do this or that," and you’ll respond “it’s a free country.” As a society we are internalizing the notion that no one should interfere with the gratification of our passions. As often as not, this translates into our thinking that no one, not even the most helpless, should interfere with our pursuit of a pleasant, self-sufficient life – not the poor, not the emigrant, not even the unborn.

The thing that strikes me as most tragic about the Virginia Tech killer’s rambling manifesto was his indictment of our culture… that precisely because he was excluded from it, he was able in a sense to see it from the outside, in a clearer light perhaps than we are able to see it from within. Of course this does not absolve him from his actions – and its also not to say that his victims were individually hedonists. From what I hear, his murderous rampage was fairly indiscriminate. He perpetrated a horrendous and heartbreaking evil. But as a culture, to an indeterminate degree, we share in his guilt. To be sure: the blood of those students is on his hands. May God have mercy on him. But their blood is on our hands as well… because we hold up, or at best we tolerate, Dionysian values, and we exclude from our company those loners and weirdoes who are unable to join in our revels.

The 19th Century philosopher Friedriech Nietzsche was a proponent of Dionysian values – he advocated giving free reign to passion. Indeed, shortly before his death, he went insane and began signing his letters “Yours sincerely, Dionysus.” Nietzsche saw Christianity as a kind of slavery that stifles passion and prohibits people from flourishing, by constraining their freedom to do what they want to do. Nietzsche seemed to feel this personally, and he advocated a metaphorical devotion to the pagan god Dionysus, whose followers in antiquity would worship at wild parties, with drunkenness, ecstatic dancing, lewd sexuality, which would end with the ritual slaughter of a sacrificial victim, often an animal, but in the myths also sometimes a human, and indeed always (it was said) Dionysus himself. The god would then be reborn endlessly, to be re-murdered endlessly, to perpetuate the cult of passion and ecstasy. As with much of pagan mythology, there is a keen insight about human nature in the story of the cult of Dionysus, an insight that Nietzsche understood and embraced, but which we as a culture do not seem to see. The insight is this: the lust for violence is an integral component of the unbridled reign of human passion. Violence and murder are inevitably entailed by servitude to our appetitive desires. We can see this in the domestic abuse that often accompanies addiction; we can see it perhaps on a geopolitical level in our society’s addiction to oil, and we can see it in an excruciating way in last week’s tragedy in Virginia. The government of the passions sustains itself by violence and murder. And societies or communities that construe their self-purpose as guarding liberty in the basest sense of protecting an individual’s right to gratify his lusts… these kinds of societies are doomed to contend with violence and strife. And indeed in America: as our social ethics have become increasingly libertine, so have we seen a dramatic increase in violent crime.

So what is the answer? It may not surprise you to hear me say it: the answer is Jesus Christ, and him crucified. There are striking similarities between the story of Dionysus and the story of Jesus. Both are gods who are murdered and who return to life so that their followers can flourish. But there are striking dissimilarities too: for one thing, the myth of Dionysus was just that: a myth. Even pagans in antiquity understood this. Pagan myths were stories that explained the human condition - they were really allegories about invisible and impersonal gods, stories the efficacy of which was found through their ritual enactment. In Christianity, on the other hand, while we do find similar typologies, similar allegories, we are not dealing with a mere allegory. Our god is a real, historical person, who had flesh and blood – and this is a fact that is emphasized in the cycle of gospel readings after Easter, including today’s. Our God is not only the the undifferentiated Maker of Heaven and earth, dwelling in inaccessible darkness, but he also cooks breakfast for his friends. Our myth really took place; and whereas the pagan stories found their power through ritual enactment – with us, our ritual enactments have power in (and ONLY in) the historical veracity of what we are reenacting. Its reversed. Most significantly, however, our God is not a god who enables the gratification of our lusts through and endless cycle of being murdered and reborn. Rather Christ dies once for all, to bring about our flourishing by delivering us from slavery to our lusts. And we return again and again to our rituals – the sacraments – to access that once-for-all gift of deliverance and life, the gift which Jesus himself is, not merely on some distant and intangible Olympus, but in our world, on a hill outside Jerusalem, in the most holy sacrament of the altar, and in the hearts of all his faithful people.

The night before Jesus died he said “Now is the judgment of this world.” Because the work he was about to do was undertaken precisely to end, once for all, the cycle of human bondage to carnal desires with its foundation in vengeance and murder and the ritual placation of demons. This was something only a god could do, and not just any god, not Dionysus, but only the Lord of Lords. And this shows what Jesus meant when he said “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” – the sword that is the judgment and the destruction of secular culture – a “sword that no human being can fail to dread or resent even though” (or perhaps because?) [Rene Girard] it represents God’s love for us, and is the overthrowing of the powers that bind us in darkness. To some degree we’ve all fallen in love with our captors, and Christ's judgment of "the ruler of this world" is hard for us to bear.

If we are to be honest, we have two choices: Dionysus or the Crucified. With Dionysus we get the gratification of our carnal appetites and the will to power, but (as Nietzsche understood), we must also embrace the violence and death on which its built. As a culture , if we choose Dionysus, we must be prepared for more and more Columbines and Virginia Techs….. Or we can choose the Crucified; we can submit our lives to him and find in his government of our hearts a life transformed by the power of the only true God, who not only is alive, but who is the Lord of life. In him alone, as St. Paul bears witness in today’s reading from Acts, in Christ alone are we delivered from threats and murder; in Christ alone will we find illumination and strength.

monk news

2007-04-22T19:53:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting little article in the NYT Sunday Magazine on the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, a Franciscan reform order in based in New York. They play rock music and picket abortion clinics.

Postulant Andy, a 26-year-old from Chicago, is typical of today’s postulants. “I was looking at religious orders across the Midwest,” he said. “But I didn’t really fit any of them. You could see a big problem in religious life; it was very evident. A lot of orders didn’t have a prayer life; they didn’t go to Mass daily; they were very loose, not taking their poverty seriously.”

the british are coming!!! well, the welsh, anyway

2007-04-20T22:54:00.000-05:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, announced April 16 that he intends to visit the United States this autumn in response to the invitation from the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church.

Speaking in a news conference in Toronto, Williams said he would make the visit together with members of the Standing Committee of the Primates, of which Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is a member, and the Anglican Consultative Council.

"I look forward to some sharing of our experiences as pastors as well as discussion of the business of the Communion. These are complicated days for our church internationally and it's all the more important to keep up personal relationships and conversations," he said. "My aim is to try and keep people around the table as long as possible on this, to understand one another, and to encourage local churches on this side of the Atlantic and elsewhere to ask what they might need to do to keep in that conversation, to keep around the table."

Read it all from ENS. I guess this means the E-bay auction was a success?

south carolina bishop, take two

2007-04-20T22:41:00.000-05:00

Statement of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina for immediate release:On September 16, 2006, the people of the Diocese of South Carolina overwhelmingly elected the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence as our next bishop on the first ballot. We are fully persuaded that the Holy Spirit spoke in that election and we were reassured that a majority of both bishops and standing committee's intended to consent to this election. We are determined to carry forward our diocesan mission within the context of the canons which give order to our common life.Accordingly, at our meeting today, we unanimously passed a resolution reconvening the 216th annual meeting of the Diocese of South Carolina, with was recessed. At that re-convened meeting, we will request that the convention take the necessary steps to allow the calling of a special convention later in the summer for the purpose of again electing the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence. Formal notification will follow shortly.

Read the whole thing. Note that Lawrence received 1 more consent than was necessary, but PB Jefferts-Schori threw them out on a technicality -- as is believed, out of spite, since South Carolina has asked for alternative primatial oversight.

dennis canon fails again

2007-04-20T22:02:00.000-05:00

Read the whole thing.

The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church (abbreviated DFMS) was told by a New York supreme court judge that it could participate as little more than an observer in the property dispute lawsuit by the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York against St. Andrews Church in Syracuse. Supreme Court Justice James P. Murphy in a written decision earlier this week ruled that "DFMS only asserts that St. Andrew's property is held in trust for the benefit of the Episcopal Church as promulgated by certain Episcopal canons, and as such, the Court finds its legal interest to be insufficient." The judge allowed DFMS to intervene in the ongoing lawsuit, but "that the permissive intervention of the DFMS should be limited."

Note this is not quite a repudiation of the Dennis Canon (I.7.4-5), but it is an expression of skepticism on the part of the judge that that canon makes TEC a significant party in the lawsuit. As far as the court is concerned, it's a dispute between the parish and the diocese, and 815 may only watch. The Dennis Canon states, "All real and personal property held by or for the benefit of any Parish, Mission or Congregation is held in trust for this Church and the Diocese thereof in which such Parish, Mission or Congregation is located." This decision is typical of those to which we've drawn your attention at Whitehall - judges tend to treat the Dennis Canon with skepticism, as a rule that applies to internal squabbles and not to real legal affairs. It's as if the local Yale Club (just an example) passed a by-law that it now owned all the cars belonging to its members, without all the members actually agreeing to hand over their titles. The Dennis Canon depends only upon internal coercion, strong-arm tactics, and threats for its effectiveness. The courts don't seem to recognize it. Luckily for 815, the aforementioned activities are a well-used part of the playbook. Yessiree, we at TEC are all about eliminating oppression in the world, as per the MDG's. If it were Akinola doing to his liberal parishes what TEC's bishops are doing to their conservative ones, we'd hear plenty of squawking on behalf of the powerless.

if christ be lifted up . . .

2007-04-20T21:46:00.000-05:00

The Church of Jesus Christ is growing faster now that at any time in its 2,000 year history. Globally more than 90,000 new converts come to Christ each day with 20,000 new Christians confessing Christ daily in Africa, and 28,000 new Christians coming daily to Christ in China.The Rt. Rev. Derek Eaton, former Bishop of Nelson, New Zealand and now Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Egypt told more than 1,000 missionary-minded Episcopalians and Anglicans at a New Wineskins for Global Missions conference that despite Western timidity and a deconstructionist gospel being foisted on the American Episcopal Church, there are 8,000 new adult Anglican believers coming to Christ each day across the globe."We are seeing 400 new Anglican churches open each week around the world. In the Province of Nigeria there are more Anglicans in church on Sunday than all the UK, North America and Australasia put together," he told a stunned audience . . ." Read the whole thing.

Compare this to the 2005 Episcopal Fast Facts, in which we find out TEC lost 42,000 members in 2004, and has dropped 8% over the last decade.

no more limbo about limbo

2007-04-20T21:29:00.000-05:00

Read the whole thing from Reuters.

The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went. In a long-awaited document, the Church's International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an "unduly restrictive view of salvation."

The 41-page document was published on Friday by Origins, the documentary service of the U.S.-based Catholic News Service, which is part of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Pope Benedict, himself a top theologian who before his election in 2005 expressed doubts about limbo, authorized the publication of the document, called "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised."

The verdict that limbo could now rest in peace had been expected for years. The document was seen as most likely the final word since limbo was never part of Church doctrine, even though it was taught to Catholics well into the 20th century.

"The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in revelation," it said.

"There are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible (to baptize them)."

The Church teaches that baptism removes original sin which stains all souls since the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden.

from the anglican communion institute (father ephraim radner, et alia)

2007-04-19T23:22:00.000-05:00

We are about to enter a church struggle of fearful proportions, and to assume that business will go on as usual is quite unrealistic.

Read it all here. As usual, its very good.

the saint michael's conference, southwest

2007-04-19T12:29:00.000-05:00

I will be there this summer - as will Andy (from All Too Common), MM and Father Nelson (from Theology of the Body), Father Christopher (from Apostilicty), and a host of other bright young things. Anyone out there within the proper age range: I encourage you to go. Anyone out there who knows people in the proper age range: i encourage you to encourage them to go. I'm really looking forward to it and expect terrific things. If you're interested, either sign up via the website (link below), or email me. A link to my email address is at the bottom of the sidebar (on the right side of the blog). -WB+

June 24th-30th, 2007
For Ages 12-20 at Camp Crucis Much more than a ‘Church Camp’, St. Michael’s Conference is a 7-day conference where an intentional community of prayer, support, and education helps to form young Christians to be witnesses to the world of the Saving Power of Jesus Christ.

Through worship, study, discussion, recreation, and relaxation, the community seeks both a clearer vision of God in Christ, and strength and power to fight evil and serve God. For most, it is such a joyful experience that they want it to continue, and many do continue by returning year after year.

Michael is a good patron Saint. He symbolizes a strong religion, the kind of religion where true joy is to be found. This conference has already borne much fruit in the life of the Church through the lives of those Michaelites (Conference participants) who are active in their respective parishes. We are committed to making the Conference available to the youth of the Southwestern region of the United States.

Our intention is not to do a “new” thing, but to faithfully hand on what has been given to us–the Catholic Faith of the universal Church. Our worship and practice are therefore unapologetically Anglo-Catholic, and our teaching orthodox.

A typical daily schedule for Monday through Friday

Morning/Afternoon
7:30 am Morning Prayer
8:00 am Solemn Mass
9:00 am Breakfast
10:00 am First Class Period
11:00 am Second Class Period
12:00 noon Third Class Period
1:00 pm Lunch
2:00 pm Free Time (social, sports, naps, etc.)
5:00 pm Evening Prayer & Faculty Talk
6:00 pm Dinner

Evening
6:45 pm Discussion Groups
8:00PM Evening Social Activity
10:30pm Clean Up
10:45 Compline
11:30 Lights Out Juniors
12:00 Lights Out Seniors

Registration
To register, please go to the website http://www.stmichaelsw.org/ and follow the directions on the front page. The cost is $300.00 and you will need to send in a $100 deposit with your registration form. The balance of $200 will be due when you arrive at Camp Crucis for the Conference. Scholarships are available for those who need financial assistance.

St. Michael Prayer
t. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle; be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust down to hell Satan and all wicked spirits, who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.

hstorical perspective from bernard lewis

2007-04-14T07:57:00.000-05:00

Get more historical perspective here. (Via T19.) (Get your "Free Constantinople" bumper stickers here.) Bernard Lewis is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton (though, pace the bumper sticker, Lewis is a supporter of Turkey).

The Muslim attack on Christendom and the resulting conflict, which arose more from their resemblances than from their differences, has gone through three phases. The first dates from the very beginning of Islam, when the new faith spilled out of the Arabian Peninsula, where it was born, into the Middle East and beyond. It was then that they conquered Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa--all at that time part of the Christian world--and went beyond into Europe, conquering a sizable part of southwestern Europe, including Spain, Portugal, and southern Italy, all of which became part of the Islamic world, and even crossing the Pyrenees into France and occupying for a while parts of France.

After a long and bitter struggle, the Christians managed to retake part but not all of the territory they had lost. They succeeded in Europe, and in a sense Europe was defined by the limits of that success. They failed to retake North Africa or the Middle East, which were lost to Christendom. Notably, they failed to recapture the Holy Land, in the series of campaigns known as the Crusades.

That was not the end of the matter. In the meantime the Islamic world, having failed the first time, was bracing for the second attack, this time conducted not by Arabs and Moors but by Turks and Tartars. In the mid-thirteenth century the Mongol conquerors of Russia were converted to Islam. The Turks, who had already conquered Anatolia, advanced into Europe and in 1453 they captured the ancient Christian citadel of Constantinople. They conquered a large part of the Balkans, and for a while ruled half of Hungary. Twice they reached as far as Vienna, to which they laid siege in 1529 and again in 1683. Barbary corsairs from North Africa--well-known to historians of the United States--were raiding Western Europe. They went to Iceland--the uttermost limit--and to several places in Western Europe, including notably a raid on Baltimore (the original one, in Ireland) in 1631. In a contemporary document, we have a list of 107 captives who were taken from Baltimore to Algiers, including a man called Cheney.

Again, Europe counterattacked, this time more successfully and more rapidly. They succeeded in recovering Russia and the Balkan Peninsula, and in advancing further into the Islamic lands, chasing their former rulers whence they had come. For this phase of European counterattack, a new term was invented: imperialism. When the peoples of Asia and Africa invaded Europe, this was not imperialism. When Europe attacked Asia and Africa, it was.

deep thoughts from episcopal bishops

2007-04-12T20:12:00.000-05:00

From the Diocese of Newark's website.

In the good ol' days, bishops issued statements about, oh, theology 'n' junk. Maybe I can get my bishop to issue a pastoral letter ruling out an NCAA Football playoff system.

Bishops' Joint Statement Regarding Radio Host Don Imus

We, the Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Newark and New Jersey, are enthusiastic fans and supporters of the Women’s Basketball Team of Rutgers University.

We are deeply offended by the racist, sexist and demeaning comments of radio host Don Imus about the Rutgers team. While he has been generous to many charitable causes over the years (including the Hackensack University Medical Center), Imus’ words last week were cruel, reprehensible and inexcusable. He has distracted the public from the team’s wonderful achievements and the sterling character of its members.

By their strong and mature response to Mr. Imus’ insults, these young women of Rutgers have won a greater victory than an NCAA title. Their calm dignity and quiet confidence have been blessings to behold. Their light will not be overshadowed by the bigotry and insensitivity of a powerful media icon and his corporate sponsors.

We believe that Mr. Imus should face the consequences of his actions. Pending the outcome of his meeting with the team, we look for real changes in his conduct and his program. His failure to learn from this experience should result in his removal from the air.

The Rt. Rev. Mark M. Beckwith, Episcopal Bishop of Newark
The Rt. Rev. George E. Councell, Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey
The Rt. Rev. Carol J. Gallagher, Episcopal Bishop Assistant of Newark

more from father ephraim radner on the house of bishops' statement

2007-04-12T14:08:00.000-05:00

Father Ephraim is on a roll. His (long) most recent reply to the House of Bishops' Statement is well (well, WELL) worth taking the time to read in full. Father Ephraim's analysis is absolutely devastating. I would love (love, LOVE) to read a liberal / ECUSA response to Father Ephraim here. He takes the bishops to task, point by point, and shows their statement to be, perhaps more than anything, incoherent -- but also filled with anachronism, theological error, historical inaccuracy, balled-faced animus, arrogance, and deception. Do read the whole thing. It is, in Father WB's opinion, the best and clearest piece on the ECUSA / Communion situation yet produced by anyone. Seriously.

[A minor quibble: Father Ephraim says that the House of Bishops' Statement is in fact, contrary to what has generally been said, unclear. I think that its clarity is in that it shows that the bishops are unwilling to reverse course, and therefore that it clearly reveals (1) the urgent necessity that provision be made for orthodox Anglicans in America, and (2) that the bishops will not cooperate with the Communion on the presenting issues. What is UNCLEAR is the American bishops (ir)rationale.]

Here are some excerpts (though there is much [much, MUCH] more in the document... do read it all!):

...either the matter of “full inclusion” (including to the episcopacy and same-sex unions and blessings) is a matter “indifferent”, and hence is open to compromise for the sake of the Communion; or the matter is one of essential doctrine and discipline, and therefore the bishops should simply confess openly their inability to tolerate and accept alternative views (including within the Communion).... What makes no sense is to claim there is “no going back” because of the essential evangelical issues at stake, yet also to proclaim a willingness to engage in open debate and possible new learning and readjustments of current discipline.

Re: the House of Bishops' discovery of a "generous Prayer Book orthodoxy" --

If the Prayer Book tradition has an “orthodoxy”, it is neither generous nor ungenerous, but sui generis, and that is what should be examined, not some myth of a pluralist commonwealth of religious questers that seems to lie behind the bishops’ vision.

Re: the House of Bishops' criticism of the primates in terms of the latter's supposed over-willingness to "break relationship" in a cultural climate where broken relationships are a big problem --

There is, in fact, something morally unsettling about the Statement’s attempt to appropriate the categories of fidelity, even of marital fidelity, in their argument against the Primates. Much like their attempt to co-opt the language of anti-colonialism, it is contradicted by the facts on the ground, some of them embodied personally by bishops themselves.

Finally, there is this:

With whom and under whom do we now fulfill our vows made before God? It is no longer possible to receive equally the claim made by the House of Bishops to be faithful to the apostolic trust, along with the claim by the “Church throughout the world” that this trust demands another set of actions and commitments. What then shall we do?

Our bishops have left us in a grievous and parlous position. It is true, as our bishops have said, that those who wish to “divide” the church are few. The concerns expressed above come from clergy, like myself, who have long labored to maintain the unity of TEC, internally and with the Communion. We do not wish what the bishops themselves, few in number though they be, are pressing upon us.

Let us who care for Christ’s embrace of Anglican Christianity in Communion redouble our prayers and our efforts to see that the will of Dar es Salaam unfold in God’s good time, and not be thwarted by another unilateral dictation of how the Communion ought to mirror the incoherent image of TEC. God help us. Much is at stake here. It is time to do all we can to assure that the Instruments of Communion be able to do their work unhindered. If TEC’s bishops do not wish to be a part of this, that is their decision. Let them have the courage of their convictions; but let us not quietly accept their invented Anglican Christianity that never existed anywhere before.

the archbishop of canterbury's easter sermon

2007-04-09T03:58:00.000-05:00

Also very good. Read it all here. As you know, I have a special affection for the Solomon Islands, and the faithful Anglicans (and other Chrstians) there.

It was two and a half years ago; we had just finished a substantial open-air meal after a Eucharist on the football field in the tiny island of Malaita in the Solomons. The Premier of Malaita had been talking about the bloody civil war that had divided the islands until just a year earlier; and then he said, ‘I want you to bless us; I need to say in public that we were responsible as well as the people on the other islands. So I’m going to ask the crowd to be quiet, and then I’ll kneel down and ask you to pronounce God’s forgiveness for whatever we contributed to the horrors of these last years.’

keeping the faith

2007-04-09T01:00:00.000-05:00

A very interesting article in the NY Times Magazine about Pope Benedict. It is trenchant in its analysis of the issues at play in Western culture, and in this Pope's thinking about those issues. It ends, however, with a hackneyed and jejune implication: that if the Catholic Church would just soften its moral teachings, it would be better positioned to speak to people in contemporary culture. The article quotes Fr Keith Pecklers (professor at the Gregorian): "On Sunday mornings, the people in the pews, in Europe or America, are very often divorced or gay or are using birth control. Or else they’re not in the pews; they’ve left the church." It then concludes by quoting Fr Reese (SJ), the editor of America, who was suspended from his post for allowing too much theological latitude in his journal: "Think of the silencing of theologians in recent decades... The suppression of discussion and debate. How certain issues become litmus tests for orthodoxy and loyalty. All of these make it very difficult to do the very thing Benedict wants" -- i.e. to reinject Christianity into Western culture.

It seems to me that ECUSA's efforts over the last thirty or forty years unquestionably belie that implication. Even if it were possible to make the moral teachings of the Church more palatable to contemporary mores, ECUSA's pathetic membership slide illustrates that such palatability doesn't translate into some kind of renewed interest in Christianity among those who have left the Church. It just tells them that the Church is realizing institutionally what secular folk came to believe decades, if not centuries, ago: that the Church was wrong all along.

But a softening of the Church's moral teaching is not possible to begin with: it is what it is. ECUSA's hierarchs are chasing a delusion born in the minds of people who came of age in the 1960's. They are the offspring of a curious romantic reaction to cold Enlightenment rationality, who have adopted the idiom of postmodernity for convenience, but who are thereby left with nothing to preach but weird platitudes ("God / Goddess loves you").

Catholic moral doctrine is an outgrowth of (and secondary to) catholic Christianity's sacramental ontology. We can't abandon our moral teachings without abandoning very fundamental truths about what is going on in the cosmos -- about God's love for his creation. And if you abandon the latter, then you have become secular or pagan (cf. ECUSA).

Anyway, here are some choice snippets from the NY Times Magazine article:

Sociologists and even some church officials routinely apply the term “post-Christian” to Europe or parts thereof. Spain is still deeply Catholic in its cultural identity, yet polls show half the country “almost never” attends Mass, and the government has defied the church in legalizing same-sex marriage and making abortion easier to obtain. A recent survey of the Church of England by researchers at the University of Wales showed that only 60 percent of its clergy believe in the virgin birth of Jesus, and 1 out of 33 Anglican priests doubts the existence of God.
....
“While Europe once was the Christian Continent, it was also the birthplace of that new scientific rationality which has given us both enormous possibilities and enormous menaces. . . . In the wake of this form of rationality, Europe has developed a culture that, in a manner hitherto unknown to mankind, excludes God from public awareness. . . . A culture has developed in Europe that is the most radical contradiction not only of Christianity but of all the religious and moral traditions of humanity.”
....
Or consider that after I attended the nearly empty Christmas season Mass at Sopra Minerva in Rome, I strolled a few hundred yards away, just across the Tiber, to find a radically different spectacle. The Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere is just as ancient and just as packed with icons that are featured in art-history texts as Sopra Minerva. Here 300 people filled the pews, as is more or less the case seven nights a week at 8:30 p.m. They were mostly in their 20s to 40s, most seemed to be professionals, a group both well shod and featuring some extreme eyewear. The setting couldn’t have been more Catholic, and yet it wasn’t a Mass that was taking place. No priest officiated; there was no Communion offered, no body and blood of Christ. It was an energetic, soulful lay service, a 30-minute meditation — a well-orchestrated mix of prayer and song on a spot where Christians have celebrated their rites since around 300 A.D., conducted by and for ordinary people. Precisely at 9 o’clock it ended; people gathered into clusters and chatted briefly and then everyone headed into the night.

the holy father's easter message

2007-04-08T23:55:00.000-05:00

Its very good. Read it all here. The theme is actually the same as my Easter sermon: This Jesus, who was crucfied, who forever bears the marks of his suffering, and who shows his wounds to us, is risen.

We may all be tempted by the disbelief of Thomas. Suffering, evil, injustice, death, especially when it strikes the innocent such as children who are victims of war and terrorism, of sickness and hunger, does not all of this put our faith to the test? Paradoxically the disbelief of Thomas is most valuable to us in these cases because it helps to purify all false concepts of God and leads us to discover his true face: the face of a God who, in Christ, has taken upon himself the wounds of injured humanity. Thomas has received from the Lord, and has in turn transmitted to the Church, the gift of a faith put to the test by the passion and death of Jesus and confirmed by meeting him risen. His faith was almost dead but was born again thanks to his touching the wounds of Christ, those wounds that the Risen One did not hide but showed, and continues to point out to us in the trials and sufferings of every human being.

....

In fact, by his rising the Lord has not taken away suffering and evil from the world but has vanquished them at their roots by the superabundance of his grace. He has countered the arrogance of evil with the supremacy of his love. He has left us the love that does not fear death, as the way to peace and joy.

alleluia! alleulia! alleluia!

2007-04-08T19:46:00.000-05:00

Happy Easter! At my parish, during the Great Vigil, we blessed the Baptismal Water in the old manner, a la the missal. Here is what was sung by candle-light, amid thick clouds of incense. It was downright emergent:

As the Procession approaches the font, the choir will sing the Canticle: Like as the hart desireth the water brooks.

Celebrant Almighty and everlasting god, mercifully look upon the devout prayer of this people called to a new birth, who, like the hart, seek the fountain of your waters: and mercifully grant that the thirst of their faith may, by the mystery of baptism, sanctify them in body and soul.

People Amen.

Celebrant Almighty and everlasting God, be preset at the mysteries, be present at the sacraments of your great goodness: and send forth the spirit of adoption for the regeneration of the new peoples whom the font of baptism brings forth unto you; that this office and ministry of your unworthy servants may be effectually fulfilled by your power. Through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God. Throughout all ages world without end. Amen.

Celebrant The Lord be with you.
People And also with you.
Celebrant Lift up your hearts.
People We lift them up unto the Lord.
Celebrant Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
People It is right to give him thanks and praise.

Celebrant It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, O Lord, holy Father, almighty everlasting God: who by your invisible power wondrously gives effect to the work of your sacraments. And though we are unworthy to perform mysteries so great: yet you do not leave us destitute of the gifts of your grace, but mercifully incline your ears even unto these our supplications. O God, whose Spirit in the first beginnings of the world moved over the waters: that even then the nature of water might conceive the virtue of sanctification. O God, who washed away in the waters the iniquities of a sinful world, and even in the outpouring of the flood showed forth in a figure our regeneration: that by the mystery of this same element there should be an end to sin and likewise a beginning of virtue. Look, O Lord, upon the face of your Church, and multiply in her the power of your regeneration: for you make glad your city by the streams of your abundant grace, and open the fount of baptism throughout the whole world for the renewing of the nations: that by the command of your majesty she may receive from the Holy Spirit the grace of your only-begotten Son.

(Dividing the water in the form of a cross) May he, by the secret mingling of his divine power, make fruitful this water prepared for the regeneration of mankind: that having received sanctification and being born again a new creature, there may come forth an offspring of heaven from the spotless womb of this divine fountain; that all, whether sex divide them in body, or age in time, may alike be brought forth into one childhood by grace, their mother. Far hence, O Lord, at your command let every unclean spirit depart: far hence be all the wickedness of the craft of the devil. Let no power of the enemy here have place or portion: let it neither ensnare nor encompass us: let it not waylay us in secret: let it not taint us with corruption.

May this holy and undefiled creature be free from every assault of the enemy, and purified by the departure of all iniquity. May it be a living fountain of regenerative water, a purifying stream: that all who shall be washed in this laver of salvation may, by the operation of the Holy Spirit within them, obtain the grace of perfect purification.

(Making three crosses over the water) Wherefore I bless you, O creature of water, by the living + God, by the true + God, by the holy + God; by God who in the beginning through his word divided you from the dry land: whose Spirit moved over your surface (he scatters the water with his hand towards the four quarters of the world) who made you to flow from the fountain of paradise, and commanded you to water the whole earth with your four rivers; who in the desert bestowed upon you sweetness when you were bitter, that men might drink; and brought you forth from the rock for the thirsting people. I bless you also by Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who in Cana of Galilee by a wondrous miracle changed you through his power into wine; who walked upon you with his feet; and was baptized in you by John in the Jordan; who brought you forth together with blood from his side; and commanded his disciples that believing, they should be baptized in you, saying, “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Almighty God, mercifully assist our prayer who keep these your commandments: graciously breathe upon us. (He breathes three times on the water in the form of a cross) Bless with your word and power this element of water, that, as by nature it has power to cleanse and wash the body, so also it may be effectual for the purifying of the soul. (He lowers the Paschal Candle three times into the water.)

May the power of the Holy Spirit descend upon the fullness of this font.

May the power of the Holy Spirit descend upon the fullness of this font.

May the power of the Holy Spirit descend upon the fullness of this font and make the whole substance of this water to be fruitful unto regeneration. Here may the stains of every sin be blotted out; here may nature, created in your image, be restored to the honor of its first estate, that every man who comes to this sacrament of regeneration may be born again unto the new childhood of true innocence. Through Jesus Christ your Son, our Lord, who shall come to judge the quick and the dead, and the world by fire.

People Amen.

Celebrant (Pouring in the Oil of Catechumens) May this font be sanctified and made fruitful by the Oil of salvation, for such as shall be born again from it, unto life everlasting.

People Amen.

Celebrant (Pouring in the Chrism) May this inpouring of the Chrism of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy spirit, the Paraclete, be wrought in the name of the Holy Trinity.

People Amen.

Celebrant (Pouring in both Oils together) May this commingling of the Chrism of sanctification and of the Oil of unction, and of the water of baptism, be likewise wrought in the name of the father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

People Amen.

i hope you are having a penitential triduum

2007-04-06T18:11:00.000-05:00
























O all ye who passe by, behold and see;
Man stole the fruit, but I must climbe the tree;
The tree of life to all, but onely me:
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

Lo, here I hang, charg’d with a world of sinne,
The greater world o’ th’ two; for that came in
By  words, but this by sorrow I must win:
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

Such sorrow as, if sinfull man could feel,
Or feel his part, he would not cease to kneel.
Till all were melted, though he were all steel:
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

But, O my God, my God! why leav’st thou me,
The sonne, in whom  thou dost delight to be?
My God, my God ------
                                              Never was grief like mine.

Shame tears my soul, my bodie many a wound;
Sharp nails pierce this, but sharper that confound;
Reproches, which are free, while I am bound.
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

Now heal thy self, Physician; now come down.
Alas! I did so, when  I left my crown
And fathers smile for you, to feel his frown:
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

In healing not my self, there doth consist
All that salvation, which ye now resist;
Your safetie in my sicknesse doth subsist:
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

Betwixt two theeves I spend my utmost breath,
As he that for some robberie suffereth.
Alas! what have I stollen from you?  Death.
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

A king my title is, prefixt on high;
Yet by my subjects am condemn’d to die
A servile death in servile companie:
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

They give me vineger mingled with gall,
But more with malice: yet, when they did call,
With Manna, Angels food, I fed them all:
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

They part my garments, and by lot dispose
My coat, the type of love, which once cur’d those
Who sought for help, never malicious foes:
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

Nay, after death their spite shall further go;
For they will pierce my side, I full well know;
That as sinne came, so Sacraments might flow:
                                              Was ever grief like mine?

But now I die; now all is finished.
My wo, mans weal: and now I bow my head.
Onely let others say, when I am dead,
                                              Never was grief like mine.

-- From The Sacrifice by George Herbert
(Read the whole thing here.)

simul haereticus et anglicanus

2007-04-05T00:37:00.000-05:00

If you'd like to mortify your intellect during these last days of Lent, go to Stand Firm and read the most unedifying and pointless post I've ever seen there: David Ould's anti-catholic polemic masquerading as a soliloquy on justification by faith.

For fun, count the synonyms for "poop" in the post and the ensuing comments. Its probably the most instructive engagement you could have with this little essay.

solomon islands

2007-04-03T02:58:00.000-05:00

An earthquake and tsunami hit parts of the Solmon Islands yesterday. People have died. Villages have been destroyed. The Anglican Province of Melanesia is one of the most robust and faithful things I've ever witnessed (and v. catholic). They have the largest religious community in the Anglican Communion -- the Melanesian Brotherhood, which has upwards of 500 brothers and novices, and which has been a powerful witness for our Lord (they are pictured above, at the funeral of the brothers martyred on Guadalcanal in 2003). They go out barefoot, two by two, with only the clothes on their back and a staff; they work miracles and lay down their lives for the Prince of Peace. I lived with them for some months, several years ago. It changed me.

So I love the Solomon Islands. Try and find ways to help those effected by this tsunami. If nothing else, pray.

from archbishop gomez

2007-04-02T00:36:00.000-05:00

"To speak of Anglicanism today, either as a church tradition or as an ecclesial communion, is to speak of one of the most vibrant and unstable expressions of Christianity within the world," said the Most Rev. Drexel Gomez, archbishop of the West Indies.

Read the whole thing here.