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

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 new religion (ecusa) and the sanctity of life

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.

sad news

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.

simul haereticus et anglicanus

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.

how deacons are made

I was honored to be at Texanglican's ordination to the diaconate (pictured at left - thats Tex with hands on his head) this past Saturday in Fort Worth. You can see videos of it here at All Too Common. Many blessings in your ministry Deacon Foster. I'm very happy to have you as a fellow soldier.

an interesting comparison

Fr Cantrell has posted a trenchant little comparison between the Old Religion (Christianity), as represented by Fr Louis Bouer's book Liturgical Piety, and the New Religion (ECUSA), as represented by ++++++Jefforts-Schori. One of the things I find so intensely irritating about the New Religion is how jargony it is: MDG's, reconciliation, shalom, the Reign of God, etc.

Here's a snippet from Fr Bouyer's book:

We do not, therefore, get to the heart either of the problems of the world or of the task of Christianity until we seriously face the problem of sin and accept, not the way of some illusory reconciliation with the world, but the way of conflict which is the way of voluntary death in and with Christ.

No doubt, you see the contrast. Christianity has ever been a religion of ascetic struggle for its devotees. That's totally left out of the New Religion... and its having been left out is a damnable error for which we will be held accountable.

left in the dust

Come on, friends! Whitehall is in LAST PLACE at the Anglican Blog Awards thingy-do. Rally 'round! Cast your ballot for the fundamental catholicity of Anglicanism! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

(Vote here.)

vote early; vote often

Just kidding. Vote early; but vote only once. Whitehall has been nominated in the "most theological" category. Cheers. But we are losing. Jeers. So go vote for us. Please.

congratulations to father al

Father Al Kimel, formerly Father Al Kimel, just (re)became Father Al Kimel. I.e. he was made a Roman Catholic priest on the 3rd of December. Hoozah, Fr Al. I'm sure I speak for all the Whitehallians (to use Fr Thorpus's neologism) when I say I wish you all the very best, and I bid your prayers for your former coreligionists.

Read all about it (mainly look at the pictures).