Anglocat on the Prowl

The Ghosts of the Past

2012-01-31T19:38:00.000-08:00

Although Season 2 of Sherlock has yet to air in the U.S., those of us who do not fear spoilers have gleaned much about it. (This post is spoiler-free, the links, however, not so much...)

Remember my post on P.R.O.B.E., the straight to video spinoff of Doctor Who featuring Caroline John reprising the role of companion Dr. Liz Shaw? Well, I seemed to omit the fact that P.R.O.B.E. was written by Mark Gatiss, and the episode Unnatural Selection bears, shall we say, a family resemblance to the Gatiss-penned script for The Hounds of Baskerville.

Note the parallelism between the series title and acronym P.R.O.B.E. and the acronym H.O.U.N.D.

Gatiss may not boast about P.R.O.B.E. (he is cited as having "said in a 2004 interview that he would not authorise their re-release as regarded them as having been a learning exercise"), but clearly he hasn't forgotten the series altogether.

We are What We Pretend to be, So We Must Be Very Careful What We Pretend to Be

2012-01-27T20:31:00.000-08:00

So says Kurt Vonnegut in Mother Night, and I think this is the key to understanding the whole Ron Paul and race business.

The Washington Post has found three people involved with the Ron Paul Newsletters who have gone on the record, by name, stating unequivocally that Paul was aware of the material being published in his name--that he approved it and proofed it. A fourth, anonymous source, confirms this account as well.

I was always skeptical of Paul's claims that he was unaware of the content of the newsletters; if you're trying to build a brand, you don't just blindly delegate the making of that brand without checking the results. At this point, this implausible tale hangs in tatters. Mind you, I think Paul's statements are pretty consistent with the overall tenor of the Newsletters, albeit more discreet:

And here he is again with the UN conspiring to take over the United States. Or with the "coming race war" fundraising letter. All of which reflect the obsessions and views in the Newsletters.

But here's an interesting slice of the article:

Paul “had to walk a very fine line,’’ said Eric Dondero Rittberg, a former longtime Paul aide who says Paul allowed the controversial material in his newsletter as a way to make money. Dondero Rittberg said he witnessed Paul proofing, editing and signing off on his newsletters in the mid-1990s.

“The real big money came from some of that racially tinged stuff, but he also had to keep his libertarian supporters, and they weren’t at all comfortable with that,’’ he said.

I've been involved in some discussion as to whether Paul is himself a racist; this article tends to suggest he isn't, but that he appeals to them in an exercise in coalition building. My earlier position was that I didn't know Paul's mind or heart, and I stand by that. But ultimately, does his specific intent matter? He has for decades supported the "Lost Cause"mythology, made statements supportive of racist tropes, and sought the cash and support of racists. Whether he sincerely shares their beliefs, or not, he has worn their mask.

State of the Union-Pre-Game

2012-01-24T17:32:00.000-08:00

As we look out at the President's State of the Union Address, here is the question I have:

How on earth does he do it?

Seriously, I don't agree with every policy decision made by the Administration, and I often find deeply frustrating the President's repeated efforts to find reasonable negotiating partners in a GOP that seems to me to have collectively gone crackerdog. But here's the thing: Barack Obama is extremely calm despite ongoing birther lawsuits, a Republican frontrunner (Gingrich) who claims that the President 's policies are inspired by radical Kenyan anti-colonialism, and another one (Romney) who accuses him of causing the 2008 crash and all the harm stemming therefrom.

We have Romney trying to condemn the President for taking a Romney plan nation-wide:

Gingrich using racist code language:

Ron Paul wrapping himself, almost literally, in the Confederate flag:

And Santorum being...Santorum (Sorry, Rick, the only thing that Obama and King George III have in common is that tea has been a thorough nuisance to them, albeit in different ways).

And yet, he remains calm, and cool.

As I write this, he's about to rise. Is it to the occasion?

Goodbye, Farewell & Amen

2012-01-22T19:04:00.000-08:00

The New York Times today has a very fine piece about the departure of Bill Tully, Rector of St Bartholomew's Church. My favorite bit:

On Sundays, Mr. Tully not only welcomed congregants in the narthex before services, he also went out on the front steps, a visible presence in the neighborhood. Passers-by were invited in. One summer Friday he set up a table on the sidewalk with an umbrella, two chairs and free lemonade: the advice he dispensed included weather predictions, directions and his opinion on whether demons were alive in this world. (He opined that they probably were, and he summarized the whole unorthodox experiment in, what else, a sermon titled “Confessions of a Street Preacher.”)

In 1995, in the same community house that under the skyscraper plan would have been razed, he established a restaurant with an outdoor cafe in good weather. It is thriving. On the flip side of entrepreneurialism, the church’s soup kitchen serves 70,000 meals a year to the needy, and its food pantry provides the makings for 70,000 more. The 10-bed women’s shelter is a rare haven in an otherwise corporate neighborhood, as are the public gardens. If homeless people want to rest inside the splendor of St. Bart’s sanctuary during the day, they are left in peace.

Bill's strong pastoral skills are sometimes eclipsed by his other achievements--his sermons, which are intellectually meaty, but which are highly accessible, his humor, his passionate belief in "radical welcome" which as fellow parishioner Lucy Martin Gianino is quoted as saying, led to some controversy, but put St. Barts at the forefront of “being a major welcomer of the gay and lesbian community,” are the subjects one hears about the most often, usually noting, as indeed Lucy does, that Bill "was able to lead people down that path and have us all feel good about worshiping and serving the church together." And of course the unending debate over Bill's vision of replacing our superannuated pews with cathedral chairs, which has finally come to pass (and increased the sound quality within the Church, much to everyone's pleased surprise).

But to me, Bill is the man who could turn from a coffee hour pleasantry into an earnest recommendation of an obscure book that touched his heart, whether the book was ancient or modern without missing a beat, who saw joyful children running down the aisle in the middle of a service as a gift, not an intrusion on a liturgical ideal, and has an amazing gift for making infants relax at the baptismal font. He has educated me, made me think, been an inspiration and a guide to me, and I am grateful for his role in my life.

And, I must admit, the chairs are extremely comfortable.

(Photo/audio credit: Tim Martin)

Ok, This is Fun

2012-01-17T18:22:00.000-08:00

I'm an old school Holmesian, and have never approved of most adaptations (Except for the magnificently faithful versions starring Jeremy Brett.)

But this bit of genius, adapted by current Doctor Who show runner Stephen Moffat is just magnificent--utterly faithful, but utterly of our time. It helps me realize what it must have been like to read the Conan Doyle originals as they came out, fresh in the Strand magazine.

The game is on!

Avoiding a Question of Interpretation: The Dog that Did Not Bark--Yet.

2012-01-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

The January 10, 2012 decision of the Circuit Court, Fairfax County found in favor of the Episcopal Church's and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia's claim to the long-held, historically significant churches which purported to align with the Church of Nigeria between December 2006 and November 2007. The decision is quite long, and detailed, and I don't intend to summarize it at length here. Rather, I'm writing to address the unresolved constitutional question lurking beneath Judge Bellows' carefully crafted ruling.

The judge in the Virginia case, Randy I. Bellows, had previously ruled in favor of the ACNA Diocese, on the basis of a pre-Civil War statute which effectively allowed for the congregation and not the denomination to retain the property in the event of a "division." As I wrote at the time, the presumption of congregational polity which Judge Bellows' opinion seemed to me to engraft into the law seems inconsistent with constitutional precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court. (My earlier analysis of that decision is here). However, the Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the opinion, on the ground that the "division statute" did not apply:

The Circuit Court erred as a matter of law by holding that the requirements of Va. Code § 57-9(A) were satisfied in these cases. That holding was error because the court adopted erroneous and entangling definitions of the statutory terms "division," "branch," and "attached," leading the court to err by holding that a "division" has occurred in the Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church (the "Church" or "TEC"), and the Diocese of Virginia (the "Diocese"); that all relevant entities were "branches" of and "attached" to the Anglican Communion; and that the Convocation of Anglicans in North American [sic] ("CANA") and Anglican District of Virginia ("ADV") are "branches" of the Church and the Diocese.

Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia v. Truro Church, 280 Va. 6, at 18 (2010).

Neither Judge Bellows nor the Supreme Court opined as to s signal constitutional question raised by TEC--that, having complied with the steps specified by the Supreme Court of the United States in Jones v. Wolf as sufficing to create a denominational trust, did not the application of pre-Civil War statutes which do not recognize the interest created thereby violate the "neutral principles" approach to secular courts deciding property disputes arising from ecclesial breakups, and thus violate the First Amendment. (Still with me? Excellent. Onwards!)
Subsequent to the remand, Judge Bellows took extensive testimony and briefing, after which the Court made "three princip[al] rulings":

1. TEC and the Diocese have a contractual and proprietary interest in each of the seven Episcopal churches that are the subjects of this litigation. Specifically, the Court finds for TEC and the Diocese in their Declaratory Judgment actions and, among other relief, orders that all real property conveyed by the 41 deeds, as well as all personal property acquired by the churches up to the filing date of the Declaratory Judgment actions (on or about January 31, 2007 or February 1, 2007) are to be promptly conveyed to the Diocese. (Additional instructions are provided at the conclusion of this Letter Opinion.)
2. The CANA Congregations' Amended Counterclaims are denied in their entirety. Specifically, the Court finds that the CANA Congregations, in that they are not Episcopal Congregations, do not possess either contractual or proprietary interests in the property of the seven Episcopal Churches at issue. They are, therefore, enjoined from further use or control of these properties and must promptly relinquish them to the Diocese. Moreover, the Court finds no merit in the CANA Congregations' claims for unjust enrichment, quantum meruit, and constructive trust and grants TEC's and the Diocese's motions to strike these claims.
3. The vestry empowered to elect directors to the Falls Church Endowment Fund is the vestry recognized by the Diocese as the Episcopal vestry of The Falls Church, that is to say, the Continuing Congregation.

(January 10, 2012 Opinion at 13-14).

In Jones, the Court held that "[t]hrough appropriate reversionary clauses and trust provisions, religious societies can specify what is to happen to church property in the event of a particular contingency, or what religious body will determine the ownership in the event of a schism or doctrinal controversy." 443 U.S. at 602-603. The Court further emphasized that "neutral principles would not be onerous for religious bodies to comply with:

Under the neutral principles approach, the outcome of a church property dispute is not foreordained. At any time before the dispute erupts, the parties can ensure, if they so desire, that the faction loyal to the hierarchical church will retain the church property. They can modify the deeds or the corporate charter to include a right of reversion or trust in favor of the general church. Alternatively, the constitution of the general church can be made to recite an express trust in favor of the denominational church. The burden involved in taking such steps will be minimal. And the civil courts will be bound to give effect to the result indicated by the parties, provided it is embodied in some legally cognizable form.

443 U.S. at 606. Except, for now, in Virginia.

As Judge Bellows writes, "[a]fter the Supreme Court issued Jones, TEC decided to avail itself of the Supreme Court's suggestion that a denomination might amend its governing documents to recite an express trust in favor of the denomination. The General Convention adopted a canon (now Canon I.7(4)), called either the 'Dennis Canon' or the '1979 Trust Canon.'” (January 10, 2012 Opinion at 29). Judge Bellows, however, found that the Dennis Canon did not comport with another section of Virginia statues governing church trusts, and therefore found that "neither the Dennis Canon nor Diocesan Canon 15.1 had their intended effect in the Commonwealth, given the fact that the Commonwealth did not validate denominational trusts." (Id. at n. 14).In view of his finding that under Virginia precedents, the Diocese and TEC had a legal claim to the property based on the course of dealings between the parishes and the Diocese and the denomination, Judge Bellows did not address the constitutional question, which seems to me quite significant: If the First Amendment. But it seems to me that Virginia's statute is here of extremely dubious constitutionality--it does not allow the national church to take the simple steps suggested in Jones to effectuate its polity, because the trust created thereby is not recognized by state law.

One Cheer for Mitt Romney

2012-01-10T19:17:00.001-08:00

No, not for winning the New Hampshire primary; I took that as a given, didn't you? No, I refer to the fact that, disapprove of his policies (well, the ones he's espoused at the present time), his slickness, and his effortless, persistent lying though I do, give Romney this: He knows how to comport himself in public. Chris Christie--not so much:

The bullying manner, the (at best!) double entendre, the crass "sweetheart", all these encapsulate why Chris Christie is not ready for prime time. And if the American people think he is, then maybe we no longer are, either.

Internecine

2012-01-10T16:22:00.000-08:00

As a Democrat, I have to confess to a certain amount of schadenfreude watching Gingrich's SuperPAC savage Mittens in deliciously populist terms:

Aye, that'll make a fine template for the Fall, lads. Thanks ever so!

And here's Rick Perry, speaking truth to, er, automata:

Enjoy it while it lasts, folks; once the nomination is securely in Romney's plasticine hands, it will be un-American and socialistic to say these things--and remember, the greater the truth, the greater the libel..

Missing the Myth

2012-01-08T16:38:00.000-08:00

First, this is even funnier in context, but stands up on its own:

Now, then, to business. I've realized that with all the scholarly reading I've been doing, I've been neglecting reading for pleasure. And I recently found at a used bookshop (Argosy in Manhattan, and well worth a visit) a nice copy of the Poetic Works of Spenser. After the glowing review of his work C.S. Lewis gives in The Discarded Image, I thought I would try Spenser. Spenser is quite readable as far as I've gotten; so far, so good--but here's an interesting bit from the prefatory Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh Spenser wrote:

The generall end therefore of all the booke, is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline. Which for that I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historicall fiction, the which the most part of men
delight to read, rather for varietie of matter than for profit of the ensample: I chose the historie of king Arthure, as most fit for the
excellencie of his person, beeing made famous by many mens former workes, and also furthest from the danger of envie, and suspicion of present time. In which I have followed all the antique poets historicall: first Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governor and a vertuous man, the one in his Illias, the other in his Odysseis...:

Now leave aside Spenser's use of the latinate names, but who on earth can read the Iliad and come away thinking of Agamemnon as either a "virtuous man" or as a "good governor"? Remember the whole context of the opening of the epic: Agamemnon has taken as a prize the daughter of the priest of Apollo, resulting in a curse on the Achaean army which will only be lifted by returning her. Agamemnon, prizing his captive more than his own wife (!) resists angrily, but yields upon the condition that Achilles yield his own captive to him. Achilles, angry, protests, and, in an era before patriotism, as Werner Jaeger points out,

Agamemnon can only make a despotic appeal to his own sovereign power and such an appeal is foreign to the aristocratic sentiment, which recognizes the leader only as primes inter pares. Achilles, when he is refused the honor which he has earned, feels that he is an aristocrat confronted by a despot.

So Achilles withdraws from the combat, leading to decimation of the Achaean forces, and many avoidable deaths.

So Spenser, by his romanticization of the myth--his framing it in the very different Tudor ethos--misses the entire point of the depiction of Agamemnon by Homer, just as Trenchard (in the video above) misses the point of the Master's enjoyment of "The Clangers" (a "real" alien enjoying a human depiction of aliens) by his overly literal response to it. And these two are ways we too can misapprehend the mythic truths handed down to us from the past--by cutting and shaping them to fit our own approach to truths, or, which may be even worse, reducing them to "only puppets. . . for children."

Or, You Could Just Send the Selden Society a Check...

2012-01-04T18:06:00.001-08:00

New Hampshire Republicans are . . . interesting:

House Bill 1580 is the product of such a brainstorming session this summer between three freshman House Republicans: Bob Kingsbury of Laconia, Tim Twombly of Nashua and Lucien Vita of Middleton. The eyebrow-raiser, set to be introduced when the Legislature reconvenes next month, requires legislation to find its origin in an English document crafted in 1215.

"All members of the general court proposing bills and resolutions addressing individual rights or liberties shall include a direct quote from the Magna Carta which sets forth the article from which the individual right or liberty is derived," is the bill's one sentence.

Guys, as a medieval legal history junkie (and how sad is that), I appreciate your interest, but even fellow addict Oliver Wendell Holmes would--and, in almost as many words, did in fact say that

It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.

Well, yes. Thankee.

Joining and supporting the Selden Societyis really a much better way to go. And, you'll learn what Magna Carta does, and does not, have to do with today's society.

And, in keeping with today's other post:

I didn't want to, but...

2012-01-04T17:15:00.000-08:00

this makes it fair game:"The sinister, shocking truth about Barack Obama’s past lies not in east Africa, but in outer space. As a young man in the early 1980s, Obama was part of a secret CIA project to explore Mars. The future president teleported there, along with the future head of Darpa."

Actually, the truth is far, far more sinister. The President is. . . a Time Lord. He was elected because of some, yeah, mind control, and, and ....wait, they did this...:

Better paranoid delusions, please.

A Sign of the Times

2012-01-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

So the New York Times has an article about the American branch of the Roman Catholic Ordinariate for disaffected Episcopalians. As the Times summarizes, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter is

the equivalent of a nationwide diocese in the United States that former Episcopal priests and congregations can enter together as intact groups, the Vatican announced Sunday. Converts who join the new entity will be full-fledged Catholics, expected to show allegiance to the pope and oppose contraception and abortion. But they will be allowed to preserve revered verses from the Book of Common Prayer. And, in what one Catholic leader called “an act of generosity,” priests who are married will be exempted from the Catholic requirement of celibacy, though they may not become bishop.

My initial reaction was one of dislike; I think that the Episcopal Church, with its welcoming Protestant and Catholic, liberal and conservative, represents a more viable, and theologically satisfying, model of mainline Christianity than what Susan Howatch called "the authoritarian monolith of Rome." (Not to bash Catholicism, which has given much to me personally; I'm speaking about ecclesiology here). Anything that detracts from model that is unwelcome to me, and ecumenicism based on submission is not, in my opinion, a healthy model.

I think it's profoundly regrettable that some conservatives are leaving the Episcopal Church, because there is a conservative wisdom which we would do well to retain to counterbalance liberalism. And yet, I do firmly believe that the recognition of women's ministry, and that of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters is necessary as well as just. Ironically, in so many other areas theologically fairly conservative--I really do believe in the creeds, I do believe the historicity of the overwhelming majority of the gospel accounts. I'm no John Shelby Spong, or even JAT Robinson--though I have learned from reading both. I find this schism, which is what it is, deplorable, but perhaps it is inevitable. One can only hope that we--those who stay and those who depart--can handle it with the maximum of charity and the minimum of rancor.

God bless the church catholic, and help us to heal our divisions.

Goodbye 2011, and Hello More of the Same!

2011-12-31T13:00:00.000-08:00

One needn't be as cynical as Uncle Duke to write the above. Just to say that we'll continue on the prowl next year, and hope everyone who reads and runs has a wonderful, safe New Year's Eve, and a joyous 2012.

Now say goodbye to 2011 with me:

Thomas Becket and the Honor of God

2011-12-29T15:39:00.000-08:00

Today marks the feast day of Thomas Becket, a figure I have found to be of interest for years. Enough so that his struggle with Henry II prompted a full length exploration of Becket's fight for clerical immunity from secular law, and its role in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis. (The link goes to the first draft of the article; the revised--and, in my opinion, much better--version will be published by the Journal of Law and Religion in 2012).

Becket's fight was in a cause that today we could call dubious at best--even in his own day, William, canon of Newburgh,declared that Becket and his supporters brought the crisis on themselves “since they were more intent on defending the liberties and rights of the clergy than on correcting and restraining their vices.” And, his vision of clerical supremacy could be stunningly arrogant, as displayed in a letter he wrote to Bishop Gilbert Foliot, in which Becket compares priests to “Gods,” and declares that Henry should follow the example of the Emperor Constantine, who, refusing to process indictments or bishops, “burned the documents in their presence, saying to them, ‘You are gods, appointed by the true God. Go, and decide your cases among yourselves, because it is not fitting that we men should judge gods.’” (See Anne Duggan, ed. & trans., 1 THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THOMAS BECKET, Letter 96 at 439, 441 (2000)).

And yet--there is something about Becket that captures the imagination. Courage he had, no doubt, and sincerity. After much thought about him, I'm left thinking that he applied medieval notions of kingly honor to the Honor of God (a recurrent phrase in his correspondence and answers to Henry's supporters), and as such could quite reasonably have believed that defending the land, prerogatives, possessions and dignity of the Church were all implicated in defending God’s honor. Any yielding on his part regarding any of these would be a sin, which would not be made right unless restitution and something more, to erase the perceived derogation of God’s honor, were done. Hence his penance after the Council of Clarendon and his dramatic resignation of the archbishopric into the hands of the Pope. Histrionic Becket may have been, but there is no reason to doubt that he held his views sincerely.

Swimming the Tiber in Reverse

2011-12-28T19:16:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of the shortly before Christmas posting on the Lead, I became aware of this post from the Catholic Herald, asking "Why do Catholics Become Anglicans?", and hazarding several guesses:

Firstly, marriage, and in recent times, civil partnerships: Because the Anglican church will often bless unions the Catholic Church does not recognise, some people have gone to the vicar for weddings or services of blessing and then stayed with the vicar’s community.

Secondly, aesthetic reasons: I know of some who have decided that their pretty village church with its warm-hearted community is the place where they want to be. Many of these people, in my experience, have not been particularly religious. While they may consider themselves parishioners, they would but infrequently go to the Anglican Church.

Thirdly, church politics: usually when people have a blazing row with the parish priest over the positioning of the hymn board or some other cutting edge matter, they vamoose to another parish. Sometimes, though I have heard of only one case, they storm off “to join the other lot”, as they put it.

Fourthly, female ordination: some Catholic women have left the Church to join the Anglicans so that they can be ordained. Some lay people may have joined the Anglicans because they support female ordination.

In comments, it is suggested that those who cannot conform to the discipline of the Church--divorced persons, GLBT, etc., all leave rather than accept the harder parts of the Christian message propagated by the Catholic Church. I think it fair to say that the commenters (as is not unheard of on the internet) are less charitable than the original post. I also think it fair to say that the original post treats the reasons offered as somewhat trivial in nature. Notably, there is no suggestion that genuine theological difficulties with the positions held by the Church, and resulting loss of faith in its ecclesiology, could play a part.

As it did in my own case. I was raised a Roman Catholic, as I mentioned in my very first post on this blog, and the experience was nothing like the rather superficial disaffection based on essentially unimportant grounds postulated in the Catholic Herald post. Rather, my experience was one of discouragement from a faith the beauty of whose sacramental liturgy spoke to me, but whose insistence on the prerogative to unilaterally decree truth in all areas of life--in areas far afield from the tenets of the faith--made no sense to me, and yet throughout my lifetime has come to dominate the Catholic Church. So, for example, the Church has been induced in recent years to

stop talking so much about the many policy issues they have taken up in the name of social justice. They should concentrate their authority on “the moral social” issues like abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex marriage, where, he argued, the natural law and Gospel principles were clear. To be sure, he said, he had no objections to bishops' “making utter nuisances of themselves” about poverty and injustice, like the Old Testament prophets, as long as they did not advocate specific remedies. They should stop lobbying for detailed economic policies like progressive tax rates, higher minimum wage and, presumably, the expansion of health care — “matters of public policy upon which Gospel principles by themselves do not resolve differences of opinion among reasonable and well-informed people of good will,” as [Robert] George put it.

This is not true, of course, of all bishops or priests, or applicable to all issues--the bishops have rallied around the right to collective bargaining, for example, and the Church firmly opposes the death penalty. But these issues are not, just as George urges, as critical in remaining a Catholic in good standing as George's issues. Prominent Catholic such as Antonin Scalia publicly disavow the Church's official teaching on the death penalty without censure, while pro-choice politicians may be denied the Eucharist. Even on the pro-life ethic, there is a conservative slant. For a church which seeks to be, as its name denotes, universal, the increasingly strong rightward tilt politically is an obstacle.

As is the insistence on special exemptions from anti-discrimination for Catholic Charities, even where the bulk of its funding is provided by the State.

As is, of course, the Church's abysmal mishandling of its sexual abuse crisis.

These contemporary issues had their analogues in the mid 80s-early 90s as I became an increasingly disaffected Catholic, and learned to question the institutionalism of the hierarchy, and indeed its excessive claims to obedience. In those days, we saw the first wave of sex abuse cases be stonewalled, liberal theologians silenced, despite their eminent standing and good faith, and the promise of Vatican II wither. And yes, the devaluing of women in the name of tradition alone, and the casual cruelty I saw inflicted on gays and lesbians did feed my dissatisfaction--injustice does, even if one is not the target of the injustice! For me, being a dissentient Catholic trained my eye on the institution, and taught me to value openness, transparency, and a broader church--one which ddi not hold itself out to be the only true Church, but a part of the broader Church, the "Church Catholic" rather than the Catholic Church.

[Edited to remove word-processing errors resulting in word salad.]

In becoming an Episcopalian, I found I was free to embrace the many benefits of Catholic spirituality, and I remain grateful to the Roman Catholic Church for my upbringing, and so very much of my faith and spiritual practice. In being free from an ecclesiology that did not fit me, I was able to treasure the good gifts I had been given.

Our Father's house has many mansions. I moved next door.

"And We Know That All Things Work Together For Good"

2011-12-22T17:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, my mother-in-law, Mabel, died. She had suffered from Alzheimer's Disease for years before I met her, and, when my fiancee (as she then was) and I stayed with my now-sister-in-law, I got to spend a little time with her. She was able to understand who I was in her daughter's life, to take pleasure in feeling that we had, after a fair number of vicissitudes, found our way to each other at last. Her death came after an unexpected sharp illness, and my wife and I had to get a flight the very same day. We bolted from New York, and found ourselves in North Carolina a few hours later.

In meeting with Mabel's friends and family, and hearing their stories about her, I felt that I finally got to, if only indirectly, know a woman I'd only glimpsed. I was asked to help her long-term caregiver, a very kind, loving woman, select a passage of scripture, and also to find a poem by Robert Frost, Mabel's favorite poet. Here's what I came up with.

The scripture verse was Romans 8: 24-28:

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

The last sentence is especially important to me, especially after I read Susan Howatch's novel Absolute Truths, in which, based on a sermon by Dean Alex Wedderspoon, she glossed the passage as:

suggest[ing] that the sentence "All things work together for good to them that love God" was slightly mistranslated, and that the translation should have been: "All things intermingle for good to them that love God." This would mean that the good and bad were intermingling to create a synergy--or, in other words: in the process of intermingling, the good and the bad formed something else. The bad didn't become less bad, and the dark didn't become less dark--one had to acknowledge this, acknowledge the reality of the suffering. But the light emanating .from a loving God created a pattern on the darkness, and in that pattern was the meaning, and in the meaning lay the energy which would generate the will to survive.

As to the Robert Frost, this is the one that spoke to me:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Vogue la Galère, Mabel. Let your ship sail free.

The Movement and the Moment

2011-12-18T06:13:00.001-08:00

The Anglocat knows and has great affection for the good people at Trinity Wall Street. So it is with some perturbation that I see the hardening of lines between Trinity and the Occupy Wall Street movement:

The displaced occupiers had asked the church, one of the city’s largest landholders, to hand over a gravel lot, near Canal Street and Avenue of the Americas, for use as an alternate campsite and organizing hub. The church declined, calling the proposed encampment “wrong, unsafe, unhealthy and potentially injurious.”

And now the Occupy movement, after weeks of targeting big banks and large corporations, has chosen Trinity, one of the nation’s most prominent Episcopal parishes, as its latest antagonist.

“We need more; you have more,” one protester, Amin Husain, 36, told a Trinity official on Thursday, during an impromptu sidewalk exchange between clergy members and demonstrators. “We are coming to you for sanctuary.”

Trinity’s rector, the Rev. James H. Cooper, defended the church’s record of support for the protesters, including not only expressions of sympathy, but also meeting spaces, resting areas, pastoral services, electricity, bathrooms, even blankets and hot chocolate. But he said the church’s lot — called Duarte Square — was not an appropriate site for the protesters, noting that “there are no basic elements to sustain an encampment.”

Yesterday, the OWS folk jumped the fence, led by the Rt. Rev. George Packard, in full cassock:

Bishop Packard was arrested, along with approximately fifty other "occupiers". In the wake of these arrests, Rev. Jim Cooper, the Rector of Trinity, released a statement leaning rather heavily on the argumentum ad verecundiam (that's the "argument from authority" when it's at home):

We are saddened that OWS protestors chose to ignore yesterday’s messages from Archbishop Tutu, from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, and from Bishop of New York Mark S. Sisk. Bishop Tutu said: “In a country where all people can vote and Trinity’s door to dialogue is open, it is not necessary to forcibly break into property.” The Presiding Bishop said: “Other facilities of Trinity continue to be open to support the Occupy movement, for which I give great thanks. It is regrettable that Occupy members feel it is necessary to provoke potential legal and police action by attempting to trespass on other parish property…I would urge all concerned to stand down and seek justice in ways that do not further alienate potential allies.” Bishop Sisk said: “The movement should not be used to justify breaking the law nor is it necessary to break into property for the movement to continue.”

OWS protestors call out for social and economic justice; Trinity has been supporting these goals for more than 300 years. The protestors say they want to improve housing and economic development; Trinity is actively engaged in such efforts in the poorest neighborhoods in New York City and indeed around the world. We do not, however, believe that erecting a tent city at Duarte Square enhances their mission or ours.

I find this argument less than compelling, in the context in which it has been deployed. First, one need not embrace OWS; but Trinity has chosen to do so. It's one thing to say of a movement, "we do not believe it serves the common good" and decline to support it, and quite another to justify a decision to refuse a request from a movement one has publicly embraced. Instead, Trinity grounds its decision in a rather--forgive me, but I can't think of another word--paternalistic statement that it knows best for OWS what would serve its mission. As to Trinity's mission, it is unclear why leasing, for a limited use (because of the prior lease) and on limited terms (to address safety and health issues), a vacant lot which Trinity owns would effect its mission in any negative way. Certainly if OWS declined reasonable terms, that would be grounds for Trinity to deny a lease; likewise if OWS overstayed, Trinity would have the moral high ground. Instead, well, as the comments at the Lead, a pretty mainstream Episcopal news blog show, Trinity's commitment to social justice (of which it rightly is proud) has been drawn into question, and a key question asked, by Jim Naughton (a well established blogger), "whether we can examine the notion that Trinity is an ally in attempting any real economic reform."

I think the question as posed is unduly harsh; but Jim makes a larger point--which is whether Trinity, and other Episcopal parishes, spend so much time focusing on ameliorating the harshest results of our system that they do not reckon with more fundamental challenges to it inherent in Christian ethics. In 1921, Charles Gore sardonically described the viewpoint of so many of his brethren that the laissez-faire system was divinely ordained:

It must have been expressed originally in sublime unconsciousness that the whole industrial system, then in its glory, had been built up on a basis of profound revolt against the central law of Christian morality, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ There are few things in history more astonishing than the silent acquiescence of the Christian world in the radical betrayal of its ethical foundation.

I think that Gore's words remain pertinent today, as demonstrated by the widespread valorization of the market, whether in the cognitive dissonance of professed Christians adopting the explicitly anti-Christian writings of Ayn Rand or the "insipid heresy" known as the prosperity gospel. The 2010 Trinity Institute, Building an Ethical Economy: Theology and the Marketplace, addressed some of these issues, but in an academic/intellectual way. OWS's request provided Trinity with an opportunity to seize the moment, and put itself into relationship with those speaking for the casualties of our system, a chance to put its ideas into action. The bishops are quite right that the decision was Trinity's to make, both legally and morally, but one can regret the chance not taken, and the opportunity foregone in the name of safety.

Laws and Customs

2011-12-13T17:36:00.000-08:00

One thing that I've become interested in, very much for its own sake, but also because of its surprisingly strong modern legacy, is medieval law. In my forthcoming article, I'm writing about the effect of the struggle over clerical immunity from secular jurisdiction on the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, but the research opened up whole new vistas of areas as to which I am stone ignorant, but which effect the law in secular society and the church alike. Meeting Henry II again, and Becket, led me to meet Glanville, and now Bracton. Bracton develops the story Glanville begins, and traces it further in time and breadth. I think the relationship between law and custom, in particular, is a particularly lively source of light and heat both; think of how Henry's effort to concretize custom into law, the Constitutions of Clarendon, became a flashpoint in the Becket dispute. By trying to resolve the ambiguities, Henry forced Becket to open conflict; by seeking to exploit them, Becket forced the king to demand clarity.

In all, an interesting study...

Not . . . the Mind Probe!

2011-12-12T16:34:00.000-08:00

No, indeed. Instead, a few words about P.R.O.B.E., the mostly forgotten, straight-to-video, Doctor Who spinoff bringing back Caroline John as Liz Shaw, now investigating, er, damned odd occurrences in England, mostly involving actors who look suspiciously like various incarnations of the Doctor. The series was written by Mark Gatiss, who has written several episode of the Doctor Who revival, and is, to put it gently, of variable quality.

The idea of bringing back Liz Shaw is appealing, in part because her character was underused in the 1970 series--her aloof-but-almost-flirty rapport with Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier, and her independence from the Doctor made her a character whose depths had only been suggested, but definitely warranted further development.

Instead, she got P.R.O.B.E., with its incomprehensible first story, with Sylvester McCoy gurning pitiably after a promising opening, Colin Baker reminding me of why I couldn't stand his era as the Doctor, and Jon Pertwee appearing in the thing, seemingly, only to justify a single joke at the end (admittedly, a satisfying moment, as his character and Liz enjoy a cuppa together). Hints about Liz (when did she start smoking a *pipe*? What is she, Mammy Yokum?), her boss (Oi, is that Leela--oh, she's gone!), and a quick, not unaffectionate, jibe at the Brig--all lost in the welter of lunacy that was the unfortunate first script.

Fortunately, the second story was much better--blessed with a coherent, creepy script, a strong performance by Caroline John, well supported by Louise Jameson (told you that was Leela!). John's scenes with Jameson as her beleaguered boss, locked in battle with an unsympathetic cabinet minister, played by John's husband, Geoffrey Beevers (another Doctor Who alum, so good as the Master in "The Deadly Assassin"), are well played, if a little odd in tone. (Romance or Thelma-and-Louse-style bonding? You decide!)

But the real heart of the story is Caroline John's performance and a bit of a tour de force by Peter Davison. Here's where the story, "The Devil of Winterborne," really shines. The quintessential British cop (Terry Molloy, better known as Davros) doesn't get a look in at the interview of Davison, a suspect for a series of murders as to which Liz suspects a more outré cause. It's Liz (of course) who gets the truth out of Davison's Headmaster Purcell, but how she does it is a credit to them both. She laughs, perfectly pleasantly--sincerely, even--at Purcell's witticisms and sarcasms; she is sympathetic, but she has a razor-sharp ear for when he lies or evades. And Davison matches John here--his retreat is absolutely credible, his feelings of guilt and remorse for his share in events is believable; he uses his Tristan Farnon persona to create a level of sympathy with his character that makes you root (a little!) for him.

The third story, "Unnatural Selection", is much weaker, but enlivened by a strong, cold, mad performance by Charles Kay, whom I well remember as the vicious martinet Alcock in To Serve Them All My Days. The ending breaks down, unfortunately, and lacks the coherence of its immediate predecessor. Still, at least Liz smokes her pipe this time, instead of merely toying with it.

As for the the final episode, "The Ghosts of Winterborne," it has some of the virtues of its predecessor, including Davison's Purcell in an effort at redemption, and the strong acting partnership between John and David--and John and Jameson, again--but feels a bit overcrowded and rushed.

While I can't really recommend the PROBE series, I'm not sorry to have run across them; it's nice to imagine Liz Shaw, 20 years on, still wry, still deploring the military mind, still solving mysteries.

Just--not these particular mysteries, on the whole.

Still Standing at Armageddon, Battling Dutifully Away

2011-12-11T06:01:00.000-08:00

Just over four years ago (!), I chided then-aspiring CANA bishop, Martyn Minns, rather harshly for his false statement denouncing as "untrue" reports that the then-Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola was "an advocate of jailing gays,” in which he said that "Archbishop Akinola believes that all people—whatever their manner of life or sexual orientation—are made in the image of God and deserve to be treated with respect." Archbishop Akinola had, in fact previously issued a statement supporting a proposed Nigerian law that would do exactly that, stating "[t]he Church commends the law-makers for their prompt reaction to outlaw same-sex relationships in Nigeria and calls for the bill to be passed since the idea expressed in the bill is the moral position of Nigerians regarding human sexuality." This was important at the time, as Minns' parishes in Virginia were deciding whether to affiliate with Nigeria, rather than remain in the Episcopal Church, on the ground that it was insufficiently bigoted against gays, but the Nigerian law was further than the upscale parishes might have felt comfortable with. It's one thing not to consecrate openly gay bishops, quite another to criminalize homosexual relationships, speech in favor of gay rights, etc.

So why do I bring this up, four years later? Because Nigeria is in the process of passing a version of the draconian law, under which:

couples who marry could face up to 14 years each in prison. Witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars. That’s an increase over the bill’s initial penalties, which lawmakers proposed during a debate Tuesday televised live from the National Assembly in Nigeria’s capital Abuja.

Other additions to the bill include making it illegal to register gay clubs or organizations, as well as criminalizing the “public show of same-sex amorous relationships directly or indirectly.” Those who violate those laws would face 10-year imprisonment as well.

Needless to say, Archbishop Akinola now retired, "has enthusiastically endorsed Nigeria's anti-gay bill." I have not seen a straightforward endorsement of the bill by Akinola's successor, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, but, in September of this year, he was quoted as calling gays and lesbians “evil”, saying that God had created women as “helpmates” for men. “What is being known now as 'gay' and 'homosexuality' is contrary to God’s plan for human sexuality and procreation,” the Most Reverend Nicholas Okoh said. “It is against the will of God, and nobody should encourage it, and those who do will earn for themselves the damnation of the Almighty."

CANA members must be very, very proud of how their church is advancing the teaching of Jesus Christ in this Advent season.

"Borking." Again with the "Borking."

2011-10-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Joe Nocera, alas, has fallen into the trap of assuming the conservative founding grudge story is true:

The Bork fight, in some ways, was the beginning of the end of civil discourse in politics. For years afterward, conservatives seethed at the “systematic demonization” of Bork, recalls Clint Bolick, a longtime conservative legal activist. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution coined the angry verb “to bork,” which meant to destroy a nominee by whatever means necessary. When Republicans borked the Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright less than two years later, there wasn’t a trace of remorse, not after what the Democrats had done to Bork. The anger between Democrats and Republicans, the unwillingness to work together, the profound mistrust — the line from Bork to today’s ugly politics is a straight one.

The argument rests on two premises, both fundamentally false. The first is that Bork's rejection by the Senate marked an escalation of the political warfare over the judiciary. The seconds, as Nocera writes, is that "[n]or was Bork himself an extremist. He was a strongly opinionated, somewhat pugnacious, deeply conservative judge," and that, under the pre-existing mores of the Senate, he was entitled to confirmation. Both premises are so demonstrably false as to draw into question Nocera's competence.

First, the rejection of Bork's nomination took place 17 years after the far more dramatic effort on the part of the House Republicans to impeach sitting Justice a William O. Douglas over his off the bench writings (an article on folk music, and a book, Points of Rebellion, urging reform as the best means to avert social crisis, and another article, inoffensive in itself, but published in a risqué magazine), his votes in favor of free speech, and his personal life--Douglas was married to a much younger woman, and had been married three earlier times. (The source linked here--from Wikipedia--is unfortunately the best of a bad lot of online sources about WOD, and, if anything, is far too charitable to then-Rep. Gerald Ford's leadership of this attempt, which most accounts acknowledge was a political effort to break the liberal bloc of the Court). As my old law professor Henry Monaghan--a Bork supporter who testified on his behalf--acknowledged in a 1988 article in the Harvard Law Review "all the relevant historical and textual sources support the Senate's power when and if it sees fit to assert its vision of the public good against that of the President." By contrast, a federal judge is to be impeached only for "high crimes and misdemeanors," a problem Ford elided by redefining the constitutional text to mean nothing; as he said on the House floor, "[t]he only honest answer is that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history."

To say that the Bork rejection began the hostilities is, to put it mildly, facetious.

As to whether or not Bork was entitled to a seat on the Court, Monaghan's article is clear that the Senate had plenary power to reject him; as to the question whether it correctly deemed him to be too extreme, let me quote an older post:

Bork was rejected--to my mind quite rightly--because of his philosophy. Not because he was conservative--William H. Rehnquist had just been elevated to Chief Justice, after all--but because his conservatism led him to discard whole sections of the Constitution based on his personal ideological committments.

So, for example, Judge Bork contended that the Ninth Amendment, reading that the "enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" could not be a source of rights which were enforceable, and that only those explicitly enumerated in the text could be. He described its meaning in The Tempting of America, as indeterminate as an "ink blot", and claimed that the judiciary should simply ignore the Amendment, which would give [no] effect to the intention of the Framers. As Bork himself said, "the only recourse for a judge is to refrain from inventing meanings and ignore the provision, as was the practice until recently." (“Interpretation of the Constitution,” 1984 Justice Lester W. Roth Lecture, University of So. California, October 25, 1984).

However, the Framers had originally not included a Bill of Rights because, as recounted in The Federalist Papers, the enumeration of rights might be used as a means to claim that those not named did not exist. Federalist No. 84. Madison addressed this issue in explaining his addition of the text that became the Ninth Amendment:

It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution." (3 Annals of America at 354-363).

So the text of the Constitution, and Bork's own claimed ultimate goal of interpretation--effecting the actual original intent of the framers--both demonstrably preclude his reading of the Ninth Amendment out of the Constitution. nevertheless, for his own policy-based reasons, Bork argues for such a reading-out. As an equation, if T means text, for Bork T=0, absent any reference to original intent, structure, or any other ground.

Similarly, with the First Amendment, Bork argued that the scope of speech protected by the First Amendment should be limited to purely political speech, despite the text of the Amendment which carries no such limitation, providing only that "Congress shall make no law ....abridging the freedom of speech." (Bork's article, "Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems" is published at 47 Indiana L.J. 1 (1971)). Again, Bork's resort to the intention of the Framers over the text was unconvincing to the say the least. Because of the lateness of the addition to the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, there are very limited legislative history materials to use in interpreting the text, but neither Madison's notes, nor those of the other members of the Constitutional Convention support Bork's reading of the Amendment. Nor does the early practice; the Supreme Court in Permoli v. First Municipality, City of New Orleans, 44 U.S. 589 (1844) and United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875) twice held that the effect of the First Amendment was to completely disable Congress in dealing with regulation of speech and religion. (For more detail, see my First Amendment, First Principles at pp. 20-23).

Bork also described the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as enacting a "principle of unsurpassed ugliness" in forcing white operators of public accommodation to serve African Americans. "Civil Rights—A Challenge," The New Republic, August 31, 1963. The emotive language used by Bork was deemed by many on the left to justify Senator Kennedy's assertion that segregation at lunch counters would be a feature of "Robert Bork's America." All of these issues, and Bork's role in the "Saturday Night Massacre" in which he was the third occupant of the office of Attorney General because he alone was willing to back then-President Nixon's position on executive privilege, cost him support. Bork's 1987 claim that he construed the law and the Constitution in each of these areas and did not argue his personal beliefs is belied by his use of emotive language and in many areas his subsequent insistence that his views are not merely constitutionally imperative but morally so. See Slouching Toward Gomorrah (1996) and his contributions to A Country I Do Not Recognize: The Legal Assault On American Values (2005).

I point all of these out because the notion that Robert Bork fell because of his conservatism distorts the history in a manner that suggests that mere political disagreement is enough to torpedo a judicial nomination. In fact, Judge Bork's interpretations of the Constitution were not merely substantively "out of the mainstream"; they were not supported by the very values that he claimed mandated them, and they would erase centuries of constitutional law in favor of a broad power to the Government over what Americans thought and did in their private lives, in the name of morality.

I stand by that analysis; I think the Senate did its job in 1987, and that Nocera failed to do his this week

The Kids are Alright

2011-10-08T07:49:00.000-07:00

So apparently, some of the businesses neighboring Zuccotti Park are finding Occupy Wall Street to be a drag. A few specified instances you can sympathize with--local restaurants who have had toilet paper and/or soap stolen, one business who had a sink broken), but I have to say that a lot of it comes off as the whining of the privileged. A mother (a psychologist no less), who is concerned that "she had to shield her toddler from the sight of women at the park dancing topless"? Like that memory'll haunt the poor little tyke as a childhood trauma? Or the fact that "[t]oddlers have been roused from sleep just after bedtime by chanting and pounding drums"? I'm sure it's an irritant, but you're living in a business district; New York City doesn't shut down by toddler bed time. And the notion that the Park (a concrete oval dotted with benches and food trucks) is a green refuge is pretty laughable.

I walk by Zuccotti Park twice a day on my way to and from work, and, I admit it, I've been curious enough to go in a couple times, to try to see what the crowd is like, what they're doing. They're sweeping up after each other, distributing warm clothes and sleeping bags, sharing books ("the People's Library"), and even barbering--I saw one man giving another a classic old-school shave). They're friendly, and eager to talk. Even though I'm all conservatively suited up, nobody has assumed I'm the Enemy--in fact, there are people in business suits in the park. I've been amused by some of the signs--"Ayn Rand was a Sociopath" got a grin from me, and a "second the motion!"--and touched by some of the stories. There are graduates who can't get work, and are lumbered with undischargeable debt, workers who have been laid off, and Americans, young and not-young, who have seen policy emphasize saving the powerful entities that got us into this mess while failing to act to ameliorate the human suffering caused by their recklessness. I saw discussions beginning, and a sluggish media slowly beginning to take notice

The First Amendment is in full flower at Zuccotti Park, and that's a good thing.

So, What's New By You?

2011-10-08T07:37:00.001-07:00

Me, I got married last Saturday, a week ago today. The rain held off so that we could have our ceremony outside. Our priest did a wonderful job, including a sermon that began: "Here's the thing about them [that'd be me and my wife]: They're not normal." Good times.

Seriously, it was a wonderful day, and, even though La Caterina and I have been together for over five years it does feel different for me now. And better.

And friends--some of whom I hadn't seen for a criminally long tine--flicker in and out, like we're doing some metaphysical version of the eightsome reel. I'm struck by how fortunate I have been in my friendships.

The rain did come, of course, and that meant we were all indoors, and had no room for a dance floor. (Mind you, as my specialty is the "Gopher Dance", that may have been a mercy). In keeping with my current Leonard Cohen kick, I had hoped to dance with LaC to this, but in a very real way, we already are:

The Holy and the Broken Hallelujah

2011-09-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

So for several months now--since a friend of mine referenced it online, as a matter of fact--a particular song has been rattling around in my brain, inviting me to embrace its complexities.

I refer to Leonard Cohen's classic song "Hallelujah." One of the great things about the song is that there is no one correct version of it--the lyrics vary wildly in order of the verses and in content. (This is true, by the way, whether Cohen himself is singing it, or another musician is covering it. In fact, covers tend to be more standardized--John Cale, Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright all use pretty closely similar versions).

Here is, for example, what is posted on YouTube as the "original studio version":

Note the verse:

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Won't be hearing that again.

Ok, let's go to John Cale:

(Quite possibly my own favorite version, though the next contender is close)

And, just for good measure, a really good late Cohen performance:

So, we have a verse introducing the story of David, singing before the Lord--but with a bitter edge. Then, the story of David and Bathsheba--"You saw her bathing on the roof/Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you." And, just to complicate matters more, the story blends with that of Samson and Delilah--"she tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne and she cut your hair". Bathsheba may have a verse herself--"I've seen your flag on the marble arch/but love is not a victory march," sometimes feels like a wry observation from a woman whose preferences were not, shall we say, consulted.

The other verses, in counterpart, speak of the bitterness of betrayal, the seeming meaninglessness life and love itself ("maybe there's a God above/but all I've ever learned from love/is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you"") can present at times, and our own crippling inability to "only connect." And throughout, the narrator refuses to accept the stereotype of an easy festal shout of "Hallellujah!" Life hurts, bucko. You may give that shout--but not easily, not without the experience of desolation that the spiritual life doesn't immunize us from.

The biblical references frame the song--in some versions they follow each other, in others not. They invoke Scripture but not in a simple re-telling--the scriptural story goes back and forth with a narrator who (as the verses quoted above shows, and ) is pretty jaundiced about life, and, as this and other verses show, about love--sacred at times (the "Holy Dove was moving too"and yet so transitory. But then what a finish--in the versions that use it:

I've done my best,
it wasn't much.
I couldn't feel
so I learned to touch.
I've told the truth,
I didn't come here just to fool you
And though it seems it all went wrong,
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
with nothing on my tongue but Hallellujah

George Herbert has gotta love that. Seriously, beat this as a theological rumination--it's a testament of a soul battered, not broken, hurt by life but choosing to love, and appearing before the Great Mystery with truth and a kind of hell-busted joy.

A Decade Later

2011-09-11T12:34:00.001-07:00

Everyone is, reasonably enough, looking back on September 11, 2001. Decades say something to us, in our desire to track events, and measure lives. My own experience was more opera bouffe than anything else, but here it is.

I was working, at that time, at a small Long Island law firm, and we had a office in the WTC. Fortunately, there was a whole-office meeting out in Nassau County, so that nobody reported to our Trade Center offices that day. Everyone was at the Long Island office.

Except me. But I was not at the WTC either; I had just completed a two day meeting with clients in DC, in which we began laying the groundwork for the litigation in which we challenged the Communications Decency Act's application of "local community standards" to judge the content of material posted online, and, especially, the Government's then-extant strategy of having government employees access websites from conservative jurisdictions, and making the artist/authors stand trial in that jurisdiction, under its standards, a policy under which the most conservative community essentially set the limits for what was permissible throughout the United States.

So, I was at the then-relatively-newly renamed Reagan National Airport, about to fly home. Did you know that RNA is quite close to the Pentagon? Neither did I, then.

About to board my flight, I saw the first plane strike the Tower. I thought it was an accident--an unbelievable accident. I even called home, and left a message asking if I had actually seen that. Then, a woman in an airline uniform ran out from behind the baggage area waving her arms and yelling "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!"

As far as I could tell, that was the evacuation protocol. Straightforward, at least.

I went to the main concourse. That's when I saw tape of the second plane, and realized this was big. And deliberate. Another guy, about my age now, maybe a few years older, said to me, "Damn. We'd better try to get a train before they get closed down, too." We walked back to the abandoned baggage area, got our bags, and began to head back to the concourse. All of the people in the airport were out on the tarmac, trying to work non-functioning cell phones. A low, dense black smoke rolled toward us--word of mouth had it that the airport had been bombed. And so, with no clear idea where we were headed, we walked across the grass, down a hill, across a highway, and then into the nearest town. My companion was taken ill on the way down-started feeling his chest tighten--so I helped with his bag. And a bunch of Americans streamed into an American town like refugees.

A nearby hotel (a Marriott) let us in, and started handing out water. My companion (forgot his name after all these years) was taken to a doctor, and I was on my own. I hate to admit it, but I immediately flashed on the Flashman novels, especially Flashy's dicta that if you look like you belong, people will assume you do, and carry yourself with a high hand. Rather than fold up my best suit for the trip home, I was wearing it. I closed my shirt collar, jacked up my tie, and hid my bag behind a chair. The, walking in a swift but unhurried manner into the manager's office, with a cool nod to the secretary, I closed the door behind me and made calls--I couldn't reach my parents, but I did reach my client's Executive Director, and she and her husband offered me a bed for as long as needed one.

From there, it became simple-- a short ride on the Metro--up again after only an hour or so, a walk from the station, and a refuge.

I had it incredibly easy.

My friends didn't all have it so easy. I knew several people, good friends, who had damned close calls that day, and one former work acquaintance who died. My silly little experience was nothing like that--yet I got a taste of something most Americans haven't--a loss of security at the most basic level. I understand the anger the attacks caused at a visceral level, because I experienced first hand the "this cannot be bloody happening" feeling that underlines it so often. Ten years ago, we learned what it was like to be vulnerable. We also learned that there were heroes among us--the passengers of Flight 93, the firefighters who ran in, the police officers who shepherded people to safety, or died trying. The clergy at St. Paul's and Trinity, and St. Peter's, who provided succor and hope. And we saw good in each other--the testy mayor rose to the occasion, and President Bush (not a favorite of mine, shall we say) gave a speech in which he refused the poisonous bait Bin Laden proffered, and rejected the framing of the attack as one done by Islam as a whole against the West, thus denying Bin Laden his dream of a clash of civilizations.

A lot went wrong after that, and history will bring its usual microscope. And so it should. But for today, tomorrow really, because I'm posting this the night before the anniversary, we should, I think focus, on not just our losses, all the losses worldwide from this terrible conflict, but on those who have chosen to strive to redeem the mess--those of all and no faith who have tried to bring peace, to, each in his or her own way, still the ancient brutal dream of Attila the Hun.

As for us, who benefitted from their services, or from luck, or both? We're still here. Peace be upon us all.

On Purity Trolls of the Left

2011-07-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

From DKos:

I hate to accuse President Obama of being an Uncle Tom, but like Uncle Tom he counsels accepting our system of enslavement to the rich and powerful. I mean this literally, based on the book that, as Lincoln said, started the War to Free the Slaves. Obama began his Presidency being compared to Lincoln, because he supposedly appointed rivals to his cabinet. If he wanted real rivals, he would have appointed Krugman, Stiglitz, Trumka and Warren, not Summers, Geithner, Donovan, and Clinton. Obama has not shown the determination of Lincoln to restore the union, whatever the cost. If Obama had been president in 1861, he would have negotiated an end to war based on a promise from the slavers to treat their slaves better.

This framing is simply racist. Period. It's also deeply stupid, and smug to boot. And plug-ignorant, as well. (Did the author even read Stowe?)

But more to the point, this sort of thing helps explain why the "professional Left" doesn't find a lot of love in the Obama Administration. Because this is just today's example of this sort of insane nonsense--and check out the comments. Or check out Firedoglake . Or any post by Glenn Greenwald (seriously, I don't even have to pick a specific post; they're all over the top Obama bashing--and in comments and on Twitter GG consistently refers to Obama as "Dear Leader" and his supporters as "cultists").

And then compare this unfortunately named but understandably frustrated response.

Even when they have a point, who can hear them through the hate?

A Commercial Announcement: "Command and Coercion,"

2011-06-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

or what I've been doing instead of blogging. This article is, I hope, a section in my projected second book, in which I'll be exploring the relationship of Church and State, not from the perspective of what the Supreme Court has said about it (too muddled with inconsistent and conflicting rationales and results). Rather, I'll be looking at the harm done to religious bodies by efforts to exercise secular-style power.

This section examines the sex abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church and the Church's response as in the light of John Henry Newman's views on the Church's "regal function" and the clerical immunity from secular criminal law fought for by Thomas Becket. As this is a draft, a "pre-print," comments especially welcome.

The Letter Killeth...

2011-04-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

I have a few thoughts about the symposium issue of the Anglican Theological Review dedicated to Same Sex Relationships and the Nature of Marriage: A Theological Colloquy. The debate is quite interesting in its own right, and I recommend a reading of all of the various papers for a nuanced view of the scope of the disagreement. But I'm not here to recap it, but to riff off a few themes in the main conservative paper "Same Sex Marriage and Anglican Theology: A View From Traditionalists," by John E. Goldingay, Grant R. LeMarquand, George R. Sumner & Daniel A. Westberg. I feel a little bit guilty riffing off the themes that struck me in the paper, in that the Task Force appointed by the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops strove mightily on both sides to express their views in the most charitable way possible, and some of the things I have to say about this paper will not read as altogether charitable. Still, I can't help but feel that a lay reaction to this paper may interest some readers.

First, and foremost, I can't help but note that the paper reaches its viewpoint in a very abstract manner, proceeding from hermeneutics, to scriptural analysis, to science and natural law, and then to natural law and marriage. Now, this isn't a bad approach to certain legal problems--the interpretation of a constitutional text, for instance--but it seems awfully bloodless as an approach to theology. The most passionate, and eloquent, passage in the paper addresses hermeneutics:

we are trying to achieve an objective understanding of this text according to its own presuppositions and concerns. There is an analogy here in the process of gaining an objective understanding of other persons whom we love. Because of our commitment to them, we want to know them in reality, and not just make them a projection of our own interests. We commit ourselves to understanding them in their distinctiveness, even where we may find them difficult or objectionable. Often we find when we do that, what seemed objectionable, becomes, if not likable, at least understandable. We may then be able to learn from who they are--which does not happen either if we reject them or if we assimilate them too quickly to what we understand and accept.

(14)

Pretty good, hey? To quote the great Mark Twain, Sir, it is pie. But, what's interesting about the paper is that it doesn't apply this standard to the people most affected by the doctrine it defends: our GLBT brothers and sisters. There is no effort to engage with the experiences, the pain, the lives of those at the center at the debate. Now, I'm a great believer in intellectual rigor. But when it runs away from the Holy Spirit, and the experiences of those impacted by its sweeping analysis, it becomes scholasticism--a closed system, which may or may not connect with reality at a given point.

Here's another question about hermeneutics: The paper stresses the importance of fidelity to Scripture--not in a fundamentalist way, but to the whole tenor of Scripture, a general viewpoint with which I agree--and finds in the few pieces of Scripture that touch upon homosexuality (in some way) and marriage a point of contact with natural law theory. But the paper acknowledges the prospect that there are "moral issues where subsequent reflection and experience led to genuine change in the church's teaching." (20). The paper gives three examples, two of which are non-controversial, and the third which is--interesting:chattel slavery, the subordination of women, and the prohibition of usury. (Id). Wait a second. What about the prohibition of usury? Ah:

The prohibition of usury, for example, was held for centuries, and came to be seriously questioned both on the adequacy of the interpretation of the few scriptural texts that were thought relevant, and of the philosophical understanding provided by Aristotle of the nature of money.. In that case, the evidence to decide the issue comes from reason and Scripture and not from tradition. In other words, the challenge to change the canon law on usury could not be answered simply by appealing to the many centuries when the prohibition was accepted.

(11).

At the risk of seeming pedantic, my copy of Aristotle's Politics at I x describes usury as unnatural, stating further that "The most hated sort [of wealth-getting], and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural." (That's Jowett's translation. The same text is less colorfully but consistently translated at p. 87 of the Penguin translation by TA Sinclair and & Trevor J. Saunders (1981)).

I don't see how Aristotle helps undermine the canon law here. (Fairness requires me to point out, though, that in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's theory of equality of exchange does suggest that individual transactions are not the ideal context of ensuring equality; medieval thinkers used this passage to moderate the canon law on usury, but the more specific passage in the Politics seems to me to make this much less obvious than the paper assumes). How about Scripture? A quick review of the texts quoted by Jeremiah O'Callaghan in his 1825 tract Usury, or Interest at 5-8 yields 18 separate prohibitions and condemnations of usury from the Gospels (Matthew and Luke) to St Paul and the Revelation, and a series from the Old Testament from Leviticus to Ezekiel, as well as the Psalms. And let's not forget the earliest Christians' practical common possession of all assets (Acts 4:32). If this is a "few" scriptural texts, the verses regarding homosexuality--the paper itself cites a total of five directly relating to same-sex relationships (at 26-28)--are dramatically fewer in number.

The paper contends that the prohibitions of same-sex relationships (the paper's characterization, not my own) gain in coherence because of their consistency and harmony with the texts relating to marriage, and natural law. But surely Jesus's concern for the poor, and distrust of the power of riches--fuels the prohibition of usury? It is itself a major theme of both Old and New Testaments. And, one might add, quite defensible today, in our post-crash world, as argued by Brian McCall in a recent article in the Cardozo Law Review. (McCall's article draws on Aristotle, Jewish and Roman law as well as the canon law tradition, and--wait for it--natural law).

So why am I brow-beating the paper and its authors on an ill-chosen example of "acceptable" moral development in this context? Because the paper's hermeneutic is inconsistently applied--for the change which is more comfortable to a modern conservative--the devaluation of Jesus's teachings with regard to money, and the prohibition of usury before and after His life, a significant number of specific passages which fit with the overarching themes of Scripture can be dismissed. For a change that is uncomfortable to them, a few snippets linked rather tendentiously to marriage must be honored. It's interpretation in support of what is most comfortable to the interpreter.

Which brings me back to where I began. The paper's most eloquent passage calls for knowing the other and understanding that other where he or she is. That isn't limited to Scriptural interpretation. With greater knowledge, comes less discomfort and more empathy. And possibly with understanding would come a theology that does more than lay burdens on others, while casually relegating pastoral care to a single sentence bromide, followed by recommending sublimation and/or a "therapeutic change in orientation."

Steppin' Out With STC...

2011-04-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

So, I have recently received as a gift a subscription to The Anglican Theological Review, and, in reading my first two issues, found an interesting article by Jeffrey Barbeau, Coleridge, Christology and the Language of Redemption, which gave me new insight into the poet as theologian. The article traced Samuel Taylor Coleridge's symbolic view of the atonement (or, as he called it on at least one occasion, at-one-ment, a usage I've seen fairly often, though not attributed to Coleridge) and his concern for recapturing the language of Scripture as deployed in context. It's worth reading.

Bit here's a small facet of the article that leapt out at me: Coleridge, as quoted by Barbeau, rejected the notion of Jesus as pure example, or teacher: "But I want, I need, a Redeemer, and this is possible only under the two-fold condition which I find asserted in the New Testament and the creeds of the Universal Church--that he is my fellow-man but not my fellow-creature." (280; emphasis in original).

Coleridge further explains that the effect of Redemption is to replace the Old Man with the New--the self-centered with the Christ-centered life, which has the effect on us as of liberation from bondage, beginning our path to a new life. As he writes, the goal is for the human will to be "concentric" with that of God. And, Barbeau notes, these evolving views on the Atonement reflected Coleridge's own experience as he dealt with his opium use, and his "emerging recognition of the need for complete dependence on the Absolute Will". (276, n. 24).

Sound familiar? It should: In AA, the Third Step is for the alcoholic to have "[m]ade a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him." And, if STC is to be believed, such is the beginning of the human side of the action of at-one-ment.

Good Friday

2011-04-22T07:07:00.000-07:00

For years, when I was a teen, I struggled with the name of this day--"pretty bloody awful Friday, if you ask me," I would snark in my best sub-Wodehousian manner.

Very clever.

Then, after my college years, I had a spell of alienation from the Church (Roman) and had not yet found my spiritual home in the Episcopal Church. My twin and I even scheduled inadvertently scheduled a birthday party on Good Friday, having lost track of Easter.

Oops!

Some years later, after my return to organized religion, as an Episcopalian, I hit bottom as an alcoholic. On Good Friday. On the day of our Lord's suffering for us, my own self-inflicted suffering reached its nadir. Good Friday has never been the same.

The difference was that, in my worst moments, God reached out to me again and again, and in the most unlikely ways--the Good Samaritan (an ex-convict, just out of prison, who walked me home, and thanked me for letting him help me), a good friend who bagged his plans for that Saturday night just to be with me, and so many others. (Hey, you want to her the full qualification, get to a meeting).

At the time, the irony seemed bitter--that I was such a drama addict that I had to stage my own collapse to last through Easter morning. In retrospect, though, I think it was entirely appropriate--I was past subtlety; I needed God to speak to me not with the "small, still voice" but fortissimo. Fortunately, He obliged.

So now Good Friday is inextricably linked for me with my own redemption not just in theology but in lived experience. I'm off to mark the occasion with the Liturgy of the Hours tonight, and then tomorrow I'll be at the Easter Vigil, where we celebrate our journey by God's Grace out of darkness into light.

Why Cats Don't Litigate (Or, at any rate, not well)

2011-04-08T18:57:00.001-07:00

So, we have an extra cat, a beautiful tortoiseshell cat who, I swear, I did not let into the apartment. La Caterina claims that she didn't either, but all I know is one day I came home from work and heard this little creature's plaintive cry of "peep! peep!" coming from inside the house. And sure enough, she was there. Really, that's her. On my table. Reedin' mah paper.

So, she's slowly winning over the other cats, but observing the horde at feeding time, I now understand why cats would not, for all their admitted wiliness and intelligence, make good litigators. They do not understand what an experienced litigator friend and I have come to call "the Schmuck Rule." (Except we use a harsher term. In English). As in, "don't be the schmuck." By which I mean that it's every bit as important to convince the trier of fact or law that she or he wants to rule in your favor as it is to convince her that she can rule in your favor. So--don't be the schmuck.

Alas, most of our cats haven't learned that lesson. Oh, Giles, the benevolent, kindly watcher-cat has, and Elvis who is just too nice to be admitted to the NKA (Naughty Kitten Association) or even the less hard edged ANK. But the rest will crowd her out at the food bowls, and one (a feline version of Anthony Ainley) tries to bully her. They are, in short, the schmuck. And sure enough, I give our "newest little treasure" (as our landlord rather archly called her) extra treats and snuggles to make her feel welcome.

And teh boycott isn't working anyway; where Giles and Elvis lead, the others will, eventually, follow.

John Donne's Day

2011-03-31T19:22:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrate John Donne--priest, poet, and lawyer. (You can see why he gives me hope!) Donne's poetry ranges from the satirical and sly, the mordant, the holy and the mystical. (A wonderful mordant poem-ette, written on his arrest for marrying without his wife's legally-required consent: "John Donne/Anne Donne/Undone"). A great lover of life, he was drawn into the Church progressively. He wrote, in Holy Sonnet XIV:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Anglocat on the Stump!

2011-03-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

Your Anglocat has been invited to speak at the St. Joh's University Conference on The Theology of Work and the Dignity of Workers. (I'm speaking tomorrow, Saturday, at the wildly optimistic hour of 8:30 a.m.) Most of the speakers will be addressing these issues from either a labor law or a Roman Catholic perspective. My presentation will be on the Second Oxford Movement and its embrace of the dignity of labor. Here's the abstract:

In the late 19th and early Twentieth Century, the Second Oxford Movement built off the Anglo-Catholic foundation laid by John Henry Newman, John Keble, and Edward Bouvier Pusey. As Anglo-Catholicism grappled with the scientific and social turmoil of the end of the Victorian Era, and the aftermath of World War I, its leaders, especially Bishop Charles Gore, embraced not only the sacramental aspects of Catholic theology, but its commitment to "the Way" as the primary meaning of Christianity. For Bishop Gore, one key component of the Way was rendering justice to workers, which, to his mind, entailed the right to a seat at the table, despite the controversy that view engendered.

The full agenda of the conference is here.

Go to the Mirror, Boy!

2011-03-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

So, along the way of this research I'm doing for my almost-complete-first-draft article on the role of canon law in the sex abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church, I found myself reading some fascinating works on medieval law--Glanville's Treatise on the Law and Customs of the Realm of England, written in the time of Henry II (around 1189), and The Mirror of Justices (c. 1328). Now, let me be frank here: This stuff is great. It's re-ignited my interest in jurisprudence in a big way, because I love seeing things--ideas, systems, even novels--in the root, and watching them grow. So, in Glanville we see the latest new thing: trial by jury--in a highly embryonic form, where the "jury" is actually a group of knights familiar with the parties and facts, and the first twelve to agree--there's your verdict! A long way from the current system, but a lot more reasoned then trial by ordeal, duel or the delightful farce of compurgation. (R.H. Helmholtz actually mounts a clever defense of compurgation as not intended to resolve factual disputes, but to clear one deemed by the court to have been unjustly accused, and to restore their standing in the community in his admirable The Canon Law and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s.)

But I want to say a word about the Mirror. The Mirror of Justices, it turns out, is as much hoax as history, jape as jurisprudence. The anonymous author (Andrew Horn? Perhaps.) basically, well, made up a lot of stuff that he thought would be good law, and did so plausibly, with so many learned references (which, if you sought out the works cited--a lot harder in the 1320s, when this little number was pulled off, than it is today--didn't support the propositions for which they were advanced. It's quite something to read F.W. Maitland's Introduction, in which he sniffs at "the credulous Coke" (intro at x), who "filled his Institutes with tales from the Mirror" and to realize that he's referring to one of the great figures of English law,Lord Chief Justice from 1613-1616, and the Institutes so tainted were used to train English and American lawyers until the end of the Eighteenth Century. The Mirror, in short, is the most successful "Cicero Memorandum" in history.

What's that? I hear you ask. Ah, welcome to my world. A "Cicero Memorandum" is the creation of John Jay Osborn, the novelist, lawyer and law professor best known for his first book, The Paper Chase. His follow-up, The Associates (1979) (the linked review is, in my judgment, overly harsh), introduces Craig Littlefield, an associate whose real passion is jurisprudence, and who comes up with an interesting solution to law firm ennui:

"I've decided that from now on, all my memoranda will be jurisprudential by nature. Suppose I am asked a tax question? Will I go to CCH or Prentice-Hall manuals? Will I look up the cases? No. I will turn to Austin, H.L.A. Hart, Lon Fuller, Pollock, Gierke. I'll give them Cicero, St. Augustine, Clactus. Perhaps even Dworkin and Cohen. All the good philosophers."

"You'll be fired. Of course you know that."

"I doubt it. They probably don't even read my work . . . My theory is that if I return to basics, to fundamental principles, the answers I give them will be correct, and should correspond with whatever conclusions an associate would reach by reading the cases. Now, if my answer is technically wrong, there will be only two possibilities. Either my analysis from first principles will be in error, or the current law is wrong."

(p. 157). Asked how he'll disguise his references, Littlefield blithely decides to make up case citations, and lose the books until the partners lose interest. He gets away with several "Cicero Memoranda" as he terms them, convincing himself that "[a]pparently, decisions interpreting section five-o-one(c)(three) of the Internal Revenue Code conform exactly with Rawls' theories of distributive justice, or the partners do not read my memorandum." (p. 181). Of course, it all ends badly. For a little while.

Not only was the Mirror successful in the short run, but it enjoyed a nearly 500 year lease on life as a source of law, on its own and through Coke. It is the ultimate Cicero Memorandum. And the fact that I was able to get a beautiful copy of the 1895 Selden Society folio size edition (marred only by the fact that I have to cut the leaves myself) is just extra gravy.

Armstrong: The End of the Affair

2011-02-25T18:13:00.000-08:00

According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Father Donald Armstrong has been sentenced in accordance with his plea bargain:

A judge Friday sentenced the Rev. Donald Armstrong to four years probation for his no-contest plea to one count of misdemeanor theft of funds from the Colorado Springs church where he once served as rector.

Fourth Judicial District Judge Gregory R. Werner also ordered Armstrong to pay restitution in the amount of $99,247 that was diverted to pay for his son's and daughter’s college education. The money came from a trust fund originally set up to pay for the education of seminary students.

But Werner rejected a request by a special prosecutor to order Armstrong to repay Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church an additional $191,753 in church funds that also were spent on his children’s education.

Werner cited testimony by three former church officials who testified they knew of a deal where the church paid the tuition in lieu of giving Armstrong a raise for several years.

The judge also ordered Armstrong to perform 400 hours of community service not related to his current church and forbade him from managing the funds of any trust, business or legal entity.

Well, that testimony was a variable I hadn't foreseen. The testimony itself depicts a situation which strikes me as irregular at best--that the two wardens and another church official knew about Armstrong receiving college payments instead of raises, but that the vestry did not--and, in view of their joining the breakaway church led by Armstrong, St. George's, my cynic-o-meter is bleeping. Still, I stand by my original analysis: dislike Father Armstrong's churchmanship though I do, this was an appropriate resolution, properly geared toward not inflicting more harm than necessary. I note that, as I suspected, the prosecutors were not amused by Armstrong's attitude in the wake of the plea's negotiation (from the first linked story):

Prosecutors had asked the judge to consider jail time for Armstrong, without saying how much.

“I’m sure if church members had their way they would lock him up and send him to Elba,” said Pueblo County Deputy District Attorney Stephen Jones, alluding to the island near Italy where Napoleon was exiled.

Jones served as special prosecutor in the case because former El Paso County District Attorney John Newsome had been a member of the vestry, or governing body, at Grace Church.

Jones also asked the judge to order Armstrong to write a public apology to his former congregation, noting remarks Armstrong made after entering the no-contest plea in which he continued to maintain his innocence.

“It seems like there’s been no acceptance on the part of Mr. Armstrong to the reality of what he did,” Jones said.

The judge acted within his discretion in declining to order an apology, noting that the gap between the two congregations was "a huge divide." My only qualm about this resolution is the thought that Fr. Armstrong may in fact think he "got over." But the fact is, he didn't. Probation, being barred from fiduciary positions, and the public embarrassment--these all exact a cost, to say nothing of the months of anxiety he and his family must have suffered. Moreover, even after he completes his probation, he will still have a theft conviction on his record.

Fr. Armstrong is not in TEC anymore. So I don't feel an further comment from me is warranted, other than that I hope he will view this result as a what in fact is--a second chance and that his future ministry will be worthy of it.

John Spencer Explains It All

2011-02-03T18:44:00.000-08:00

This bit, from The West Wing nails it--and is beautifully performed by the late John Spencer, with the support of Joanna Gleason:

I admired Spencer's work in a lot of different roles, but his portrayal of Leo McGarry was, I think, the crowning moment of awesome in a superb career. I was having a West Wing DVD retrospective this week as a "study break" from writing, and happened to hit this episode. Just outstanding work, especially in this scene.

Canons of Deconstruction

2011-01-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

Well, still on my blogging sabbatical, working on a law review article on the role of theology in the RCC sex abuse crisis. The interesting thing I've been finding is a complete lack of comprehension on the part of non-Catholics of the Church's rationale underlying its defensiveness and secrecy, and, on the other hand, a complete lack of comprehension on the part of the hierarchy and its defenders of the outrage secular society (as well as, of course, many Catholics) feel as a result of the scandal. To a surprising extent, a large part of what I'm doing is interpreting each side's position, and trying to put it in a context the other might understand.

That doesn't mean that I think the RCC position is valid; I don't. But it's a position that has roots all the way back to the Twelfth Century, and that's not a tradition that one can just be written off as a post-hoc rationalization. It's been fascinating, too, spelunking through medieval history and theology, and reacquainting myself with such towering figures as Henry II, Thomas Becket, Augustine, Aquinas, and John Henry Newman. And meeting several new figures, including Gilbert Foliot, whose complexity of thought and moderation make him much more than a critic of Becket.

I'll link to the essay when it's finished.

Here's to the New Year--

2010-12-31T19:36:00.000-08:00

may it be a damn sight better than the last."
--Col. Sherman T. Potter

Actually, my year personally was pretty good--new apartment, new article under way, other developments which are fraught with interest. Mustn't grumble.

But the state of things is not, shall we say, good all round.

The play la Bete (which I saw last night) spoke to me in a way I didn't expect (I really saw it for la Lumley, whose work I've admired since AbFab). But its central point, that nonsense can drive out sense all too easily, and that our society can, in its quest for novelty, prefer nonsense to sense, is one that caught me on the raw. Ever since I read and vehemently disagreed with the policy prescriptions of Collins & Skover's The Death of Discourse, I've shared their concern with the drowning out of thought by noise. La Bete addresses a part of the same syndrome, but places it in a more personal, small-group struggle for place. Brilliantly acted, and terribly timely.

You can catch a glimpse here:

Normal Service

2010-12-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

Has been disrupted because I'm hard at work on a scholarly piece, involving Henry II, Thomas Becket and John Henry Newman. I'll be back soon. Promise.

In the meantime....

The End...and the Beginning

2010-11-05T17:54:00.000-07:00

Not, I hasten to add, of this blog. Nor again of Anglicanism writ large. But of the Anglican Communion? Yes, I think so.

What do I mean? This:

There was a very curious document in last week’s Church Times (full-page advertisement, page 7). In it, two organisations, Inclusive Church and Modern Church, for which I have formerly had the highest regard, turned themselves into the nearest to an ecclesiastical BNP that I have encountered.

They resort to the old tactics of misinformation and scaremongering about foreigners and outside influences to whip up a campaign against the Anglican Covenant, and replace reasoned argument with a “Man the barricades!” mentality that is little short of breathtaking.

We are to beware, the advertisement says, of the machinations of “another Anglican province anywhere in the world” and of a move “to subordinate the Church to the judgements of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion. [The Covenant] would thereby make the Church of England subject to an outside power for the first time since Henry VIII.”

The main target of their opprobrium, worse than a European Commission or a Spanish Inquisition, is “a new international body, the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion”. In fact, this body is the same Joint Standing Committee that has muddled through the business of Anglican Communion affairs now since 1969. It is scarcely new — even if it was given its new name by a two-thirds-majority vote of Anglican provinces ratified at the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Jamaica in 2009.

And the most extreme power at the Standing Committee’s disposal under the Covenant is — wait for it — “to make recommendations” (4.2.7). It is this potential for shock “recommendations” that has Inclusive Church and MCU quaking in their boots, since they argue that any such “recommendations” will “subordinate [the General Synod] to the new centralised authorities”. In fact, the Covenant text clearly says: “Each Church or each Instrument shall determine whether or not to accept such recommendations” (4.2.7).

The Covenant also states quite clearly that “mutual commitment does not represent submission to any external ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Nothing in this Covenant of itself shall be deemed to alter any provision of the Constitution and Canons of any Church of the Communion, or to limit its autonomy of governance. The Covenant does not grant to any one Church or any agency of the Communion control or direction over any Church of the Anglican Communion” (4.1.3).

Like so much else in this advertisement (and I could offer an extensive list), the assertion is simply rubbish.

During the past 150 years, many of the Churches of the world have been formed into Christian world communions; the newest was formed this year, the World Communion of Reformed Churches. There is a general recognition that if local or national Churches are to be truly international and live in a global fellowship, they must do more than just assert their autonomy, but seek to live into an interdependence that truly honours the fellowship of the whole body. This truth was recognised by the Lambeth Conferences of 1920 and 1930, and the Covenant is a careful attempt to balance autonomy with responsibility.

There is no element of coercion anywhere in the text, but there is an acknowledgement that neither can everything that one Church does be foisted on the whole Communion without the recognition that relations can be damaged. What the Covenant sets out in Section 4 is a proper mechanism that allows the articulation of discomfort, even distance, but which honours autonomy.

But this is too much for our latter-day Little Englanders, who bemoan the passing of the armchair bonhomie of the Athenaeum as the measure of Anglican inclusivity. They would, it seems, rather see the disintegration of the Anglican Communion into a series of acrimonious factions than restate a common faith and witness and find grown-up and responsible mechanisms for the articulation of the life of a whole Communion.

The author of this effusion, Geoffery K. Cameron is presently the Bishop of St Asaph, boasts of his connection to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams (an early mentor, whose chaplain he has been), and his role as Deputy General Secretary of the Anglican Communion in which he was involved in "the ecumenical relations of the Anglican Communion at global level, and responsible for staffing the Lambeth Commission, which produced the Windsor Report."

This is not some oddball writing; it is a protege of Abp. Williams, and a high-ranking official in the Anglican Communion.

Well, is he right? Is the advertisement false? Father Jake lays out the text of Section 4 of the Covenant as it presently stands for voting, and the past history of recommendations (like, the Windsor Report, for which Bp. Cameron takes some credit) being treated within a brief period of time as juridical and binding. Cameron's argument is disingenuous in the extreme, quite frankly.

However, it is his invective which fascinates me. It's further evidence of the metastasizing within the Anglican Communion of hatred toward those who even defend the Episcopal Church. It's not enough to claim that critics of the Covenant are wrong; they are the BNP (a fascist party) or "Little Englanders" (xenophobic, ultra-nationalists). This is coming from, quite literally, one level below the top. This is rhetoric I would expect to see on Virtue Online, or Stand Firm. Not from any Bishop (OK, I'd expect of the now-retired Abp. Akinola, but I'm cynical with regard to him).

But surely the real point is this: If this is how Abp. Rowan's protege views those who believe the Covenant is intended to be punitive, what does it say about the likely objects of that punishment? And, add to that the fact that Canon Kenneth Kearon has stated that the Episcopal Church does not “share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion," is it not clear that we are entering into a very frigid period indeed in our relationships with the C of E, at least officially, and with at least those parts of it which take their cue from Canterbury?

And yet--the Anglican Communion was founded well after the Episcopal Church was founded. Anglicanism in the United States has always been different from the other provinces because of that early political break from England. We will survive if the Covenant is adopted and we do not join in, as I hope and trust we will not. And why do I hope and trust we will not? If for no other reason, than for this: the hatred they bear those who defend us reflects their hatred of us. Covenantal relationships do not flourish in an atmosphere of hatred and contempt.

Richard Hooker's Day

2010-11-02T18:37:00.000-07:00

I'm kvetching about the elections over on Facebook, but I'll spare you that. Instead, let's take a moment to commemorate Richard Hooker, that "learned and judicious divine."

Hooker's merits grow in my estimation the more I read him, and, frankly, the more I read others. Where Cardninal Newman's thirst for an infallible institution which can command obedience as of right, Hooker strove to restore reason to its proper place in the spiritual life. Without being disregardful of Scripture and Tradition, Hooker validated the role of reason in interpreting both.

Not that Hooker was a modern; far from it, he was deeply engaged in the struggles of his time. That said, he brought a charity and a clarity (he's the easiest read, by far, of the Elizabethan writers I've read) that illuminates every issue he writes about.

Here is an interesting introductory reflection on Hooker for those who would like a first taste.

A collect for the Richard Hooker, November 3:

O God of truth and peace,
who raised up your servant Richard Hooker in a day of bitter controversy to defend with sound reasoning and great charity the catholic and reformed religion: Grant that we may maintain that middle way,
not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of truth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

How Good Men Commit Bad Acts

2010-10-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

The recent beatification of John Henry, Cardinal Newman caught my attention, and reawakened my interest in this leader of the First Oxford Movement. As I'd previously written, my initial encounter with Newman through his Apologia Pro Vita Sua had not been entirely satisfactory; Newman's self-admitted fierceness (which seems to me to have continued after his conversion), and his rather odd love of authoritarian structures (also in both periods of his life) were rather off-putting to me. But in the wake of the announcement of the beatification, and in light of my own recent reading of Richard Hooker, I became more interested in Newman's concept of the via media, and both re-read portions of the Apologia and ordered a copy of The Via Media. I'm glad I did; my copy, includes the 1877 preface, in which Newman, now a Roman Catholic for over thirty years, essentially sought to recant and rebut so much of the main work which slighted his new church. This lengthy (94 pages) essay is highly instructive.

Aside from the merits of the Via Media itself, this Preface is worthy of consideration. In particular, the Preface provides me with what I think is confirmation and clarification of a hypothesis I expressed in November 2009 regarding the participation by multiple popes in the systematic cover-up of sexual abuse by priests. As we now know the crisis extends to Belgium, Ireland, and indeed throughout Europe, I think the issue warrants another look.

As I wrote then:

[Roman Catholic] ecclesiology is fundamentally flawed in its agoraphobically top-down model, one which prizes the interests of the institution so highly, and which cannot ever admit error or failure--individuals fail the Church, the Church itself cannot err. By identifying itself completely with the Body of Christ, the Church heavily disincentivizes itself from acknowledging systemic problems--the "rogue priest" model is the only one that the Church can bear to recognize, because to do otherwise sets up a cognitive dissonance between its theological claims and its behavior. That gap, perceived outside the Church as the rankest hypocrisy, is in fact denial of the most psychologically necessary kind. To believe it, one must shift the topic from the cover up to the offense itself, perpetrated by a number of priests not much greater than that percentage of abusers in society at large, a defense the Church has made at the highest levels. But it is, of course, the concerted cover up over decades by men widely deemed holy and even heroic within Christendom--John XXIII, a hero to liberal Catholics, and John Paul II, a hero to conservatives, to name but two.

I accepted as an axiom, and still do, that these Popes were not villains, but had somehow been led to complicity with these terrible, and in fact illegal, acts by something else. I hazarded the guess that

The fact is, having one man, and a small circle of princes, responsible for the preservation of a 2,000 year institution which it believes to be the true incarnation if Christ's Body on Earth is to put an insupportable burden on that man and that circle of men. It cannot be maintained, because it attributes perfection to the necessarily imperfect. And that leads to covering up the gap between the Heavenly Image and the Earthly Reality.

In the "Preface" to The Via Media, Newman explains how the institutional roles of the Roman Catholic Church leads to realpolitik, and coercive behavior, from the Church, which seems to be immoral:

When our Lord went up on high, He left His representative behind Him. This was Holy Church, His mystical Body and Bride, a Divine Institution, and the shrine and organ of the Paraclete, who speaks through her till the end comes. She, to use an Anglican poet's words, is " His very self below," as far as men on earth are equal to the discharge and fulfilment of high offices, which primarily and supremely arc His.

These offices, which specially belong to Him as Mediator, are commonly considered to be three ; He is Prophet, Priest, and King; and after His pattern, and in human measure, Holy Church has a triple office too ; not the Prophetical alone and in isolation, as these Lectures virtually teach,butthree offices, which are indivisible, though diverse, viz. teaching, rule, and sacred ministry.

Id. at xxxix-xl.

He writes that:

Christianity, then, is at once a philosophy, a political power, and a religious rite: as a religion, it is Holy; as a philosophy, it is Apostolic; as a political power, it is imperial, that is, One and Catholic. As a religion, its special centre of action is pastor and flock; as a philosophy, the Schools; as a rule, the Papacy and its Curia. . . .

Truth is the guiding principle of theology and theological inquiries; devotion and edification, of worship; and of government, expedience. The instrument of theology is reasoning; of worship, our emotional nature; of rule, command and coercion. Further, in man as he is, reasoning tends to rationalism; devotion to superstition and enthusiasm; and power to ambition and tyranny.

Arduous as are the duties involved in these three offices, to discharge one by one, much more arduous are they to administer, when taken in combination. Each of the three has its separate scope and direction; each has its own interests to promote and further ; each has to find room for the claims of the other two; and each will find its own line of action influenced and modified by the others, nay, sometimes in a particular case the necessity of the others converted into a rule of duty for itself.

Id. at xl-xli.

Newman goes on to give the example of scientific truth and Galileo:

Galileo's truth is said to have shocked and scared the Italy of his day. It revolutionized the received system of belief as regards heaven, purgatory, and hell, to say that the earth went round the sun, and it forcibly imposed upon categorical statements of Scripture, a figurative interpretation. Heaven was no longer above, and earth below; the heavens no longer literally opened and shut;purgatory and hell were not for certain under the earth. The catalogue of theological truths was seriously curtailed. Whither did our Lord go on His ascension ? If there is to he a plurality of worlds, what is the special importance of this one ? and is the whole visible universe with its infinite spaces, one day to pass away? We are used to these questions now, and reconciled to them ; and on that account are no fit judges of the disorder and dismay, which the Galilean hypothesis would cause to good Catholics, as far as they became cognizant of it, or how necessary it was in charity, especially then, to delay the formal reception of a new interpretation of Scripture, till their imaginations should gradually get accustomed to it.

As to the particular measures taken at the time with this end, I neither know them accurately, nor have I any anxiety to know them. They do not fall within the scope of my argument; I am only concerned with the principle by which they were conducted. All I say is, that not all knowledge is suited to all minds; a proposition may be ever so true, yet at a particular time and place may be "temerarious, offensive to pious ears, and scandalous," though not " heretical " nor " erroneous." . . .

Now, while saying this, I know well that " all things have their season," and that there is not only " a time to keep silence," but " a time to speak," and that, in some states of society, such as our own, it is the worst charity, and the most provoking, irritating rule of action, and the most unhappy policy, not to speak out, not to suffer to be spoken out, all that there is to say. Such speaking out is under such circumstances the triumph of religion, whereas concealment, accommodation, and evasion is to co-operate with the spirit of error;—but it is not always so. There are times and places, on the contrary, when it is the duty of a teacher, when asked, to answer frankly as well as truly, though not even then to say more than he need, because learners will but misunderstand him if he attempts more, and therefore it is wiser and kinder to let well alone, than to attempt what is better.

Id. at li-lii.

He then goes on to explain that the use of command and coercion, as with suppression of information, can go into other areas:

Apostolicity of doctrine and Sanctity of worship, as attributes of the Church, are differently circumstanced from her regal autocracy. Tradition in good measure is sufficient for doctrine, and popular custom and conscience for worship, but tradition and custom cannot of themselves secure independence and self-government. The Greek Church shows this, which has lost its political life, while its doctrine,and its ritual and devotional system, have little that can be excepted against. If the Church is to be regal, a witness for Heaven, unchangeable amid secular changes, if in every age she is to hold her own, and proclaim as well as profess the truth, if she is to thrive without or against the civil power, if she is to be resourceful and self-recuperative under all fortunes, she must be more than Holy and Apostolic; she must be Catholic. Hence it is that, first, she has ever from her beginning onwards had a hierarchy and a head, with a strict unity of polity, the claim of an exclusive divine authority and blessing, the trusteeship of the gospel gifts, and the exercise over her membersof an absolute and almost despotic rule. And next, as to her work, it is her special duty, as a sovereign State, to Consolidate her several portions, to enlarge her territory, to keep up and to increase her various populations in this ever-dying, ever-nascent world, in which to be stationary is to lose ground, and to repose is to fail. It is her duty to strengthen and facilitate the intercourse of city with city, and race with race, so that an injury done to one is felt to be an injury to all, and the act of individuals has the energy and momentum of the whole body. It is her duty to have her eyes upon the movements of all classes in her wide dominion, on ecclesiastics and laymen,on the regular clergy and secular,on civil society, and political movements. She must be on the watchtower, discerning in the distance and providing against all dangers; she has to protect the ignorant and weak, to remove scandals, to see to the education of the young, to administer temporalities, to initiate, or at least to direct all Christian work, and all with a view to the life, health, and strength of Christianity, and the salvation of souls.

It is easy to understand how from time to time such serious interests and duties involve, as regards the parties who have the responsibility of them, the risk, perhaps the certainty, at least the imputation, of ambition or other selfish motive, and still more frequently of error in judgment, or violent action, or injustice.

Id., at lxxx-lxxxi.

Newman noted the respect for individual conscience which marked the early church, including St. Augustine in his earlier writings, only to be replaced with a belief in forced conversion in Augustine's later works. (Preface at lxxxii). (Alas, he's correct on this point). This supercession, it must be said, marks the shadow side of his own belief in the development of doctrine.

Finally, Newman reaches the culmination of this long train of reasoning:

Again: with a view to the Church's greater unity and strength, Popes, from the time of St. Gregory I., down to the present, have been earnest in superseding and putting away the diversified traditional forms of ritual in various parts of the Church. In this policy ecclesiastical expedience has acted in the subject-matter of theology and worship.

Again: aActs simply unjustifiable, such as real betrayals of the truth on the part of Liberius and Honorius, become intelligible, and cease to be shocking, if we consider that those Popes felt themselves to be head rulers of Christendom and their first duty, as such, to be that of securing its peace, union and consolidation. The personal want of firmness or of clear-sightedness in the matter of doctrine, which each of them in his own day evidenced, may havo arisen out of his keen sense of being the Ecumenical Bishop and one Pastor of Christ's flock, of the scandal caused by its internal dissensions, and of his responsibility, should it retrograde in health and strength in his day.. . . The principle, on which these two Popes maybe supposed to have acted, not unsound in itself, though by them wrongly applied, I conceive to be this,—that no act could be theologically an error, which was absolutely and undeniably necessary for the unity, sanctity, and peace of the Church; for falsehood never could be necessary for those blessings, and truth alone can be.

Id. at lxxxii-lxxxiii (emphasis added).

So, in fact, Cardinal Newman adds two insights to my hypothesis of last year. First, he explains theologically why a sometimes brutal realpolitik is imported into the Church--the "regal function" requires it, to prevail. Second, he provides the missing rationalization--the notion that whatever establishes the betterment of the Church must be, in a real sense, the truth (or at any rate, the good situationally speaking), because it resulted in betterment for the church. (The reasoning is both circular, and profoundly unscriptural; Psalm 73, anybody? Or, in the present case, Matt 18:1-6?)). He also adds a third point, though, which I had not weighed at all; he explains and contextualizes the papal dread of scandal, which sometimes led the Vatican to spend more time stigmatizing those speaking the truth than those enabling and committing the abuse.

(Edited for clarity)

Bishop Minns Takes His Stand

2010-09-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

I see from the Lead that CANA Bishop Martyn Minns has issued a pastoral letter to Fr.Don Armstrong's breakaway congregation regarding Fr. Armstrong's conviction of 2 counts of theft--one count felony and one misdemeanor theft. (My more detailed analysis of the plea, in which Fr. Armstrong did not admit culpability, and the felony component of which will, if he successfully completes probation, dismissed and possibly expunged, is here; Rev. Armstrong's plea agreement explicitly states that he both counts as to which he is to be convicted are charges of theft (Plea Agreement at p. 2, Par. 3.A (felony theft); p. 2, Par. 3.B (misdemeanor theft))).

Bishop Minns writes:

You have been in my prayers as the legal nightmare that you have all endured seems to be coming to a close. While a number of definitive actions have been taken, there are still more decisions to be rendered and hearings to be held; therefore at this juncture it is not appropriate for me to comment on specific legal issues. I am looking forward to my visit next month when I will meet with members of the leadership and legal teams to more fully understand the situation and its likely trajectory.

In the meantime, one thing I can and will say is that my love and respect for Don and Jessie and the leadership of St. George’s has not diminished but rather increased by the way in which you all have conducted yourselves. You have all been examples of God’s grace at work. I am delighted to count you as friends and it is a privilege to serve as your bishop.

It is my belief, based upon a thorough investigation of the contested facts, that this entire situation never should have been made the subject of a criminal investigation. I am convinced that if ever there was a situation that underscored the wisdom of our Lord’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount about settling matters out of court (Matthew 5:25– 26), this is it! Millions of dollars have been wasted; lives have been disrupted; reputations destroyed; and the Gospel of Christ obscured by the controversy — and we are still far from reaching a place where we can show the world the power of God’s transforming and reconciling love.

(Emphasis added; text of quoted paragraphs unedited to provide context).

Now, to the extent that Bishop Minns is signaling that he has no intention of disciplining Fr. Armstrong, that is his right and his privilege. He is the bishop, and it is for him to determine what standards he will hold his clergy to. I'm a layman and would not presume to opine on that privilege. I find his exercise of that right in this case disturbing, and am glad to see many reasserters do as well, but that's as far as I'm prepared to go. However, as a former public defender, and a practicing lawyer, I do feel that I must address his statements regarding the criminal justice system.

When Bishop Minns writes that "[it is my belief, based upon a thorough investigation of the contested facts, that this entire situation never should have been made the subject of a criminal investigation" he is speaking what can most kindly be termed arrant nonsense. Fr. Armstrong, as a result of this plea, will be conclusively adjudicated (upon its formal entry) a convicted thief. Even if he successfully serves his 4 years of probation, Fr. Armstrong will remain a convicted thief, albeit a low-level thief. To say, in the face of this legal fact, that the matter did not rise to the level of being worthy of investigation is, simply, absurd. Any case which results in a fairly obtained conviction of some or all of the charges is, obviously, one which warrants investigation. Period.

Bp. Minns seems to labor under the impression that the low level of offense which will remain on Fr. Armstrong's record, assuming he successfully completes probation, renders this case a triviality. First, four years probation, for a first offense, with no violence, up to a year's imprisonment still a possibility and an unknown amount of restitution to be ordered, is hardly trivial. (And I think these statements are increasing the prospect of a custodial sentence and the amount of the restitution, Fr. Armstrong. My every defender's instinct wants to yell, "SHUT UP!" at you for your own good). But there is a more fundamental flaw with Bp. Minns' analysis.

As I explained in my earlier post, the deferred sentence is under the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling in People v. Darlington, a vehicle to allow for compassionate treatment of offenders in "the interests of justice." It's not that such offenders aren't guilty; it's that their exposure to the full rigor of the legal system would cause more harm than the deterrence, retributive and rehabilitative purposes of the criminal sanction would justify.

[I am aware that Armstrong's attorneys have suggested that the prosecutors were concerned about statute of limitations problems. Perhaps. However, as Armstrong's camp have not been, shall we say, honest in their accounts of the plea, I am skeptical. This case savors to me of a prosecutor who wanted a conviction, but not to ruin the otherwise socially beneficial life of a clergyman--a not uncommon attitude when offenses are financial in nature].

And this is where Bishop Minns--and Fr. Armstrong too--are being unacceptably cavalier. In trying to spin this act of grace from a legal system which does not prioritize grace, as a loss to the prosecutor, they are disincentivizing the prosecutor's office from offering other offenders the same benefit. Prosecutors are judged by their records, and are always eager to show how tough they are. When the object of their mercy claims victory, and that the prosecutor threw in the towel, they'll think twice before offering someone else a chance.

The Lost Leader (2)

2010-09-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

Archbishop Williams admits to having thrown gays and lesbians in general, and Jeffrey John in particular, under the bus, for the good of the Church:

Dr Williams said he had been conscious of the issue of homosexuality as "a wound in the whole ministry" since his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002. But he had to decide against endorsing gay relationships for clergy and bishops because "the cost to the Church overall was too great to be borne at that point". He said: "To put it very simply, there's no problem about a gay person who's a bishop. It's about the fact that there are traditionally, historically, standards that the clergy are expected to observe. So there's always a question about the personal life of the clergy."

Dr Williams admitted that one of the most difficult periods in his eight years at Lambeth Palace came when he blocked the appointment of the gay, celibate cleric Jeffrey John to the post of Bishop of Reading.

He said he let down Dr John, who was instead appointed Dean of St Albans.

The Archbishop should remember that the saying "it is expedient that one man should die for the people" is spoken by Caiaphas, not generally looked up to as a model of Christian behavior.

More details at The Lead.

A Generous Orthodoxy?

2010-09-24T16:56:00.000-07:00

Um, our friends over at Stand Firm have asked the question "is it possible to reject the historicity of Adam and Eve and remain orthodox," and overwhelmingly have answered it "no." Father Matt Kennedy offers several scriptural basis for this conclusion:

Not only does the text of Genesis 2 itself bear the markings of historical narrative, but to suggest otherwise is to falsify Jesus' teaching on marriage. Jesus affirms the historicity of Adam and Eve and the Genesis account of their creation and marriage in Matthew 19:1-6.

He adds:

And, moreover, the divinely revealed doctrine of the Fall hinges in large part on the existence of a real Adam who truly sinned as the counterpart to the real Jesus who was/is truly righteous and who truly died and rose again. . . Obviously Paul understood both Adam and Jesus to be historical figures. To suggest that Adam is a merely figurative character representative of humanity as a whole not only cuts against Paul's clear meaning, but it also destroys the argument of the text itself. The historical man Adam plunged humanity into sin and death through an historical sin. The historical man Jesus redeemed humanity through his historical death and resurrection. Take away the historicity of Adam and the parallel upon which the argument is built no longer works.

Later in the comments, Fr. Kennedy states that he is "tending more and more toward a Y[oung] E[arth] position," although he allows some room for doubt on the point.

Now, frankly, I find this kind of depressing. Remember what the enterprise is; Father Kennedy is defining not his belief, but the outer limit of Christian orthodoxy. The Stand Firm crowd is saying that the second Oxford Movement of the 19th Century are too radical to count as Christians. Of course, there is no effort to engage with Gore's kenotic theory. Or Aubrey Moore's use of evolutionary theory in defense of orthodoxy. Or Illingworth's relation of evolution to the Incarnation.

In short, sola scriptura. In science, as in all else. Stand Firm seems to me to be defining itself out of Anglicanism in any meaningful sense.

Also, of course, a reliance on the literal truth of Genesis leaves re-opens the justice questions arising therefrom. First, as Mark Twain famously noted, how is the punishment of Adam just? God "commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; To disobey could not be a sin, because Adam could not comprehend a sin until the eating the fruit should reveal to him the difference between right and wrong. So he was unfair in punishing Adam for doing wrong when he could not know it was wrong." Moreover, even if this hurdle is surmounted, the notion that "in Adam's fall we sinned all" taken literally opens another justice question: how can descendants be held personally accountable for sins committed before their birth? Should human justice be meted out so? However, these are side issues of course; my complaint is not so much what Kennedy et al come to believe, but with their conflation of their own views with the bounds of orthodoxy. If their views indicate where the reasserters are headed--well, that untempered schism may be just as well; I have no desire for what Clarence Darrow called "the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind."

UPDATE, 9/25/10: They're not alone, apparently:

An Exchange Re: Obama and the GLBT Community

2010-09-24T14:55:00.001-07:00

Today an e-mail of mine was selected as Andrew Sullivan's Dissent of the Day. Something of an honor, really, as Sullivan is unquestionably the big leagues of blogging.

Anyway, here is what I wrote:

You've pointed out twice now that "[n]ot a single prosecution of an anti-gay hate crime has occurred under the law in the year since it [the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009] was passed." May I point out that, as a criminal statute, the Act can only operate prospectively, under the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution? As a former public defender, I'm aware that judging a statute by the number of prosecutions within a year of its enactment is a pretty bizarre metric, since only acts committed after passage are even arguably subject to prosecution under the Act. Since you earlier noted that there are investigations pending of criminal acts which might result in charges under the Act, I think the ill-founded nature of this contention is self-evident.

By contrast, I think your complaint that "it took Obama over a year to begin a year-long Pentagon review. If he had acted sooner, the review would have been done in time for the vote" is not entirely divorced from reality, but is a bit naive. Doesn't it make sense that President Obama would have wanted to forge relationships with the military brass prior to starting the review, in order to avoid the blatant, insubordinate--and successful!--sabotage that Bill Clinton was subject to?

You know, I admire the lucidity of "The Conservative Soul," the passion you've brought to your anti-torture campaign, and much you've written about Palin. But I think that you're projecting responsibility for the villainy (no other word fits) of the GOP and its demonization of GLBTs onto a single man who is trying to coax a fractious party that has been in a defeatist crouch for decades into strong action. He's not a god-king. And your reaction is, I'm sorry to say, both over the top and helpful to the Party of No.

Now, let me point out that I was not entirely defending Obama let alone the Democrats, but that I sent my e-mail within a day of Sullivan writing that "[i]f I lived in Nevada and had the vote, even though Sharron Angle is beyond nuts, I'd vote for her. Better nuts than this disgusting, cynical, partisan Washington kabuki dance, when people's lives and dignity are at stake."

In responding to my dissent, as he sometimes does, Sullivan wrote:

I will gladly report any prosecutions that occur in the future that clearly would not have occurred without the Hate Crimes Act. As my reader noted, there are several investigations in process and some may get somewhere. But this act was sold as a vital defense against gay-bashing. I call bullshit on that now as I did then. It was a fundraising tool for HRC primarily and a way for the Democrats to do nothing substantive for gay equality, except treating us as victims in need of their protection. Nonetheless, I promise to provide an annual update on prosecutions to measure its impact, along with data on anti-gay hate crimes, to see if it has any effect whatever on their incidence. As to the final point, where is there evidence that the president has done a single thing to "to coax a fractious party that has been in a defeatist crouch for decades into strong action"? I see none. No speeches defending gay equality, except to the pathetic tool of the Democrats, the Human Rights Campaign. No public support on marriage equality, which he formally opposes, even as a majority of the public backs it. He even prevented anyone in the administration from celebrating the end of the HIV travel ban before it was passed, so scared was he of Republican bigots. I know. I tried to report on the record about progress but was told shhhh - we might alert the right.

I don't think anyone can possibly accuse me or the Dish of excusing or ignoring the virulent and disgusting homophobia of the Christianist GOP. There is no comparison on the merits between their hate and contempt and the president's indifference and cowardice. But I refuse to have their bile held over my head as a reason to shut up about the Democrats' uselessness and this president's betrayal of almost every single promise he made about gay equality in the campaign.

I think he actually is closing much of the gap between us here. On the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, he is (I think) tacitly conceding my main point, that the efficacy of the statute can't be evaluated so soon after its enactment, as it can only apply to post-enactment conduct. The fact that he thought the statute was not responsive to a vital need before it was passed and continues to think so now doesn't blunt the fact that reporting of crimes, as well as investigations and preparation of prosecutions under a bran-new statute, take time. I'm not trying to get him to love the statute, but to use a reasonable metric to grade it by.

As to his second point, my own statement was somewhat--not entirely!--overly strong. But it was occasioned by Sullivan's own hyperbolic statement of preference for Angle over Reid--which I think is greatly rectified by his statement that "There is no comparison on the merits between their hate and contempt and the president's indifference and cowardice." I confess that he may know better than I do regarding President Obama's actual views. I think discounting Obama's speeches made to HRC because of the venue is a little tough on the President, and I think Sullivan overstates the President's indifference. But Sullivan is actively engaged in this fight, has met the President, and his view of the behind the scenes is certainly more informed than mine.

Regardless, I certainly don't want to shut him up, or mute his entirely justified criticism of the Administration and of Congress. Pressuring them until equality is reached is the only way to make any progress. I just don't want the debate to be framed in a way that excuses the bigots from their bigotry, and places all the onus on those who are, on the whole, well intentioned, even if they are lacking in passionate intensity.

By the way, I stand by my compliments to Sullivan,especially regarding The Conservative Soul, which makes the best case for a non-Christianist, non-extremist, honorable conservative philosophical tradition of which I am aware.

A Big Break, But Not a Pass

2010-09-23T18:25:00.001-07:00

There's been a fair amount of confusion over what happened in the Colorado Springs case of Father Don Armstrong's is-it-or-isn't-it a guilty plea. Most of that confusion stems from a since-removed statement in support of Father Armstrong claiming vindication. Of that, more in a moment.

However, the actual plea agreement is online, which allows for greater clarity. Armstrong pleaded nolo contendere (that is, no contest), to one of the felony charges,theft in the amount of $15,000 or more. On that charge, he will receive a deferred sentence (which, if he completes 4 years of probation successfully, would result in this count's eventual dismissal and expungement).

He also agreed to enter what is called an Alford plea to a non-charged misdemeanor, for which he will be sentenced. There is no factual basis for the misdemeanor in the indictment; the factual basis for the felony to which he is pleading are the facts in the indictment.

So, what does this mean? First, the misdemeanor plea is not based on the charges, which were all felonies. It is a device, I suspect, to allow for the imposition of some criminal sentence, and to allow Fr. Armstrong to serve less than a year. In other words, the prosecutor refused to let him simply receive probation, and Armstrong accepted that. (Mind you, under the agreement Armstrong's counsel can urge the court for a non-custodial sentence, so he still has a shot of not serving any time. But the prosecutor hasn't consented to such a disposition).

Second, as he Supreme Court of Colorado has explained:

A nolo contendere plea, also called a no contest plea or plea non vult contendere, literally means “I do not wish to contend.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1074 (8th ed. 2004). Nolo contendere is a common law plea. Hudson v. United States, 272 U.S. 451, 453 (1926); Young v. People, 53 Colo. 251, 125 P. 117
(1912). In its early form, the plea was considered an implied confession of guilt entered only with leave of the court in light misdemeanors. K. A. Drechsler, Annotation, Plea of nolo contendere or non vult contendere, 152 A.L.R. 253 (1944). In
modern usage, a plea of nolo contendere is considered substantially, though not technically, a plea of guilty acceptable for a variety of offenses. Id. at 25657.
. . . . Nolo pleas may also be referred to as “Alford” pleas, originating from the United States Supreme Court decision in North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970). There, the Court held that a defendant could plead guilty while protesting his innocence so long as his plea was constitutionally valid. Alford, 400 U.S. at 31; see also ABA Standards, supra, at§ 141.1(a) commentary at 14.

People v. Darlington (Sup. Ct. Colo. 2005). (Slip Op. at 6-7).

As the Darlington Court goes on to clarify, "The sole distinction we have made between a guilty plea and a plea of nolo contendere is that the latter gives the defendant the advantage of not being estopped from denying her fault in a civil action based upon the same facts." (Slip. Op. at 8). This will give Armstrong the ability to deny liability in a civil trial if TEC or the trustees sue him civilly, but is otherwise a meaningless distinction. While he will not have to admit his guilt, he will have to admit that the prosecutor could adduce sufficient evidence to permit a jury to convict.

The Darlington Court further explains the purpose of deferred sentencing; it is "to grant the court the power to impose alternative sentences benefiting the defendant where the interests of justice would be served." (Slip Op. at 12). Many states have similar provisions to allow for the rehabilitation of a defendant whose guilt is provable, but the devastation of whose life wrought by full criminal conviction is excessive in light of the goals of the criminal justice system. (I authored, in 1994, a full length study of New York's "Interests of Justice" dismissal remedy, which you can find here).

In this case, it looks to me like the prosecutor was willing to give Armstrong a heavy break, but not a pass. Under the Agreement, he has to pay restitution in an amount to be set by the Court, which could obviate the need for any civil litigation. If he behaves for four years, he won't be a felon, with the attendant impact on career and civil rights that entails, but will be a convicted misdemeanant, an adjudicated criminal. This is actually a fairly reasonable resolution of the case; Lord knows I don't like Don Armstrong, but making him pay back the money while giving him a chance to resume his life, while holding him accountable to the law, and pronouncing the community's judgment on his actions seems to me to temper justice with mercy.

Of course, the prosecutor may use his parish's claim of vindication as evidence that he is not taking responsibility for his actions, and argue for a higher sentence within the range of the plea....so Armstrong may actually come to regret that misleading effort at spin.

A Glimpse Of Robertson

2010-09-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the CBC, here is a clip of Robertson Davies, on critics:

I like this for two reasons. First, Davies' mischief peeps through for a moment there. You can see him thinking, "I'm on Telly, and do I really want to deliver the smackdown?" and then the answer: "Yes." Also,he's not wrong. Even the good critics can mess up a writer by luring the writer to aim for that critic. (John Mortimer has a great take on this in Rumpole and the Show Folk, where Rumpole's dramatic techniques are pointed out to him by a pro, and he then overdoes them). As for the bad critics. . . well, the less said the better.

Second, I remember attending a reading Davies gave, shortly before his death, and his seeing him younger was interesting--he had great presence, and the High Manner.

Just Say No

2010-09-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

Rev. Mark Harris over at Preludium has informed us that the Episcopal Church is officially beginning it period of discernment as to whether it adopts the Anglican Covenant in what professes to be its final form.

We should vote it down, without hesitation or qualm.

The Covenant is intended as a means of punishing and/or expelling TEC. Rather than explain that, let me refer you to the writings of Fr. Harris and to the ruminations of Fr. Jake, starting here. Further analysis, albeit broad brush, here.

True though all of these objections are, the Covenant is more fundamentally an affront to Anglicanism's foundational ethos as formulated in both the 39 Articles and in the writings of Richard Hooker. Briefly, the Covenant reflects Canterbury's effort to "ride the tiger" of American far-right and Global South hostility to the decision of TEC to honor the ministry of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters to reify a new creation: An international Anglican Church, rather than a loose confederation of churches, creating a Magisterium. More here.

The problem with all this is that, as Hooker makes clear in his Preface to the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the evolution of churches in their places of planting reflects the needs of those among whom the church grows up and that even the means of organization may properly vary from place to place. Moreover, the foibles as well as the virtues of great figures (such as Calvin, in Hooker's time) may be reflected in not only their own churches, but those which adopt their teaching. Institutionally, local control and autonomy is a way of allowing for the correction of error, as discerned over time.

And that, not simple anti-Roman Catholic spite, is the justification for Article 37, stating that "The King's Majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England, and other his Dominions, unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign Jurisdiction."

Simply put, the Anglican understanding has held, in delicate balance, the values catholicity and autonomy. Autonomy is necessary to prevent the handing down from on high of bulls which, as Hooker cautions, may result from the universalizing of an insight appropriate to one time and one place, or the over-veneration of a great leader, and simply force a solution to one locale's problem onto a different place and situation, creating a new problem.

The Anglican Covenant upsets that balance, and is indeed intended to do so, reducing the local scope of autonomy. Worst of all, it has no inherent limitation. As Hooker described the mounting demands of the Puritans from respect for conscience, to conformity, to the overthrow of all social institutions which would not conform to their will, the Covenant replaces the delicate balance of communion with a limitless perpetual synod with coercive power whose only limit is its own moderation. We may be expelled from the Communion, no doubt; but we should not sign our own death warrant.

Rock it, Man!

2010-09-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

This morning's NY Times Magazine has a story on William Shatner, which mentions, among other things, that he was "The 23-year-old Shakespearean whom Sir Tyrone Guthrie called the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s most promising actor."

Wait a damn second. Sir Tyrone Guthrie? Stratford Shakespeare Festival? In 1954?

Sure enough, that's the second year of the Festival, and wriiten up in a little-known work by that magus of Canada, Roberston Davies, in Twice Have The Trumpets Sounded, the second of Davies' accounts of the early years of the Festival, co-authored by Davies with Guthrie, lavishly illustrated by Grant McDonald. (And if I can find me a copy of Thrice the Brindled Cat Hath Mew'd (1955), I'll have 'em all, and my completist's heart will be at ease). Anyway, here is Davies on Shatner in The Taming of the Shrew:

Lucentio, the suitor of Bianca, is not ordinarily consdered a comic role, except in the classic sense that all lovers who do not die are figures of High Comedy. But William Shatner brought some of the gifts of the vaudevillian comedian to the part; his self-assured and somewhat brassy delivery of his first speech was itself a pleasant bit of comedy, and all through the play he gave a dimension of comedy to a character which can very easily be a romantic bore. In the company of players who performed The Shrew at the Lord's bidding, his rank was obviously that of First Light Comedian rather than First Walking Gentleman.

(Twice Have The Trumpets Sounded, at p. 50).

High praise from Davies, whose critical faculties were razor-sharp. The sketch of Shatner in role on page 51 is very reminsicent of a James Dean in his prime--and, a bit oddly, of a picture I've seen of my own father as a young man).

Shatner is often dismissed as a media phenomenon whos has made himself into a cult figure by straddling the two worlds of fandom and self-parody. And in fact, that's true. It's also true, though, that the actor playing the role of William Shatner has more native talent than one might think, and the man behind the masque is not necessarily the joking figure he portrays.

I think.

Further Thoughts About Park 51

2010-08-20T19:49:00.000-07:00

I've already posted on this issue a couple of times, and have had on FB a lengthy exchange with two old friends--both supportive of my position, one a staunch liberal, the other an equally staunch conservative. It seems to me that two points which I glancingly addressed there deserve some more nuanced explanation.

First, many of those attacking Park 51--the current name for Cordoba House, after weeks of right wing attacks--claim to be doing so on the basis of sensitivity, or decency, while claiming that nobody has challenged the First Amendment right of the Center to open. Simply put, that is a lie; those who have said it are glossing over two lawsuits, Rick Lazio's threats to use his position as Governor (if he is elected) to close it down, and a series of calls for local, state and federal government action to shut it down. So the notion that the project's critics came in peace, tried to use sweet reason, and only turned to protest as a last resort? Untrue. Only as their ham-handed efforts to misuse the law have been eviscerated by anybody who was awake in First Amendment class have they tried the "come, let us reason together" approach. And even that is accompanied with a barrage of baseless assaults on the character of Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf. Very good way to work out a compromise, no? Well, no, actually. But the point is that the legal efforts to quash Park 51 through the coercive power of the state are ongoing. There is a very real First Amendment issue here.

A second question was raised by one of my good conservative friends, a man who has investigated the Park 51 project and reached the conclusion that it is well-motivated and that no evidence to the contrary has been made public. He raised the question of what if Rauf, et al were later shown to be accepting funds from and aiding in the work of terrorist organization--would the First Amendment cloak such behavior in constitutional privilege?

It's a reasonable question; let me unpack it.

First, if Rauf/Park 51 were merely preaching anti-American hate, and its funds were all raised from organizations compliant with American law, then the answer is simply, no. It's Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) again, and the answer is "suck it up."

But if Park 51 were involved in assisting, even if only through otherwise protected speech, terrorist groups, then under the recent Supreme Court decision in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, they could be prosecuted. Similarly, accepting funding from such organizations would raise significant legal problems for Park 51, as well. In other words, the Government is not disabled from addressing criminal activity by a religious institution, even if the institution limits its own overt behavior to abetting illegal behavior through what would normally be protected activity.

Finally, courtesy of a good Libertarian friend, a good analysis of why the attacks on Park 51 are problematic to anybody who believes in freedom, from Jon Stewart

The Turner Diatribes

2010-08-16T15:26:00.000-07:00

I see that right-wing agitator and Government informant (!) Hal Turner was convicted of threatening to kill three judges for issuing an opinion of which he disapproved. According to the New York Law Journal:

Mr. Turner was arrested in June 2009 after writing on his blog that Judges Richard Posner, William Bauer and Frank Easterbrook "deserve to be killed" for their opinion in N.R.A. v. Chicago, 08-4241, which upheld handgun bans in Chicago and Oak Park, Ill.

"If they are allowed to get away with this by surviving, other judges will act the same way," Mr. Turner wrote. "Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty…A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions."

Mr. Turner, a white supremacist who hosted a weekly Webcast from his North Bergen, N.J., home, also posted the judges' photographs, work addresses and phone numbers.

The waters were muddied by Turner's activities as an FBI informant. According to the Times:

As in the previous trials, defense lawyers for Mr. Turner, who is known as Hal, have focused attention on his long and complicated relationship as a paid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The federal agents who worked with him often encouraged his fiery language, reasoning that it could help draw information about the white supremacist movement, and told him that the statements would be protected by the First Amendment as long as no one was actually hurt, said his lawyer, Peter Kirchheimer.

After three trials--the first two resulted in deadlock--the Government has secured a conviction.

From a First Amendment perspective, this one goes very close to the line. Under the leading case, Brandenburg v. Ohio, "the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." On the one hand, there's no doubt that Turner's language comports with the Brandenburg test; viewed objectively, it clearly called for violence, and even furnished information which would facilitate committing violence.

And yet--Turner challenged both his specific intent that violence result imminently, and that it was likely to produce such action. But for the provision of the judge's personal data, the speech, through reprehensible morally, would be a much easier case, clearly an instance of protected speect under Brandenburg. As it is, the facts require a more complicated analysis.

Turner's speech is an example of what I have called "'directed advocacy' which involves speech urging a particular action be taken in a specific situation.'" (First Amendment, First Principles: Verbal Acts and Freedom of Speech (2d Ed. 2004) at 190). Directed advocacy is the context most easily allowing for the imputation of the listener's act to the speaker--hypotheticals or veiled urging (which I term indirect advocacy) and merely depicting a form of behavior as good (undirected advocacy) are each further from the Brandenburg paradigm than were Turner's statements.

However, not all direct advocacy of illegal conduct is subject to criminal sanction. Turner claims that he lacked the intent that violence ensue. However, his making the carrying out of violence by providing the judge's personal data would support a finding that he did, in my opinion.

That doesn't answer the ultimate question, though. There is still the problem of imminence. Under Brandenburg where, as here, the listener has time to reflect, to consider--to decide for himself or herself whether to follow the suggestion, some kind of principle-agent relationship or other power dynamic such that "a pre-existing relationship creates a context whereby the speaker knows that the command, if spoken, will be acted upon" is needed. (First Am., First Princip. at 244). That seems, from all that I have seen here, to be lacking in this case.

The First Amendment took a serious blow in Rice v. Paladin Enterprises, when the Fourth Circuit allowed for the imposition of civil liability for undirected advocacy--a "murder manual" called Hit Man: A Technical Guide for Independent Contractors. The conviction of Hal Turner is not as the kind of body blow to free speech as was that decision (which is inconsistent with later Supreme Court precedent, I was relieved to report). But it does mark an erosion of the bright line drawn by Brandenburg and its progeny, and that should give all of us pause, especially in light of the Government's role in fostering that speech.

"Storming the Mercy Seat"

2010-08-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening we had our first guests in our new home--it was a work-related event for the Lady of the House, and many neighbors streamed into our backyard. So many, in fact, that the number was more than I (novice at the grill) would have been overwhelmed. One of the guests was a grill artist, and he jumped in and took over; another guest, and old friend of mine, used her cooking school skills to liven up our food. I was as much guest as host, and was taken by the generosity and warmth of my new neighbors.

One of the guests told us, near the end of the evening, about how her faith had helped her through a series of illnesses afflicting her husband. Her voice took on a preacher's cadences as she described herself praying with her husband's doctors. And then she used that great phrase, describing herself as "storming the mercy seat" on her husband's behalf. (He was there, by the way, a gentleman with a quiet, dry sense of humor).

So often we see emotion in church abused, or coupled with a suspect "enthusiasm" (from Charles Chauncy on to the present. A reminder of the salutary face of it--the power of the Spirit in the daily lives of people of faith--is like a shot of vitamins to a spiritual pilgrim. And a reminder that the intellectual side of Christianity, powerful and vital though it is, is not the whole of the faith. Not by a long shot.

Pastiche? or Pistache?

2010-08-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

I haven't written for a month because, quite frankly, the Anglican Wars are in a groove which seems to me predictable, if not inevitable.

So, let's reopen the blog with three visions of "suavity" (hey, if it's good enough for T.S. Eliot):

1. Period: Apologies to PG Wodehouse:

Wodehouse's Bertie sees himself as fitting the lyrics; the images selected by the compliler and the lyrics make the same point that Jeeves's puncturing of Bertie's self image does.

2. Period: Rex Stout's Turn:

Archie actually does fit the lyrics, so this lacks the irony of the Jeeves & Wooster video. Interestingly, my significant other thinks BBVD is perfect music to score Stout by.

3. Sci Fi: So Wrong it's--nah. Still Wrong. But Funny.

So, er, what's my point? Other than the fact that I think the use of the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy original song to heighten the original character's strengths and weaknesses is both amusing and successful--the application of that music to each character lends the soneg a different shade of meaning, and illuminates a facet of the character that a casual viewer/reader could miss--Bertie's fantasy of being a cool man of action, Archie's rather successful (though imperfect; he has to win Lily Rowan back at the end!) stab at it, and Baltar's dated self image in a futuristic world masks his more serious version of Bertie's fantasies.

BBVD has its own video--and they use their retro sound to pastiche old movies:

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - Mr. Pinstripe Suit
Uploaded by UniversalMusicGroup. - See the latest featured music videos.

Anglocat at Prayer

2010-07-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

When holy and devout religious cats
Are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence,
So sweet is zealous contemplation.

Photo: Anglocat

The Lost Leader

2010-06-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

I have pretty much given up on Abp. Williams. The recent political machinations of the Archbishop of Canterbury, including his petty slights to the Presiding Bishop (some of them
truly petty), are one thing. Add Canon Kearon's informing the Episcopal Church's Executive Council (in a meeting he tried to have behind closed doors)that TEC's relegation to second-tier status will not be limited to the sanctions thus far and that the "problem of increased and growing diversity in the Anglican Communion has been an issue for many years....[and that]" by the 1990s leaders in the communion "had begun to name 'the diversity of opinions in the communion and diversity in general as a problem and sought some mechanisms to address it.'" Now add his last ditch effort to peel some of the required 2/3 votes off of legislation to allow consecration of women bishops to create overlapping bishoprics so that anti-women bishop parishes may secede from the diocese while urging that the far more radical Anglican Covenant be adopted by a simple majority of votes at Synod. (1)

Williams, surprisingly to those of us who welcomed his selection, has spent his arch-episcopal tenure living up to Pete Townshend's depressing image of religious authority here:

How sad. He could have been a true shepherd, and not just a man in a purple dress.

(1) Williams' position is all the more notable since he has written that the "diocese is the organ of union with the wider church" and yet is willing to fragment it, meanwhile making it easier to radically change the relationship of Church of England to the other members of the Communion to a juridicial one on a fast track, while drawing out and requiring a supermajority to approve the consecration of female bishops, the logic of which is pretty inexorable in view of the prior decision to ordain women to the priesthood.

Be Right or in Relationship?

2010-06-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I just has a two-week involuntary hiatus, and what happens? Well, essentially, the entire Anglican Communion goes nuts. Meanwhile, my friend Nathan Humphrey tries to urge us all to consider relationship over rightness. As the responses he generates show, rightness is winning the straw poll. I appreciate Nathan's effort to reach both sides, but it seems to me that he's bucking the tide, quite possibly on the Progressive side as well as on the Reasserter. My own views on this is that the level of hostility toward TEC suggests that relationship at this point may not be a viable option, for now. We may need to take a break from each other, and let history--and the Holy Spirit--lead us to the next phase. It's sad to me that this is where we are, but I think the emotions in the air may require a time out. I certainly don't believe we should be the whipping boy for the Communion, but that we should remain always open to reconciliation.

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T06:48:00.000-07:00

Every year, I struggle with a couple of days--this is one, as is September 11. How to pay tribute to our armed services without lapsing into bathos? I'm an admirer of G.B. Trudeau's the Sandbox, a "milblog" where you can here the concerns and musings of our soldiers themselves. Or you can read the timeless poetry of Siegfried Sassoon. Or the superb poems and memoirs of Robert Graves (I especially admire Good-Bye to All That).

Best of all, show the veterans and active duty members of our armed forces that you appreciate them and honor their service.

And remember the fallen.

The MERS Mortgage Twilight Zone

2010-05-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

In the wonderful world of mortgage foreclosure, in which dwells, one of the most frustrating aspects is the way that the banks and their agents have set up fictional chains of assignment upon assignment, by entities in which the same people appear as lawyers and principals, agents and employees--all to paper over the loss of the paper trails which are required to establish what entity (if any--a lot of the original lenders are defunct and may not have assigned the notes before, er, defuncting). As the scope of the forclosure crisis has expanded exponentially, the mortgage companies and their attorneys have engaged in remarkable legal pirouettes to hide the fact that the necessary records don't exist, or are lost beyond recall. As the New York Times reported last August, Judge Arthur M. Schack of Kings County has dismissed a series of foreclosures for just such gimcrack song-and-dance lawyering, and earned fame just by making banks follow the rules applied to ordinary litigants.

But this week Judge Schack reached a new peak in HSBC Bank USA, NA v. Yeasmin, in which he analyzed such a "who's on first" in litigation:

Plaintiff made its renewed motion for an order of reference 204 days late, in violation of the Court's May 2, 2008 decision and order. Moreover, even if the instant motion was timely, the explanations offered by plaintiff's counsel, in his affirmation in support of the instant motion and various documents attached to exhibit F of the instant motion, attempting to cure the four defects explained by the Court in the prior May 2, 2008 decision and order, are so incredible, outrageous, ludicrous and disingenuous that they should have been authored by the late Rod Serling, creator of the famous science-fiction televison series, The Twilight Zone. Plaintiff's counsel, Steven J. Baum, P.C., appears to be operating in a parallel mortgage universe, unrelated to the real universe. Rod Serling's opening narration, to episodes in the 1961 - 1962 season of The Twilight Zone (found at www.imdb.com/title/tt005250/quotes), could have been an introduction to the arguments presented in support of the instant motion by plaintiff's counsel, Steven J. Baum, P.C. - "You are [*7]traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone."

****

The language of the MERS corporate resolution flies in the face of documents recorded with the City Register of the City of New York. The filed recordings with the City Register show that the subject mortgage was owned first by MERS, as nominee for CAMBRIDGE, and then by HSBC as Trustee for a Nomura collateralized debt obligation. However, if the Court follows the [*8]MERS'corporate resolution and enters into a new dimension of the mind, the mortgage twilight zone, the real owner of the subject mortgage is WELLS FARGO, the MERS Member and loan servicer of the subject mortgage, because the corporate resolution states that the Member is "the beneficial owner of such mortgage loan." The MERS mortgage twilight zone was created in 1993 by several large "participants in the real estate mortgage industry to track ownership interests in residential mortgages. Mortgage lenders and other entities, known as MERS members, subscribe to the MERS system and pay annual fees for the electronic processing and tracking of ownership and transfers of mortgages. Members contractually agree to appoint MERS to act as their common agent on all mortgages they register in the MERS system." (MERSCORP, Inc. v Romaine, 8 NY3d 90, 96 [2006]).

The Court's journey through the wondrous land of imagination takes several more permutations, leading to the dismissal with prejudice of the foreclosure action, but I think you get the idea.

Judge Schack has earned a tribute, and this one seems apt.

Manhattan Transfer- TWILIGHT ZONE theme 1979 from Coleccionista80 on Vimeo.

Kagan to the Court?

2010-05-09T19:33:00.001-07:00

According to NBC News, yes.

Not my first pick of the names floated this time, but, then, I want W.O. Douglas back. Kagan's record to date is left of center, but cautious. (More detail here). Still, she's young--just fifty--a consensus-builder, and a legal craftsperson of high skill. She could develop--Douglas himself was known predominantly as a corporate law professor in 1939, when he was appointed to the Supreme Court.

More, I am certain, to come.

Edited: A typo resulted in my moving Douglas to Julian of Norwich's time frame. I blame the Doctor. Or the Master. Or Adric--yeah--Adric.

A Century With and Without Mark Twain

2010-04-22T16:44:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the centennial of Mark Twain's death, with Halley's Comet in the sky. In the years since his death, his writings have been swept aside and minimized by critics from Van Wyck Brooks to Charles Neider (who, in fairness, loved Twain, but reduced him to an anecdotist). But they don't stay gone. Like Halley's Comet itself, Twain's words come back to us when we need them--when we have lost touch with our own inner sense, we turn to Twain's the War Prayer to right ourselves, or Huckleberry Finn, or the Gilded Age, or--well, you get my point.

A century since he died, and yet books from his hand continue to issue--soon, his Autobiography will at long last be published--just as Twain predicted. I wrote my senior thesis on the Autobiography, and tried to get a sense of it from the fragments published in various fora and formats over the years. I look forward to that thesis's coming obsolescence.

Twain was a genius on the platform--and, sadly, no trace remains. Here's his foremost interpreter, Hal Holbrook, with a taste.

Separation Anxiety

2010-04-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

Now that several of the Global South churches have declared themselves out of communion with TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada, there is no hope of avoiding schism. It's here.

In some ways, this may not be the worst result--the increasing vitriol which I have previously noted suggests that a little space between us may be just what is necessary. But, after much thought, I'd like to point something out to all concerned, including me:

Grow up, can we please?

People, there are three possibilities, here, if you believe, as I do, that the Holy Spirit makes things clear over time:

1. TEC is right on the presenting issues, and in one generation, maybe two, most of those in ACNA contingent will realize this, repent of their stubbornness, and communion will be restored;

2. ACNA and Co. are right, in one generation, maybe two, most of those in TEC will see this, and will repent and return to tradition, and TEC will wither, but Anglicanism will survive in a new form;

3. We're both wrong, at least in part. A third thing we can't predict will rise out of the ashes.

Obviously, anyone who's read this page before know my guess is No. 1. But--and here's a phrase I'd like to see more often--I could be wrong. So what are my duties in this time of division and discord?

First and foremost, not to increase the hostility and complicate the work of the Holy Spirit.

That is why I've taken a hiatus from TEC/Communion blogging, and why this post is not about justifying my beliefs. The moment of separation is here; my opinion on the root causes is not relevant now. What is relevant is trying to make the separation as little traumatic as possible for both sides. We all need to show some faith in God to make His will known.

By squabbling like would-be action heroes, many in the Anglican blogosphere are increasing the anxiety. And Church leaders too. We need patience and firmness both. That is why I believe the Diocese of Central New York erred in selling the Church of the Good Shepherd. I hold no brief for Fr. Kennedy, but I would have rented him the church, at cost of maintenance, on the condition that he agree to make spiritual provision for faithful TEC members. The need to vindicate title was real; the sale savors of spite, even if there is a fair reason for it of which I am not aware.

I make this point against my own "side" because it's critical in my opinion that we face up to the fact that no party in a drawn-out, emotionally fraught engagement will always act from its best self. We have plenty of guilt on our side of the street.

What to do about ongoing crises? First, we vindicate the principle of legal ownership under the trusts established at common law and codified under the Dennis Canon. However, beyond that point of law, I would suggest the fullowing approach, which I as I suggested in November, 2007:

As to personnel and property, I think we should take a nuanced position:

1. Any clergy who does not apply to be released or transfer from the Episcopal Church should be deposed. Any clergy who applies, in proper form, for release or transfer should be granted it.

2. Any parish that seeks to leave as a unit should be denied such permission--people may leave, the parish remains. However, where there is such a supermajority of departing members and clergy, that the parish structure is temporarily not viable, the departing members and clergy should be encouraged to negotiate a lend-lease arrangement with the diocese such that services may continue during negotiations for both departing members and remaining members while negotiations go on over transition or sale of the property. (In other words, if the option is the historic church becomes a night club, sell it to the [departing members--I regret my original word choice of schismatics]--better them than the Limelight; use the proceds to build smaller churches for our continuing members).

3. Restrict litigation to those parishes where the remaining Episcopal membership is viable, or no such negotiations can be pursued due to the "reasserters" refusal to bargain in good faith. Offer mediation before suing.

4. Depose any bishops who purport to take a diocese out of TEC. Period. If they seek release or transfer, be gracious. Treat parishes within their bishoprics on a case-by-case basis--loyal parishoners must be protected, and supported. It is not sufficient to tell them to saddle their own horses. (Pace Bonnie Anderson). TEC must make sure that every loyal congregant is reached out to and provided with a place of worship.

5. If these steps (especially 4) require us to reduce our cooperative efforts internationally, that is regrettable, but we should do so. But we maintain our anti-poverty programs as a top priority; if we cut funding, cut Lambeth and other ecclesiastical subsidiaries first. We cut any support to church structure in provinces invading us. We send missionaries to such locations to sustain our brothers and sisters in such nations.

6. No more "fasting" from Anglican bodies' meetings. We show up, mindful of C.P. Snow's dictum, "Never be too proud to be present." We advocate for our members, and our brothers and sisters worldwide. If they expel us, so be it. We ally with Canada, Wales, anyone else who does not walk from us. But we do not sit passive while other provinces presume to sit in judgment of us.

7. Finally, we remain open--always!--to reconciliation.

One revision to point 2: I'd favor renting over sale, now, and shared space for both congregations whenever possible, to keep lines of communication open. Again, sometimes hostility would be too intense for this to be viable, but the goal is to remind ourselves and our critics that we are all followers of Jesus Christ, and to make room for the Holy Spirit to work.

[Edited and revised]

Palate Cleanser

2010-04-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

There's still more horrors out of the Vatican today, but I need a break. Something wholesome. Like Nero:

What, you you were expecting someone else?

Well, Isn't That Special?

2010-03-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

I have to admit the ability of the Catholic Church to feel put-upon is a constant source of incredulity to me. From Pope Benedict and the Vatican itself, to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, the refrain seems to be the same: Damned liberal media.

Seriously, who'd these guys get to craft their defense, the Coasters?

Let me address this one very simply: If you claim to be the one true faith, the one true church, and then spend half a century systematically covering up child sexual abuse, it's a story. Too bad. The gap between ideals and performance is always going to sell papers, and you don't get to complain, since you like telling people how to live and even how to vote. As the eminent philospher says, "the greater the power, the greater the responsibility."

More substantively, Abp. Dolan links the Vatican statement denying that "a relationship exists between the application of ‘Crimen sollicitationis’ and the non-reporting of child abuse to civil authorities in this case. In fact, there is no such relationship. Indeed, contrary to some statements that have circulated in the press, neither ‘Crimen’ nor the Code of Canon Law ever prohibited the reporting of child abuse to law enforcement authorities."

This is interesting, because when in 2005, the Guardian reported on then-Cardinal Ratzinger's 2001 letter continuing Crimen Sollicitacionis, the Vatican declined to comment, saying "'This is not a public document, so we would not talk about it." (You can see my earlier post on the matter here; note that I used the Guardian's spelling; I'm now employing Abp. Dolan's. And abbreviating it as "CS").

Anyway, the back-and-forth on the document's impact is perhaps somewhat unclear, but the skeptics of the Church's view seem to me have pretty good corroboration that it was understood as requiring silence on the part of the victim. First, Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland, who has acknowledged that when he was 36, he participated at an inquiry pursuant to CS at which "the boy and the girl [complainants] were required to sign affidavits swearing that they would not talk to anybody except priests given special permission by the tribunal hearings, known in church parlance as “ecclesiastical proceedings."

This reading of CS is further corroborated by the Dublin Report into the Irish Church's experience chaired by Judge Yvonne Murphy. Murphy's Commission reported that the Vatican refused to provide any documents or testimony to the inquiry, so the Vatican deprived tself of a chance to elucidate the issue. However, after much study, it issued an exhaustive report. The Times of London (linked above, two back) summarized the Commission's findings regarding the church's policy as follows:

Ratzinger’s letter was relying on crimen sollicitationis, a set of procedural laws first issued in 1922 and updated in 1962. One of its requirements is that any person making a complaint of abuse against a priest is required to take an oath of secrecy.
Breach of the oath can be punished by excommunication. The document, exposed in a BBC Panorama documentary by clerical-abuse survivor Colm O’Gorman, deals with what it calls the “worst crime”, child sexual abuse. The main difference between the 1922 and 1962 versions is that the second one extended its remit to members of religious orders.
According to the Dublin report: “It appears that both documents were circulated only to bishops and under terms of secrecy. Each document stated that it was to be kept in the secret archive to which only the bishop had access. The commission has evidence that the 1922 document was known to senior figures in the archdiocese of Dublin, especially during the time of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, and that, in the words of one witness, it was a ‘well-thumbed’ document.”
The commission found that the document was used by McQuaid in the case of Fr Edmondus, who abused Marie Collins and other patients in Crumlin children’s hospital.

Regrettably, between the Vatican and the evidence falls the shadow.

At least the Coasters were amusing:

"I wish to exhort all of you"

2010-03-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

I confess that the Pope's Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland took my breath away. Why? Because of the continued assumption on Benedict XVI's part of a personally undamaged innocence and lack of personal responsibility:

Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them.

Is it churlish on my part to point out that the Pope, in his prior role of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was the ultimate authority overseeing investigation of such allegations, and that his role as been described as obstructing the inquiry? Or that the earlier papal edict reaffirmed in Benedict's 2001 letter giving rise to the claim of obstruction was in fact applied by the Church in Ireland, notably by now-Cardinal Brady, as mandating secrecy from the secular authorities, leading to clergy extorting oaths of secrecy from children reporting molestation? Or that, in his own capacity as an archbishop in Germany, he handled sex abuse complaints in a manner indistinguishable from the bishops in Ireland he now reproves?

The Pope does not address his role in these matters; he rather states:

On several occasions since my election to the See of Peter, I have met with victims of sexual abuse, as indeed I am ready to do in the future. I have sat with them, I have listened to their stories, I have acknowledged their suffering, and I have prayed with them and for them. Earlier in my pontificate, in my concern to address this matter, I asked the bishops of Ireland, “to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected, and above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes” (Address to the Bishops of Ireland, 28 October 2006).

With this Letter, I wish to exhort all of you, as God’s people in Ireland, to reflect on the wounds inflicted on Christ’s body, the sometimes painful remedies needed to bind and heal them, and the need for unity, charity and mutual support in the long-term process of restoration and ecclesial renewal.

The emphasis is in in the original. And that is the problem, here. We have an assumption of invincible innocence, essentially, on the Pope's part, that ruins all of his expressions of sorrow and empathy for victims, because it ignores his own responsibility, personal and institutional, for what he has done and left undone. His exhortation exempts himself. Indeed, his response and that of his defenders has been dismissed as "whining about a campaign against his person" by theologian Hans Kung. A harsh characterization, no doubt, but frankly, not inapt in view of the Vatican's resposes in the last weeks.

The Catholic Church is not just the hierarchy, and does much good work. And Benedict has been much more willing to confront this issue than his predecessor. Fairness compels that this be remembered. But this crisis is in part the result of a half century systemic and systematic failure of leadership for which not one of the leaders has taken responsibility. That bill is now due, and if Benedict dishonors it, as he has done to date, the Catholic Church's institutional credibility may be lost for generations to come.

This is Your Victory

2010-03-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

The usual suspects are downcast (and vice-versa) at Rev. Canon Mary Glaspool's receiving the necessary consents to her election as suffragan bishop of Los Angeles. As I don't know the Bishop-elect, I can't really comment on her election, other than to say I've heard good things about her from people who do know her, and whose opinion I respect. Congratulations and prayers.

But I find I do have a word to say to the self-styled reasserter community, and to the communion conservatives joining them in deploring TEC's lack of "gracious restraint" in no longer honoring the Windsor Reports moratoria after six and a half years of compliance: Congratulations.

Seriously. In the years since the requests were made, TEC complied. In return, it was subjected to cross-boundary jurisdictional crossings, attempted property seizures, a farcical "listening process" and a never-ending wave of bile and venom. Additionally, our Presiding Bishop was insulted at the 2007 primates meeting, where seven Global South primates refused to take communion for fear of being polluted by her presence. And then of course there was the Lambeth Walk. And, finally, the ongoing effort to replace TEC as the North American Anglican entity. So, in view of all these, riddle me this, Batman:

What incentive did your side ever give the Episcopal Church to continue its adherence to the requested moratorium?

I mean, really. You go all out to tear her apart from within, demonize her and her leadership, replace her in the worldwide communion--and then you're surprised that she doesn't continue in a posture of "gracious restraint" which your "side" has been flouting for the same 6 1/2 years she's been complying. I mean, I know you have a low opinion of TEC, but what adverse consequence do you have in your arsenal that you haven't already launched at TEC? What benefit did TEC receive by holding off for 6 1/2 years? None, and none.

It's politics 101. The benefit to TEC in continued restraint was precisely nil. Since your "side" (how I hate these terms!) is hitting TEC with everything you've got already, the additional cost to TEC in ending the period of restraint is--why, precisely nil again. You forecast the result.

And, in 6 1/2 years of incessant demonization, attempted property-swiping and bloviating, you've managed to convince a majority of the decision-makers that the only "peace" you would accept is abject submission. You've convinced many of us that you don't love us as "even Christians"--quite the contrary!--and convinced many of us that being in communion with you is all pain, no gain.

Congratulations. Take a bow. This is your victory.

The Mystery of Mark Twain's Lioness (Part 1)

2010-03-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

The recent publication (just yesterday, in fact), of Laura Skandera-Trombley's book,
Mark Twain's Other Woman is significant in that it presents a well-sourced, sympathetic account of Twain's relationship with Isabel Lyon who started out as his wife's social secretary, and subsequently became his personal secretary in a relationship that was both unconventional and intense--on both sides. The relationship ended with charges of embezzlement and more on Twain's part, and ferocious countercharges by Lyon's recently-acquired husband, Twain's business manager. Lyon, interstingly, never spoke out against the man she called "the King." After making the papers, and causing a social scandal, it was forgotten for 60 years after Mark Twain's death.

Trombley's book is well written, and her use of Lyon's voluminous papers adds details to a period in Twain's life that his too often been relegated to the unremitting darkness of myths of Hamlin Hill's overtly hostile biography God's Fool (1973) (which revived the Lyon story) or the equally unrealistic sunniness of Albert Bigelow Paine's important but hagiographical authorized biography, published in 1912. Trombley is, like Hill, a supporter of Lyon's, but, unlike Hill, has an abiding affection for Twain.

However, her overt championship of Lyon leads her to make all credibility calls in her favor, even though Lyon's own diaries (as Trombley notes) were heavily edited by her and her 1906 daily reminder, at least, exists in multiple, inconsistent forms, devised "with the intention of either misleading anyone who would read he reminder or as a backup in case the original was stolen." (p. xvi).

Additionally, Trombley is rather prone to disparage Twain's later writings in a way that denies their political influence on antiwar protestors as late as the Vietnam era. Where she disparages these works, such as "The War Prayer" and "King Leopold's Soliloquy" as "shrill" and marred by a "constant note of misanthropy" (pp. 64, 62), writers such as Maxwell Geismar found them bracing and inspirational enough to compile a book length anthology of them, which I have owned since I was a teenager, and which helped me form my own political outlook.

A more skeptical view of Lyon's account is taken by Karen Lystra in her 2004 book Dangerous Intimacy: The Untold Story of Mark Twain's Final Years. Lystra rebuts Hill's uncritical acceptance of Lyon's last version of events, and deploys the unpublished diaries and a manuscript by Twain's youngest daughter, Jean Clemens, whom she asserts Lyon banished from her father's house in order to maximize her chances of marrying him. Lystra's book is an important corrective to Trombley's championship of Lyon. In championing Jean, Lystra carefully examines the transactions between Twain, Lyon, and Twain's business manager Ralph Ashcroft (who married Lyon in 1909). Lystra is both more detailed and skeptical on these transactions than is Trombley; where Lystra asserts that Twain's notary who notarized his power of attorney in favor of Lyon routinely notarized documents without Twain's presence (an inappropriate, but not uncommon, practice even today), Trombley relies rather naively on the boilerplate statement used in all notarizations that the document was signed in the presence of the notary as conclusive.

Another questionable move on Trombley's part is her acceptance as if uncontroversial of Lyon's claim that Jean Clemens attacked on two occasions the family's long-time servant and friend Katy Leary. (82, 96-97) Lyon's account is questioned quite acutely by Lystra, who suggests that Lyon misinterpreted Jean's own statement of what happened, and embroidered it based on stereotypes of epileptics which were common in these years. Trombley simply treats Lyon's observations as self-evident, and suggests it indicates that Jean suffered from postictal psychosis. (82). Well, perhaps. If it happened--it is unhelpful that Trombley does not address Lystra's critique of Lyon's account, which is uncorroborated by Jean's papers, or Katy Leary's account of life with the Clemens family. It's not that Lyon cannot be right absent corroboration; however, the fact that she is a somewhat unreliable narrator and the unpleasant denoument of her relationship with Twain suggest that Lystra's critique deserves to be considered. It's Trombley's decision not to do this which is troubling, especially as she is certainly aware of it--she cites Lystra as a source at least twice in the footnotes, and in fact provided a blurb for the book's jacket in 2004.

While both Jean and Lyon have modern champions, the one voice which has not been heard in all of this is Mark Twain's. He left behind a 429 page manuscript, commonly known as the Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript," which has not been published to date. It is only known in snippets, when quoted by Hill, Lystra or Trombley. They have widely varying estimations of it; Hill cites it as evidence of senility, Trombley calls it "bizarre" (p. xiv), while Lystra defends Twain's accuracy and acuity in writing it, as well as depicting it as a great effort to come clean about his own guilt in banishing Jean for years while under the sway of Lyon. Until the manuscript is published, there is no way to know whose characterization is more apt; the great writer, one hundred years after his death is voiceless in this riveting drama. One thing I'd say about his mental capacities in his last months (assailed by Hill), however is this: Twain's last essay, The Death of Jean, written in the days after her death on Christmas Eve 1909, and a mere five months before his own death, is powerful, moving, and has all the hallmarks of Twain at his finest.

(edited and expanded)

Next: A Tentative View of L'Affaire Lyon

The Conservative War on Christianity

2010-03-12T03:48:00.000-08:00

I actually think Christians, of all denominations, should realize that Glenn Beck is not the only voice of conservatism saying this, just the most unsubtle:

I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them ... are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.

Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!

(Full version is here). Code words for what? Nazism and communism. Really.

As the Times shows, this has resulted in a lot of hostile reaction to Beck from churches, mostly liberal, but some conservative in theological orientation, too. But that's the problem; churches, liberal and conservative critics are acting as if Glenn Beck is on his own here--a lusrus naturae of conservatism, well out of the mainstream of conservative thought. But not so fast. As I have previously pointed out, Beck is merely a more obvious tone-deaf version of more respectable conservative voices, such as Robert George, who has successfully lobbied the U.S. Conference of catholic bishops in a strikingly similar manner:

He told them with typical bluntness that they should stop talking so much about the many policy issues they have taken up in the name of social justice. They should concentrate their authority on “the moral social” issues like abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex marriage, where, he argued, the natural law and Gospel principles were clear. To be sure, he said, he had no objections to bishops' “making utter nuisances of themselves” about poverty and injustice, like the Old Testament prophets, as long as they did not advocate specific remedies. They should stop lobbying for detailed economic policies like progressive tax rates, higher minimum wage and, presumably, the expansion of health care — “matters of public policy upon which Gospel principles by themselves do not resolve differences of opinion among reasonable and well-informed people of good will,” as George put it.

More clever than Beck, George would simply water down the centrality in the Gospels of how we treat the poor, the oppressed, and the stranger to bromides, thereby "freeing" Christianity to focus on important issues, like doctrinal orthodoxy and serving as clerical sex police. And this isn't merely a Catholic phenomenon--in fact, the Catholic Church is unusually rich in its social justice tradition. Similar thought in evangelical churches has led to so-called Christians who believe, with seeming sincerity, in a free market gospel or, worse, the patently heretical prosperity gospel.

And, of course, such thought goes a long way to explaining how professed Christians, including Roman Catholics in public life, and at least one priest, have explicitly defended American use of torture in, among other religious media, Catholic television programs, with only silence from the American bishops. (The latter of whom are much more swift to act against abortion, or gay marriage).

That trenchant old critic of organized religion, Mark Twain, had a good, sardonic chuckle over the result of this sort of thinking, in inaugurating the Twentieth Century. He wrote:

I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiaochow, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.

George Herbert's Day

2010-02-27T13:25:00.000-08:00

PRAYER. (I)

by George Herbert

PRAYER the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth ;

Engine against th’ Almightie, sinner's towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear ;

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bels beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices, something understood.

Christopher Bryant wrote a superb book unpacking this wonderful powm. Herbert's work is a great gift to us as a faith community, and as followers of Our Lord in the Way.

"A Noble Profession"

2010-02-19T19:26:00.000-08:00

So Henry Paulson is back, defending banking as "a noble profession:"

During the interview, which was conducted by General Electric chief executive Jeffrey Immelt at the 92nd Street Y, a cultural center in New York City, Paulson said that he was pained to see Wall Street "suffering" under the public's ire. Banking is "a noble profession" that has lifted many people out of poverty, Paulson said. And he lent words of support to the bank leaders who helped to steer their institutions through the crisis: "This being a New York crowd...you all lived through this," he said. "It impacted all of your lives."

Hmm. With over half a decade's worth of warnings from the FBI that mortgage frud is endemic,this rah-rah to banking seems to me misplaced. In fact, all too often the banks seem to have taken Augustus Melmotte as their model.

Is it wrong of me to think that employee orientation at Godlman, BoA, JP Morgan Chase and their ilk must be a more solemn version of this?

Add suits and bottled water...

Restart!

2010-02-06T07:26:00.000-08:00

Just a short note to point out that I have updated my profile to use a recent photo of Betty the Anglocat, who is in love with the Book of Common Prayer. (She prefers the red Church Publishing edition to the older black Seabury Press version I received on my reception into the Episcopal Church).

Betty likes to share my devotions, and between her and my own Anglo-Catholic leanings, is responsible for the name of the blog. I'm sure I pointed this out before (OK, I know I have), but the first time I heard Smart's Jubilate Agno performed in Benjamin Britten's fine setting, I immediately thought of Betty's complex, but consistent, adoration of the BCP.

And this love of our faith, our tradition is where I want to focus, and not getting into spuddles with those within the Anglican Communion who want to punish or "banish" the Episcopal Church. Lent is coming, and it's past time for me to be on with my business of writing about things I care about, not engaging in point-counterpoint with other bloggers. Ecclesiastical flame wars are about as light-giving as any other kind.

So, back to work. Next post, I'll begin sharing some thoughts about Richard Hooker's Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, which the recent unpleasantness prompted me to read for myself. I invite comments, because I'm hoping to use Hooker in an article I'm working on regarding the Anglican experience and the Establishment Clause.

In the meantime, for your enjoyment, is the Washington Collegium performing "Rejoice in the Lamb," featuring (in part 2!) Jeoffrey the Cat:

(And, for those who need cat video to accompany the music, Youtube hath provided:
).

The Winter of Our Discontents

2010-02-01T16:47:00.000-08:00

So where are we in the Anglican Wars?

Well,
Dr. Mouneer Anis, President Bishop of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, has resigned from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, giving rise to a discussion at Covenant that demonstrates, once again, why I have finally come to think separaration is inevitable. Comments such as this make my point for me:

IMHO this is hugely damaging to +++Williams who has effectually wrested control away from the Primates. They are not due to meet until 2011. He recast Lambeth (with its limited attendees) by faux indaba while issuing his own pronouncements. +++Williams made a mockery of all due process at the Jamaica ACC. Before that his behavior in New Orleans was that of a toady to the paymasters of TEC. He unilaterally voided the Dar es Salaam resolutions of the Primates. Now he has been called by this resignation.

ACI offer one possible way forward. What will the CP group have to say on this? Both these groups are struggling - honorably, in my opinion - to find a solution where the Communion stays united but in which provinces such as TEC and ACoC will inevitably be marginalized. Will this be possible? IMHO no. Into this situation we await the effects of the consents to Ms. Glasspool’s election in LA. I have no doubt that these will be given. Also we await the response of the Global South gathering in April, where they are due to respond to the Covenant as presented in December. I believe that they will gain further strength and develop upon ++Anis’ themes. It is my guess that ++Anis will be a significant participant in this gathering. I do foresee a non Canterbury centered Anglican Communion, but wonder who among the Western Churches might be part of the same. This might well be a working out of the two tier membership described by Canterbury. After WWII England was shorn of its empire. Will this now happen to the AC and Canterbury? Certainly the growth and spiritual life, vigor and energy are in the Global South.

Oh, yes, the "spiritual life and vigor" of calling for secular persecution of gays and lesbains, of raiding other Provinces and claiming their assets, and of justifying violence against other faiths. And that's just Nigeria. No, seriously. And, again, I'm not kidding.

Then, of course, the repeated refernces to TEC as preaching a "faux gospel", of Abp. Williams as being "in the pay of TEC." (If he is, we're getting ripped off, in my opinion). What I fond truly interesting is this: nobody on the site, not even the most reasonable voices (except for the last progressive standing there, "Iron Man" Michael Russell, who manages to stay engaged despite the bile), even contemplates the prospect that TEC is filled with Christians who believe that they are serving the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There's no belief that we can be wrong, but well intentioned. We're heretics, and must be crushed.

And herein lies the rub. We can't be in communion with these folks, because they hate us. If we sign the Covenant, they will try to use it against us, because that is its only reason for existing. If we don't, they will say we no longer "exist" as an Anglican body, even though it is the Covenant which is new, transforming the Communion into a trans-national church that never existed before.

Ironically, the saner voices on this thread express only concern that the self-anointed Orthodox have "lost trust" in the Covenant process. Nobody there seems interested in asking why we progressives should have any trust in them and their intentions let alone the process they desire.

I have at long last been shifted from an advocate of endeavoring to reconcile and stay in Communion to believing that we indeed do not belong together. We are learning to hate one another now, and and rather than that, I reluctantly welcome the untempered schism.

Photo By: Anglocat, January 2010, Trinity Church On a Snowy Morning

Moral Hazard

2010-01-26T18:38:00.000-08:00

The Church of England has lost £ 40 million it invested in New York's Stuyvesant Town apartment complex, a deal which cost it less than 1% of its total asset portfolio, but which the Guardian newspaper points out "was a large layout for a single investment and it comes on the back of other setbacks in the recession." (In a chart accompanying this article in the print edition, the New York Times puts the CofE investment at $70 million).

However, the investment with Tishman Speyer raises more than prudential concerns; it involved the Church of England in a deal which has been called a form of "predatory equity," in this case, when a building is "purchased by owners whose business model requires driving out rent stabilized tenants." (More on this practice may be found here). Rent stabilization in Stuy Town was protecting, in the words of the Guardian,"one of the few remaining bastions of affordable living among the multimillion-dollar tower blocks of lower Manhattan." The Church of England's investment strategy required wiping out this bastion, and depriving these tenants of what are for many long-time family homes.

Moreover,this predatory equity strategy was a feature, not a bug. According to the Gothamist at the time of the sale, "The purchase price of $5.4 billion can only be supported by substantial increases in the rents, by taking units out of rent regulation over time. The offering circular for the sale suggested that the complex could be converted from 75 percent rent regulated units now to only 30 percent rent regulated by 2018." The fact that Tishman-Speyer was found by New York State's highest court to be illegally raising the tenants' rents while simultaneously receiving tax breaks predicated on their provision of rent stabilized housing demonstrates just how central to the offering the aggressive raising of rents was.

Ironically, on January 28, Arcbishop Williams will be the keynote speaker at the Trinity Institute, speaking on theology and the global economy:

In view of the primacy the Gospels depict Jesus giving questions of economic justice (Matt 25, anyone?), perhaps Archbishop Williams would be better occupied with removing the log from his own eye, before he meddles with other church's affairs?

(edited to correct date of Abp. Williams' presentation).

The Toxic Atmosphere

2010-01-20T03:36:00.000-08:00

I begin to think that it's simply impossible for progressive Christians to engage with our more conservative brothers and sisters online. They just don't want us.

Case in point: Covenant, which was founded to be a place for irenic across-the-gulf discussion, has reached the point where member Charlie Clauss asks "Have we run off all the progressives from Covenant?" Administrator Fr. Tony Clavier answers, "I do hope not."

A progressive, Michael Russell, responds: "Nope. But there is little point to even attempt further discourse with settled minds that expose more than one impasse which cannot be bridged with discourse. Please note that the previous sentence applies to me as well. “Covenant” has an orthodoxy peculiar to itself (largely subservient to the ACI line) and that is fine, but there is just no point in arguing with any vigor." Things deteriorate rapidly from there.

After a civil suggestion to "begin by naming some of the impasses," which Russell replies to, another commenter states that "what I advocate is not punishment but that TEC stop claiming to value the Communion while simultaneously rejecting the mind of the Communion expressed in Lambeth resolutions, requests from the ABC, proposals from the Primates, etc," and suggests that expulsion from the Anglican Communion is not punitive, merely definitional. When Russell points out that border-crossings and property "takings" also fit this description (he misses, also, the complete farce that is the Listening Process), the whole thread becomes a pile-on. Another member then chides Clauss for what he terms expressing "more concern. . . with aligning with liberals in pecusa than with those who share the same gospel but who are outside of pecusa."

By the end, two members have stated that TEc "is no longer a church" and that "TEC is not to me recognizable as a Church."

The sad thing is that I have had a very positive correspondence with two Covenant contributors, who have been irenic, friendly, and quite able to disagree without becoming disagreeable. Somehow, efforts to do this online seem to get spoiled by those who ache for doctrinal purity.

An amusing side note: One of these members, deploring Russell's citation of Richard Hooker, states "I have found that when you ask people who claim Hooker as their authority on Scripture it turns out that they have never read Hooker. I hope this isn’t the case with Michael," relying on a "pull quote" from Bk V of Hooker's Laws. When Russell--and Fr. Clavier--urge him not to rely on isolated snippets of Hooker,he repeatedly presses Russell for a quote. On a later thread, the same member asks "Michael, when can we expect your Hooker analysis that supports your argument that Hooker’s view of the primacy of Scripture only pertains to salvation?" After Russell replies, again without a pull quote, it turns out that the edition of Hooker that member was using was edited by Russell. Aye, well. Be careful who you slag online.

UPDATE: Fairness to the commentator who owns Rev. Russell's edition of Hooker requires I point out that his response to the "reveal" was quite gracious: "Yes I do [own Russell's edition]and I owe you a debt of gratitude for the edition that you put out. I may even have met you at S-W around some lectures by David Tracy. Yes, the price is incredible and I appreciate all the extra writings that are in your edition."

Which brings me back to my point--maybe online isn't the place to have these discussions. Maybe we need to be interacting directly with each other in real life, getting to see the good as well as the bad. Maybe a covenant could make sense if it came after, and not before, the crucial business of "intensifying relationships" by living them, and not legislating them.

Winning the Argument

2010-01-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

Richard Hooker v. Walter Travers:

On Travers' complaint against Hooker that "he [Hooker] prayed before and not after his Sermons; that in his Prayers he named Bishops; that he kneeled both when he prayed and when he received the Sacrament, and (says Mr. Hooker in his defence) other exceptions so like these, as but to name, I should have thought a greater fault than to commit them."

--Walton, Life of Hooker in Hooker's Collected Works, vol. 1 at 46 (OUP 1875 ed.).

Nice one, mate!

Oh, No, Bobo!

2010-01-15T19:29:00.000-08:00

I hate to always be slagging conservatives--I mean, c'mon, it gets predictable!--but even the nicest of them often displays a chilling indifference to people's lives. Today's example? David Brooks,here captured in dialogue with Gail Collins:

David Brooks: Gail, can I draw you into the America versus Europe debate? This is the old argument over which model of capitalism is better, the Anglo-American model or the continental one. It was recently rekindled by two bloggers extraordinaire — Jim Manzi and Jonathan Chait — and then joined by our colleague Paul Krugman.
***
I became convinced that our system was better not for the wealth-generating reasons the current bloggers are arguing about, but because it leads to more exciting lives.

Collins tries to reason with him (mistake!):

Gail Collins: David, you’re reminding me of an argument I listened to several eons ago, when I was in graduate school, between my husband Dan and a very conservative guy who I think was a relative of one of our professors.....

Dan said something about how he wanted to live in a country where everybody’s medical needs would be met whether they had the money to pay for a doctor or not. The other guy exploded in rage and yelled: “What’s the matter with you kids today? You have no sense of adventure!”

Bobo, however, does not get the point, and reasserts his thesis:

The other big difference is that the American model encourages hard work at the cost of instability. I think that encourages people to maximize their capacities. The continental model encourages less work at the cost of boredom. I knew people in Brussels who went to work at an organization at 25 sitting in one desk, and they could tell you exactly what desk they will be sitting in and what job they will be doing when they retire at 60 or 65. Yawn.

Collins puts away the stilletto and uses the truncheon:

Gail Collins: This may not be the best possible moment to tell Americans about the dreadful boredom that they’d be suffering if they were stuck with job security. However, the argument seems pretty moot, given the fact that the number of Americans who are protected by a labor union has been dropping for as long as I can remember....The question for Americans is whether we think people who have no guarantee of long-term employment need to be assured that whatever happens, they’ll still have health care and the guarantee of a very, very modest pension when they get old.

I think people would feel more free to take risks in their work life if they know that they don’t have to hang onto an uninspiring job just to protect their family’s health insurance

Still not getting it:

We in this country live in an immigrant heavy culture and we need an economic model that encourages assimilation. That’s what our system has always done. The continental model exists in countries with stable populations that do not feel the need to absorb immigrants. Their model is fine for that.
By the end of my stay in Brussels I concluded it would be wrong and impossible for the Germans or the French to adopt our model and wrong and impossible for us to adopt theirs. We each had stumbled toward models that fit our personalities.

Vive la différence.

Collins makes several efforts to point out to Brooks that there is a very real human cost for his squee! of excitement, but he just doesn't care. It's all abstract to him. And I think this, in teh end, is why I am not a conservative. A certain smugness in the face of other people's pain seems to go with that territory--just as a certain holier-than-thouness is the concomittant liberal flaw. I can only think of one conservative in public life who steadily showed compassion for those on the losing side of his principles--Learned Hand, who was, as I wrote years ago, not an Olympian figure like Holmes; no stranger, he was a brother. But that seems quite rare among conservative writers, at least. And Brooks is no rara avis.

Harshing the ABC's Mellow

2010-01-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

As a serious addict of Doctor Who, I pride myself on making the references snappy. So, when I first saw this story and its accompanying youtube, depicting the Archbishop of Canterbury in a cloak, looking for all the world like a superannuated Anthony Ainley, I had a sardonic chuckle.

But, alas, the Telegraph's James Delingpole and Damian Thompson beat me to it:

James Delingpole reckons that Archbishop Rowan Williams is reminiscent of Doctor Who’s arch-enemy the Master, as played by Roger Delgado in the incomparable Pertwee era. I think that’s a bit unfair. On the Master.
***

Well, the Master had his flaws, I’ll give you that. One of which was an unwavering commitment to the forces of evil. But at least he didn’t waffle, like Dr Rowan Williams. He wasn’t always strictly truthful, but unless you were massively gullible you knew where he stood. He was in favour of unbridled greed, tryannical world domination, the enslavement of entire galaxies, and the ordination of women bishops.

Guess which one of the Master's theological points I'm down with?

Could this be the ABC confronted with the need to take a position?

Oh, and Happy New Year, all!

Thomas a Becket

2009-12-29T17:11:00.001-08:00

Today, December 29, is the anniversary of the murder of Thomas a Becket, perhaps at the orders of King Henry II, certainly to the great relief of that most protean and impetuous of Kings. As I wrote two years ago (crikey!):

Imagine my surprise when, years later, I found out that one of the most pressing grounds for the conflict between Becket and Henrywas the treatment of "criminous clergy" who committed offenses against the laity; in the face of years of inaction by the ecclesiastical authorities, Henry wanted the right to try such clerics in the secular courts.

There was much more to it than that, of course. The real Thomas Becket may have been headstrong and arrogant, but he was also seeking to preserve the institution of the Church as it was entrusted to him, and to resist a King who was re-making the political institutions of his day and centralizing power in the King's person.

As to Becket's murder, the King's role in it has always been sharply disputed--the authenticity and meaning of the infamous quotation, "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" have been debated for centuries. (An excellent account is contained in W.L. Warren's biography, Henry II).

Regardless of the merits of their dispute, there's no denying that the story of Becket has given rise to much great art. My personal favorite is the admittedly ahistorical play by Jean Anouilh, brilliantly filmed with Richard Burton as Becket, and Peter O'Toole as Henry:

Great though the movie is, it does considerably less than justice to either Henry (who fought a civil war to a standstill to become King) and Becket himself.

And, of course, T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral is a great favorite of mine since Fordham College (thanks, Dr. Antush!), and one which combined great insight into human nature and into theology. For me, the lines that hit home most are the scenes between Becket and his Tempters. So, the Fourth Tempter offers him the power of martyrdom:

You hold the keys of heaven and hell.
Power to bind and loose : bind, Thomas, bind,
King and bishop under your heel.
King, emperor, bishop, baron, king:

Becket sees this trap, and responds:

Now is my way clear, now is the meaning plain:
Temptation shall not come in this kind again.
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

Cognitive Dissonance?

2009-12-21T05:11:00.000-08:00

This Times Magazine profile of Catholic Natural Law expert Robert P. George highlights my fundamental inability to understand relate to much of conservative Christian thought. George, widely regarded as " the reigning brain of the Christian right," (it took, of course, the rise of women's rights and the concomitant legalization of abortion to overcome the distaste many evangelicals have long held for "popery"), has successfully urged that fellow conservatives, especially RC bishops should narrow their focus:

He told them with typical bluntness that they should stop talking so much about the many policy issues they have taken up in the name of social justice. They should concentrate their authority on “the moral social” issues like abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex marriage, where, he argued, the natural law and Gospel principles were clear. To be sure, he said, he had no objections to bishops' “making utter nuisances of themselves” about poverty and injustice, like the Old Testament prophets, as long as they did not advocate specific remedies. They should stop lobbying for detailed economic policies like progressive tax rates, higher minimum wage and, presumably, the expansion of health care — “matters of public policy upon which Gospel principles by themselves do not resolve differences of opinion among reasonable and well-informed people of good will,” as George put it.

Or in other words, fulminate, enact moral standards into law, but on poverty and justice issues--just empathize. This is utterly opposed to what a good friend of mine, a Deacon in the Episcopal Church calls "trench theology." And he has pretty good warrant for it, too. The Daily Office reading for Saturday, the same day I get the NYT Magazine? Matthew 25: 31-46:

31 'When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." 37Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?" 40And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."a 41Then he will say to those at his left hand, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." 44Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?" 45Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'

The moral disjunction here seems pretty straightforward to me. George seems all too eager to focus attention that matters onto policing the morals not just of his co-religionists, but of his fellow citizens.

And George, who is a follower in his Natural Law beliefs of Aristotle and Aquinas, surely knows that Aristotle believed abortion to be permissible in the first three months of pregnancy and that Aquinas did not believe abortion was homicide until "ensoulment," post-conception, and that indeed the Roman Catholic Church itself did not hold his position until the early 19th Century. Thus, George is in the somewhat odd position of arguing that his position is the universal objective truth to be obtained by reason, despite the fact that neither of his two leading lights of Natural Law reasoning held the same position. Thus, we should adopt Aristotle and Aquinas's philosophical framework, but their specific failure to reach objective truth as George would have it does not undermine its universal quality. Yep. All clear and self evident. Meanwhile, on the actual Gospel imperatives? Nothing. Or rather, sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Back to Barchester

2009-12-16T19:20:00.001-08:00

The summer before I started college, I first read Anthony Trollope's The Warden and its sequel, Barchester Towers. Its depiction of Nineteenth Century clerical life was a delight to me, and the depth of the character-drawing made me a fan for life. (Still am!)

At the time, I somehow missed the BBC's adaptation of the two novels. Viewing it now, it holds up quite well--Donald Pleasence captures the goodness and naive quality of the Rev. Septimus Harding,and endows him with a gentle, pawky sense of humor; Nigel Hawthorne is funny and credible as his choleric son-in-law, Archdeacon Grantly, and a young Alan Rickman is superb as the slippery Mr. Slope. The women are excellent, too; Susan Hampshire is positively delicious as the charming but naughty Signorina Madeline Vesey Nata Stanhope, and And Geraldine McEwan shines as Mrs. Proudie, the bishop's domineering wife.

Trollope is unique in English literature, in that he can make the goodness and gentle good humor of Mr. Harding credible, and not cloying. (CP Snow thought that only Dostoevsky made goodness more believable). Admirable though Rev. Harding is, I regret that I often am more like the Archdeacon--quick-tempered if well meaning.

Enjoy, but be careful--one trip to Barchester is never enough, and there are four more novels after these. And, then, of course, there are the the Pallisers:

Abp. Williams and the Untempered Schism

2009-12-12T09:04:00.000-08:00

I think Cantaur is lining up with the traditionalists. At least, unless the Telegraph has it seriously wrong:

Dr Williams has admonished the Episcopal Church (again) for another provocative act in deepening Anglican schism. “It confirms the feeling that they’re moving further from the Anglican consensus,” he tells me. Can there ever be a consensus in which biblical traditionalists can be in communion with homosexual bishops? The man who has committed his archbishopric to unity pauses: “I’m not holding my breath.”

However, he does, if tepidly, finally get around to condemning the Ugandan legislation:

And there are those who seek to make a moral equivalence between Los Angeles and Kampala, asking why the Archbishop upbraids the Episcopalians while failing to condemn the Ugandans. Added to which, some American traditionalists have markedly failed to condemn the Ugandan proposals.

“Overall, the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can’t see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the Communion has said in recent decades,” says Dr Williams. “Apart from invoking the death penalty, it makes pastoral care impossible – it seeks to turn pastors into informers.” He adds that the Anglican Church in Uganda opposes the death penalty but, tellingly, he notes that its archbishop, Henry Orombi, who boycotted the Lambeth Conference last year, “has not taken a position on this bill”.

Not much in the way of comfort here on the part of TEC and our sympathizers.

Pockets, E.D. Just Pockets

2009-12-10T17:59:00.000-08:00

"Most of Jesus's parables were free market parables...:

As E.D. Kain writes (linked above):

It just strikes me as a remarkable example of how absurd the conservative movement really has become. (There are so many examples but this brings them all under one roof.)
….or has it always been this way? Have the intellectual pockets of conservatism always been just that – merely pockets?
Watching Schlafly try to reconcile free markets and Christianity is just sad. It’s exactly why thoughtful proponents of free markets run into such jaded and hostile reactions from people on the other side of the fence. I think Christianity and free markets are reconcilable but only with the addition of some form of safety-net-state. The Christian Democrats understand this concept over in Europe. Americans like Schlafly think Jesus was the first coming of Milton Friedman.
It just makes me throw my hands up in the air. I try too hard to retain the word “conservative” – to hold on to some other sense of its meaning, some other definition that the American right has no hold over. I have great admiration for the paleocons, but I would never really fit in even with that idiosyncratic bunch. I’ve tried to come to terms with the idea that the movement can be changed for the better but I’m beginning to doubt myself even there. The invention of the modern Tea Party only reveals how deep the fraud runs.

Or, tp put it more succinctly, this is not a faithful adaptation of the Gospels, although the denouement captures the GOP view of Christianity pretty neatly:

Curse of the Grand Tufti

2009-12-06T17:27:00.001-08:00

Well, here we go again. After persistently holding only one side--the Episcopal Church--accountable in the widening schism, even though we are in fact the only "side" that has observed the moratoria requested until now--Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is threatening consequences to TEC if it approves the Diocese of Los Angeles' selection of Mary Glaspool as Suffragen Bishop. Williams' comment:"The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold."

Meanwhile, Archbishop Williams remains utterly silent on the violations of the moratoria by more conservative provinces making geographical incursions into TEC's jurisdiction and on the utter failure of these churches to participate in the so-called "listening process" to hear the concerns of gays and lesbians. (It's all here). Moreover, Williams has been for two months silent on the ghastly proposed Ugandan legislation which seeks a death sentence for "aggravated homosexuality," and prison sentences for all--parents and priests included--who become aware of a person's homosexuality, and fail to expeditiously report it to the government. Notably, this legislation is fostered by American right-wingers, a fact noted by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in her denunciation of the legislation.

Abp. Williams managed to denounce the selection of a lesbian suffragen within a day; the persecution of gays and lesbians with support (albeit equivocal) from the Anglican Church of Uganda does not rate a mention. Sadly, this is typical of Rowan, as I observed in the links at the beginning of the post. He should remember that for the bonds of mutual affection to hold, he needs to be seen as someone worthy of our affection. I for one doubt this proposition, and am more and more inclining to welcome the impending schism.

The Beat Goes On....

2009-11-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

Further and better particulars on the Roman Catholic Church's 40 year cover-up of systematic and pervasive child abuse on the part of the Archdiocese of Dublin. The Times (London) has the quick summary:

The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland connived with the authorities in a cover-up spanning decades to shield paedophile priests from prosecution, an official report concluded yesterday. Hundreds of crimes against children were not reported as the four archbishops of the Archdiocese of Dublin remained wedded to the “maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church and the preservation of its assets”.
Instead, the church hierarchy shuffled the sex offenders from parish to parish, allowing them to continue to prey on victims. In some cases paedophile priests were even promoted. The 750-page report by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse on the Dublin archdiocese — the second significant inquiry this year to expose appalling levels of sexual abuse of minors in Ireland under the aegis of the Roman Catholic Church — said that it had uncovered a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy throughout the period that it investigated between 1975 and 2004.
It said that the State had helped to create the culture of cover-up and that senior police officers regarded priests as “outside their remit”.
“The State authorities facilitated that cover-up by not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure that the law was applied equally to all and allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes,” it concluded.

When considered in conjunction with the evidence of Vatican condoning of such cover-ups even in papal statements on the issue from John XXIII to Benedict XVI (pre-papacy for him), one must ask finally, what does this tell us about the Roman Catholic Church?

This, I think: That its ecclesiology is fundamentally flawed in it's agoraphobically top-down model, one which prizes the interests of the institution so highly, and which cannot ever admit error or failure--individuals fail the Church, the Church itself cannot err. By identifying itself completely with the Body of Christ, the Church heavily disincentivizes itself from acknowledging systemic problems--the "rogue priest" model is the only one that the Church can bear to recognize, because to do otherwise sets up a cognitive dissonance between its theological claims and its behavior. That gap, perceived outside the Church as the rankest hypocrisy, is in fact denial of the most psychologically necessary kind. To believe it, one must shift the topic from the cover up to the offense itself, perpetrated by a number of priests not much greater than that percentage of abusers in society at large, a defense the Church has made at the highest levels. But it is, of course, the concerted cover up over decades by men widely deemed holy and even heroic within Christendom--John XXIII, a hero to liberal Catholics, and John Paul II, a hero to conservatives, to name but two. Or, one can, as did British MP Ann Widdicombe in the Intelligence Squared Debate I linked previously, de-emphasize the cover up, and the sex abuse, and spin it as overly authoritarian discipline typical of the time, and even (as did Widdicombe) accuse Church critics of a double standard, by unfairly demanding that the RCC know better than the times. (This of course set her up for the deadly riposte of Stephen Fry: if the Church cannot be expected to better than secular institutions, he asked, his voice rising for the first time in the debate, then "What are you for?").

The fact is, having one man, and a small circle of princes, responsible for the preservation of a 2,000 year institution which it believes to be the true incarnation if Christ's Body on Earth is to put an insupportable burden on that man and that circle of men. It cannot be maintained, because it attributes perfection to the necessarily imperfect. And that leads to covering up the gap between the Heavenly Image and the Earthly Reality.

C.S. Lewis and The Four Loves

2009-11-22T13:08:00.000-08:00

Today is the anniversary of C.S. Lewis's death, and a good opportunity to remember him. I first encountered his writings in high school, under the tutleage of the Marianist Order. We read The Four Loves, and I knew I was in the presence of great writing--clear thought, fluently expressed, delivering the material in an accessible, but not condescending way. Lewis's work is one of the great treasures of Anglicanism, and The Four Loves is thought-provoking as well as meditative.

But Lewis was above all a superb scholar. Here he is talking about his friend Charles Williams:

His death, on the same day as John F. Kennedy's murder, and the death of Aldous Huxley, received very little coverage. His life and work, however, continue to fascinate.

Gore Redux

2009-11-15T06:35:00.000-08:00

A recent comment on an older post reminds me to recommend heartily Charles Gore's two volume commentary on Paul's Letter to the Romans. For those who (like me) have struggled with Paul's more, er, Calvinist overtones, Gore does an exceedingly useful job of putting him in his historical context, and elucidating this rich, sometimes contradictory, and occasionally daunting text. He is particularly good with Romans 8, one of my favorite Biblical texts, but one which springs from the paean to hope, to the introduction into Christian thought of predestination. Gore:

There is, I think, no point on which St. Paul has been more misrepresented than on his teaching about predestination. He teaches plainly that it is God's purpose to ' have mercy upon all': that He 'willeth that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth....The election of this catholic body to be the heirs of salvation and to bear the name of God in the world was, it would have been held, a selfevident fact. St. Paul reasons not up to this fact but from it. He uses the admitted fact to strengthen its individual members under stress of trial. They must bear earthly troubles because they form the appointed discipline for the individuals who form the select body. Let men but love God, and then all outward things whatsoever work together for good for them. The fact that they love God is the sufficient evidence of their election. Those who love God are also those who are ' called according to His purpose.' But, we ask, Have none received the call and rejected it? were none called, who do not love God? is it not true, that ' Many are called and few chosen' ? St. Paul says not a word to the contrary. But that is not the question he is considering. The members of the Christian Church, devoted to God, to whom he is writing have been called. This call of which they have become the subject is, St. Paul assures them, no afterthought, no momentary act of God, which as it came into being in a moment so may pass away. It is not a being taken up by God and then perhaps dropped again. His gifts and calling are without repentance on His side, because they represent an eternal will.

In other words, Paul is urging boldness and confidence upon the Christian community--be sure that you are loved, and will always be loved--and not claiming that others are excluded from that same love. This brings Paul into consistency with Jesus's declaration, judge not, that ye be not judged.

A first rate work of exposition by one of he finest minds in Anglicanism. Well worth your time.

Mark Twain Tonigh!

2009-11-13T19:24:00.001-08:00

Here is Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain on Man: the Reasoning (?) and Religious (?) animal:

And a glimpse of the genuine article:

Ah, to be in England...

2009-11-09T16:31:00.001-08:00

when Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens team up:

Intellectual demolition derby, with manners.

From Intelligence Squared; hat tip: Andrew Sullivan, himself a Catholic, who writes:

You can forgive the pro-Catholic side for losing the debate in Britain on whether the Catholic church is a force for good in the world. Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Onaiyekan were up against Hitch and Fry. What you cannot forgive is the sheer intellectual shallowness of the defense. Just listen to the small speech above, I mean: really, this is the best we've got?

****
The problem with the theoconservative take-over in the Catholic priesthood is not so much its extremism as its mediocrity. And it is mediocre because it has been trained not to think, not to argue, and not to engage the modern world. It has been trained solely for obedience - blind, dumb, unquestioning, intellectually moribund obedience.

Actually, I think the extremism and the mediocrity are both problematic.

God's Work?

2009-11-09T15:55:00.000-08:00

The head of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, says that he and his firm are "doing God's work." As Washington's Blog asks, however, is this true?

There have been widespread, credible allegations that Goldman Sachs and other giant banks have broken the law (see this, for example).

Indeed, one of the first things God asks of us is to do justice:

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

While many churches and synagogues have become obsessed with other issues, many have arguably ignored this most important of God’s demands of us. As pointed out by a leading Christian ministry, which rescues underage girls trapped as sex slaves in third world countries:

In Scripture there is a constant call to seek justice. Jesus got upset at the Pharisees because they neglected the weightier matters of the law, which He defined as justice and the love of God . . . Isaiah 58 complains about the fact that while the people of God are praying and praying and praying, they are not doing anything about the injustice.
***

God demands that we do everything in our power to act as “God’s hands” in bringing justice. And as Saint Augustine reminds us, “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.”

***
Moreover, there have been credible allegations that Goldman Sachs and other giant banks manipulate the currency and other markets....Proverbs 11:1 also provides:

Dishonest scales are an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is His delight.

So to the extent that the giant banks have engaged in any dishonest acts or the manipulation of currencies, they are violating scripture.

Of course, any bankers who charge usurious interest rates should remember the little story about Jesus turning over the money changers’ tables

The whole essay is worth a read, and a thought. One needn't go all Matt ("Goldman is a giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money") Taibbi to ask, as this essay does, what the connection between our faith and our economic system--or, worse, the disconnect between them. How many of us (including me!) can truly claim to be loving justice, doing mercy, and walking humbly with our God?

(Hat tip: Naked Capitalism

Your GOP at Work

2009-11-07T19:02:00.001-08:00

Here is Rep. John Shadegg putting his own stupidity into the mouth of a baby, from whom he thinks we should take policy advice:

Here's Shadegg a few years ago, when he had thoughts of higher office:

Some guys never learn...

The Bitter Taste of Kool-Aid

2009-11-02T04:57:00.000-08:00

Let me see if I've got this crystal clear:

1. Dede Scozzafava, who lives in the District and has previously served in the State Assembly, wins the Republican nomination for NY's 23rd District, a traditional Republican stronghold.

2. Conservative Republican launch a more conservative candidate against her, denouncing her as a "RINO," a "leftist" and seeking to tie her to ACORN. GOP Celebrities such as Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson and Tim Pawlenty supported her conservative rival, Bill Hoffman. Although nominally supporting her, Meanwhile, the RNC formally supports her, but provides no financial support. Money pours into the district in support of Hoffman. Even Newt Gingrich called it a "purge."

3. Outspent by both Bills, Scozzafava withdrew from the election, a move Steele praised as "unselfish," allowing the NRC to join the roster of its luminaries officially embracing Hoffman.

4. Yesterday, Scozzafava, a lifelong Republican endorses Owen. The GOP's response? State Party Chair Edward Cox:“Dede Scozzafava’s endorsement today represents a betrayal of the people of the North Country and the people of her party." Similarly, Dick Armey (who supported Hoffman, by the way), “She basically put aside any pretensions and threw in with the Democrats.”

Now, isn't this rather like saying that Julius Caesar betrayed Brutus with his dying words?

And isn't this the fate of moderate Republicans in the modern era? To serve as a reassurance to the less extreme elements of the party, to be used by the dominant, increasingly, er, frothy, hard right, and then discarded and dismissed as traitors when they have the temerity to resent being cast aside? (Remember my Whitty Awards? Named after Chriistie "It's My Party, Too" Whitman, it's gone not only to Colin Powell, and Matthew Dowd, but even to George W. Bush).

Like all good cults, conservatism needs its scapegoats.

(Cross-posted)

Rector takes the High Roast

2009-10-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

As opposed to my own rather dyspeptic take, Rev. Bill Tully responds in a manner that matters to be both irenic and ironic:

Pope Benedict's invitation to Anglican (including Episcopal Church USA) priests and parishes to become part of the Roman Catholic Church, retaining our liturgy and some customs, is fine with me.
In fact, I think it's wholly fair.
I'm an Episcopal parish priest, so my reaction is less about the cosmic implications, if any, of this initiative.

***

But fair is fair. For most of my ministry, beginning in 1974, I've been in parishes that are uncharacteristically (for Episcopalians) interested in membership growth. When I work to put out the welcome mat to serious spiritual seekers, the result is usually a heavy preponderance of Roman Catholics, at least 50% in most years.
So, fair is fair. We have a principled approach to Christian practice that takes the Bible, tradition, and human reason with balanced seriousness. On the ground, we like ritual, think and act sacramentally, and for a variety of historical reasons have a euphonious liturgy. Roman Catholics resonate with that.
What most who come to us want to get away from is centralized, exclusively male authority structures and the top-down insistence that some moral and practical questions are settled for all time. When they hear the Pope say the question of the ordination of women as priests cannot even be officially discussed, they are often ready to join a different conversation. Fair enough. We've been doing the inviting for years. We welcome the Pope to the business of welcome.

Well played, sir.

Wrong Welsh Wizard

2009-10-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

So Rowan Williams gets sucker-punched by the Vatican (a sneak attack from a German? Who'd ever expect that? OK, I mean again. Actually, I give the Pope some credit--this time Belgium isn't involved). What's his response? To make nice in a joint statement, in which he lauds the move as "a response by Pope Benedict XVI to a number of requests over the past few years to the Holy See from groups of Anglicans who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and are willing to declare that they share a common Catholic faith and accept the Petrine ministry as willed by Christ for his Church."

Um, did The ABC just sign on to Petrine Primacy?

No; but the statement can easily be misread that way, and worse, depicts the Vatican's move as

further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition. Without the dialogues of the past forty years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured. In this sense, this Apostolic Constitution is one consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.

Aye, thankee, Rowan. Ecumenicism with Rome means submission to Rome. Well played. Where's the real Welsh Wizard when we need him?

Back After a Brutal Cold

2009-10-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

And with a thought: as Horace Rumpole might put it::

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Scalia, Again?

2009-10-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's oral argument in Salazar v. Buono demonstrated that Justice Scalia's onetime sensitivity to First Amendment values (remember Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989) has disappeared into thin air. Rather unbelievably, the choleric Justice chastised a lawyer for advancing the "outrageous" proposition that a cross might not be seen by Jewish veterans as an appropriate memorial for their service:

Mr. Eliasberg said many Jewish war veterans would not wish to be honored by “the predominant symbol of Christianity,” one that “signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins.”
Justice Scalia disagreed, saying, “The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead.”
“What would you have them erect?” Justice Scalia asked. “Some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David and, you know, a Muslim half moon and star?”
Mr. Eliasberg said he had visited Jewish cemeteries. “There is never a cross on the tombstone of a Jew,” he said, to laughter in the courtroom.
Justice Scalia grew visibly angry. “I don’t think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead,” he said. “I think that’s an outrageous conclusion.”

According to Tony Mauro, "[i]n the audience, several people were offended by Scalia’s comment about the cross as 'the most common symbol' for the dead, said lawyer Jeffrey Pasek, who authored a brief against the constitutionality of the cross for the Jewish Social Policy Action Network. 'A lot of people were surprised at the insensitivity of that comment,' Pasek said."

I'm actually just finishing up Martha Nussbaum's fine study of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses, Liberty of Conscience (2008), and one of her major points is that the creation of an "in-group" whose orthodoxy is treated as normative, "even if not coercively imposed, []is a statement that creates an in-group and an out-group. It says that we do not all enter the public square on the same basis: one religion is the American religion and others are not. It means, in effect, that minorities have religious liberty at the sufferance of the majority, and must acknowledge that their views are subordinate, in the public sphere, to majority views." Id., at 2.

In brief, that is exactly why it is Scalia, not Eliasberg, who made an "outrageous" statement in the oral argument. Back in 2006, I posted an entry raising the question of Scalia's increasingly emotional, self-interest referencing jurisprudence. I did not find that an easy post to write, as I had previously respected Scalia for what seemed to me to be a sincere effort to build a jurisprudence of originalism--as exemplified by his concurring in Texas v. Johnson, above. But here, he is turning the Establishment Clause upside down, denigrating not just its text but its intent--and damning as "outrageous" all those who point out that the Cross, the supreme symbol of his own Catholic faith, is not universally emblematic of all faiths, especially the Jewish faith, with which it has, at best, a rocky history.

Duncan Demarche Deux

2009-10-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

It's only a trial court ruling, but it's well reasoned and thorough: Robert Duncan and his ersatz Diocese lose the property.

I say it's well-reasoned, because the notion that the departure of a diocese's leadership could extinguish the pre-extant denomination's diocese defined by its membership in the denomination is an extremely weak contention under neutral principles of law. (It's like a franchise holder claiming not just the right to open his own burger joint, but to exclude the corporate parent from which he is defecting from his territory under the original franchise agreement).

I still believe we should look for a better way than litigation, but as a First Amendment scholar, as well as a mmeber of TEC, I am glad to see the majority of decisions actually following the law.

That Old Time Religion...

2009-10-05T20:11:00.000-07:00

is just too liberal for today's conservatives, who have decided to re-write the King James Bible, editing out all those squishy "liberal" parts--like, y'know, Jesus Jesus forgiving the woman taken in adultery, which is increasingly cited, the conservatives claim, by liberals. Why? :

The answer lies in its liberal message: do not criticize or punish immoral conduct unless you are perfect yourself. Liberals cite this passage to oppose the death penalty, a misuse that has been criticized. But one need not be perfect before he can recognize wrongdoing in himself. The Mosaic laws clearly state death as a punishment for sin. So the argument that an individual must be perfect is not relevant. The God-ordained government has the responsibility for punishment. Civilized society may not depend on stoning to deter immoral crimes, but it does depend on retribution enforced by people who are themselves sinners.

Also, the Gospels as presently extant are not sufficiently pro-free markets.

If this is a hoax, I'm deeply impressed. If not, I expect them to sue TEC for property.

The "Loyal" Opposition

2009-10-03T18:43:00.001-07:00

Conservatives exult at America's defeat in the competition to host the 2012 Olympics.

What a surprise. After all, as long as Obama loses, that's all that counts.

It's a trivial matter, but reflective of where we are as a nation. As I have written elsewhere, the institutional GOP has chosen to try to de-legitimize Obama, and that they are playing with fire. We're not talking about isolated provocateurs here--the Chairman of the Republican Party as I linked on my more political home a plethora of governors and senators have been flirting with birtherism, and feeding the fire that Obama is a raging evil pretender to the throne. It's one thing to disagree with the guy, and to denounce his policies, but the appeal to revolutionary rhetoric is so crazed that even Tom Friedman, who is a centrist with neo-con leanings, and a Bush supporter on many issues, recently published a column worrying that the GOP is fueling an atmosphere like that which led to Rabin's assassination:

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination

***

Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.

Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not (unlike Friedman in his Op-ed) calling for legal sanctions against those who are on the crazy end of the spectrum. What I am suggesting is that they are becoming mainstreamed in a way that could lead to a breakdown in our ability to govern. Tactics--the "who won the day?" approach--has a place. But strategy--the long term picture is far more important. That's why, to pick a great conservative to make my point, Winston Churchill's many tactical blunders (opposing Normandy, his "soft underbelly" fixation in World War II, to name just two), are dwarfed by his seizing of the truth long before anyone else: that Nazi Germany had to be defeated, not appeased. He kept his eye on the goal, and was willing to work with anyone--even his bete noir, Stalin, to attain that goal.

We need more Churchills, not cynical, vapid Becks and Steeles.

Death in the Family

2009-09-21T18:10:00.001-07:00

Growing up in Floral Park, we knew all of our neighbors. One of them, who became close to my family after my grandmother's death in 1977, was a cross-grained, crusty man, who nonetheless had buried (sometimes deeply buried) wells of affection in his nature.

He died today, after three years of being in a nursing home, where he relentlessly refused to engage in any kind of activity. My mother, who had been named by him as power of attorney, cared for him, visited him, and did everything anybody could to soften the harshness of those last years. (You understand, I hope, that he was hardly a ray of sunshine before this, right? Just checking).

Part of his tragedy was that he wore the "hey kids get off my lawn" mask so long that it became impossible to discard. But sometimes I did see beyond that, and could forgive his rudeness to my family, to me, and sass him right back. And I remember an unexpected phone call, a decade ago, when he shared with me a deeply personal hurt, one which, I believe, helped him to don the mask of disappointed, angry man. He wore that until almost the end, although when I visited him, he would occasionally smile, and respond to the sort of sarcastic banter that had marked our friendship since I was a boy. He taught me, in a way that no other experience I have had could have, the truth of a profound statement by Kurt Vonnegut, in Mother Night: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." Or, more to the point, if you insist on turning your back on life, it will, eventually, turn its back on you.

But no piece of a life reflects its whole. I remember pool games, Thanksgiving dinner (when he would, sometimes, show up briefly, chat for a while, take a plate and go home, despite my mother's repeated invitation to stay for dinner,or at least dessert. Over the years, this became a stylized kabuki drama of hospitality, with Mr. L refusing to come over, and my sister or I (or both) bringing the plate over, and on certain propitious years, him turning up at the end of the meal), and other occasions. We are not, after all, only our masks.

Rest in peace, old friend.

Thought for the Day

2009-09-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

"The Christians are right when they render unto Caesar and unto God, but keep the tributes apart. All rule must be secular. When God enters politics, he turns into his opposite. Always has. Always will."

---Anthony Burgess, The Kingdom of the Wicked at 355 (1985).