"Pining for the Fjords": Trying to Resuscitate Lambeth Resolution 1:10

I regret to say that Ephraim Radner's article "CLEANING UP THE PLAYING FIELD: SIX RESOLUTIONS FOR LAMBETH" put me in mind of the above classic Monty Python sketch. Dr. Radner's "Resolutions" for the 2020 Lambeth Conference are an effort to revive the long-dead Lambeth Resolution 1.10 (1998), as a backdoor way to institute punishment on non-compliant churches.

Well, non-compliant progressive churches, that is. Because the fact that Dr. Radner does not acknowledge, is that the so-called Traditionalist provinces never themselves complied with the Resolution. The Episcopal Church did, but that didn't abate the Traditionalist disregard for the Resolution insofar as it would have affected their conduct.

Here are Dr. Radner's proposed Resolutions:

1. This Conference reaffirms the 1998 Resolution 1.10.

2. Those bishops and churches who contradict or contravene this affirmation (I.10), or who punish others on the basis of such an affirmation, stand outside the boundaries of Anglican teaching and witness as this Conference understands it.

3. We request that other Communion Instruments of Unity pursue their work on the basis of this teaching and witness.

4. We recognize the missionary and pastoral integrity of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and its related member churches; and we urge serious deliberation, locally and at the international level, over how these churches can be integrated fully into the life of the Communion.

5. We commit ourselves as bishops to the work of formulating and pursuing extended, coordinated, and coherent formation and catechesis in the Christian faith within our churches and across the Communion.

6. We commit ourselves to gathering again in 10 years, and in the interim to developing ways by which, despite the real differences that divide us, we can fruitfully and honestly engage one another and our service of Christ according to the levels of communion we actually share.

But here's the problem; Dr. Radner only focuses on one part of the Resolution, missing the reciprocal obligations the 1998 Lambeth Conference attempted to create:

This Conference:

a. commends to the Church the subsection report on human sexuality [1];
b. in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage;
c. recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ;
d. while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;
e. cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions;
f. requests the Primates and the ACC to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources among us;
g. notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality and the concerns expressed in resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23 and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality and asks the Primates and the ACC to include them in their monitoring process.

In 2004, The Windsor Report added to these principles a request, implicit in the plea for unity in the Resolution, for a moratorium on the part of the Episcopal Church "to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges," and, reciprocally, for

those bishops who believe it is their conscientious duty to intervene in provinces, dioceses and parishes other than their own to
♦express regret for the consequences of their actions
♦ to affirm their desire to remain in the Communion, and
♦ to effect a moratorium on any further interventions.

(Windsor Report para 155).

Now, as I pointed out in 2010, when the Episcopal Church, after complying with the requested moratorium placed upon it for over 6 years, finally abandoned its adherence, it did so after the reciprocal obligations in the Resolution and in the Windsor Report had been systematically, comprehensively, and shamelessly flouted by the Traditionalists:

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.

I wouldn't use the Batman reference nowadays, but, frankly, I stand by my point: The Resolution was never received by the Traditionalists of the Anglican Communion, only its condemnation of same-sex relationships. Sections (c), (d), and (f) (which gave rise to the so-called "Listening Process") of the Resolution were simply disregarded, or cavalierly "complied with" in form only. So, for example, The Church of Nigeria's Report on the Listening Process did not reflect the testimony or views of any person but the Archbishop of Nigeria, stating simply:

The Primate of all Nigeria has said “Our argument is that, if homosexuals see themselves as deviants who have gone astray, the Christian spirit would plead for patience and prayers to make room for their repentance. When scripture says something is wrong and some people say that it is right, such people make God a liar. We argue that it is a blatant lie against Almighty God that homosexuality is their God- given urge and inclination. For us, it is better seen as an acquired aberration.”

The rest of the report comprises arguments from Scripture to support this statement--not any evidence of any listening at all--and the "Report" as a whole can be accurately summarized by the old Ring Lardner line, "Shut up, he explained."

In sum, Radner seeks to elevate to canonical status a Resolution that has, for nearly a decade, been rejected by the Churches making up the Anglican Communion, on both sides of the divide. That the Resolution was frail at birth, and died nine years ago, after TEC alone had kept it on life support from 2004-2010, is the one thing the actions of the Churches establishes.

Why on earth would we pay lip service to a dead parrot? It's not pining, it's passed on.

Happy St.Columba Day!

From St. Adomnan’s Life of St. Columba:

Concerning a certain water beast driven away by the power of the blessed man's prayer.

Also at another time, when the blessed man was for a number of days in the province of the Picts, he had to cross the river Nes [Ness]. When lie reached its bank, he saw a poor fellow being buried by other inhabitants; and the buriers said that, while swimming not long before, he had been seized and most savagely bitten by a water beast. Some men, going to his rescue in a wooden boat, though too late, had put out hooks and caught hold of his wretched corpse. When the blessed man heard this, he ordered notwithstanding that one of his companions should swim out and bring back to him, by sailing, a boat that stood on the opposite bank. Hearing this order of the holy and memorable man, Lugne mocu‑Min obeyed without delay, and putting off his clothes, excepting his tunic, plunged into the water. But the monster, whose appetite had earlier been not so much sated as whetted for prey, lurked in the depth of the river. Feeling the water above disturbed by Lugne's swimming, it suddenly swam up to the surface, and with gaping mouth and with great roaring rushed towards the man swimming in the middle of the stream. While all that were there, barbarians and even the brothers, were struck down with extreme terror, the blessed man, who was watching, raised his holy hand and drew the saving sign of the cross in the empty air; and then, invoking the name of God, he commanded the savage beast, and said: "You will go no further. Do not touch the man; turn back speedily". Then, hearing this command of the saint, the beast, as if pulled back with ropes, fled terrified in swift retreat; although it had before approached so close to Lugne as he swam that there was no more than the length of one short pole between man and beast.Then seeing that the beast had withdrawn and that their fellow- soldier Lugne had returned to them unharmed and safe, in the boat, the brothers with great amazement glorified God in the blessed man. And also the pagan barbarians who were there at the time, impelled by the magnitude of this miracle that they themselves had seen, magnified the God of the Christians."

No, you can’t blame the Zygons,either. (Besides, there’s a treaty, so we have to let Zygon be Zygons.)

You’ll just have to take it on faith.

Not As the World Gives: A Sermon on John 14:23-29

(Delivered at St. Bartholomew's Church, NYC, May 1, 2016

“I do not give to you as the world gives.”

Well, there’s the problem right there, isn’t it?

We like how the world gives. When it gives, at any rate.

Because comfort, money, distractions—you know I could write this sermon on a phone while watching a cat video?—yeah, we’re basically ok with how the world gives.

After all, the world is falling over itself to give us what we want.

Not so much what we need, but what we want, as long as we can afford to pay.

I know what some of you are thinking—is this going to be one of those dreary sermons where everything that’s fun is held up as a sin. And the devil, to steal a line from Bernard Shaw, gets to have all the passions as well as all the good tunes?
 
No.

I’m not going to suggest you scatter ashes all over your brunch so that the taste of your food doesn’t distract you from the contemplation of God.

That would be St. Francis.

And I’m not going to suggest that you should agonize at length over whether your pleasure in enjoying that brunch is sinful, because it doesn’t serve the purpose of preserving your health, it’s simply gratuitous. That’d be St. Augustine, and he was a great example of the reformed rake who may be much more decent than he was in his unreformed days, but is nowhere near as much fun.

No, I’m not going there. But here’s where I’d like to go: When Jesus says he doesn’t give as the world gives, he means that the gifts of God are not conditional.

What we build up, what we are given by the society in which we live, the careers we pursue, those gifts are conditional. Lose a job, and a whole cherished way of life can be stripped from us. Homes, relationships, status—all of these can be lost, because they’re never really ours.

 
But what is really ours, then?

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says it’s peace—“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”

It might help focus our attention on what he’s giving us if we remember where we are in the Gospel. You and I may be six weeks into Easter season, but Jesus is at the Last Supper. He’s washed the feet of his disciples, he’s looking ahead to Judas’s betrayal, and Peter’s, and he’s saying that right there, right then, he is giving them peace.

So, really not as the world gives. Not power, not possessions, not status, not conditional. Something that will get the disciples through the ordeal of the morning, and strengthen them for their journey as an Easter People.

Peace.

Peace doesn’t mean quiet here, or ease. But it’s hard to define what it does mean. The peace of God, which, according to Paul, surpasses all understanding, isn’t going to be captured in a single homily.

 
But we can begin to see aspects of Jesus’s gift of peace by watching its effects gift in the lives of the apostles.

Peter and the other apostles weren’t exactly profiles in courage prior to the Crucifixion. When the guards came to take Jesus, they ran away and hid; Peter denied knowing him. Thomas refused to believe the testimony of his sisters and brothers in God that they had seen him.

In their different ways, the Twelve were paralyzed by fear.

But after their encounters with the risen Christ, these unimpressive, deeply frightened disciples all went out and taught openly, defying the authorities. And they did it calmly, good naturedly even—not making scenes, but sharing their truth with all who would listen.

Not afraid anymore, and not with bravado—the false courage that hides fear. They knew who they were, and were going about their Father’s business.

And that self-knowledge and that calm certainty that their following Jesus was the most meaningful thing they could do freed them to communicate that self knowledge and self-acceptance to others—to Steven, the first deacons, even to Paul, who persecuted them until the discovery of his own best self knocked him to the ground. It was the very people he had persecuted who helped him to come to terms with the revolution in his own soul.

 
They were at peace.

But that peace isn’t that of the world—they weren’t accepted by society, they weren’t rich and respected, they weren’t popular with the Establishment.

What they were is themselves.

In his Confessions, St, Augustine writes, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.”

When St. Augustine wrote those words he was describing his own experience. This was a man who had tried living for pleasure, tried living a life of the intellect, tried living for others.

None of it worked.

He even tried the life of a religious believer. He’d joined the sect of the Manichees, who believed that the world was divided between the Light—which represented the life of the spirit—and the Dark, which represented the life of the flesh. It was a subtle faith, for educated people. The religious life structured around a parable of guilt over the desires of the flesh.

Which, as someone who was brought up a Long Island Catholic, sounds like old times to me.

 
But Augustine couldn’t function in that atmosphere. He couldn’t flourish in a faith that required him to embrace only part of himself. And when he learned more about the Christian faith, more about the incarnated God, something in the idea that God could be with us, could be like us, could be one of us, spoke to him with a truth that the subtleties of the Manicheans could not.

That’s because Christ promised integration, not division of the Self.

So many faiths ask us to abandon who we are, to conform to some external standard that has been imposed on us. Be a good consumer, a good employee, a good Democrat, a good Republican, a good Christian—

 
--oh, yes, the Church can sometimes try to divide us between the Light and the Dark, and keep only the Light. Think of the Prosperity Gospel. Think of anytime the Church or a church has stoked up anger against the other, and let us off the hook, while we cherish our own righteous indignation. We’re being invited to take one facet of ourselves as defining our whole self, and defining that Light against the Other, who is cast as the Dark.

Nice and easy. Christianity on the cheap. I’m OK because you’re not ok. Or I’m ok, because I’m not you.

But what drew Augustine in, why Augustine matters nearly 1600 years after his death, was that he lived today’s Gospel. He was restless with his life—which was a pretty good one, by most standards—until he found himself in God. He found peace, the peace Jesus left with the disciples.

How can we find that peace?
 
We can begin by not confusing the parts of our lives with the whole. Don’t let the roles we play in various parts of our lives become a mask to hide under. Recognize that there is more to each of us than our jobs, our careers, ourhobbies.

Do you feel restless, dissatisfied?

Good. “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” If your heart is restless, you’re on the path.

So be patient with yourself. If we’re told to love our neighbors as ourselves, we’d better have some love for ourselves. And that means patience.

Finally, don’t be surprised if you find yourself impelled to do something different from what you’ve done before. Ten years ago, having just turned 40, I felt myself tugged towards ordained ministry. Here I am now.

As mid-life crises go, it’s been pretty good.

 
Because the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, is trying to teach you something. She’s not pleading on your behalf to some hostile judge or jury. You’re the one she’s arguing with, pleading with sometimes. You’re the one she’s trying to help lead to integration, to wholeness.

If you let her, the Advocate will lead you to “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” [1]

And in so doing, lead you to the Peace of Christ, which is not given as the world gives, but can be yours no matter where you are in life.

May the peace of the Lord be with you.

Amen.


_____________________

[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC at pp. 118-119.

Deep Breath

(Photo: Anupam at English Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), via Wikimedia Commons)

Right, I think we've had our excitement for the weekend; let's talk more positively for a bit.

I'll admit that Thursday's and yesterday's news provoked me greatly, with Abp. Welby's non-apology apology to the LGBT community only making matters worse. The grace and resolution of our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and of Andrew Dietsche, my own diocesan bishop were something of a balm.

But, as I used to say in my days as a mentor for EFM, the last stage of a theological reflection is the "So what?"--that is, how do we use this in our day to day lives? Where do we go from here?

Yesterday, I found myself stepping up my prayer regimen. I've been praying the Daily Office for some years (generally, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline) for some years, since my friend and mentor the senior Deacon at St. Barts urged me to try it. It's been a longstanding practice that has enriched my life.

But this Christmas, when a friend of mine posted a picture of his new Anglican Breviary, I succumbed to a fit of book envy, and ordered a copy online. It's complicated, with 8 offices instead of the 4 in the Daily Office Book, and it's extremely Anglo-Catholic--higher in its churchmanship even than I am, in some ways. But there was a comfort to its familiarity, hearkening to prayers I remember from my Catholic boyhood, and even in its older, more robust language. Yesterday I added two more offices than normal. I found it calming, and centering.

I stand by every word I wrote Thursday. (Except for the typo!) But here's the thing: Life goes on. Anglicanism has given us a rich heritage of a broad church, uniting Catholics and Protestants, liberals and conservatives, around the altar. We're right strive to preserve that.

Ultimately, the Episcopal Church will be fine. Oh, I know we're shrinking like all the mainline denominations. But I have faith, you see, that God will lead us to where we need to be.

If my suspicions are right, and the Communion does not hold in its current form, whatever else befalls, the resources of Anglicanism are there for us. Liturgical prayer, the offices, the Eucharist. Richard Hooker, Charles Gore (hey, today's his feast day!), Hensley Henson, and all of the other theologians, activists, musicians, mystics and troublemakers who comprise the cast of characters who formed our tradition are going nowhere. The great choir music remains, as does our heritage.

More to the point, if we, to paraphrase Archdeacon Grantly, in a rare moment of spiritual depth, lack guile and love God, we will never go far astray.

Declaration of Independence

Today, the Primates of the Anglican Communion issued a statement, that, after some pious maundering, listed seven points of agreement:

1. We gathered as Anglican Primates to pray and consider how we may preserve our unity in Christ given the ongoing deep differences that exist among us concerning our understanding of marriage.

2. Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage. Possible developments in other Provinces could further exacerbate this situation.

3. All of us acknowledge that these developments have caused further deep pain throughout our Communion.

4. The traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union. The majority of those gathered reaffirm this teaching.

5. In keeping with the consistent position of previous Primates’ meetings such unilateral actions on a matter of doctrine without Catholic unity is considered by many of us as a departure from the mutual accountability and interdependence implied through being in relationship with each other in the Anglican Communion.

6. Such actions further impair our communion and create a deeper mistrust between us. This results in significant distance between us and places huge strains on the functioning of the Instruments of Communion and the ways in which we express our historic and ongoing relationships.

7. It is our unanimous desire to walk together. However given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.

8. We have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint a Task Group to maintain conversation among ourselves with the intention of restoration of relationship, the rebuilding of mutual trust, healing the legacy of hurt, recognising the extent of our commonality and exploring our deep differences, ensuring they are held between us in the love and grace of Christ.

Never mind the facts that the Church of Uganda supported passage on a draconian anti-gay criminal law, as did the Church of Nigeria, even boasting about the fact in its response to the farcical "Listening Process"on homosexuality the Anglican Communion went through in 2007. Such patent victimization through secular law of a minority group with the Anglican church of the province cheering? A-OK with Canterbury and the other Primates. Likewise the never-addressed, let alone redressed, territorial incursions into the United States by the same churches, violating a moratorium that only TEC observed. Again, no problem.

But our treating gays and lesbians as people formed in the Imago Dei causes their oppressors pain, and we have torn the Communion?

The Archbishop of Uganda apparently wanted more swift and condign punishment than that which was delivered. He walked out of the meeting, declaring in a statement that "I have left the meeting in Canterbury, but I want to make it clear that we are not leaving the Anglican Communion. Together with our fellow GAFCON Provinces and others in the Global South, we are the Anglican Communion; the future is bright." (His italics, my emetics.) They're making a play to hijack the Anglican brand, which Welby is furthering.

So now we are supposed to play the repentant Magdalene?

No.

Just--no. No more of this Game of Mitres. No more of our money (we are the second largest contributor after England itself, and one of the two only givers in 6 figures, while Uganda and Nigeria give no money) fueling the great machinery that allows these ecclesiastical gangsters to cloak their embrace of human rights violators in the robes of the Church. No Dane Geld.

It's Independence Day again.

I for one am no longer interested in reconciliation at the expense of our brothers and sisters, but in freedom for the oppressed.

The Communion is dying.

Let it die.

Maybe--just maybe--it can then rise.

Immune to Your Consultations

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby paid tribute to David Bowie just two days ago:

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, the Archbishop said he became a Bowie fan during the singer’s early rise to prominence.

He said: “I’m very, very saddened to hear of his death.

“I remember sitting listening to his songs endlessly in the ‘70s particularly and always really relishing what he was, what he did, the impact he had.

“Extraordinary person.”

There's a certain irony, here, as the very day after Bowie died, the Archbishop was delivering an address somewhat in conflict with his enthusiasm for the late artist:

We can also paint a gloomy picture of the moral and spiritual state of Anglicanism. In all Provinces there are forms of corruption, none of us is without sin. There is litigation, the use of civil courts for church matters in some places. Sexual morality divides us over same sex issues, where we are seen as either compromising or homophobic. The list can go on and on. The East African Revival teaches us the need for holiness. We must be renewed as a holy church, defined by our passionate worship and its content, with every Christian knowing scripture, prayerful, humble and evangelistic. In a sentence, we must be those who are, to the outside world, visibly disciples of Jesus Christ.

For all that there is much good news. First, Jesus did not come to a group of well-established disciples and send them, but to failures, who had fled, denied, abandoned. Paul in the letters to Corinth does not write to a well-functioning church of good disciples, but to those who were divided, immoral, filled with rivalry and hatred. We are a Jesus centred people, and we serve the God who raised Jesus from the dead and raises us. At the heart of the life of the church is not power, or structure, or authority, but the person of Jesus Christ, present by His Spirit, whose plans for good, whose love for the lost is our calling and our urging.

We see good news as well as knowing good news. Around the world the church is growing, evangelising, leading people to life in Christ, without whom there is no true life. The Anglican churches are everywhere caring for the sick, educating children, influencing society, and most normally of all, in bringing people to reconciliation with God in Christ, the only decisive reconciliation, they are also bringing reconciliation in society. In so many places, especially at the local level, by the grace of God alone, Anglicanism is a church of the Beatitudes.

In this country many talk of the post Christian society, but the C of E educate more than 1,000,000 children in our schools. We are involved in almost all the food banks as, for the first time since the 1930s, we have hunger in this country. We are still a major part of the glue that holds society together. A recent attempt to introduce assisted suicide was crushingly defeated in Parliament. We are exempted from the same sex marriage act, showing that our voice is still heard against the prevailing wind of our society, and at much cost to ourselves, by the way. The Church of England is still a primary source of leadership for communities, to the dismay of the secularists. It is a struggle, but we are not losing. And we are also in the middle of the biggest reform of the church since the mid 19th century. We are planting churches. The Archbishop of York is on an evangelistic pilgrimage, I imagine the first Archbishop of York to do that in centuries, even perhaps over 1,000 years. And the Bench of Bishops is described by the longer standing members as the most orthodox since WWII.

I've given a much more full quote than strictly needed to make my point, because I want to be fair, and to provide the context of the Archbishop's remarks. There are things to praise here, in his evident devotion to Jesus Christ, his belief in the mission of Anglicanism, and especially in his emphasis on service and reconciliation. I genuinely admire that portion of his address.

Less admirable, though, is his assumption that there is a global "Anglican Church." There isn't; there is a communion of autonomous churches, each of which exercises the historic episcopate, locally adapted.

But even more so, I was jarred by Archbishop Welby's defense of the C of E as "still a major part of the glue that holds society together," which is predicated at least one fairly rum data point:"We are exempted from the same sex marriage act, showing that our voice is still heard against the prevailing wind of our society, and at much cost to ourselves, by the way."

"“I remember sitting listening to his songs endlessly in the ‘70s particularly and always really relishing what he was, what he did, the impact he had."

Bowie, of the complex sexuality, might raise an eyebrow at Archbishop Welby's claim to have relished what Bowie was and then scant hours later preening himself on being contra mundum as exemplified by his Church's securing an exemption from the same sex marriage law.

We'll see what happens at the Primates Meeting, but Archbishop Welby may be missing the point. As Bowie sang, long ago:

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through.

And they'll remember who stood with them, and who against them. And they'll wonder why.

A Principled Disagreement

This entry is going to be a lot more pleasant to write (and, I hope, to read) than my last one on the same topic. I want to commend Ross Douthat for seriously upping his game in responding to Professor John W. Marten's critique and response of Douthat's "Letter to the Catholic Academy".

At a threshold level, gone is the sneering self-righteousness of Douthat's original columns on the subject. No more arrogantly denouncing those with whom he disagrees as heretics, and accusing the Pope of leading the conspiracy to destroy orthodoxy. Rather, Douthat begins on common ground, tries to fairly summarize Professor Martens's contentions, and gives his critic credit for sincerity and good faith. He just doesn't agree with him, and gives his reasons. This has the effect of making Douthat's argument much stronger--his claims are less extravagant, and his dropping of his hectoring tone is most helpful. (Indeed, Douthat sprinkles a little self-deprecating humor in the post, which I don't recall seeing in his writing before. It suits him, as does his more irenic tone.)

Now, in responding to Douthat's argument, I want to point out two things: 1) Although I was raised Catholic, and am sympathetic to Catholic sacramentalism and much theology, I'm an Episcopalian, albeit of the High Church variety. So discount for that. 2) The fact that I ultimately disagree with Douthat on the question of whether the Roman Catholic Church would fundamentally change by altering its position on the indissolubility of marriage does not mean I think his position is untenable. It means that I disagree with Douthat, just as he disagrees with Professor Martens.

As Douthat (fairly) summarizes Martens, he:

he advances two models for evaluating developments in Catholic doctrine — one drawn from the New Testament, from the Council of Jerusalem’s decision not to require Gentile converts to adhere to the full Mosaic codes (a case of legalism overcome, he implies, with clear relevance to current Catholic debates), and one drawn from the arguments of a certain Joseph Ratzinger (perhaps you’ve heard of him), who argued that a Catholic reading of the gospel message and the New Testament needed to distinguish the “core” elements from the “husk,” to determine what ideas were essential and which were more adaptable or dispensable when the times seemed to demand it.

I think that these two models are quite rich; I also think that neither one offers a strong justification for adopting the proposals on communion for the divorced and remarried tacitly supported by Pope Francis and debated rather hotly by Catholic scribblers. But the models do provide a context, at least, in which Professor Martens and I could have an argument from shared premises, even if we ultimately disagree.

However, he sees a greater divide between them in that Martens "largely leaves out what seems like the most traditionally Catholic criteria for determining what is and isn’t “fundamentalism,” what counts as “legalism” as opposed to just fidelity, and how and whether doctrine can develop, namely: What the church has already taught on the matter." (Douthat's emphasis.)

He writes:

Where matters are clearly unsettled, in other words, Martens is offering reasonable criteria to guide the church. But by only emphasizing those criteria, he seems to imply that no question is ever permanently settled, that one interpretation simply succeeds another as the church’s history unfolds.

Martens does not say this outright. The issue is one of omission: There is simply no sustained reference in his essay to the idea, running from Vincent of Lerins to John Henry Newman, that consistency of teaching and non-contradiction are important criteria for discerning when and whether doctrine can develop. Instead, the strong implication is that in every generation the Catholic Church is in roughly the same position as the nascent church of the 1st century, confronting crucial questions anew and reading the signs of the times afresh, and that the positions and teachings of the past are always up for revision when some combination of dialogue, prayer, experience and theological innovation suggests that the time has come to change.

Now, he's certainly getting Newman right here, but I think that he is unfair to Martens. Martens does not disparage continuity, nor does he start from "Year Zero." He offers a critique of the traditional position as it has been lived into that one may or may not find persuasive, but it doesn't assume that precedent has no weight.

One of Douthat's criticisms is Martens's reliance on Jesus's seeming belief that the End Times would come in the lifetimes of the disciples, and that "If Jesus based his moral teaching about marriage on his assumption that the eschaton would arrive in the 1st century A.D. — which it rather conspicuously did not — then surely that tells us something pretty important, not just about marriage and morals, but about whether we should believe that he was actually the messiah." (Douthat's emphasis.)

Douthat acknowledges that Christians can hold that position, but asks "can you be an orthodox Christian if you believe that Jesus’s teaching was shaped and stamped by all-too-human limitations? Can you be a Roman Catholic Christian?" For him, the answer is clearly no.

With respect (and I mean it), for a column that holds out Anglicanism as a negative model, Douthat reveals that he's not terribly well informed about what many Anglicans believe. Because Charles Gore's Dissertations on Subjects Concerning the Incarnation, building on his contribution to Lux Mundi addresses the question, and holds that Jesus's knowledge was circumscribed in many resects to that of people of his time, and that this was part of the kenosis--self-emptying--St. Paul describes in Phillipians Chapter 2. Gore's kenotic theology was key to his understanding of Christ, and Belief in Christ, volume 2 of Gore's emphatic defense of orthodoxy, The Reconstruction of Belief, is rooted in that kenotic Christology. Gore's view is far from unique, and many theologians have adopted it.

On the subject of marriage, I stand by my previously expressed views:

Douthat's claim that the allowing of divorced Catholics to reunion with the Church would strip the doctrine of the indissoluble nature of marriage of all content, and empty it doctrinally? As a threshold matter, this observation is made in ignorance of the boom in both numbers of annulments petitioned for and percentage granted after the enactment of the 1984 Code of Canon Law--according to Dr. Edward Peters, a first-rate scholar who deplores the trend, in 1996 95% of applications for annulments that reached tribunals were granted. Dr. Peters notes that, when you correct for those cases that never reach a tribunal, for one reason or another, 80% is the more globally correct figure. Dr. Peters notes that the grounds for annulments burgeoned in the 1983 Code promulgated under John Paul II in comparison to the 1917 Pio-Benedictine Code, which facilitated the expansion (which was, he notes, already under way.)

****

And Douthat's notion that the "reformers" are "effacing Jesus’ own words on the not-exactly-minor topics of marriage and sexuality" which "certainly looks more like a major reversal than an organic, doctrinally-deepening shift," is likewise counterfactual. Let's consult the Gospel According to St. Matthew, in the Douay-Rheims American version, a Roman Catholic translation, in which Jesus says: "And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery." Jesus's teaching in Luke is stricter than that in Matthew, and he was, it is well understood, rebuking a tradition of allowing divorce for trivial reasons that left women vulnerable

I would also add that, as Douthat acknowledges, the Orthodox tradition both honors the teaching of Christ on marriage while allowing for divorce when a marriage is irreparably broken. This seems to me both merciful, and wise; the death of a relationship is a failure, but allowing this one failure to be the unforgivable one that cannot be forgiven and the sinner restored to community without inflicting more misery for life is to me hard to defend.

Finally, Douthat looks at the squabbles in Anglicanism over same-sex relationships, and shudders at the disorder. He notes that the Anglican muddle within unity has broken down. There's some truth in that, if you view Anglicanism as a denomination. But it isn't. The Anglican Communion is a Nineteenth Century creation, which allowed for the individual national churches that had their roots in the Church of England to come together and share. That may be cracking up; indeed, I think it likely is. But Anglicanism has had periods in which various national churches did not speak, or were not affiliated. It's a shame, and I don't rejoice in it, but Anglicanism is not a sect. It's a world view.

Looked at in that way, we are undergoing a time of walking apart, but I don't believe it's forever. Ultimately, truth wins, and error doesn't. If we remain calm and rooted in our faith, we will know what God is calling us to believe and how to apply that teaching. Ultimately, I suspect, both sides will have repenting and reconciliation to do.

I'm glad to read this post by Douthat. I think it's immeasurably better than his prior columns, and is worth engaging with.

"The Readiness is All": A Sermon for Advent II, 2015

(Delivered at St. Bartholomew’s Church, NYC
December 6, 2015)


If it be now,
'tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come:
the readiness is all.

OK, That’s Hamlet, not Scripture, but I think it has something to tell us about Advent. Advent is one of those seasons of the Church year when the mood inside these walls is especially different from the mood outside. Outside, you can feel the buildup to Christmas intensifying. Get your shopping done! There are bargains to be had—better hurry! Buy for the kids, the parents, the spouse. And, hey—buy something for yourself, too. After all, who knows what you want better than you do?

Inside here though—the readings take us to a very different place. The unknown prophet named by tradition as Malachi starts off on a joyful note--the Lord whom we seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom we delight—he is coming. And then the prophet asks us, darkly, “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”

He tells us that the Lord will refine us like silver—which involves a lot of fire—and the experience will be like cleansing garments with fuller’s soap. Now, fuller's soap is not Ivory Snow, or some nice gentle cleanser that softens your hands while you do the dishes. It’s made of alkali, urine and chalk. It’s like taking a bath in bleach, only it smells worse. A lot worse.

So, like many Episcopalians before us, we flee from the Old Testament to the New. Where Luke introduces us to the uncomfortable figure of John the Baptist, fiercely preaching a severe gospel of repentance.

Is this Advent or Lent we’re going through, anyway?

And is our beloved holiday season really a warning to be afraid, to be very afraid, of the judgment of the Lord?

No. I don’t believe that it is.

“Be not afraid” Jesus says over and over, in all of the Gospels, so I’m pretty sure we don’t have to dread his presence in our lives. Whatever Advent means, and these readings mean, it isn’t that. We don't follow the Calvinist preacher Jonathan Edwards, who famously warned his own parishioners, “God holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked.” That’s very dramatic, and I’m sure it increased the offering that week, but it’s bad theology. Even in a week when The New York Times that there have more mass shootings than days this year—it’s still bad theology.

The Fourth Gospel tells us that “God so loved the world that he gave his only son,” and did so that we could become children of God. All of us.

The proper response to that good news is joy, but joy with a tinge of awe. We don’t do awe well in our generation. We toss around the word “awesome” as a synonym for “excellent” or “good.” But that’s not awe.

Look around you, at this space we have the honor of worshipping in—the explosions of color and light in the Rose Window, the blending of wood and stone, brick and marble. We’re in a place of celebration, but it’s celebration that has a solemn quality to it. It’s joyful, but it’s a joy that carries deep meaning, and mystery. We’ll never completely understand it, but it’s real and can move our hearts, so that we come back week after week.

Awe can be frightening. And I’m not going to conjure up all the standard nature metaphors—beautiful but terrifying lightning storms, or incredible mountain vistas. Because good though they are, we’re talking about God, and I can’t have a relationship with Niagara Falls, or a mountain. It can’t know us, can’t love us the way we are taught, and the way I believe, that God loves us.

No, let’s stick closer to home for this. Think back to the first moment you realized were in love. Not infatuation. Not desire. The real thing. Now, I can’t speak for anybody but me, but mixed in with that unbelievable joy, that thrill that only the presence of that one special person can bring, is a kind of fear. The fear of being vulnerable. Will she love me back? What happens when he gets to know how insecure I am? Will I get hurt?

That’s awe.

And becoming aware, really taking on board, the love of God carries with it some awe. It’s hard to accept that we are loved by God. It’s especially hard to find room in our busy lives in an increasingly scary world that seems out of joint. With all that, how can we make space for a relationship with a God we can’t see, or touch, or whose voice we can’t hear.

It’s hard to remember the children we once were, and find that kind of spontaneity in ourselves again.

And that’s what Advent is for.

It’s a time for finding that moment when we feel at one with the world, where we can open ourselves to feelings we so often push to the side.

And how on earth do we do that?

Well, in AA, we have a saying—act as if. Be a part of what’s happening here these next few weeks before Christmas. Stay for coffee afterward, maybe take a tour. Maybe take an active part. There are all kinds of ways, you know—help decorate the church for Christmas, wrap toys to be given to children to fulfill Christmas wishes.

Here’s a secret—Community Ministry gives you the opportunity to meet incredible people, both our volunteers but especially our guests, who so often taught me what grace under pressure really is like. If that’s not for you, you can take a class—we have everything from Bible study to yoga classes throughout the week. Or just be here and soak it in, and clear some space for yourself to breathe. And listen. Don’t worry if you don’t hear anything. You will when the time is right for you.

Advent for me is a chance to make that space in life so that we can hear the inmost promptings of the heart, can open ourselves to discovering where our “deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Now, I stole those words. They’re from Frederick Buchner, and they’re the best translation I’ve come upon for what theologians mean when they talk about God calling each of us, clergy and lay, to a special ministry. It’s finding that place, he , “where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Some find that place in ordained ministry, as priests, or, as I have, as a permanent deacon.

But our lay ministers and volunteers, our altar guild, the incredibly talented musicians who create beauty here every week, are responding to that call. And so are many people whose responses we don’t see, because they pursue that calling outside the church walls, and we’re here as a community and sustenance for them.

Advent is a bit like Lent, then.

It’s a chance to stop a bit, recognize that every day the world offers us all chances to find that place, and put our deep gladness to work. It’s a chance to step back from the rush, and get ready to hear. It’s a chance to oppose the cruelties and violence that are so common in our world, and by opposing end them. Not with more violence, but by acts of kindness and a refusal to accept that cruelty and violence establish the norm. They do not. So Advent is not a deadline; it’s a process. It’s about readiness.

If it be now,
'tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come:
the readiness is all.

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Anglocat in the Pulpit Redux: Advent Sermonizing

So, as the new deacon at St Bartholomew's Church, I'm getting two chances to preach in Advent. First, on the Second Sunday of Advent, I'll be preaching at the 9:00 AM (Corrected, thanks to Claude Scales in comments) and the 5:00 pm services.

The readings for that day are a trifle dark, combining anticipation with a little dread: "the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight--indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?"

Who indeed?

I have to admit, the minute I was invited to preach and looked up the readings, my favorite passage from Shakespeare popped into my mind:

If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all.

So that will be the leitmotif of my first sermon.

Second, on Christmas Eve, I'll be participating in all the services (!), but preaching at the 12:00 p.m., with my good friend Rev. Lynn Sanders presiding. It's a tremendous honor to preach at the first of St. Barts' Christmas Eve services (followed by the pageant at 4, the Choral Eucharist (the Christ-mass) at 7 and then again, but with incense and extra brio, at 11 pm).

Keep me in your prayers and/or c'mon by!

Richard Hooker's Day

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates Richard Hooker, who did so much to theologize the Elizabethan Settlement--proving that good policy can make good (canon) law. I think it safe to say that much Anglican theology is explicating the themes of Hooker's writing--the defense of variety in political and ecclesiastical structures as "things indifferent" to the Faith, but rather dependent on local need and culture, is the dawn of the local episcopate central to world-wide Anglicanism to this day. His classic Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity were directed at refuting the Puritans who would disrupt the Elizabethan Settlement, and tried to point out to them the fact that the reason holds its place in assenting to the structure of the church, but that the issues that cause division are seldom those upon which the Faith depends:

The first mean whereby nature teacheth men to judge good from evil, as well in laws as in other things, is the force of their own discretion. Hereunto therefore St. Paul referreth oftentimes his own speech, to be considered of by them that heard him.By what means so many of the people are trained unto the liking of that discipline. “I speak as to them which have understanding, judge ye what I say1.” Again afterward, “Judge in yourselves, is it comely that a woman pray uncovered2?” The exercise of this kind of judgment our Saviour requireth in the Jews3. In them of Berea the Scripture commendeth it4. Finally, whatsoever we do, if our own secret judgment consent not unto it as fit and good to be done, the doing of it to us is sin, although the thing itself be allowable. St. Paul’s rule therefore generally is, “Let every man in his own mind be fully persuaded of that thing which he either alloweth or doth5.”
[2.]Some things are so familiar and plain, that truth from falsehood, and good from evil, is most easily discerned in them, even by men of no deep capacity. And of that nature, for the most part, are things absolutely unto all men’s salvation recessary, either to be held or denied, either to be done or avoided. For which cause St. Augustine6 acknowledgeth, that they are not only set down, but also plainly set down in Scripture; so that he which heareth or readeth may without any great difficulty understand. Other things also there are belonging (though in a lower degree of importance) unto the offices of Christian men: which, because they are more obscure, more intricate and hard to be judged of, therefore God hath appointed some to spend their whole time principally in the study of things divine, to the end that in these more doubtful cases their understanding might be a light to direct others. “If the understanding power or faculty of the soul be” (saith the [144] grand physician1) “like unto bodily sight, not of equal sharpness in all, what can be more convenient than that, even as the dark-sighted man is directed by the clear about things visible;Preface, Ch. iii. 3. so likewise in matters of deeper discourse the wise in heart do shew the simple where his way lieth?” In our doubtful cases of law, what man is there who seeth not how requisite it is that professors of skill in that faculty be our directors? So it is in all other kinds of knowledge. And even in this kind likewise the Lord hath himself appointed, that “the priest’s lips should preserve knowledge, and that other men should seek the truth at his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts2.” Gregory Nazianzen, offended at the people’s too great presumption in controlling the judgment of them to whom in such cases they should have rather submitted their own, seeketh by earnest entreaty to stay them within their bounds: “Presume not ye that are sheep to make yourselves guides of them that should guide you; neither seek ye to overskip the fold which they about you have pitched. It sufficeth for your part, if ye can well frame yourselves to be ordered. Take not upon you to judge your judges, nor to make them subject to your laws who should be a law to you; for God is not a God of sedition and confusion, but of order and of peace3.”

Now, note that this is not, taken in context, a counsel of blind obedience, but rather of humility--do we know enough to be the judge in a recondite or difficult matter? Or are we, with only fitful attention, setting up ourselves as higher authority than our knowledge can bear, and thereby rending the fabric of the Church on "things indifferent" to salvation?

Hooker's tone is gentle, for the most part but he has shafts of insight that are not just illuminating; they can be a trifle barbed. Here he is describing the certitude of the puritan that Scripture must bear the meaning for which they contend:

These are the paths wherein ye have walked that are of the ordinary sort of men; these are the very steps ye have trodden, and the manifest degrees whereby ye are of your guides and directors trained up in that school: a custom of inuring your ears with reproof of faults especially in your governors; an use to attribute those faults to the kind of spiritual regiment under which ye live; boldness in warranting the force of their discipline for the cure of all such evils; a slight of framing your conceits to imagine that Scripture every where favoureth that discipline; persuasion that the cause why ye find it in Scripture is the illumination of the Spirit, that the same Spirit is a seal unto you of your nearness unto God, that ye are by all means to nourish and witness it in yourselves, and to strengthen on every side your minds against whatsoever might be of force to withdraw you from it.

Hooker's work is important for both theology and jurisprudence, and, although a definitive modern edition has been been published, I still use my old 1875 copy of John Keble's edition--with a smattering of clippings about Hooker and other works pasted into the volume by a prior owner. I love the connection of Hooker and Keble, and honor them both. The Folger Books are expensive, but I have got a copy of the commentary volumes.

I hope to study Hooker in greater depth in 2016 (was 2015--I'd like to write something about his presence in the DNA of Anglicanism that won't be a cliche, if I can.