Orthodoxy: Right Belief
Orthopraxis: Right Practice
Orthopathy: Right feeling
Lately I've been noting how the standard evangelical emphasis on Orthodoxy as the way to faith makes me uncomfortable. I have colleagues who seem to think that the primary method to bring people to God is to educate them. As though if they knew more about Jesus, they would naturally want to follow Him. Thus, they spend a lot of time in a basically pedagogical mode: it's all about the teaching. Maybe; maybe not. Often the impact of teaching people about Jesus is that come to the conclusion that "Jesus was a really cool guy," but the essential claims that Christianity makes about his divinity or the implications of his death/resurrection fall flat.
I mean, why would someone want to be a Christian when they could be a Jedi? As long as we compete on historical or purely philosophical grounds we will conceding far too much ground. Yes, there are historical and philosophical claims being made by our faith (and ethical ones, for that matter), but there are lots of other perfectly reasonable belief systems out there grounded in good history and philosophy. So why would we want to fight in that particular ditch? Two possible alternatives are stake a claim in relational space or existential space. That is, "Become Christian because you are one of us" or "Become a Christian because the poetry of our faith resonates with the deepest chords of your soul."
This impulse to focus on pedagogy and orthodoxy comes from the other side of the lay-ordained dynamic as well: many people assume that the next step in their spiritual journey is a "Bible Study" and talk about their desire to know more about God. They tell me how much they admire this preacher or that one for teaching them something new. I've listened to some of these preachers and been frankly disappointed. A good example would be Bruxy Cavey, who often borders on being intellectually dishonest for the sake of clarity and homiletic impact. (Case-in-point: Listen to his preaching on Just War Theory and you'd think nothing had happened in theological ethics since Augustine).
I think that a more holistic approach is necessary, and that approaches that spend too much time on the "teaching" part are problematic because of the inherent materialism of such an approach. I'm sorry, but I don't think there is such a thing as "Five Biblical Principals for a Happier Life." Maybe being a faithful person means your life will be less happy! This version of Christianity gives an illusion of control and sometimes borders on Gnosticism. The worst excesses show up in something like the ridiculous "Prayer of Jabez" fad.
Even in the case of doctrines which are not false, getting people to intellectually assent to set a doctrines (no matter how true or insightful they might be) is rarely transformative. Consider the many people who gain great insight about their problems in therapy, and yet are unable to heal them! Right-belief is important, of course, but goes hand-in-hand with the other "Orthos": practice and feeling.
Here is a good example of what I mean. I commonly encounter people who come to church because they feel anxious, lonely, or otherwise in a state of existential distress. In my opinion and experience, there is much nothing you can teach them that will change that feeling. You can tell them about how God loves them and care for them. You can point to the various passages of scripture in which God tells us that worrying is pointless and un-holy. In all likelihood you are going to make things worse because now their presenting distress is compounded with guilt--"If I only really had faith in God's love for me, I wouldn't worry so much."
Now, check out a possible alternative. Here is Ian Mobsby from the Moot Community in London talking us through the "Welcome Prayer."
This is good stuff. And I've taught something very much like this technique for years. But it doesn't give an "answer" is just a practice designed to engage a feeling. But it is holy, right, and helpful. So how come I'm not seeing more of this kind of stuff among my Fresh Expressions/Church Planting/Evagelical friends?
-t
Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theology. Show all posts
Friday, May 10, 2013
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Sermon - Pentecost 2011
In this sermon for Pentecost I explained a new way of approaching the "problem" of church. Rather than looking at it as though it were a recipe with some missing ingredient, I looked at it like a piece of Origami. Church-as-folding problem means that we can assume that we will still have all the same elements, but we seek to arrange them in a new way. Folding is getting a lot of attention in the world of science because it is a fundamental piece of conceptual architecture necessary for understanding String Theory in physics and protein formation (DNA) in biology. In turns out that that "folding" is something that happens a lot in our universe, and working with that knowledge has born fruit in the "hard" science.
So what does our theology (particularly our understanding of liturgy and ecclesiology--that is, worship and church itself) benefit from this framework? Well, for one thing, it helps move us past the confetti of post-modernism: the bits and scraps and fragments that we, in church land, keep trying to arrange into some kind of mosaic that makes narrative sense our a fragmented world. The old prayerbooks and bibles have been shredded, and we put the pieces together to create a meaningful experience by taking a little from this book and little from this other one. The problem is that in liturgy, to take one example, the effort to create a mosaic sometimes devolves into "Fraken-Liturgy"--a grotesquely imbalanced creature whose un-natural origin is evident to all. In an Origami approach, it is understood that the entire tradition is still present, only it's been folded around into a new arrangement.
For example, imagine an origami leaflet. The congregation receives, when they arrive at the church site, a single piece of paper that has been folded into some kind of a shape. As they unfold it, the liturgy itself is revealed. But perhaps this is not a linear liturgy like we are used to. Maybe instead of flowing, temporally, from gathering to word to table, people flow physically from one area to another. This kind of stational liturgy is in our church DNA, actually, and certainly evident in larger churches where you might find little chapels and prayer areas and votive stations and displays set up. This is worship as environment rather than worship as event. The secular analogue would be architecture rather than drama. People have plenty of experience encountering spaces and inhabiting them, even spaces with a strongly pedagogical intention (think of class rooms, museums, and art galleries).
So once this origami leaflet is completely unfolded and laid flat it functions as a map of both the conceptual and physical space. Suddenly the unity of the liturgy becomes available in a new way. Rather than merely repeating a cyclic story attempting to create drama by suspending our own knowledge of how it ends, the participants are never asked to surrender that knowledge at all. The power comes not from the sequential build-up of tension and then climax as in drama, but in the depth that comes from going down, down, down deeper into knowing a space on its own terms.
Epistemologically speaking, we might expect more change out of people with this approach. There is much more discovery in it, much more participation as the group cooperatively makes worship together. It moves us in the exact opposite direction of movie-theatre style worship with its hierarchies of knowledge and provider-consumer dialectic.
Another appeal of this approach is that it lends itself to adapting another important conceptual framework: fractals. Fractals are a phenomenon where the smaller parts of something resemble or repeat the pattern of the whole. For example, if you look at branch of lightening, you will see a similarity between a very small branch and the entire structure. Snow flakes are also a common example. When we start talking about the Holy Trinity, we quickly get into fractals as we grab examples from nature to show that the fingerprints of Trinitarian thinking are everywhere.
Another thought has to do with the way that mutation works. As we disassemble and reassemble the Gospel, we are actually encoding it and decoding in such a way as to produce variations and mutations. Most of these will be dismissed as noise in the process, but a few of these mutations might be good enough to spur evolution.
So this is something I'm puzzling through right now. Not abstract at all, since I can easily how these concepts find application in parish life. If I want to create a transformational experience of church community, than I need new tools to configure the elements that I've got. I can't assume that some magic element is going to be added into the mix!
-t
So what does our theology (particularly our understanding of liturgy and ecclesiology--that is, worship and church itself) benefit from this framework? Well, for one thing, it helps move us past the confetti of post-modernism: the bits and scraps and fragments that we, in church land, keep trying to arrange into some kind of mosaic that makes narrative sense our a fragmented world. The old prayerbooks and bibles have been shredded, and we put the pieces together to create a meaningful experience by taking a little from this book and little from this other one. The problem is that in liturgy, to take one example, the effort to create a mosaic sometimes devolves into "Fraken-Liturgy"--a grotesquely imbalanced creature whose un-natural origin is evident to all. In an Origami approach, it is understood that the entire tradition is still present, only it's been folded around into a new arrangement.
For example, imagine an origami leaflet. The congregation receives, when they arrive at the church site, a single piece of paper that has been folded into some kind of a shape. As they unfold it, the liturgy itself is revealed. But perhaps this is not a linear liturgy like we are used to. Maybe instead of flowing, temporally, from gathering to word to table, people flow physically from one area to another. This kind of stational liturgy is in our church DNA, actually, and certainly evident in larger churches where you might find little chapels and prayer areas and votive stations and displays set up. This is worship as environment rather than worship as event. The secular analogue would be architecture rather than drama. People have plenty of experience encountering spaces and inhabiting them, even spaces with a strongly pedagogical intention (think of class rooms, museums, and art galleries).
So once this origami leaflet is completely unfolded and laid flat it functions as a map of both the conceptual and physical space. Suddenly the unity of the liturgy becomes available in a new way. Rather than merely repeating a cyclic story attempting to create drama by suspending our own knowledge of how it ends, the participants are never asked to surrender that knowledge at all. The power comes not from the sequential build-up of tension and then climax as in drama, but in the depth that comes from going down, down, down deeper into knowing a space on its own terms.
Epistemologically speaking, we might expect more change out of people with this approach. There is much more discovery in it, much more participation as the group cooperatively makes worship together. It moves us in the exact opposite direction of movie-theatre style worship with its hierarchies of knowledge and provider-consumer dialectic.
Another appeal of this approach is that it lends itself to adapting another important conceptual framework: fractals. Fractals are a phenomenon where the smaller parts of something resemble or repeat the pattern of the whole. For example, if you look at branch of lightening, you will see a similarity between a very small branch and the entire structure. Snow flakes are also a common example. When we start talking about the Holy Trinity, we quickly get into fractals as we grab examples from nature to show that the fingerprints of Trinitarian thinking are everywhere.
Another thought has to do with the way that mutation works. As we disassemble and reassemble the Gospel, we are actually encoding it and decoding in such a way as to produce variations and mutations. Most of these will be dismissed as noise in the process, but a few of these mutations might be good enough to spur evolution.
So this is something I'm puzzling through right now. Not abstract at all, since I can easily how these concepts find application in parish life. If I want to create a transformational experience of church community, than I need new tools to configure the elements that I've got. I can't assume that some magic element is going to be added into the mix!
-t
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Days Off
One of the critical skills in pastoral ministry is figuring out how to deal with unlimited expectations, unmeasurable outcomes, and finite resources. The demands of ministry are simply bottomless, and the job will take as many hours and as much energy as you are willing to give it. Indeed, I have met plenty of martyrs to parish ministry that burned themselves out doing what they thought they were expected to do.
This is as big a problem for paid, ordained ministry as it is for unpaid volunteers. One of my parishioners is fond of saying that the nicely lettered wall listing past Wardens is a record of burnout. I would say that the list is is a stark rebuke to the whole parish--a sign of our failure as a community to nourish leadership. Harsh, I know, but I don't how else to interpret the pattern of leaders leaving. Of course, none of my former wardens have left the parish, but it is telling that the NCD survey revealed a low score on the question labeled "Our leaders are a spiritual example to me." We have work to do.
Mondays are my day off. Saturdays are a half-day, and every other day is basically a full-day. But lately (the past several days) I have spent a significant amount of time on Mondays doing church work. Usually it's doing the kind of projects and errands on behalf of the church that might be considered extra credit. The problem, though, is that it's on the margins of "extra-credit" where excellence lies. In other words, the difference between putting in four hours of bonus hours on a Monday and not putting into those four hours could very well be a tipping point for the parish. It means having a well-organized maintenance closet or sending people birthday and anniversary cards or reviewing a grant application written by one of my staff.
I find the work I do incredibly rewarding and invigorating. The other day I was meeting with someone who knows little of church culture. He asked me what I enjoy about my work and I told him about the sheer diversity of it. One minute I'm doing one-on-one pastoral care with someone in serious emotional distress. The next I'm rewiring a light switch or cleaning out a closet that hasn't been emptied in ten years. Sometimes I'm writing my column for "The Anglican" and other times I'm teaching a student how to walk in liturgy. Yeah, I spent fifteen or twenty minutes the other day teaching someone how to walk. I write sermons. I pick up trash. I pray the Office and practice chanting psalms. I make coffee (always adding a pinch of salt) and talk to the restaurant owner across the street about vandalism in the neighbourhood. I coach my staff on how to work with volunteers and I plan complex liturgies. It's a fascinating job that requires constantly mastering new skills.
Therein lies the problem--a seductive vocation promises personal fulfillment. It promises increased self-worth and the satisfaction of building something with superior craft. But like all idols, the "uber-pastor" idol demands sacrifice. Time spent in the evenings and mornings checking email or (yes) blogging often means leaving Betsy to feed or take care of Henry.
Work is important, sure, but how important is it? Hard to gauge. It's always a judgment call. For example, imagine it's 7 pm and I'm feeding Henry and my phone rings. It's a parishioner. Do I answer, or do I let it go to voice mail? Honestly, often when I answer it turns out to be less than an emergency, other times, it is! But I can't tell the difference by the caller-ID. So, in truth my willingness to answer the phone at night is an intuitive, snap-decision based mostly on my own sense of exhaustion. Honestly, if I'm tired and I've had a drink or two and it's late I'm far less likely to answer that late-night call. Can that be okay? I know people that think that you should be ready to be a priest at all times. You should be ready to take that call and "be there" for your people no matter what. But as I mature in ministry I have come to question that uber-pastor myth.
When I was young in ministry I fantasized about having a "go-bag" with prayer book, stole, and anointing oil by the door and another in my car. Nine months of being a hospital chaplain cured me of that particular fantasy right-quick! Sure, you can be prepared for your first emergency, and maybe your second. But when your beeper goes off the third or fifth or seventh time in an on-call period, you quickly realize that God's grace isn't about you and your pitiful attempts to "be ready." If you are going to be an effective conduit of God's grace, it ain't gonna be because you had a pretty kit. Either you are the sort of person that can help someone cry at 3 a.m. with their dead mother, or you can learn to be, or you can't: those are your three choices. However, nothing you can imagine will prepare you for the challenges of pastoral ministry. Trust me. You cannot anticipate the stuff that is going to come at you.
Consider this scenario... a priest I knew was called at 8.20 P.M. because one of his parishioners died. It was one of his Wardens that called him and asked him to visit the widow. The man that died (and his wife) were pillars of the church. The priest said he couldn't go. Why? Because, he said, he had been drinking. Harsh. Imagine having to tell someone that. "I can't take care of this person because I've been drinking." Yet many professions have exactly that danger. I'm sure most doctors and lawyers, for example, could tell a story like that. When I heard this story, before I knew what the ministry was really about, I had a hard time not being judgmental. I think I said something like, "Well, put on a pot of coffee and tell them you'll be there in an hour!" Now I'm wiser. I see that sometimes "no" is a good answer. Harsh. But if you don't bend you are gonna break.
Self-giving in ministry (and I do mean "ministry" broadly) is more complex than the extremes of enthusiasm would suggest. Give everything of yourself away and the demons will eat you for breakfast. Give nothing and you are like the walking dead, floating along and changing nothing. And most of us Christians answer in the ambiguous middle.
I know, this all seems pretty obvious. But this razor thin margin--between working a couple of hours on Monday or not--is where transformation happens. Something about that decision is a fractal that describes your relationship with God, the world, and yourself. It's a microcosm. And it's not an obvious choice. Sometimes, it's Godly to put in those extra hours. Sometimes it's not!
And that's what I'm thinking about as I think about what I'm going to do tomorrow.
Footnote--I've noticed that my parishioners are stepping up their commitment to the church to match mine. The head of my chancel guild snatched my alb away with a zeal for washing it that made me realize that something quite important had happened. Sweet!
-t
This is as big a problem for paid, ordained ministry as it is for unpaid volunteers. One of my parishioners is fond of saying that the nicely lettered wall listing past Wardens is a record of burnout. I would say that the list is is a stark rebuke to the whole parish--a sign of our failure as a community to nourish leadership. Harsh, I know, but I don't how else to interpret the pattern of leaders leaving. Of course, none of my former wardens have left the parish, but it is telling that the NCD survey revealed a low score on the question labeled "Our leaders are a spiritual example to me." We have work to do.
Mondays are my day off. Saturdays are a half-day, and every other day is basically a full-day. But lately (the past several days) I have spent a significant amount of time on Mondays doing church work. Usually it's doing the kind of projects and errands on behalf of the church that might be considered extra credit. The problem, though, is that it's on the margins of "extra-credit" where excellence lies. In other words, the difference between putting in four hours of bonus hours on a Monday and not putting into those four hours could very well be a tipping point for the parish. It means having a well-organized maintenance closet or sending people birthday and anniversary cards or reviewing a grant application written by one of my staff.
I find the work I do incredibly rewarding and invigorating. The other day I was meeting with someone who knows little of church culture. He asked me what I enjoy about my work and I told him about the sheer diversity of it. One minute I'm doing one-on-one pastoral care with someone in serious emotional distress. The next I'm rewiring a light switch or cleaning out a closet that hasn't been emptied in ten years. Sometimes I'm writing my column for "The Anglican" and other times I'm teaching a student how to walk in liturgy. Yeah, I spent fifteen or twenty minutes the other day teaching someone how to walk. I write sermons. I pick up trash. I pray the Office and practice chanting psalms. I make coffee (always adding a pinch of salt) and talk to the restaurant owner across the street about vandalism in the neighbourhood. I coach my staff on how to work with volunteers and I plan complex liturgies. It's a fascinating job that requires constantly mastering new skills.
Therein lies the problem--a seductive vocation promises personal fulfillment. It promises increased self-worth and the satisfaction of building something with superior craft. But like all idols, the "uber-pastor" idol demands sacrifice. Time spent in the evenings and mornings checking email or (yes) blogging often means leaving Betsy to feed or take care of Henry.
Work is important, sure, but how important is it? Hard to gauge. It's always a judgment call. For example, imagine it's 7 pm and I'm feeding Henry and my phone rings. It's a parishioner. Do I answer, or do I let it go to voice mail? Honestly, often when I answer it turns out to be less than an emergency, other times, it is! But I can't tell the difference by the caller-ID. So, in truth my willingness to answer the phone at night is an intuitive, snap-decision based mostly on my own sense of exhaustion. Honestly, if I'm tired and I've had a drink or two and it's late I'm far less likely to answer that late-night call. Can that be okay? I know people that think that you should be ready to be a priest at all times. You should be ready to take that call and "be there" for your people no matter what. But as I mature in ministry I have come to question that uber-pastor myth.
When I was young in ministry I fantasized about having a "go-bag" with prayer book, stole, and anointing oil by the door and another in my car. Nine months of being a hospital chaplain cured me of that particular fantasy right-quick! Sure, you can be prepared for your first emergency, and maybe your second. But when your beeper goes off the third or fifth or seventh time in an on-call period, you quickly realize that God's grace isn't about you and your pitiful attempts to "be ready." If you are going to be an effective conduit of God's grace, it ain't gonna be because you had a pretty kit. Either you are the sort of person that can help someone cry at 3 a.m. with their dead mother, or you can learn to be, or you can't: those are your three choices. However, nothing you can imagine will prepare you for the challenges of pastoral ministry. Trust me. You cannot anticipate the stuff that is going to come at you.
Consider this scenario... a priest I knew was called at 8.20 P.M. because one of his parishioners died. It was one of his Wardens that called him and asked him to visit the widow. The man that died (and his wife) were pillars of the church. The priest said he couldn't go. Why? Because, he said, he had been drinking. Harsh. Imagine having to tell someone that. "I can't take care of this person because I've been drinking." Yet many professions have exactly that danger. I'm sure most doctors and lawyers, for example, could tell a story like that. When I heard this story, before I knew what the ministry was really about, I had a hard time not being judgmental. I think I said something like, "Well, put on a pot of coffee and tell them you'll be there in an hour!" Now I'm wiser. I see that sometimes "no" is a good answer. Harsh. But if you don't bend you are gonna break.
Self-giving in ministry (and I do mean "ministry" broadly) is more complex than the extremes of enthusiasm would suggest. Give everything of yourself away and the demons will eat you for breakfast. Give nothing and you are like the walking dead, floating along and changing nothing. And most of us Christians answer in the ambiguous middle.
I know, this all seems pretty obvious. But this razor thin margin--between working a couple of hours on Monday or not--is where transformation happens. Something about that decision is a fractal that describes your relationship with God, the world, and yourself. It's a microcosm. And it's not an obvious choice. Sometimes, it's Godly to put in those extra hours. Sometimes it's not!
And that's what I'm thinking about as I think about what I'm going to do tomorrow.
Footnote--I've noticed that my parishioners are stepping up their commitment to the church to match mine. The head of my chancel guild snatched my alb away with a zeal for washing it that made me realize that something quite important had happened. Sweet!
-t
Sunday, December 27, 2009
"Poor Joseph, God was a hard act to follow."
A controversial billboard put up by an Anglican Church in New Zealand has prompted some debate (as was intended):
According to an article about it, the sign was defaced within hours of being put up. "Church vicar Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the sign was intended to challenge stereotypes about the way Jesus was conceived and get people talking about the Christmas story, but not everyone has taken it that way. Catholics, in particular, were upset."
At issue is the question of whether Mary was perpetually a virgin or whether she had relations with Joseph after the birth of Christ. Another, even more controversial issue is whether Joseph was the biological father of Jesus.
Now, the question of whether Mary was perpetually a virgin (even after the birth of Jesus) fascinates me. I think the arguments in favour of perpetual virginity are kind of weak and derivative. Scripture would seem to suggest that Mary and Joseph did have "relations," after the birth of Christ: "When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus" (Matthew 1:24-25, emphasis mine).
Then there are references to the brothers of Jesus. Multiple times in scripture there are references to the brothers of Jesus. Consider Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3, Galatians 1:19, and 1 Corinthians 9:5. Even the ancient historian Josephus in Jewish Antiquities (20.9.1) referred to "[James] the brother of Jesus who is called Christ." Josephus does not use the term for "half-brother" or "step-brother" as he does when describing other such relationships, so that strongly implies that at least Josephus thought James was the Lord's full-brother.
Although the Magisterium (the Roman Catholic teaching authority) may argue that these could be step-brothers by a previous marriage of Joseph, it's hard to square that with the fact Jesus' name always appears first in the lists (suggesting he was the oldest). Also, why is there no mention of the previous children of Joseph in any of the nativity narratives? Did these kids go with Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem or what? Also, consider the fact that in Judaism a man can only have one first born son. So how do we make sense of Luke 2:22-23 referring to Jesus as Joseph's first born son if James was actually older?
A very old (circa 150CE) document called the Protevangelium of James makes the argument that Mary was betrothed to an older relative in order to preserve her virginity, and that sex with Joseph would have been incest. But this document was never considered canonical as scripture, anyway. Certainly it was not written by James (the author was unfamiliar with certain aspects of Jewish culture and nor does the writing style of the Greek make earlier authorship unlikely). However, this non-canonical Gospel does demonstrate that devotion to Mary and the tradition of her Perpetual Virginity are quite old.
Indeed, the real arguments for the perpetual virginity of Mary are not based on scripture but upon theology (or, more accurately, "Mariology"). In other words, it's based on a theologically nuanced view of the role of Mary in salvation history and the implications that has for our understanding of her, that we begin to make an argument for her perpetual virginity. I'm not going to rehearse that argument here, but suffice it to say that many fine Christians find it persuasive. So much so, that the doctrine of perpetual virginity is considered "essential" to the Catholic Faith. That is, it is considered beyond question.
For me, I think that Joseph and Mary had normal marital relations after Jesus was born. But I don't feel it's very important to convince people of this. If Mary's continued virginity is important to your faith, go for it. God knows there are going to be many things like this that people of good faith will disagree about when they come together to worship and adore the Son of God and his Blessed Mother. As for me, the notion that Mary and Joseph had kids after Jesus enhances, rather than diminishes, my devotion to the BVM and her Son.
-t
According to an article about it, the sign was defaced within hours of being put up. "Church vicar Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the sign was intended to challenge stereotypes about the way Jesus was conceived and get people talking about the Christmas story, but not everyone has taken it that way. Catholics, in particular, were upset."
At issue is the question of whether Mary was perpetually a virgin or whether she had relations with Joseph after the birth of Christ. Another, even more controversial issue is whether Joseph was the biological father of Jesus.
Now, the question of whether Mary was perpetually a virgin (even after the birth of Jesus) fascinates me. I think the arguments in favour of perpetual virginity are kind of weak and derivative. Scripture would seem to suggest that Mary and Joseph did have "relations," after the birth of Christ: "When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus" (Matthew 1:24-25, emphasis mine).
Then there are references to the brothers of Jesus. Multiple times in scripture there are references to the brothers of Jesus. Consider Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3, Galatians 1:19, and 1 Corinthians 9:5. Even the ancient historian Josephus in Jewish Antiquities (20.9.1) referred to "[James] the brother of Jesus who is called Christ." Josephus does not use the term for "half-brother" or "step-brother" as he does when describing other such relationships, so that strongly implies that at least Josephus thought James was the Lord's full-brother.
Although the Magisterium (the Roman Catholic teaching authority) may argue that these could be step-brothers by a previous marriage of Joseph, it's hard to square that with the fact Jesus' name always appears first in the lists (suggesting he was the oldest). Also, why is there no mention of the previous children of Joseph in any of the nativity narratives? Did these kids go with Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem or what? Also, consider the fact that in Judaism a man can only have one first born son. So how do we make sense of Luke 2:22-23 referring to Jesus as Joseph's first born son if James was actually older?
A very old (circa 150CE) document called the Protevangelium of James makes the argument that Mary was betrothed to an older relative in order to preserve her virginity, and that sex with Joseph would have been incest. But this document was never considered canonical as scripture, anyway. Certainly it was not written by James (the author was unfamiliar with certain aspects of Jewish culture and nor does the writing style of the Greek make earlier authorship unlikely). However, this non-canonical Gospel does demonstrate that devotion to Mary and the tradition of her Perpetual Virginity are quite old.
Indeed, the real arguments for the perpetual virginity of Mary are not based on scripture but upon theology (or, more accurately, "Mariology"). In other words, it's based on a theologically nuanced view of the role of Mary in salvation history and the implications that has for our understanding of her, that we begin to make an argument for her perpetual virginity. I'm not going to rehearse that argument here, but suffice it to say that many fine Christians find it persuasive. So much so, that the doctrine of perpetual virginity is considered "essential" to the Catholic Faith. That is, it is considered beyond question.
For me, I think that Joseph and Mary had normal marital relations after Jesus was born. But I don't feel it's very important to convince people of this. If Mary's continued virginity is important to your faith, go for it. God knows there are going to be many things like this that people of good faith will disagree about when they come together to worship and adore the Son of God and his Blessed Mother. As for me, the notion that Mary and Joseph had kids after Jesus enhances, rather than diminishes, my devotion to the BVM and her Son.
-t
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Does God Hate the Higgs Particle?
The New York Times highlights a new theory as to why it seems to be so hard to get the Large Hadron Collider working. Scientists are seriously discussing whether the future won't allow it:
In other words, maybe we aren't supposed to create a Higgs particle, and the universe will prevent it in increasingly less-probable ways. In other words, the more random the thing is that prevents the Collider to function, the more likely these faults are the future's fault:
He even speculates that this mysterious fate-altering course that prevents the LHC from doing it's work might be God:
That's right, we are looking at the possibility of an anti-miracle, the notion that God will prevent scientists from creating a Higgs particle. How neat is that?
-t
A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather. (source)
In other words, maybe we aren't supposed to create a Higgs particle, and the universe will prevent it in increasingly less-probable ways. In other words, the more random the thing is that prevents the Collider to function, the more likely these faults are the future's fault:
He agreed that skepticism would be in order. After all, most big science projects, including the Hubble Space Telescope, have gone through a period of seeming jinxed. At CERN, the beat goes on: Last weekend the French police arrested a particle physicist who works on one of the collider experiments, on suspicion of conspiracy with a North African wing of Al Queda.
He even speculates that this mysterious fate-altering course that prevents the LHC from doing it's work might be God:
“It must be our prediction that all Higgs producing machines shall have bad luck,” Dr. Nielsen said in an e-mail message. In an unpublished essay, Dr. Nielson said of the theory, “Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God.” It is their guess, he went on, “that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them.”
This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the United States Superconducting Supercollider, also designed to find the Higgs, was canceled in 1993 after billions of dollars had already been spent, an event so unlikely that Dr. Nielsen calls it an “anti-miracle.”
That's right, we are looking at the possibility of an anti-miracle, the notion that God will prevent scientists from creating a Higgs particle. How neat is that?
-t
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Dualist and the Resurrection
I regularly read blogs that discuss the Sunday Bible Readings. My favourite of these is probably the Disclosing New Worlds blog. In the reflection from last week's Sunday readings (Luke 24:36-48) there is this gem:
Yes, yes! Matter matters! I can't tell you how often I've preached this point. Yet the latent gnosticism of our culture (or perhaps gnosticism in inherit in some way--an aspect of original sin/existential guilt?) still tries to emerge! Sigh.
I remember eating lunch with Marilyn Adams (hard-core philosopher and theologian) in seminary many years ago and someone asked her about the meaning of bodily resurrection. She replied that she thought this was a teaching about how our distinctness from each other will be preserved in our resurrected state. In other words, our experience autonomy or separateness will have continuity between this world and next. Whereas other things, like the limitations of death or disease, will not have continuity. This is a very powerful teaching that generally doesn't get sufficient press.
-t
The key question is whether this world and these bodies of ours have a future with God. It’s a question, therefore, about the meaning and content of salvation. Resurrection says that salvation is recreation - salvation for this world. God could have done at least two things differently. The first is to have abandoned us and our world because we rejected God. Resurrection tells us that God doesn’t do that - even when we have resisted God’s companionship to the point of murdering God’s Son! The second is to abandon creation but not human beings. In this case, salvation would be escape or rescue from the world. God could say, “You are not your bodies. The ‘real you’ is non-material. And this world isn’t ultimately ‘real’ - ultimate reality is another place altogether, called heaven. So let me rescue you from all this mess of creation (bodies, earth etc)”. God, in other words, could be a dualist.
But resurrection is anti-dualist. God isn’t a Hindu, or Buddhist, or classical Greek deity. The Hebrew and Christian God is a God who is inextricably linked to creation by love and a determination to save what has been created. Matter matters! Bodies matter! God embraces body in Jesus (Incarnation) and enters into our world. God becomes part of our world. And God does so in order to save it by transforming it into all that it was always intended to be. (source)
Yes, yes! Matter matters! I can't tell you how often I've preached this point. Yet the latent gnosticism of our culture (or perhaps gnosticism in inherit in some way--an aspect of original sin/existential guilt?) still tries to emerge! Sigh.
I remember eating lunch with Marilyn Adams (hard-core philosopher and theologian) in seminary many years ago and someone asked her about the meaning of bodily resurrection. She replied that she thought this was a teaching about how our distinctness from each other will be preserved in our resurrected state. In other words, our experience autonomy or separateness will have continuity between this world and next. Whereas other things, like the limitations of death or disease, will not have continuity. This is a very powerful teaching that generally doesn't get sufficient press.
-t
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Explaining Religion
Last night Betsy and I attended this year's Wiegand lecture at Victoria College (part of the U of T) entitled "Explaining Religion." The Wiegand lecture is always exploring the intersection of science and religion, and this year's speaker, Professor Harvey Whitehouse of Oxford, was applying cognitive science and anthropology to explain the phenomenon of religion. In other words, his life's work is based on the premise that the universality of religion across cultures is the result of the human brain working in a certain way that gives rise to the religious impulse.On the face of it, the idea that the human brain is wired to interact with a spiritual dimension to life is not a problem for me. I'm not offended by the notion that brains are part of the God thing, which is why it sometimes puzzles me when people freak out when they hear that stimulating certain parts of brain can make someone feel "spiritual" in one way or another. Really, I don't think this undermines the claims made by faithful at all.
But the methods and presumptions that Whitehouse makes in his effort to "explain" religion have a lot of problems. For one thing, the whole category of "religion" is really a modern, Western concept that would be unrecognizable in many other cultures and times. So to arbitrarily group one set of human behavioural and cognitive phenomenon is to determine the outcome ahead of time. Second, he is critical of previous attempts by great thinkers in the humanities to "explain" religion (cf. Freud, Marx, etc.) because they attempted to put the origin of religion on too simple a concept. But even though Whitehouse is arguing for a variety of cognitive features of the brain that give rise to a variety of religious thoughts and behaviours, it's still, at the end of the day, possibly naive to think that all aspects of religion can be explained by a sufficiently complex understanding of cognitive science. In other words, just because you have an excellent dictionary doesn't mean you can "explain" literature. The notion that something like religiosity can be "explained" is also possibly naive.
Another thing I found problematic was the notion that religion is a kind of primitive thing that society and individuals "grow" out of. There was a tendency to infantilize the "primitive" tribes he studied. When a questioner compared them (and Roman Catholics) to "children" he did not correct the notion, but instead cooperated with this line of reasoning. Telling was the questioners ignorance ("as far as I'm concerned the Roman Catholic Church's only purpose is to launder money for organized crime") which made the whole auditorium murmur. Again, Whitehouse felt no obligation to defend the people he studies.
He also excuses himself from existential questions. When one person challenged him on the need to engage notions of value and meaning, he brushed these off like a 19th century botanist compiling a taxonomy of exotic orchids. BHe really believes that he can break down every category of human religious belief and practice and that once he does so he'll see clear connections between these and how the brain is structured. Interesting, but I'm not sure it's possible. Whatever categories he uses will probably turn out to be too arbitrary to allow the kinds of patterns he wishes to see emerge.
Still, he had a couple of things to share. For one thing, there is an inverse relationship between the emotional intensity of a ritual and the frequency with which individuals do it. In other words, the more intense the ritual, less frequently it is performed. This makes a sense, though you might have thought there were communities of people that dedicated themselves to frequent, emotionally arousing rituals. Apparently, we humans aren't built that way.
Another thing he has discovered is that people's tendency to give meaning to ritual (exegesis) is related to the emotional arousal. The more emotionally arousing the ritual, the more people give it meaning. Again, this seems intuitive, but has implications for those of us that make a living acting out rituals.
I really regret that I never took the ritual studies course at Yale. But there was only one year when I could have taken it, and the professor teaching it didn't like me very much (which was weird, since I was a big supporter of hers). Betsy took it and got a lot from it.
-t
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Braided Leather Cord: Pleasure, Desire, and Gratitude
Donald Schell has a meditation worth reading on the Episcopal Cafe blog: "The Braided Leather Cord." He relates his experience of climbing a rope while on pilgrimage in Ethopia to need for soulful people to integrate pleasure, desire, and gratitude. A few choice passages:
Rope is a powerful image. It connects and binds and somehow manages to be both strong and flexible. In some circles wedding ceremonies now include a "binding" ceremony in which an intricate knot temporarily binds the couple to each other. This resonates with me more than the "unity candles" that you sometimes see.
I've always enjoyed playing with rope, even though my mother was afraid I would hang myself! I consider knot-tying to be one of those essential skills everyone should learn, like cooking, sewing, or changing a tire. It's a practical skill that comes in surprisingly handy in the parking lot of Ikea or when hanging a vinyl sign on the side of your church!
It's a symbol we probably don't use enough in Christianity; consider that Jesus, that carpenter and friend of fisherman, probably knew more knots than most people, even in his culture. Ropes connect and give structure and allow us to move things and hold things. One of the things I find fascinating about St. Gregory of Nyssa's Church in San Francisco (the parish Donald co-founded) is the ropes that hold the oil lamps over the altar. They are thick, black, sturdy ropes that look like they could probably hold a person's weight. They go from the lamps to pulleys in the ceiling to cleats in the wall high enough to discourage kids from doing damage.
Anyway, that's what comes to mind when I think of ropes....
-t
Just as the three strands of interwoven flesh - animals’ skins - made a lifeline and a way of ascent, the sixth century Syrian monks who built Debra Damo, despite their fierce asceticism, confidently wove Pleasure, Desire, and Gratitude into a line sturdy enough to carry us up into God’s embrace. Most Christians of that time braided this same line.
....
But who is trying? For a single sermon commending pleasure or desire, we’ve probably heard twenty urging us to give or share because we ‘should be grateful.’ We’re in the grip of fearful Christian thinking from those bitter centuries that came to mistrust pleasure and desire.
...
Our pleasure delights God. Both giving us our daily bread and giving us Christ the bread eternal please God because both ordinary bread and Christ our living bread delight and pleasure us. We’re all of us the prodigal welcomed home to a Great Feast in OUR honor and for our pleasure. Receiving God’s vast blessings with pleasure moves us (makes us want or desire) to offer God our thanks. We’re in bolder and more paradoxical territory than ‘It is right to give God thanks and praise.’
....
The joy at bending knee and hip for prayer was so exhilarating that I refused to hold myself back, so went forward to kneel at the rail to receive communion, even though I wasn’t confirmed and knew I was breaking the rules to receive. This was an altar call I welcomed joyfully.
Finally had desire unlocked what was frozen. Desire hadn’t let me rest, and in the end it moved me to a path I’m still pursuing. Gregory of Nyssa in his Commentary on the Song of Songs says that we are most like God in our infinite desire.
....
[That] Sunday [my wife and I] started ballroom dancing lessons. For three years we hardly missed a week. Week by week for three years, we danced our way to deeper understanding and love. Learning to dance together was as deep as any conversation we’d ever had.
There’s the three braid strand - pleasure, desire, and gratitude. I started this reflection with pleasure. Braiding, each is equally essential. I might have told other stories if I’d begun with desire or gratitude, but once braiding has begun, each is line is important in turn, and as Christians of the first centuries knew, together they carry us to Life. (source)
Rope is a powerful image. It connects and binds and somehow manages to be both strong and flexible. In some circles wedding ceremonies now include a "binding" ceremony in which an intricate knot temporarily binds the couple to each other. This resonates with me more than the "unity candles" that you sometimes see.
I've always enjoyed playing with rope, even though my mother was afraid I would hang myself! I consider knot-tying to be one of those essential skills everyone should learn, like cooking, sewing, or changing a tire. It's a practical skill that comes in surprisingly handy in the parking lot of Ikea or when hanging a vinyl sign on the side of your church!
It's a symbol we probably don't use enough in Christianity; consider that Jesus, that carpenter and friend of fisherman, probably knew more knots than most people, even in his culture. Ropes connect and give structure and allow us to move things and hold things. One of the things I find fascinating about St. Gregory of Nyssa's Church in San Francisco (the parish Donald co-founded) is the ropes that hold the oil lamps over the altar. They are thick, black, sturdy ropes that look like they could probably hold a person's weight. They go from the lamps to pulleys in the ceiling to cleats in the wall high enough to discourage kids from doing damage.Anyway, that's what comes to mind when I think of ropes....
-t
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
A One Minute Story of Reconciliation
The Lead Blog on Episcopal Cafe posted this moving little ad put out by an Argentinian Bank that speaks to reconciliation:
If banks can speak so eloquently about reconciliation, what on earth is stopping us?
-t
If banks can speak so eloquently about reconciliation, what on earth is stopping us?
-t
Monday, March 2, 2009
The Economy, Faith, and Debt
Stanley Fish has a stunning article on his NYTimes Blog about the Christian discourse on debt. He talks about the two main Christian frameworks for understanding money and debt and explores their implications for the current financial crisis. This kind of frankly Christian essay in such a major venue (the New York Times) highlights one of the major differences between Christianity in America and Canada. People like Stanley Fish can still discuss theology openly down there in a way I don't think they can up here. I mean, the Christian heritage (if not the Christian faith itself) is still taken very seriously down there. But I'm still amazed that Stanley Fish, of all people, would write in such an apologetic mode.
For good measure he quotes the wonderful poet-priest George Herbert:
Does that poem not make your spine tingle?
-t
The Bible, they tell us, contains 2,350 verses “that have to do with money and possessions.” If we attend to the lessons of these verses and learn how properly to husband the resources God has given us, we will be doing his work, for “God desires a life for us that is free of debt , and the entrapments and common pitfalls related to financial difficulties” (Cross). “The way out of debt,” Dayton teaches, “is not a declaration of bankruptcy, but surrender to the word of God.”
But in another popular Christian discourse, there is no way out of debt, and bankruptcy is the condition we are in from the moment of birth. This is a Calvinist discourse in which the language of money is allegorized. The debt we owe is owed to the God who made us in his image, an image defiled and corrupted by Adam and Eve, whose heirs in sin we all are. We may think that this unhappy inheritance could be overlain and covered by a succession of good deeds, but every deed we perform is infected by the base motives from which we cannot move one inch away. Every piece of currency we offer in payment of debt only increases it. The situation seems hopeless.
But it’s not, we are told, if we embrace bankruptcy rather than try (vainly) to extricate ourselves from it. The acknowledgment of bankruptcy and of the impossibility of working our way free of it is the beginning of wisdom.
....
This economy, in which funds depleted are endlessly replenished, is underwritten by a power so great and beneficent that it turns failures into treasures. Some economists identify that power as the market and ask us to have faith in it. God might be a better candidate. (source)
For good measure he quotes the wonderful poet-priest George Herbert:
REDEMPTION.
HAVING been tenant long to a rich Lord,
Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancell th’ old.
In heaven at his manour I him sought :
They told me there, that he was lately gone
About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.
I straight return’d, and knowing his great birth,
Sought him accordingly in great resorts ;
In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts :
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
Of theeves and murderers : there I him espied,
Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.
(source)
Does that poem not make your spine tingle?
-t
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Indulgences Making a Comeback
Plenary Indulgences are making a comeback among our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. The NYTimes has a full article describing how this change has pleased older members and confused younger ones.
Interestingly, something very similar to indulgences exist in Tibetan Buddhism. If you do certain practises than you get a certain amount of time taken off your next reincarnation in the Hell Realms, etc. (Oh, you didn't know they had hell in Buddhism?) Of course, this kind of quid pro quo with God drives many theologians nuts--but I agree that it seems like this doctrine is at least not very harmful.
Again, it seems like a generational thing. There are some people for whom the notion of discounting their time in Purgatory by doing certain practises is very compelling. But for others this seems like a rather simplistic answer to the problem of sin in their lives.
-t
Even some priests admit that the rules are hard to grasp.
“It’s not that easy to explain to people who have never heard of it,” said the Rev. Gilbert Martinez, pastor of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Manhattan, the designated site in the New York Archdiocese for obtaining indulgences. “But it was interesting: I had a number of people come in and say, ‘Father, I haven’t been to confession in 20 years, but this’ ” — the availability of an indulgence — “ ‘made me think maybe it wasn’t too late.’ ”
Getting Catholics back into confession, in fact, was one of the motivations for reintroducing the indulgence. In a 2001 speech, Pope John Paul described the newly reborn tradition as “a happy incentive” for confession. (source)
Interestingly, something very similar to indulgences exist in Tibetan Buddhism. If you do certain practises than you get a certain amount of time taken off your next reincarnation in the Hell Realms, etc. (Oh, you didn't know they had hell in Buddhism?) Of course, this kind of quid pro quo with God drives many theologians nuts--but I agree that it seems like this doctrine is at least not very harmful.
Among liberal Catholic theologians, the return of the indulgence seems to be more of a curiosity than a cause for alarm. “Personally, I think we’re beyond the time when indulgences mean very much,” said the Rev. Richard P. McBrien, a professor of theology at Notre Dame who supports the ordination of women and the right of priests to marry. “It’s like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube of original thought. Most Catholics in this country, if you tell them they can get a plenary indulgence, will shrug their shoulders.” (source)
Again, it seems like a generational thing. There are some people for whom the notion of discounting their time in Purgatory by doing certain practises is very compelling. But for others this seems like a rather simplistic answer to the problem of sin in their lives.
-t
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Cussing Pastor
There is an interesting movement afoot in the Mega-Church world. Mark Driscoll, known as the "Cussing Pastor" has developed a hyper-masculine, uber-Calvinist style of church that has a attracted a large following of young people in Seattle. The NYTimes Magazine article about Driscoll argues that this is really a reaction to to main-stream evangelical pastors who have been watering down the edgier side of Jesus and the Gospel for the sake of attracting seekers. Driscoll will have none of that. Neither will he abide feminists or, apparently, dissent to his policies!
Nowhere is the connection between Driscoll’s hypermasculinity and his Calvinist theology clearer than in his refusal to tolerate opposition at Mars Hill. The Reformed tradition’s resistance to compromise and emphasis on the purity of the worshipping community has always contained the seeds of authoritarianism: John Calvin had heretics burned at the stake and made a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness. Mars Hill is not 16th-century Geneva, but Driscoll has little patience for dissent. In 2007, two elders protested a plan to reorganize the church that, according to critics, consolidated power in the hands of Driscoll and his closest aides. Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a “mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy” who attends Mars Hill. “His answer was brilliant,” Driscoll reported. “He said, ‘I break their nose.’ ” When one of the renegade elders refused to repent, the church leadership ordered members to shun him. One member complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended. “They are sinning through questioning,” Driscoll preached. John Calvin couldn’t have said it better himself. (source)
But this is not your grandfather's Calvinism--Driscoll is very with-it. He knows exactly how to speak to this generation and does so fluently. Nor he is afraid to talk about sex. This is one of the things that alienates him from other evangelicals. "Family friendly" he ain't!
Anyway, I would recommend the article for it's protrayal of this very controversial preacher and exploration of how Calvinism and Chauvinism intersect.
-t
Friday, January 9, 2009
Donatism and Roland Burris
Stanley Fish wrote an interesting piece of his NYTimes Blog about the application of the theological heresy known as Donatism to the Roland Burris situation.
Burris, as you probably know, was appointed to the U.S. Senate by a state Governor accused of corruption. The argument of many against accepting the Governor's appointment is that his malfeasance "taints" Burris' appointment. The question then becomes, to what degree is the validity of any official act of office dependent upon the purity of the person performing it. In other words, if we accept that Burris' appointment is "tainted" by the Governor's alleged misconduct, are the actions of other disgraced officials also up for review?
Donatism has always fascinated me. It's one of those heresies that keeps manifesting in subtle forms despite the Gospel. To be clear: sacraments are the work of God and do not depend on a priest's purity to be effectual. If they did, we'd all be in trouble! But God's forgiving and bountiful grace is sufficient to make up for any lack that me or my brother/sister priests may have! That's not to say that the ethics of priests are irrelevant, only that the "taint" of sin is not perpetuated upon the sheep!
One of the philosophical consequences of this contra-Donatist position put forth by St. Augustine is that a certain insulation is introduced between the person and the office they hold. In other words, some actions derive their authority from the office rather that the merit of the person filling it. This is counter-cultural right now, where increasingly people are motivated by the chrism of the officer rather than their relationship to the office. The modern shift is towards privileging relationship over contract.
Another problematic aspect of this understanding is that it emphasizes the duality of official leadership. For instance, when in the 16th century when lawyers for the English Crown argued that the “The king has in him two bodies, a body natural and a body politic.” His body natural is “subject to all infirmities that come by nature,” but his body politic does not have a bodily and imperfect form; rather it consists of “policy and government” that has been “constituted for the direction of the people” (source). This duality can create understandable confusion!
The real question to resolve, as Fish points out, is what kind of framework of judgment ought to be applied in the Burris case.
See, knowledge of the Church Fathers and the early controversies of the church does have practical value!
-t
Burris, as you probably know, was appointed to the U.S. Senate by a state Governor accused of corruption. The argument of many against accepting the Governor's appointment is that his malfeasance "taints" Burris' appointment. The question then becomes, to what degree is the validity of any official act of office dependent upon the purity of the person performing it. In other words, if we accept that Burris' appointment is "tainted" by the Governor's alleged misconduct, are the actions of other disgraced officials also up for review?
This last question is not new. It was debated in the 4th and 5th centuries in the context of what is known as the Donatist controversy. This debate was about the status of churchmen who had cooperated with the emperor Diocletian during the period when he was actively persecuting Christians. The Donatists argued that those who had betrayed their faith under pressure and then returned to the fold when the persecutions were over had lost the authority to perform their priestly offices, including the offices of administering the sacraments and making ecclesiastical appointments. In their view, priestly authority was a function of personal virtue, and when a new bishop was consecrated by someone they considered tainted, they rejected him and consecrated another. (source)
Donatism has always fascinated me. It's one of those heresies that keeps manifesting in subtle forms despite the Gospel. To be clear: sacraments are the work of God and do not depend on a priest's purity to be effectual. If they did, we'd all be in trouble! But God's forgiving and bountiful grace is sufficient to make up for any lack that me or my brother/sister priests may have! That's not to say that the ethics of priests are irrelevant, only that the "taint" of sin is not perpetuated upon the sheep!
One of the philosophical consequences of this contra-Donatist position put forth by St. Augustine is that a certain insulation is introduced between the person and the office they hold. In other words, some actions derive their authority from the office rather that the merit of the person filling it. This is counter-cultural right now, where increasingly people are motivated by the chrism of the officer rather than their relationship to the office. The modern shift is towards privileging relationship over contract.
Another problematic aspect of this understanding is that it emphasizes the duality of official leadership. For instance, when in the 16th century when lawyers for the English Crown argued that the “The king has in him two bodies, a body natural and a body politic.” His body natural is “subject to all infirmities that come by nature,” but his body politic does not have a bodily and imperfect form; rather it consists of “policy and government” that has been “constituted for the direction of the people” (source). This duality can create understandable confusion!
The real question to resolve, as Fish points out, is what kind of framework of judgment ought to be applied in the Burris case.
The legitimacy of an appointment can be either a procedural or a moral matter. If it is a procedural matter, authority is conferred by the right credentials, and that’s that. If it is a moral matter – only the good can be truly authoritative (this was John Milton’s position) – authority is always precarious, and the structures of government and law are always in danger of being dissolved.
The (perhaps paradoxical) truth is that while governing has or should have a moral purpose — to safeguard and advance the health and prosperity of the polity — it is not a moral practice. That is, one engages in it not by applying moral principles but by applying legal principles. Senator Reid and his colleagues in the Democratic party seem finally to have figured that out, which is why, in the absence of any more bombshell revelations, Roland Burris will be seated as the junior senator from Illinois. (source)
See, knowledge of the Church Fathers and the early controversies of the church does have practical value!
-t
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The Heretic
Ever heard of Reverend Carlton Pearson? He is a fundamentalist, pentecostal preacher who rose to public fame and then was engulfed in a huge controversy. He didn't embezzle money or have an affair. He simply stopped believing in hell. He decided that Jesus' death and resurrection secure the salvation of everyone, not just those who are baptized or who confess certain beliefs. Naturally, this was considered heresy (Universalism) in his denomination. Soon he lost everything--his congregation, his church, his denominational affiliation--everything.
But then a strange thing happened--he founded a new church that aimed to be "The Friendliest, Trendiest, Most Radically Inclusive Worship Experience." He calls in the "Gospel of Inclusion." He's doing quite well with a church he founded that aims to be the most loving church imaginable.
Whatever you think of this theology, Pearson's story is fascinating. You can hear about it on This American Life.
-t
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Build Your Own Adult-Sized Font: Part I
One of the great and ingenious aspects of Sacramental Theology is that requires us to roll up our sleeves and dig our fingers into the messy materiality of God's created world. The moment we break bread, pour wine, or swear oil on someone's forehead we are saying something profound about our connection to this world of ours. We aren't just temporarily confused visitors passing through on our way to enlightenment beyond the flesh--we are co-creators with God capable of transforming all of creation into something holy and grace-bearing.
It seems to me that recovering the tradition of full-immersion baptism is both right and good. There is nothing wrong with the sprinkle-of-water variety, but if we can make this rite richer and more in keeping it's monumental spiritual importance, so much the better. So this Sunday at COTM we are doing a full-immersion infant baptism. As luck would have it, my first candidate for inclusion in the Christian family in this way happens to have a mother from Africa who is familiar with full-immersion and thinks it's great.
One problem, we don't have a font deep enough to submerge an infant (let alone anyone bigger). So in less than a week we are building our own baptismal tank:
It's a fun project. I pleased to have done it. It's going to make the actual Baptism on Sunday even more fulfilling.
-t
It seems to me that recovering the tradition of full-immersion baptism is both right and good. There is nothing wrong with the sprinkle-of-water variety, but if we can make this rite richer and more in keeping it's monumental spiritual importance, so much the better. So this Sunday at COTM we are doing a full-immersion infant baptism. As luck would have it, my first candidate for inclusion in the Christian family in this way happens to have a mother from Africa who is familiar with full-immersion and thinks it's great.
One problem, we don't have a font deep enough to submerge an infant (let alone anyone bigger). So in less than a week we are building our own baptismal tank:
Build Your Own Adult-Sized Font: Part I
Materials
Galvanized Steel Stock Tank, 6' X 2' X 2' works well
2 1/2' X 8' X 3/4" Plywood Sheet
4 3" Casters with brakes
16 1.5" X 1/4" Carriage bolts
16 Locking Washers to fit
16 1/4" Nuts2' X 2' X 6' Stock Tank (167 Gallons!)
Tools
Saw horses
Orbital Jigsaw (Use Stardard Wood blade--medium speed)
Pencil
Carpenter's Square
Hand-held drill (with 1/4" bit--self-piloting in even better)
Wrench (Crescent is just fine)
Hammer
Time: 1.5 Hours
Skill Level: Basic
Construction
1. Put your plywood sheet (large enough to cover the base of the tank) on the floor. Put the tank on top and trace the outline of the tank bottom on the plywood.
2. Put the plywood on the saw horses and cut along the pencil line with the jigsaw.
3. Flip the plywood and write "bottom" on the plywood in pencil! Use the square to figure out where to put the casters. They should be symmetrical and not too close to the edge. Then place the actual casters in place and use the pencil to mark drill holes. Drill the holes.
4. Flip the plywood over and put the bolts through the holes. You'll probably need to tap them with the hammer (a snug fit is good).
5. Flip the plywood over again and put the casters in place. Secure with locking wasters and nuts. Don't over-tighten.
6. Put the chassis on the floor and put the tank on top! Done!
Notes
* Get a water heater for the tank to keep the water warm.
* The best place to fill the tank is from a facet that you can attach a garden hose to and get hot water from.
*I'm probably going to add L brackets to the wood chassis to keep the tank from sliding off the platform, though with water in the tank I think it will be okay.
Part II will involve dressing the tank with fabric to make it look pretty. I'm still figuring out what the best way to do that will be. One idea was S-Hooks, but Home Depot didn't have any big enough to fit for the rim. I thought about using a glue gun to attach a velcro strip, but I'm not sure it will adhere to the steel well. Any ideas?
It's a fun project. I pleased to have done it. It's going to make the actual Baptism on Sunday even more fulfilling.
-t
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Prayer (and Song) of the Week - Holy Cross
I'm writing this on the anniversary of 9/11, a tragic day in world history that changed many things. I was in classes at seminary that morning in New Haven, Connecticut, some 70 miles from Ground Zero, when it happened. I remember just before class--Christian History--that a Teaching Assistant went up to the professor and told him something that left him puzzled. As class began he explained that airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center and then he proceeded with his lesson as planned. I remember thinking that he should have taken a few minutes to lead us in prayer or something, but like many people he simply did what he knew how to do (teach, in this case).
After class most of us went to the Common Room. One of the Deans had arranged for two TVs to be set up with live feeds from CNN. The footage of the planes crashing and the buildings coming down was played again and again. Confused, we gathered into clumps to discuss possible responses. In the days that followed we were sent off to do what we could. A few of my classmates went to Manhattan to offer spiritual care. Most of us, including myself, stayed in Connecticut and counseled people affected there.
Strangely, the spiritual leader of our community, the Rev'd Sandy Stayner, was nearly killed in Manhattan when the buildings fell. She was with her husband and the Archbishop of Canterbury filming a documentary about spiritual direction at Trinity Church, Wall Street, when the attack occurred. After the first building fell they had to escape the area through a labyrinth of underground tunnels and passages that honeycomb lower Manhattan. Trinity had a daycare, so as part of the evacuation each adult was given a little one to shepherd, carry, and protect. Shortly before following the building fire Marshals into dungeon-like underground, the Archbishop gathered the group in prayer. Sandy recounted later how he prayed that they would see Christ in and be Christ to all those whom they would meet in the next few hours.
I think the instinct of most of would have been to pray for protection and preservation for everyone involved in the tragedy. Or perhaps for the strength and courage to endure a dangerous moment. But this desire by the ABC to pray for Christ-likeness reveals a deep truth about who we are called to be in our times of trial. We are asked to be like Christ--specifically Christ encountering his Cross.
This week the Feast of the Holy Cross falls on a Sunday. It's a way to draw conscious attention to the center of our faith: a God who looks like us most when he suffers and dies. Ironically, we look most like God when love inspires us to take up our crosses, too. So the cross becomes the center of the universe--the intersection between this world and the next. It is the fixed pole around which our salvation and God's providence swings.
A 6th Century hymn, Pange Lingua, says it well:
Faithful Cross! above all other,
One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron,
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Bend thy boughs, O Tree of Glory,
Thy too rigid sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigour
That thy birth bestowed, suspend,
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend.
He endured the nails, the spitting,
Vinegar and spear and reed;
From that holy Body pierced
Blood and water forth proceed:
Earth and stars and sky and ocean
By that flood from stain are freed.
(Latin by V. Fortunatus, Tr. Percy Dearmer and J.M. Neale)
Holy God, even in disaster and death you and there to give us life in Jesus Christ. Show the way of cross to be none other than the way of truth and peace. Give us the patience and love to be Christ-like in our sufferings and to come nearer to you. We ask this in the name of the one who died and rose again, Jesus Christ. Amen.
In Christ,
Tay
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
A Sneak Peak at the Mural
Here is a close-up of God the Father in the Mural underway at COTM...
Notice that He's wearing a cross. Susy (the artist) and I are discussing whether this is good or not. She says in "feels right" because she always imagines God and the cross together. Others have suggested that for humans the cross is a symbol of hope but for God is a symbol of suffering. It's a deep question, theologically: what is God's relationship to the cross?
-t
Notice that He's wearing a cross. Susy (the artist) and I are discussing whether this is good or not. She says in "feels right" because she always imagines God and the cross together. Others have suggested that for humans the cross is a symbol of hope but for God is a symbol of suffering. It's a deep question, theologically: what is God's relationship to the cross?
-t
Sunday, June 29, 2008
A Rare Note About Schismatics
I normally don't comment much on this blog about the ongoing unpleasantness in the Anglican Communion. But the latest news from Jerusalem is just too juicy to pass up: a group of conservative Bishops meeting in Jerusalem have decided to redefine what makes them "Anglican."
Funny how they are willing to abandon traditions like the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the the Lambeth Conference (which they wanted to undermine by meeting ahead of) when it suits them. Also significant that they are framing this as an anti-Colonial movement. (Note, by the way, that they met in Jerusalem despite the objections of the Anglicans there who feared the impact this would have on the delicate relations they have with their Christian and Muslim and Jewish neighbours.)
But perhaps most troubling and non-Anglican is this weird "Jerusalem Declaration": Since when is communion determined by passing a test of theological orthodoxy? Note that they want to return to the 1662 BCP as the standard of worship and the "plain reading" of the Bible (modern scholarship be damned!) They also, of course, make male-female marriage one of their founding doctrines. It's so odd to me--if you are going to define a church with 14 principles, to make one of them about sex and none about, for instance, economic justice. Jesus had very little to say about sex or marriage (avoid divorce, adultery is bad, weddings need booze, etc.) but lots to say about the evils of wealth. Sigh.
So they are taking their toys and going home. Fine. Let them split off like all the other splinters from the Anglican Communion. All I know is that I have a very nice little Garden that God wants to me to do something with. And boy are those tomato plants getting tall!
-t
The conservatives’ statement said that although they acknowledged Canterbury’s historic position, they did not accept the idea “that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
They said that membership in their conservative alliance within the Communion would be determined by 14 principles of theological orthodoxy laid out in a manifesto they released on Sunday, which they called the “Jerusalem Declaration.” (source)
Funny how they are willing to abandon traditions like the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the the Lambeth Conference (which they wanted to undermine by meeting ahead of) when it suits them. Also significant that they are framing this as an anti-Colonial movement. (Note, by the way, that they met in Jerusalem despite the objections of the Anglicans there who feared the impact this would have on the delicate relations they have with their Christian and Muslim and Jewish neighbours.)
But perhaps most troubling and non-Anglican is this weird "Jerusalem Declaration": Since when is communion determined by passing a test of theological orthodoxy? Note that they want to return to the 1662 BCP as the standard of worship and the "plain reading" of the Bible (modern scholarship be damned!) They also, of course, make male-female marriage one of their founding doctrines. It's so odd to me--if you are going to define a church with 14 principles, to make one of them about sex and none about, for instance, economic justice. Jesus had very little to say about sex or marriage (avoid divorce, adultery is bad, weddings need booze, etc.) but lots to say about the evils of wealth. Sigh.
So they are taking their toys and going home. Fine. Let them split off like all the other splinters from the Anglican Communion. All I know is that I have a very nice little Garden that God wants to me to do something with. And boy are those tomato plants getting tall!
-t
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
"Communication Begins in Song"
Donald Schell contributed this piece about liturgical music to the Episcopal Cafe Blog. I found the following paragraph particularly striking:
It's such an Anglican/Episcopal idea: let's figure out how to worship together and let God deal with our conflicts. It's one of great contributions to Christian theology: Lex orandi,lex credendi. What am I talking about? Here's a snippet from Wikipedia to explain:
This is a very difficult thing for many non-Anglicans to understand. I think our Brothers and Sisters that come from Reform Traditions, in particular, have a hard time with Anglican wishy-washiness. Bishop N.T. Wright was asked by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report, "What do Anglicans believe, anyway?" The Rt. Rev. responded, "If it's true, Anglicans believe it." Or perhaps more accurately, some Anglican(s), somewhere, believes it!
I love being an Anglican.
-t
In all the fractious debate in our Anglican communion, we have managed, at least sometimes, to remind ourselves that ‘communion’ isn’t something we make or earn. Sometimes, at least, we remember that communion is what we do together that makes us one. I hope bishops at this summer’s Lambeth Conference will remember that communion is neither an enforced human artifact of pure unity nor a reward for agreeing that everyone like us is right and everyone not like us is wrong. But can we find our way without singing together when music is an essential nutrient in the fertile ground from which communion springs? Does this sound like overstatement? I do mean it. (source)
It's such an Anglican/Episcopal idea: let's figure out how to worship together and let God deal with our conflicts. It's one of great contributions to Christian theology: Lex orandi,lex credendi. What am I talking about? Here's a snippet from Wikipedia to explain:
Given its locus in the worship of the Church, Anglican theology tends to be pragmatic and strongly liturgical and ecclesiological, placing a high value on the traditions of the faith. It acknowledges the primacy of the worshipping community in articulating, amending, and passing down the Church’s theology; and thus, by necessity, is inclined toward a comprehensive consensus concerning the principles of the tradition and the relationship between the Church and society. In this sense, Anglicans have traditionally viewed their theology as strongly incarnational. (source)
This is a very difficult thing for many non-Anglicans to understand. I think our Brothers and Sisters that come from Reform Traditions, in particular, have a hard time with Anglican wishy-washiness. Bishop N.T. Wright was asked by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report, "What do Anglicans believe, anyway?" The Rt. Rev. responded, "If it's true, Anglicans believe it." Or perhaps more accurately, some Anglican(s), somewhere, believes it!
I love being an Anglican.
-t
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Aesthetics
Father Jake's blog tends to discuss to focus a lot on the current controversies in the Episcopal Church, but check out this entry that is a response to a recent New Yorker Article by Tobias Wolff on the power of aesthetics.
That's the thing about aesthetics: different people respond to the same signs and symbols differently. When we make the decision to, say, sing one hymn and not another, we have already privileged a certain set of tastes over another.
-t
And what drew me back, some time later, toward the possibility of faith? Poetry. George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins and T. S. Eliot. One night, I was reading the last lines of “Little Gidding” to a friend, my voice thick with emotion, and when I looked up he was staring at me with kindly amusement. “So,” he said. “You really like that stuff?” (Wolff as quoted by Fr. Jake)
That's the thing about aesthetics: different people respond to the same signs and symbols differently. When we make the decision to, say, sing one hymn and not another, we have already privileged a certain set of tastes over another.
-t
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