tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20380325384854123072024-03-13T10:04:51.308-05:00The Liturgical CurmudgeonAssorted essays, sermons, observations, reviews, and general grumbling, mostly (though not necessarily all) having to do with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion<p><p></p></p>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-67115419597936374972010-12-06T10:59:00.000-06:002010-12-06T11:04:04.825-06:00Yet More on the Anglican Covenant<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Last week the General Synod of the Church of England voted by overwhelming majorities in each order to refer the Anglican Covenant to the dioceses for consideration before being returned to the Synod for final action, probably in 2012.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">For those of us who are convinced that the Anglican Covenant is Not A Good Idea, this is a disappointment.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">It should perhaps be noted that the approval and referral of the Covenant was due not so much to widespread enthusiasm for it — in the debate a number of members expressed their reservations about it — as to a desire to be loyal and supportive to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has put significant personal investment into it.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">It is possible that in the diocesan synods, when more people have actually studied the document, there will be a greater resistance to it, and it is certainly possible that a majority of the dioceses will not recommend its final passage.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">I, however, am not sanguine about this.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">I think it is likely that the dioceses will say “Yes” for +Rowan’s sake, and that the General Synod will then say, “Well, you see?</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">We’re all in favor of it!”</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">In the meantime, of course, as we know, the GAFCON folks (the Primates’ Council of the Global Anglican Future Conference/Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) released their Oxford Statement from their October meeting, in which they said, “For the sake of Christ and of His Gospel we can no longer maintain the illusion of normalcy and so we join with other Primates from the Global South in declaring that we will not be present at the next Primates’ meeting to be held in Ireland.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">And while we acknowledge that the efforts to heal our brokenness through the introduction of an Anglican Covenant were well intentioned we have come to the conclusion the current text is fatally flawed and so support for this initiative is no longer appropriate.”</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">It is thus fairly clear that whatever the hopes of Archbishop Williams and others for the Covenant may be, it isn’t going to work.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">(Actually, some of the GAFCON Primates had previously indicated their support for the Covenant; so we’ll see how that plays out.)</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">It remains to be seen what The Episcopal Church will do about the Anglican Covenant at the next General Convention in 2012.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">(One of the influencing factors may be whether the C of E General Synod takes action before our GC, and if so, what.)</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">There are strong voices in opposition to the Covenant (with whom I identify myself), but also strong voices in its favor.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">I know no reason not to think that, at least in The Episcopal Church, these are all thoughtful people acting in conscience, who care about the integrity of The Episcopal Church and of the Anglican Communion.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">So, as I said, it remains to be seen.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Is the Anglican Communion dead in the water?</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Some are saying this.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">I don’t think so.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Will the Anglican Communion be different in the future from what it has been?</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Yes, clearly.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">It already is.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">But it also seems clear to me that a large proportion of the Churches want to remain in communion with others, including with us.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">There are now, and there may be in the future, issues that Churches want to discuss, and should discuss, with each other.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">“Indaba” was a good idea, and it can happen wherever and whenever Churches want to make it happen.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">There will be a Communion of Churches who share a common</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">heritage and work together in mission and ministry in the world.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Will it be “a” or “the” <i style="">Anglican</i> Communion?</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">It seems to me that this is up to Archbishop Williams.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Despite the claimed titles of a large collection of schismatic churches over the years, and the self-assertion of a number of invaders at the present, “Anglican” is a franchise that belongs to the Archbishop of Canterbury, as first Primate of Ecclesia Anglicana (The Church of England).</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Although in the last half-century the Anglican Communion has acquired a good bit of bureaucratic clutter (some of it worthwhile, some of it not so much), the bottom line, it seems to me, is that a Church is a member of the Anglican Communion if its Bishops are invited by Canterbury to the Lambeth Conference.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">So it’s +Rowan’s call.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">(I consider being disinvited from bureaucratic meetings to be insulting and annoying, but in the long run irrelevant; the mission and ministry that needs to be done can be done anyway.)</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">In any case, I believe that The Episcopal Church should and must take the high road.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">I suggest adopting some basic positions.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">1.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">We will not break, or suspend, or impair, or whine about, communion with any other Churches of the Anglican Communion.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">If any other Church chooses to break communion with us, that’s their decision, for which they are responsible.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">We are very sorry about it, but we will not be codependent.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">All will always be welcome at our altars and in shared mission and ministry.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">2.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">We will always be willing to discuss, in an “indaba” or other format, any issues or concerns that other Churches may have with us, or we with them.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">3.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">The Churches and Dioceses of the Anglican Communion, and their Primates and Bishops, will always be in our prayers, through the Anglican Cycle of Prayer or other appropriate means.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">4.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">We will continue to strive to support and share in the mission and ministry of the Gospel of Christ anywhere in the world to the extent that we are able and are invited to do so.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">It is our wish to maintain and to expand our large network of Companion Dioceses.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">5.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">We will continue to seek closer cooperation and, as appropriate, full communion with non-Anglican Churches.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">We presently are in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and with the Moravian Church in North America.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Discussions toward full communion are underway with the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA).</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">Like Anglican Churches generally, we are in full communion with the Old Catholic Churches in Europe (the Union of Utrecht), the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of India, and the Philippine Independent Church.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">(We grieve that we are no longer in communion with the Polish National Catholic Church in the United States; this was terminated in 1978 by the PNCC over the ordination of women to the priesthood.)</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">The Episcopal Church is not a signatory to the Porvoo Agreement, which establishes communion between the Anglican Churches in the Atlantic Isles and in the Iberian Peninsula, and most Lutheran Churches in the Baltic Sea area and Iceland; we were not invited </span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">to do so, as Porvoo is a geographically regional Communion limited to (mostly) northern Europe.</span><span style=";font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-size:130%;">(Should the Porvoo Communion wish to expand across the Atlantic, I am sure we would consider it.)</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">I trust that it is clear that my previous post, “The Anglican Communion — Another Approach,” was <i style="">seriously</i></span> tongue-in-cheek!</p>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-24954029102082247352010-11-22T13:24:00.003-06:002010-11-22T15:49:40.608-06:00The Anglican Covenant -- Another Approach<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">As highly-recommended prior reading, I suggest Jim Naughton’s article on The Lead at the Episcopal Café:<span style=""><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=""> </span><a href="http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_covenant/the_anglican_covenant_a_tool_f.html">http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_covenant/the_anglican_covenant_a_tool_f.html</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">It’s also always worthwhile to check out Thinking Anglicans, which is keeping good track of what’s going on:<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/">http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">So let’s try another approach to the Anglican Covenant.<span style=""> </span>Let’s just sign the damn thing!<span style=""><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=""></span>Having done so, then let’s send a delegation to show up first thing the next morning for Matins at Lambeth Chapel and present a list of questions to Archbishop Rowan, or Canon Kenneth, or whoever we can find up and about.<span style=""> </span>(Yes, I know that they aren’t really the people to whom this would need to go, but they are closer at hand than the InquiSCACion, and it would serve as notice.)<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">As a covenanting Church, we would have the right and the duty to raise questions about the compatibility of an action by another covenanting Church with the Covenant.<span style=""> </span>(4.2.3)<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(1) The Church of Uganda appears to support, perhaps weakly, perhaps not so weakly, proposals by the Ugandan Government to strengthen criminal liability for consensual adult homosexual activities, even to the point of a capital offense.<span style=""> </span>It is not suggested that the Church of Uganda should legitimize or bless same-sex unions, which Lambeth 1998.I.10.e <i style="">cannot advise</i> (n.b.), but tolerating without protest the gross violation of human civil rights appears to be contrary to Lambeth 1998.I.10.c&d.<span style=""> </span>Is this compatible with the Covenant?<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(2) The Churches of Uganda (as above), Rwanda, and Nigeria appear to endorse and encourage hatefulness and discrimination against persons with homosexual orientation, and a refusal to “listen to their experience.”<span style=""> </span>Does not appeal to Lambeth 1998 I.10.e entail acceptance and compliance with I.10.c&d?<span style=""> </span>Is this compatible with the Covenant?<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(3) The Churches of Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, and the Southern Cone of the Americas have been active in fomenting schism within The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.<span style=""> </span>Is this compatible with the Covenant 3.1.2?<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(4) The Primates of a number of Churches, including (I believe) Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda have refused to receive Communion at the same Eucharist with Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and Archbishop Hiltz.<span style=""> </span>We understand that the Archbishop of the Province of the Indian Ocean has suggested that Primates may wish to absent themselves from any Primates meeting attended by Bishop Jefferts Schori or Archbishop Hiltz.<span style=""> </span>Is this compatible with the Covenant 3.1.2 and 3.2.6?<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(5) The Anglican Church of Australia is apparently tolerating a significant breach of Catholic Order by the Diocese of Sydney, regarding who may be authorized to preside at the Eucharist.<span style=""> </span>Is this compatible with the Covenant 1.1.2 and 1.2.1?<span style=""> </span>(To this the Anglican Church of Australia might well respond, “Sydney is our problem, not yours!<span style=""> </span>We’ll deal with it!<span style=""> </span>Bug off, Yanks!”<span style=""> </span>To which we might well reply, “Point taken.<span style=""> </span>Question withdrawn.<span style=""> </span>Apologies.”)<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(6) The Church of England is making a great fool of itself over the issue of admitting women to election/appointment/consecration to the episcopate.<span style=""> </span>It is arguable that there may be some cultures in which Churches of the Anglican Communion minister in which the priesthood or the episcopate would not yet be an appropriate ministry for women.<span style=""> </span>England is not one of them.<span style=""> </span>(Neither is Uruguay, which may represent a related but somewhat different issue.)<span style=""> </span>Is this compatible with the Covenant 2.2.2.d?<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(7) Somewhat related to (6):<span style=""> </span>It has been noted that women bishops from other Churches in the Anglican Communion are not permitted to exercise their episcopal ministry in the Church of England.<span style=""> </span>(This has come to be referred to as “carrying your hat in your hand.”)<span style=""> </span>First of all, it is clear that no bishop, priest, or deacon may exercise his or her ministry in another Church (and strictly speaking, even in another Diocese) without the permission of the local ordinary.<span style=""> </span>Specifically, no bishop may exercise episcopal functions (e.g., confirmation and ordination) in another diocese without the specific permission, and at the specific request, of the diocesan bishop.<span style=""> </span>However, in the past this has not been a major problem in the Church of England regarding visiting male bishops.<span style=""> </span>Is this compatible with the Covenant 3.1.2 and 2.2.2.d?<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Actually, upon reflection, I don’t think this alternate approach is a very good one.<span style=""> </span>Never mind. <span style=""> </span><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Let’s just deep-six the Covenant instead.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(Are there parts of the Covenant that are okay?<span style=""> </span>Yes, albeit probably superfluous.<span style=""> </span>But Section Four is unacceptable and Section Three has real problems.<span style=""> </span>Tobias Haller suggests that we throw out the Covenant itself and just keep the Introduction, which I think is a promising idea!)<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://jintoku.blogspot.com/2010/11/introduction-is-sufficient.html">http://jintoku.blogspot.com/2010/11/introduction-is-sufficient.html</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span></p>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-1354221071085810092010-11-18T16:18:00.003-06:002010-11-18T16:23:00.546-06:00The Anglican Covenant, or, Haven’t We Been Here Before?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Although I bought the book a couple or three years ago, it has been sitting on my shelf until this week:<span style=""> </span><i style="">Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln</i>, by American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.<span style=""> </span>It’s an account of the men who were rivals for the Presidential nomination in 1860 and who became members of Lincoln’s cabinet during the Civil War:<span style=""> </span>William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates.<span style=""> </span>(Incidentally, Chase was the nephew of the Right Rev. Philander Chase, who was Bishop of Ohio and then of Illinois during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and whom The Episcopal Church commemorates on September 22.<span style=""> </span>Goodwin refers to him in passing, but obviously doesn’t like him very much.)<span style=""> </span>I’m still early in the book — I’ve just finished the chapter about the 1850s.<span style=""> </span>What I found very interesting, and I hadn’t really been aware of it before, was how the issue of slavery dominated American politics in the antebellum years.<span style=""> </span>We often pick up on Lincoln’s stated position early in his presidency:<span style=""> </span>“I<span style="">f I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”<span style=""> </span>That is, the Civil War was, at least initially, really about preserving the Union and not primarily about slavery.<span style=""> </span>But the years leading up to 1860 make very clear that, no, <i>it really was all about slavery.</i><span style=""> </span>The South had been threatening secession for many years, and slavery was the issue.<span style=""> </span>The strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Law by the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, made the Civil War inevitable.<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">“Gee,” I thought as I was reading these early chapters of Goodwin’s book, “this sounds a little familiar.”<span style=""> </span>Are we not, in our Communion, dealing with issues of threatened secession over what we perceive as a major moral issue?<span style=""> </span>Might we not think that +Rowan Williams is desperately trying to “save the Communion”?<span style=""> </span>And would it be possible to save the Communion by moral compromise?<span style=""> </span>(Whichever side of our current issue one may be on — and we might remember that there were self-proclaimed committed American Christians on both sides of the slavery issue in the nineteenth century.)<span style=""> </span>Please let me be clear — I am <i>not</i> suggesting that there are any simple or immediate parallels between the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century and the Anglican Communion at the beginning of the twenty-first century.<span style=""> </span>I am not comparing +Rowan Williams to Lincoln (though that might be an interesting exercise in “compare and contrast”!), nor do I know whether the Global South, or rather, more specifically the GAFCON gang, or on the other hand The Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada, can be identified in any respect with either the Northern or the Southern States.<span style=""> </span>It seems to me much more complex than that.<span style=""> </span>Nevertheless, from a wider perspective, I am caught by the notion, “haven’t we been here before?”<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">I think secession or schism is a very real possibility — in fact in many respects it already exists.<span style=""> </span>(Though whatever one may think about The Episcopal Church, <i>we</i> have not broken communion with anybody.)<span style=""> </span>I certainly don’t suggest that killing hundreds of thousands of young men on the battlefield is a way to resolve our current strife!<span style=""> </span>What if the North had just let the South go?<span style=""> </span>In fact, an agricultural economy (primarily cotton) based upon slave labor had no long-term future, and southern American slavery would eventually have died of its own crushing weight, though at the cost of much human misery and injustice in the meantime.<span style=""> </span>I would also say that homophobia, misogyny, and fundamentalism have no long-term future in faithful Christianity, anywhere in the world.<span style=""> </span>But I do think we need to ask the question:<span style=""> </span>at what price must the Anglican Communion be saved?<br /></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="">Is a puzzlement.<span style=""> </span>Just asking.</span></span></p>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-42013340576001417722010-11-18T16:14:00.001-06:002010-11-18T16:17:21.081-06:00I'm Back....<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--><p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Well, this poor blog has been sitting abandoned for a year.<span style=""> </span>During that time I’m sure that the four or five readers I once had have long since gone off to more productive venues.<span style=""> </span>But I’m going to try to re-fire it up, and perhaps a few folks will discover or rediscover it!<span style=""> </span>I still won’t moderate comments, but if I think your comment is dumb, I will ignore it, and if it is really annoying, I may delete it.<span style=""> </span>(“Dumb” and “annoying” does <i style="">not</i> simply mean “disagrees with me” — I’m perfectly happy, or at least willing, to be disagreed with.)</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">And yes, in the midst of ranting and raving about the Anglican Covenant, I may also put in some Live in HD Opera reviews.<span style=""> </span>Good season so far.<span style=""> </span>I liked <i style="">Rheingold</i>, even though I’m not really a Wagner fan.<span style=""> </span>Very good production, although the set is a little bizarre.<span style=""> </span>(But then, sets for the <i style="">Ring</i> always seem to be either bizarre or boring.<span style=""> </span>Bizarre is better.)<span style=""> </span>One should always prepare for a production of a <i style="">Ring</i> opera by listening again to Anna Russell, just for a reminder that the music is outstanding and the story is really dumb.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">I had never seen <i style="">Boris Godunov</i> before.<span style=""> </span>Very well done.<span style=""> </span>I liked it.<span style=""> </span>I wasn’t always quite sure exactly what the hell was going on, but….!</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:130%;">Nor had I seen <i style="">Don Pasquale</i>, though I had heard it.<span style=""> </span>I thought it was splendid, and I enjoyed it a lot.<span style=""> </span>Netrebko, whom we usually see in more “serious” roles, is a superb comic actress.<span style=""> </span>One of the advantages of the Live in HD format is that we really get to see the singers’ faces, and most of them are very good.</span></p>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-57969850375755879492009-11-20T15:03:00.003-06:002009-11-20T15:46:58.824-06:00Even More Opera Review<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">As if I hadn't seen </span></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Turandot </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">enough this year (see my posts for July 8 & 14), the other night I went to see the Encore presentation of </span></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Turandot </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">on the Met's Live in HD series at my local movie house. (I didn't see it on its truly "live" presentation on November 7 because I was watching the Iowa-Northwestern game on TV. First things first.) I thought it was a great production. Maria Guleghina was very fine as the princess Turandot (some of her high notes were a bit approximate, but this is a role in which a dramatic soprano has to work pretty hard). Marcello Giordani was also very good, if perhaps a bit wooden, as Calaf. He got through "Nessun dorma" pretty well, if not quite superbly; the Met audience then went bananas, which I thought was a little indiscriminate. I was quite impressed by Marina Poplavskaya's Liu; I had never seen/heard her before, and she sang and acted the role very well. Samuel Ramey (Timur, the old blind king, father of Calaf) was as usual very good in a role which is not really very big. I really liked Ping, Pang and Pong (I don't have the singers' names at hand), who put some depth into what are often merely stock characters. Perhaps the most notable thing was Franco Zeffirelli's production, which was Zeffirelli all the way. Very imaginative and elaborate choreography. However, this opera still has the dumbest plot in the repertoire, but in this case the Zeffirelli production (together with Puccini's music) helps one not to notice as much. It reminded me that Toscanini was probably right at the opera's premiere at Milan in 1926: he stopped the performance after the death of Liu, which was the point at which Puccini had died without completing Act III. All downhill from there.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">But my enjoyment of Zeffirelli's over-the-top production reminded me of the great fuss over the Met's new production of </span></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Tosca</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> last month, by Luc Bondy. I rather liked it, actually, but it's true that it had several flaws that sometime down the line (when Bondy isn't looking) should be corrected. (The floozies in Scarpia's apartment at the beginning of Act II were a seriously wrong move.) Many critics were comparing the Bondy production to the previous one, which was another Zeffirelli-all-the-way. The problem with the Zeffirelli </span></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Tosca</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> was that the sets (Sant' Andrea Della Valle, the Palazzo Farnese, and the Castel Sant' Angelo) overwhelmed the action of the opera, which is actually a fairly intimate melodrama. Oh well. I thought Mattila was very good, but she's not Callas. Nor will anyone ever be again....</span><br /></span>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-86681979345973027922009-08-12T14:34:00.001-05:002009-08-12T14:39:51.707-05:00What the Bible Says About Health Care<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest and a Levite were going down that road, and when they saw him, they said to him, “It is not the temple’s obligation to provide health care for people. That would be socialized medicine.” And they passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him, and when he saw him he was moved with pity. He went to him and said, “It is too bad that you are not a Samaritan. In Samaria we have universal health care coverage. But as a Judean you are expected to provide for your own medical care privately. Good luck!” (Luke 10:30-34)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">As [Jesus] approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard a crowd doing by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” Then he shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” …Jesus stood still and ordered the man to be brought to him, and when he came near, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Have you paid your medical insurance premiums?” (Luke 18:35-38,40-42)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “We would like to help this girl, but apparently her owners’ health insurance policy does not cover treatment for mental illness. And we certainly would not want to interfere with free enterprise. I’m afraid there is nothing we can do.” ( Acts 16:16-18)</span><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-47450119842137308292009-08-10T17:06:00.003-05:002009-08-10T17:17:45.755-05:00The New Great Generation<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Richard Doak, a retired editor at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Des Moines Register</span>, posted an Op-Ed in the Sunday Register yesterday (August 9, 2009) entitled “Next great generation may be on its way up.” I think he’s right, or at least I hope so. I encourage folks to read it. </span><br /><a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090809/OPINION01/908090317/1166"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090809/OPINION01/908090317/1166</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br />Doak argues that the current student generation has, on the whole, a much different way of thinking about the world than the previous generation. They aren’t rebels, a la the sixties; they generally get along well with their parents. But they don’t think like them. The government is not a bugaboo to them. They don’t oppose taxes if they will be well spent to solve real problems. They are concerned about the environment. They are not opposed to immigrants. They have little interest in the “culture wars.” Of particular interest to those of us in “the Episcopal Summer of Our Discontent,” Doak writes:</span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><blockquote>“In general, today’s young adults are tolerant, accepting racial equality and homosexuality in greater numbers than their elders. Same-sex marriage might make the blood boil of Baby Boom conservatives, but to most young people it’s simply a non-issue.”</blockquote></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">The downside of all this is that “religion appears to be less important in the lives of millennials, as a group, than it is in the lives of older Americans.” (Gee, I wonder why that might be?) Doak notes, as have others, that the rising generation of evangelical Christians is more concerned with the stewardship of God’s earth and the needs of the poor than with the moralistic posturing of their elders. (Actually reading the Bible can do that to you!) But for many young people, the institutional church simply has very little to do with their own experience of life and its concerns — and indeed is often hostile to it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Obviously the rising generation should be a major concern for our mission and evangelism. But what is needed is not gimmicks to attract and entertain them, but serious attention to their own best commitments and values. I’ve noted lately, in the context of the recent General Convention, that the “reasserters” — whether schismatic or (so far) yet in the fold — are moaning and whining about how the Episcopal Church is swirling the drain, all because of the gays (or ordained women, or revised liturgy, or civil rights, or whatever). Right. Does anyone really think that ACNA or any other church based upon “no gay cooties” will still be around a generation from now? (Gee, that’s sure a church I’d like to join!) Actually, it probably will be, at least in remnants. Baptismal regeneration was a big deal 140 years ago, and the Reformed Episcopal Church is still here.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">+Rowan, are you paying any attention at all to this stuff?</span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> </span><br /><br /></span>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-8208761301606498512009-07-14T14:55:00.004-05:002009-07-14T15:15:26.962-05:00More Opera Review<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">If one performance of </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">Turandot</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> is good, two are better. The other day I watched the video of the production at The Forbidden City of Beijing, conducted by Zubin Mehta (1998, I think). A brilliant and fascinating production. The principals were triple-cast (since the production was performed for nine straight nights); this particular cast included Giovanna Casolla in the title role (very very good, in a role that rarely descends out of the stratosphere), Barbara Frittoli as Liu (wonderful), and Russian tenor Sergej Larin as Calaf. A superb voice, in some ways reminiscent of Pavarotti, except that Pavarotti was a better actor (!). (In an interview, Larin said this was probably the largest stage he had ever performed on. Nevertheless, he just stood in the middle of it like a stump.) And Calaf was still a jerk. A rather different take on Ping, Pang and Pong, which was interesting. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Several other productions are available on DVD. I'll have to check them out.</span></span>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-90824156414162535682009-07-08T12:43:00.003-05:002009-07-08T13:04:11.870-05:00Opera Review<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Here's another utterly non-theological comment:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The other day I was watching a DVD of the Australian Opera's production of Puccini's </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">Turandot. </span><span style="font-family: times new roman;">From the early 1990's, I think. The production itself is (was) splendid. The performances were very good (not quite great, but very good; I think the cast was Australian, but I didn't recognize any of them). Puccini's music, of course, is absolutely wonderful. But surely that has got to be the dumbest plot in the whole of the standard operatic repertoire. (And I'm including the cycle </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">The Ring</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> of the Nibelungs</span>, which is pretty dumb. Great music, though much too long -- Wagner had no self-discipline -- but a pretty dumb plot.) The only character in </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;">Turandot</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> who is likeable at all is the slave girl Liu, and she ends up killing herself (well, I probably would too, in the circumstances). The old king Timur is dumb as a box of rocks -- no wonder he was dethroned. Prince Calaf is even more of a jerk than B. F. Pinkerton, and that's saying a lot. Turandot herself, of course, desperately needs to get over herself, and I doubt that falling for Calaf is going to do the job. <br /><br />Where was Mao Zedong when the people of Peking (Beijing) really needed him?</span><br /></span>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-66942376186199476382009-07-08T10:59:00.004-05:002009-07-08T12:39:44.857-05:00Letters to The Living Church<span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >One of the really nice things about The Living Church</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> is that it provides so many opportunities to write whining Letters to the Editor. Well, I've had mine for this quarter (and editor David Kalvelage is always very gracious about giving me some whining space every few months); it appeared in the July 5 issue, asking why the Episcopalians for Traditional Faith were pushing the 1928 Prayer Book to celebrate Independence Day. (And that makes sense because....?)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">I think David is a fair man (I often don't agree with him, but I think he's a fair man) and therefore it's not appropriate that he give me more space in the TLC Letters column so soon. But this doesn't mean I don't have more whining to share.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">1. In the current (July 5) issue, the Episcopalians for Traditional Faith are at it again, this time with a full page ad encouraging couples to choose their wedding ceremony from the 1928 Prayer Book (pages 300-301). And why would that be, do you suppose? Well, in case we missed their point, they use a text highlighter on page 301: "...this Woman to thy wedded wife" and "...this Man to thy wedded husband." Aha. Well, never mind that the 1979 Prayer Book uses almost exactly the same words (page 424). Apparently the point is that the 1928 BCP is the most certain way that folks can proclaim, "No Gay Cooties!" I never knew that about the '28 book, and I grew up with it. But at least we now see what the issue really is. Not that there was really any doubt, I guess. ("Bash a homo! Use the 1928 Prayer Book!")</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">2. In a response to Bishop Rowthorn's very good article about the proposed expansion of </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >Lesser Feasts and Fasts </span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">(now to be titled </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >Holy Women, Holy Men -- Celebrating the Saints</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">), Mr. Kalvelage thinks it's too much, particularly since a number of the persons proposed for commemoration are "unfamiliar to Episcopalians and other Anglicans." Indeed. I unearthed my original copy of </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >Lesser Feasts and Fasts</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> (1963, when we were still using the you-know-which Prayer Book) and looked through the Calendar, which even then included the majority of the commemorations in the current LFF. Except that in 1963 we had never heard of a lot of them; at least I suspect most Episcopalians had never heard of them. But we know them now, and remember them with joy and thanks to God for their witness. And maybe this is the point, yes? Do we really need to be so stingy about how many of God's Holy Ones we commemorate? (And after all, these have all always been </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >optional</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> in any case.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">3. In an adjacent editorial, Mr. Kalvelage argues in opposition to the proposed approval by General Convention of any formal blessing of committed same-sex relationships. He writes (TLC, July 5, page 21): "Such action is contrary to 2,000 years of Christian tradition, and would damage even further The Episcopal Church's already tenuous relationship with much of the rest of the Anglican Communion. Approval of same-gender [sic] blessings also would hasten the departure of conservative Episcopalians from a steadily declining church. In addition, as we have pointed out on numerous occasions, these innovations are non-scriptural." I believe Mr. Kalvelage is a decent and honest man, and no more homophobic than is the case with most of us Straight Guys. But he is missing the point here. (a) We need to be a little careful about "2,000 years of Christian tradition," especially about marriage. Although there is little evidence of committed same-sex relationships before the modern era, it's pretty clear that during much of Christian history, marital sexuality was not very well regarded except as a way to make babies. ("Just close your eyes and think of England.") (b) Please explain to me, David, why we should continue to marginalize our devout and devoted gay and lesbian couples in order not to offend Peter Akinola. (c) Are you suggesting that if we revert to gay-bashing, we're going to recover and keep all these "conservative" Episcopalians who are otherwise departing? (d) Non-scriptural innovations? Episcopalians/Anglicans? Oh, surely not! (Does the word "divorce" strike a familiar note?)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Enough for now....</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-7843128075489438102009-06-30T13:55:00.005-05:002009-07-08T12:42:15.308-05:00Political Note of the Day<span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(This has nothing to do with Liturgy, or even with Curmudgeonhood, though I guess it does have to do with God, because everything has to do with God:)<br /><br />I see that the Minnesota Supreme Court has just ruled that Al Franken has defeated Norm Coleman for election as United States Senator from Minnesota. (The very very close election has been in the courts since last November.)<br /><br />The United States Senate will be a much more interesting place for the next six years....</span><br /></span>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-48551730682034457702009-06-25T16:09:00.002-05:002009-06-25T16:12:34.834-05:00Thought for the Day<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">On your keyboard, think of a line connecting PC. Then think of a line connecting BS. The lines don't go in the same direction, but they do cross.</span><br /><br /></span>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-52353375530150796122009-06-23T19:29:00.002-05:002009-06-23T19:37:31.293-05:00Comments on the Office readingsOne of the things that some of us have discovered over the years, by God’s grace, is that we do not become familiar with the Bible just by reading it once or twice. One of the blessings of the Daily Office is that after we have worked our way through the office lectionary for twenty or thirty for forty years, we still keep finding new insights in texts that we thought we “already knew.” (The same would be true for those who may not formally pray the daily office but who do have a system of reading through the Bible once a year, or however often.)<br /><br />Well, in the Daily Office these days we (at least those of us using the American BCP!) have been working our way into 1 Samuel (always a joy). The Philistines have captured the Ark of God, and in the process the priest Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas were killed in battle. When Eli heard the news he fell over backward and broke his neck. We saw all that coming, of course. The Lord was ticked that the Ark of God was in Philistine hands, and knocked over the statue of Dagon in the temple at Ashdod and struck the people with tumors (possibly the bubonic plague, which is spread by flea-infested rats, possibly the “mice” referred to in chapter 6). The plague followed the Ark from Ashdod to Gath to Ekron (and apparently to Ashkelon and Gaza as well), and the Philistines finally caught on that keeping the Ark of God was Not A Good Idea. So they sent the Ark back to the Israelites. A wonderful story!<br /><br />Okay, now I would be interested to hear from the folks who are very much into a strictly literal interpretation of the whole of the Bible: Just what are we to make of this story?<br /><blockquote>(Remember Ichabod Crane, from Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”? I remember him especially from the 1949 Disney film. The name “Ichabod” means something like “the glory is gone,” and the Biblical Ichabod was the son of Phinehas, born just as the news of the death of his father, his uncle, and his grandfather, and the capture of the Ark, arrived at Shiloh. Ichabod’s mother named him, and then died following childbirth. “Ichabod” is obviously not a very auspicious name! Although apparently a lot of schools in upstate New York are named for Ichabod Crane. But I digress.)<br /></blockquote>A canticle later we read from the 5th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, about the counsel of Gamaliel regarding how to deal with Peter and the apostles. “So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them.” In regard to the current dissensions in the Episcopal Church, there might be some argument as to which side is who, but in any case Gamaliel gives good advice: “Well, let’s just see.” I don’t suggest that anyone should be flogged, and certainly not that anyone be ordered not to speak in the name of Jesus, but I also think no one should be permitted to walk away with the church silver.<br /><br />One of the things that I find interesting is some of the more traditional folks, noting that membership/attendance in the Episcopal Church is going down the toilet (that’s true in some places, not true in others), blames it all on selling out to the “homosexual agenda.” (I’m not quite sure just what that “agenda” is. I don’t think “Just give us a fair break” constitutes an “agenda.”) In the past, of course, the reasons why our membership has been going down the toilet for the last forty years have included getting involved in civil rights, protesting the Vietnam War, ordaining women to the priesthood, and revising the Book of Common Prayer. The decline in our membership statistics is, of course, a serious issue, and needs to be taken seriously. It may be the case that the Episcopal Church would once again flourish statistically if we would just quit meddling in politics, support our President no matter what, put women back in their place, return to Jesus’ own Prayer Book (1928), and, above all, get rid of the gays.<br /><br />But I don’t think so.WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-54686269990558840662008-08-21T11:29:00.004-05:002008-08-21T11:55:03.257-05:00Archbishop Williams (yes, this one this time)Poor +Rowan. Lately everybody has been picking on him -- both the "progressives" and the "traditionalists." (That's the problem with standing in the middle of the road -- you are likely to be hit by trucks coming from both directions.)<br /><br />Anyway, somebody recently made reference to +Rowan's 2002 small (in size) book, <em>Writing in the Dust</em>, written in the wake of September 11. So I pulled it off the shelf and read it again last night. It really is a remarkable book -- wise and deeply thoughtful. I am particularly struck by Chapter 5, "Against Symbols." <br /><br />He writes: "'Using other people to think with'; that is, using them as symbols for points on your map, values in your scheme of things. When you get used to imposing meanings in this way, you silence the stranger's account of who they are; and that can mean both metaphorical and literal death." (p. 64) He speaks of Christians and Muslims, of Christians and Jews, of the West and the East, of men (males) and women.<br /><br />He doesn't say anything about gay people, nor in the context of the book is there any particular reason why he should. But it seems to me that the sin of "using other people to think with" applies just as much to what we think and say about gays as about Muslims, Jews, women, and all "others."<br /><br />+Rowan, <span style="font-size:85%;">GO RE-READ YOUR OWN BOOK</span>!<br /><br />(Hmm. Do you suppose it's possible? -- <em><strong>Grand Tufti, who are you really? And what have you done with our Rowan??</strong></em>)WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-3693874546062226072008-08-19T19:20:00.002-05:002008-08-19T19:23:48.335-05:00Archbishop Williams (no, not that one)<a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/ten-bungled-flight-attempt4.htm">http://science.howstuffworks.com/ten-bungled-flight-attempt4.htm</a><br /><br />I have absolutely no idea how this is related to the current history of the Anglican Communion, but there must be some connection somewhere.<br /><br />(Be careful about getting your Archbishops from Wales? No, that can't be it....)WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-79412647523954298382008-07-29T13:21:00.003-05:002008-07-29T15:20:54.547-05:00A Pinch of Gay IncenseOne of the issues raised by some bishops of dioceses in Africa regarding the Church's attitude toward gays and lesbians, committed same-sex relationships, etc., is that approving, or even "not condemning," these people and their relationships would put their Christian mission at great disadvantage and even danger vis-a-vis the Muslims, who are depicted as being vehemently, even violently, anti-gay. (Actually, I think there is some real diversity of opinion among the world's Muslims about homosexuality, but it's probably fair to say that most African Muslims are at least as anti-gay as most African Christians.)<br /><br />For instance, Archbishop Deng of Sudan said last week: "We reject homosexual practice as contrary to biblical teaching and can accept no place for it within ECS. We strongly oppose developments within the Anglican Church in the USA and Canada in consecrating a practicing homosexual as bishop and in approving a rite for the blessing of same-sex relationships. This has not only caused deep divisions within the Anglican Communion but <strong>it has seriously harmed the Church’s witness in Africa and elsewhere, opening the church to ridicule and damaging its credibility in a multi-religious environment</strong>." [Emphasis mine.]<br /><br />Other bishops in parts of Africa have made statements that are even harsher. Their appeal is to what they think the Bible says (an interpretation which many Christians do not share), but it is also fairly clear that there are also cultural issues at stake -- as well as political issues. And maybe more than a little fear. It has been suggested that at least in some areas, toleration of homosexuality by Christians might lead to persecution by Muslims. I don't know whether that is true or not, but I can imagine that it might well be. <br /><br />It's interesting that some African voices are accusing the West (particularly the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, but with many in the Church of England and other Anglican Provinces in the British Isles and elsewhere in the world) of surrendering to the spirit of the age on this issue. I would suggest they read more American newspapers. While it is certainly true that more and more Americans (especially younger people) are accepting of same-sex committed partnerships, or least tolerant of them, there is still plenty of virulent homophobia, even violence. Matthew Shepherd. The young schoolboy recently killed by a classmate in school. Parishioners in a Unitarian church in Knoxville. Dozens more. Thousands of young people whose discovery of their sexual orientation and the reaction of their families and acquaintences has led them into depression, despair, and even suicide. If the Episcopal Church is cozying up to the spirit of the age, we have obviously made a serious misjudgment. The <em>Zeitgeist</em> of the West on this issue is not all that much different from that of Nigeria. <br /><br />In the first three centuries of the Church's life, thousands of Christians (we estimate) were imprisoned, tortured, or killed because they refused to offer a pinch of incense on an altar before an image of the Emperor, or refused to turn over copies of the Scriptures for burning, or refused to enter marriages arranged by their pagan families. Many other Christians did yield, out of fear or for convenience's sake or for the sake of peace and accommodation. It is not for me to tell African Christians how they must respond to threats and persecution from what is often a more powerful and sometimes threatening Muslim community. But I will not be complicit in throwing our GLBT sisters and brothers under the bus for the sake of the safety of the majority. The martyrs of the faith deserve better remembrance than that.WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-81200355149618141332008-07-29T10:02:00.003-05:002008-07-29T10:28:02.693-05:00Christ is the WayAmong the subjects that some folks these days seem to be getting their knickers in a twist about is how to understand John 14:6: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." The "hardline" interpretation of this is that unless one has consciously and explicitly professed one's faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, one cannot be saved. (There is, of course, a wide spectrum of less "hardline" interpretations. Even the Roman Catholic Church, which is not exactly "soft" on Jesus, grants the legitimacy of acknowledging the possibility of salvation for those whom Karl Rahner called "anonymous Christians.")<br /><br />Here's what I say, and I'm pretty hardline about this:<br /><br />Muslims cannot be saved by Islam.<br />Hindus cannot be saved by Hinduism.<br />Buddhists cannot be saved by Buddhism.<br />Jews cannot be saved by Judaism.<br /><br />And finally (all you who recall Amos 1-2 will see this coming):<br /><br />Christians cannot be saved by Christianity.<br /><br />We are not saved by our religion(s). We are saved by the grace of God. <br /><br />God does not consult with us about who is qualified to receive grace.<br /><br />When Jesus talks about being "the way, and the truth, and the life," I see no indication that he is talking about ecclesiastical membership or theological orthodoxy or religious observance. I think he is talking about coming with him into the Kingdom of God. How well we can articulate the fullness of the identity of our Divine Companion is pretty much beside the point, which is good news for us, because none of us really understand the fullness of his identity. <br /><br />Or, as the folks who had been rescued/healed/saved in the old western movies used to say, "Who was that masked man?"WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-89638562102808733252008-07-25T19:16:00.004-05:002008-07-25T19:23:16.389-05:00Dave Walker and the SPCKI'm not going to get into this in any detail here, other than to note that "I Am Also Dave Walker." If you know what I'm talking about, well, then, you know what I'm talking about! If not, and you care (I really think we should care about this) you can find out all about it over at the MadPriest's place. <a href="http://revjph.blogspot.com/2008/07/very-important-dave-walker-update.html">http://revjph.blogspot.com/2008/07/very-important-dave-walker-update.html</a> (And if you don't care, well, <em>pthpthpthp</em>!)WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-15525744771679266522008-07-22T17:47:00.000-05:002008-07-22T17:55:58.434-05:00St. Mary MagdaleneA friend and colleague was the celebrant at the Eucharist this morning, and in his homily he noted that all of a sudden there are dozens and dozens of books on the market about Mary Magdalene. (You can check them out on the online booksellers.) His favorite title was (yes, really!) "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mary Magdalene."<br /><br />I am speechless....WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-13078910252354152702008-07-21T16:48:00.002-05:002008-07-21T18:00:50.593-05:00Bible-Believing Christians (2)When the Holy Spirit moved the Church to require-or-at-least-encourage the praying of the Daily Office, s/he knew what s/he was doing.<br /><br />This morning I was reading Joshua 7:1-13, as the lectionary directs. I noticed that tomorrow the reading picks up at Joshua 8:1 (well, actually, some of us will probably join that to the Wednesday reading, since tomorrow is St. Mary Magdalene). Well, thought I, what about Joshua 7:14-26? So I went back to read that (or re-read it, since I must have looked at it two years ago, or four, or six....). This is where the story goes on to relate how God and Joshua dealt with Achan son of Carmi (etc.) who took some of the devoted things from the sacking of Jericho, resulting in the humiliating defeat of the Israelites at Ai.<br /><br />"Then Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan [great-grand]son of Zerah, with the silver, the mantle, and the bar of gold, with his sons and daughters, with his oxen, donkeys, and sheep, and his tent and all that he had, and they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. Joshua said, 'Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord is bringing trouble on you today.' And all Israel stoned him to death; they burned them with fire, cast stones on them, and raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore that place to this day is called the Valley of Achor [That is <em>Trouble</em>]."<br /><br />This episode is part of our story as the People of God, and we should most certainly read it and know it. But I am getting just a little tired of listing to "evangelical" whiners appeal to "Biblical morality." If you are a "Bible-Believing Christian," exactly what is it you believe about this story? (I certainly think that God may well speak to us through this story, but exactly what God is saying is another subject for another post.)<br /><br />"Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation" (Article VI); it does <em>not</em> say "All things contained in Holy Scripture are necessary to salvation."<br /><br />For those who are following Track One of the Revised Common Lectionary, the First Reading this coming Sunday is the story of Jacob's marriages to Leah and Rachel. Doubtless some more "Biblical sexual morality," a/k/a "What the Bible teaches about marriage." I'd be interested to know what the "Bible-Believing Christians" in our own Anglican-and-other-RCL-following family do with this. Actually, I'm planning to preach on this passage myself. Check in early next week to my "Have Stole Will Travel" blog.WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-80464401203033267702008-07-21T10:53:00.000-05:002008-07-21T10:57:08.952-05:00Lambeth....Go see this at the MadPriest's place:<br /><br /><a href="http://revjph.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-godless-see-us.html">http://revjph.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-godless-see-us.html</a>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-83203342940777442122008-07-20T17:34:00.000-05:002008-07-20T17:58:51.235-05:00"The Bible says....!"Although we did not observe this "lesser feast" today because it is Sunday, I noted that July 20 is the commemoration of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman. (The date for this celebration of major women witnesses for God's justice is that of the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.) I notice that the opposition -- often very substantial opposition -- within the Church to the witness of these women for justice and equality for people of both sexes and all races was based upon certain quotations from the Bible, and there were widespread attacks from church pulpits. Ms. Bloomer, for instance, was accused of defying the clear Scriptural prohibition of women "dressing like men." (Yes, that's why they were called "bloomers"!)<br /><br />Come on, folks, I can remember when it was still a matter of controversy for a woman to wear a pants suit to church on Sunday, and without a hat.<br /><br />In our generation we are excluding and condemning GLBTs because "the Bible says...." People, we just have to get over this stuff!WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-55203124933361753882008-07-15T21:32:00.000-05:002008-07-15T21:40:09.433-05:00Anglo-Catholics and Women Bishops (5)Another objection to the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate is that it presents a major, even fatal, obstacle to hopes of reunion with Rome. Uhh, no. Well, I’m sure that the ordination of women presents an obstacle in the eyes of the papacy. But that’s not our problem. Let’s talk about obstacles to the reunion of Christendom:<br /><br />1. The doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. Granted, nobody is quite sure exactly what this means (although Cardinal Ratzinger seemed sure enough a few years ago), and some liberal Roman Catholic theologians have tried to find ways to weasel around it or explain it away, but that simply won’t do. The doctrine is arrogant and false, and if the Roman Catholic Church really wants to implement Christ’s prayerful wish “<em>ut unum sint</em>,” then they have to renounce it. Not just reinterpret it, <em>renounce</em> it.<br /><br />2. Even more of an obstacle in my mind than the Pope’s infallibility (which is, after all, a silly claim anyway) is the Pope’s universal ordinary jurisdiction. In other words, the Bishop of Rome can (and sometimes does) intervene directly in the affairs of local dioceses. The bottom line is that Roman bishops, even cardinal archbishops, are only suffragans of the Bishop of Rome. Sorry. It isn’t going to happen. If Rome is serious about the reunion of Christendom, this is number one on the repudiation list.<br /><br />3. Another obstacle is the issue of inventing new doctrines, or at least raising somewhat old but hardly primitive doctrines to dogmatic status. Specifically, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the doctrine of her Corporal Assumption into Heaven. Frankly, I don’t have a huge objection if someone wants to believe that those pious opinions are true. I don’t believe they are, but if others find them coherent or meaningful, that’s okay, and I’m willing to listen to their explanations. Personally, I find the Immaculate Conception (of Mary) meaningless; I think it involves a category mistake about the nature of original sin. The Assumption bothers me a little more, since it is a specifically historical claim that is without any evidence whatsoever, and I think we need to be very careful about the historical claims we make. The most obvious problematic claim is the Resurrection of Jesus; whether it should be regarded as historical depends on how one defines “historical,” but there is certainly solid historical evidence that the first generation of Christians were absolutely convinced that Jesus had really been raised from the dead and had appeared to many of his followers. There is absolutely no similar evidence concerning the circumstances of the death, or purported non-death, of St. Mary the Mother of Jesus. Nor is it clear what the meaning of this alleged event might be. It would be a very strange way to honor our Lord’s Mother by making a false historical claim about her. More to the point, to claim that Mary’s Assumption was in some sense a reflection of her Son’s Resurrection seems to me to miss the point of the Resurrection of Jesus (which is not that “we too will go to heaven when we die”). Bishop N. T. Wright has some excellent reflections on the significance of the Resurrection; as far as I am aware he does not discuss the alleged Assumption, nor, I suppose, would he. But in any case, if someone wants to “believe in” the Immaculate Conception of Mary and in her Assumption, go ahead. But for Rome to claim that these pious opinions are <em>de fide</em> dogmata is utterly beyond the pale, and raises grave suspicions about whether they fully understand what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is really about.<br /><br />I suppose an ecumenical negotiator might say, well, Rome will give up the universal authority of the Pope and the Marian dogmas, if the Anglicans will give up the ordination of women. Nice try. I for one am absolutely unwilling to throw my sisters under the bus in exchange for renunciations of falsehoods that Rome needs to give up in any case.<br /><br />Reunion with Rome is something which simply is not going to happen in our time, sadly, certainly not on their terms. Mind you, I am very much in favor of the closest possible relationships and cooperation in mission and service between Roman Catholics and Anglicans at the local level, the diocesan level, and even at the national level. I rejoice that +Rowan and +Benedict seem to have a good personal relationship. But they both need to understand that we are not going to give up anything to Rome. <em>Au contraire</em>….WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-40742665852464855862008-07-15T21:19:00.000-05:002008-07-15T21:32:06.692-05:00Anglo-Catholics and Women Bishops (4)Reflections on objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood and a fortiori to the episcopate (for some of you this may be old hat and you’re tired of hearing about it. Feel free to skip to the next post):<br /><br /><strong>Obj. 1.</strong> Christ did not appoint any female apostles.<br /><strong>Reply Obj. 1.</strong> Christ also did not appoint any Italian or Polish or German apostles. (Where did all these Popes come from? Jesus didn’t even appoint any English apostles!) Further; Jesus did not authorize the installation of flush toilets in parish churches. (Does anyone really expect us to take this line of argument seriously?)<br /><br /><strong>Obj. 2.</strong> The New Testament forbids the ordination of women, e.g. 1 Cor 14:33b-36, 1 Tim 2:11-15.<br /><strong>Reply Obj. 2.</strong> Well, I suppose there is a sense in which it does. (I would argue that St. Paul is not the author of either of these passages — the former completely breaks the train of thought, reads like an interpolation, and contradicts Paul’s general attitude toward female colleagues in the ministry, and the latter is from the Pastorals which I believe are pseudo-Pauline, at least mostly. But these passages are still canonical Scripture, whoever wrote them, so they have to be dealt with.) However, these verses don’t simply forbid the ordination of women, they forbid any exercise of general authority in the Church by women. This means (and until fifty years ago was widely understood to mean) that women not only cannot be ordained, but also may not serve as lay readers, members of the vestry, delegates to diocesan convention, deputies to General Convention, etc. There are still some very conservative evangelical churches (some Baptists, for instance, though certainly not all) who closely follow this direction and do not permit female leadership of anything but women’s organizations, nor may they teach Sunday School to classes including boys above the age of seven. At least this position is Scripturally consistent. I personally remember when it was said in the Episcopal Church, “If you elect a woman to be Senior Warden, next they’ll want to be ordained priest!” Yep! <em>Ex ore dooforum</em>.<br /><br /><strong>Obj. 3.</strong> A woman can no more be a priest than a man can be a mother.<br /><strong>Reply Obj. 3.</strong> Actually even C.S. Lewis made this argument somewhere (I forget exactly where; I could look it up, but it’s not really worth it), and one still hears it occasionally. Well, Lewis was brilliant 99% of the time, which is a lot better than most of us. The assumption is that priesthood is essentially fatherly, and therefore a woman cannot exercise it. Where does one begin with this? Paul uses paternal imagery for his relationship with his churches (1 Cor. 4:15, 1 Thess. 2:11), but he also uses maternal imagery (Gal. 4:19, 1 Thess. 2:7.) I’m not sure where the idea came from that Christian priesthood (including episcopacy) is essentially paternal, other than that for most of Christian history bishops and priests were all men. But in a large percentage of cases, we might note, they were not fathers, except metaphorically. The superior of a religious community of women is often called “Mother,” and her responsibilities are quite equivalent to those of the superior of a men’s community. The only difference between an abbot and an abbess is their gender. Actually the use of parental titles and imagery for priestly ministry is open to question, I think, and I suspect we are moving away from it. As one who was ordained and called “Father” at the age of twenty-four, I am sensitive to the ultimate silliness of this custom, although I still observe it, sort of, some of the time.<br /><br /><strong>Obj. 4.</strong> Thomas Aquinas writes: “Since it is not possible in the female sex to signify eminence of degree, for a woman is in the state of subjection, it follows that she cannot receive the sacrament of Order.” (Summa Theologiae, III.Suppl. Q.39 a.1. The Supplement to Pars Tertia was edited and published posthumously by Rainaldo da Pipeno, of course, but the text is taken directly from Thomas’ earlier Commentary on Book 4 of the Sentences of Peter Lombard.)<br /><strong>Reply Obj. 4.</strong> It is this that was really the definitive argument through most of the Church’s history. But it is obvious to most of us today that it is an argument with serious problems. First, the premise that ordination is related to “eminence of degree” (see also Q.34 aa.1&2.) is a pretty shaky one, and that’s to give it more than it deserves. Second, the premise that a woman is in “the state of subjection” is also a non-starter. Aquinas was a good enough logician to realize that when the premises are false, the conclusion is also likely to be false (or at least not proved by the premises). Unfortunately it seems not to have occurred to him to give his premises a really thorough examination.<br /><br /><strong>Obj. 5.</strong> A priest (or <em>a fortiori</em> a bishop) is a sign of Christ, and Christ was and is a man. As Pope Paul VI said (<em>Inter Insigniores</em>, Chapter 5, 1976), “‘Sacramental signs,’ says St. Thomas, ‘represent what they signify by natural resemblance.’ The same natural resemblance is required for persons as for things: when Christ’s role in the Eucharist is to be expressed sacramentally, there would not be this ‘natural resemblance’ which must exist between Christ and his minister if the role of Christ were not taken by a man: in such a case it would be difficult to see in the minister the image of Christ. For Christ himself was and remains a man.” (This papal teaching has been subsequently reaffirmed by both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.)<br /><strong>Reply Obj. 5.</strong> Pope Paul’s 1976 declaration interestingly enough discarded (subtly, but still discarded) the Thomistic argument in Obj. 4., and substituted this one. It’s a long and fairly well thought out argument, but in the end it just doesn’t work. In fact, pushed to its logical conclusion, it represents a heretical Christology. All baptized persons manifest the image of Christ. Women are not “lesser” images of Christ. “Christ the priest” is not a better or higher image than “Christ the servant” (if anything, quite the contrary, by Jesus’ own words) and the Church, God knows, has never had any hesitation assigning to women the role of servant. It has been commented about this declaration that by this thinking a woman not only cannot be validly ordained, she cannot even be validly baptized. This argument is a classic instance of the clergy “thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think” (Romans 12:3). I think it may well have been this argument that was the final straw for many Anglicans (and others), including me: If this is the best argument for not ordaining women, then there clearly is no good argument for not ordaining women. But Rome held on nevertheless. In 1994 Pope John Paul II issued an Apostolic Letter, <em>Ordinatio Sacerdotalis</em>, in which he named as reasons for not ordaining women: (1) “The example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men,” ignoring the fact that Christ chose only Jewish men; but in any case, so what? See Reply Obj. 1. (2) “The constant practice of the Church,” that is, “We’ve always done it this way before,” and (3) “her [the Church’s] living teaching authority,” that is, “Because I say so.” John Paul II concluded: “I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.” Tell me if I’m mistaken: is this the only instance in history in which the Pope declared that the Roman Church had “no authority whatsoever”? I can’t think of another one offhand. But of course I could be wrong….<br /><br /><strong>Obj. 6</strong>. The Church of England or other Churches of the Anglican Communion do not have authority to make this change in the Church’s ordained ministry without the consensus of the Universal Church.<br /><strong>Reply Obj. 6</strong>. In other words, we can’t ever change anything anytime anyhow. First of all, the consensus of the Universal Church (presumably expressed through an Ecumenical Council) isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future, or, alas, even in the unforeseeable future. Actually, in real life this means “we can’t make this change until/unless Rome says we can.” Umm, do we remember that we are Anglicans?” (These aren’t the same folks who are also making the big whoop about the 39 Articles, are they? Article 21: “General Councils…may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God.” Article 37: “The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.”) Those in the Church of England who will not accept the ordination of women until/unless the Pope or a General Council says they can would be in violation of the Statute of Praemunire, except that Praemunire was repealed in 1967. Darn. (Incidentally, are any of these folks aware that the permission of the clergy to marry, stated in Article 32 — not just the ordination of married candidates but the marriage of priests already ordained — is a violation of quite ancient tradition and canon law? The Church of England said that this was an issue within its competence to decide, and I am not aware that there has been any argument about this within Anglicanism. The ordination of women is also within the competence of the Anglican Churches to decide.)WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2038032538485412307.post-86541525890490798532008-07-15T21:14:00.000-05:002008-07-15T21:19:50.077-05:00Anglo-Catholics and Women Bishops (3)<div align="left"> The primary group of opponents of the consecration of women to the episcopate in England are typically being identified simply as “the Anglo-Catholics.” Excuse me! I consider myself an Anglo-Catholic, and I’ve been one longer than a lot of these folks. (I was confirmed when I was a boy at All Saints’ Church, Indianapolis — the parish that at the time was “the Anglo-Catholic parish” of the diocese. Twenty-five years later, in that parish — still an Anglo-Catholic parish, but by then it was no longer such a big deal — the Rev. Jacqueline Mears was ordained to the priesthood, the first woman to be legally ordained after the approval of the ordination of women by the General Convention.) In the United States and in most of the rest of the Communion, Anglo-Catholics (with a few exceptions) not only do not oppose the ordination of women, but enthusiastically welcome it, and a substantial number of ordained women consider themselves to be Anglo-Catholics. <br /><br />However, we should also recognize that the spectrum of “churchmanship” in England has always been much wider than it has been in North America or much of the rest of the Communion. English Evangelicals are more “evangelical” than any other Anglicans on earth, except in Sydney. English Anglo-Catholics have routinely adopted practices that American Anglo-Catholics never for a moment considered doing, like saying Mass in Latin from the Missale Romanum. (In those days we all used the American Missal, but all things considered it was relatively faithful to the Book of Common Prayer. Once the Episcopal Church began the Trial Use of liturgical forms that eventuated in the 1979 BCP, most of us put the missals away. On the whole the 1979 Book represented what we really wanted anyway.) The “Anglo-Catholic” opposition in England to the ordination and consecration of women to the priesthood and the episcopate are actually Ultramontanists (although they won’t always admit that even to themselves). As Dr. Eric Mascall (no mean Anglo-Catholic himself) put it many years ago, before the current kerfuffle:<br /> And, though I’ve not submitted yet,<br /> as all my friends expected,<br /> I should have gone last Tuesday week,<br /> had not my wife objected.<br /> (From “The Ultra-Catholic,” <em>Pi in the High</em>.)<br /> </div>WSJMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09712152737422347034noreply@blogger.com5