24

Those who know me will attest that I don't exactly ride the crest of the wave of popular culture. I get to some things late. One of these is the apparently wildly popular TV series 24. I ran across some reruns a couple of months ago while channel-surfing (my wonted mealtime habit), and was riveted. A couple of days after Christmas I used some gift card credits to buy the first season on DVD, which I then spent an inordinate amount of time watching completely over about a two week period. Then, last night, I was in front of the set for the premiere two hours of season six, and ... well, by this time, you can figure out how I'll be spending this evening (Monday).

The dialogue is occasionally less than stellar (remember, I'm a fan of The West Wing), and some of the plot details are not plausible. (I don't think I've ever seen Jack Bauer put a bite of food into his mouth. And I'm familiar enough with the urban geography of southern California to know that it takes a lot longer to get around than one would infer from CTU's exploits.) But the concept ("real time") is intriguing, the suspense is magnetic, and the main character has an heroic dimension that is irresistible.

Without straying too far into armchair psychology, which is beyond my competence, I'll make two observations about the possible cultural significance of 24:

• The whole enterprise--virtually every scene of every episode--would be completely impossible without cell phones. The elements of suspense and rapid plot development could not be successfully executed without this now ubiquitous technology. And the internet is only a nose-length behind in terms of integral necessity. Does this not say something about our growing expectation of instantaneous gratification of our most mundane desires? We have no tolerance for mere infrastructure getting in the way of what we want. One can only wonder how this bodes for the Christian virtue and spiritual fruit known as Patience. Spiritual directors of the world, take note.

• 24 forces us, through the experience and behavior of Jack Bauer, to explore some morally shadowy territory that, in our direct conscious awareness, we avoid assiduously. A popular book in the early 1980s explored the theme of When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Agent Bauer draws us into the questions that arise when such "good people" are forced to do "bad things." Most of us will never be in the position of needing to choose between lopping off someone's fingers with garden shears one by one to get information or sitting back to enjoy a nuclear holocaust. We just pay others to be in that position on our behalf. 24 makes us take ownership of the behavior of our contract employees.
  

Here I Stand (for now, at least...)

The 2007 Annual Parish Meeting of St John's, Stockton took place today. What follows is a substantial portion of my State-of-the-Parish address, wherein I offered some reflections on the state, not only of the parish, but of the larger church.

Now I’m going to ask you to turn your attention for a while to a subject that is a source of some anxiety, but which we can’t just ignore, which is the state of unrest that the Anglican world, and the Episcopal Church, and the Diocese of San Joaquin are in. It’s too big a subject for me to cover in detail right now, but I do want to share with you something of my own heart and my own mind as relates to how we as a parish might respond to all that is going on.

First, while the secular press gives the world the impression that the dispute is really all about sex, it really isn’t. Sex is only the match that lit the fuse. But I do want to say this much about sex, and I’m not trying to pander to anybody; I’m just trying to be as transparent as I can. I have what are, by any account, traditional views. But I try with all my might to hold those views humbly and compassionately. My heart truly aches for those who, by no choice of their own, find themselves able to bond intimately only with persons of the same sex. I am not closed to the idea that something of holiness might be reflected in some such relationships. I want St John’s to be a safe and welcoming environment for people who may be involved in such a relationship and are honestly looking to serve God faithfully as a member of his holy church. At the same time, I am quite confident that, because they fall short of the ideal God has revealed for his creatures, the Church lacks the authority to invoke God’s blessing on such relationships. I am equally confident that it is a horrible mistake to try and cast same-sex partnerships as in any way equivalent to marriage, or to expand the definition of marriage to include them. And, because same-sex partnerships are, at best, in morally ambiguous territory, someone involved in such a relationship is not an appropriate candidate for ordained ministry.

But, like I said, it’s not really about sex. It’s about the nature of Anglican Christianity, the nature of authority, the nature of mutual accountability under that authority. Perhaps because it is an American church, the Episcopal Church has a fiercely independent streak. The actions of the last two General Conventions have pushed independence to the point where it has collided head on with mutual accountability between the 38 Anglican provinces. Virtually since the close of convention in Minneapolis in 2003, whatever gravitational forces that have held the Episcopal Church together since 1789, and colonial Anglicanism for 182 years before that—those gravitational forces have steadily weakened on an almost daily basis. As a result, even those who support General Convention’s actions acknowledge that the Episcopal Church stands a very real chance of losing what might be called the Anglican “franchise” for the territory it now covers.

I don’t have time to connect every dot, but the action taken by our own diocesan convention six weeks ago is a direct result of that process of erosion and splintering. Our diocese is one two-thirds vote away from severing all ties with the General Convention—in effect, leaving the Episcopal Church. It is not yet clear precisely where we would “go” in such an event, but our constitution, as it would then read, makes it clear that we intend to remain Anglican, in full communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, such communion being the visible sign of Anglican identity.

You have the right to know where your Rector stands in all of this, and even as I shared my heart with you with respect to the presenting problem of human sexuality, I will try to be equally transparent in discussing these strategic and political concerns. That fact is, I’m very torn, and I wrestle with the question daily, almost hourly. You know, I once aspired to a career in politics. It’s a good thing I didn’t try to go that direction, because I would have been a terrible politician. It’s very hard for me to think in absolute, black-and-white terms. It’s relatively easy for me to see both sides—several sides, in fact—of most any given question. I know that this is frustrating to some of you, who are eager for me to exercise clearer leadership.

Unlike many in our diocese, unlike many in this parish, unlike our Bishop, I am not yet persuaded that it is morally necessary to formally separate from the structures of the Episcopal Church. Yes, most of the new Presiding Bishop’s public comments make my skin crawl. Yes, most of those who hold the reins of power in our church hold a vision of the gospel that is radically different from the one I hold, radically different from the one most everyone here today holds. But they are not the Episcopal Church, and they do not express the faith and teaching of the Episcopal Church, and even though they raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels, they are also my brothers and sisters in Christ and we are bound together in the waters of baptism and I’m not at all sure that it would not be a grave sin to cut them loose and say we don’t need them. As I understand orthodox Christian teaching about the Church, it is not a country club, where we can blackball members; it is a family, where we’re stuck with each other no matter how they behave. The Episcopal Church is not the enemy; it’s our family.

At the same time … and I know you must hate it when I say that! … at the same time, I have tremendous personal regard for Bishop Schofield, and for the faithfulness with which he has led this diocese for the last almost nineteen years. I have been, and want to continue to be, a loyal member of his team. In his vision—which, for all I know may come directly from the Holy Spirit—the time to make the break has arrived. I am open to discovering that this is how God is moving. More importantly, though, I am an Anglican before I am an Episcopalian. If it should come to pass that being an Episcopalian is no longer the recognized means of being an Anglican in America, I will choose whatever path maintains Anglican identity.

So, when the time comes, what will I do? How will I lead? The only honest answer is, I don’t know. There are way too many variables, too many things that can yet happen between now and the time convention meets next Fall. Of this much I am certain: I am not in control! We are not in control of the events around us, the collective behavior of world Anglicanism. However, there is something that we are very much in control of, and that is our response to those events. We have the freedom to let external circumstances define us—that is, to be reactive—or to be calmly guided by our own core values and convictions—that is, to be proactive. If you pray for me at all, pray that, as a leader, I will have the grace to lead proactively, even as I will pray that, as a community, we will have the grace to respond proactively to the challenges we encounter.

episcophobia

When the Church-of-General-Convention constituted itself in 1789, the founders realized that they couldn't very well call themselves anything that had the phrase "Church of England" in it, given still fresh revolutionary sensibilities, and "Anglican" was not yet in anyone's working vocabulary. So they adopted the moniker "Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America." This delineated a classic middle way between Romanism (hence, "Protestant") and the various congregational and Calvinist bodies that existed in the land (hence, "Episcopal"--ordered by bishops).

This is my blog, so I can let my inner English teacher run free from time to time, and deliver an etymology lesson. Think in Greek: epi (outer, over--as in "epiphany") + skopos (view, see--as in telescope, microscope) = episkopos ("overseer", or if you are in a Latinate mood, "supervisor"). We find the word seven times in the New Testament, where it refers to an ecclesiastical office in the nascent Church, an office that quickly took a specific and enduring shape in the decades immediately following the apostolic era.

As words and languages evolve, try imagining a process like this: the initial 'e' and the inflected conclusion 'os' fall by the wayside, leaving "piskop." As they are often wont to do, the opening 'p' morphs to its consonantal cousin 'b'. Then the 'sk' softens into a consonant blend, 'sh'. Voila, we have "bishop."

One wag has joked that Anglicans have a high view of episcopacy and a low view of bishops. Given what I've been seeing from the port side of Anglican cyberspace over the last two or three years, I'm thinking it's probably not a joke. We hear a steady refrain that, if I can paraphrase in a summary fashion, goes something like this: "Sure, we have bishops in the Episcopal Church, but they are not really our leaders or representatives or policy makers or spokespersons. They duly confirm and ordain and preach and write and give pastoral care, and sometimes we let them preside at diocesan conventions, but otherwise we keep them on a pretty short leash."

This is democracy run amok. It is American, but it is not Anglican, and certainly not Catholic. There are good bishops and (God knows) there are bad bishops, but in a church that calls itself "Episcopal" there's no escaping them--that is, there's no escaping their primacy of authority in interpreting, teaching, and transmitting the truth of God, and in exercising godly authority, and in articulating the mind of the Church. That's what we elect and ordain them for.

Of course, those who are complaining, those who are trying to tighten the circle of episcopal influence, are reacting to decisions made by bishops, and groups of bishops, that they don't like. One thinks here of the Primates' Meeting (the Dromantine Communique sticks in the craw of General Convention supremacists), the Lambeth Conference (I.10 from 1998 is the offender here), and the Camp Allen group of "Windsor Bishops" (the mere fact that they met without the sanction of General Convention, and took counsel together for the future of Anglicanism, is a big no-no).

I don't have to work very hard to envision being in a situation where I am annoyed by what bishops do, either individually or collectively. But I don't willfully ignore the long theological tradition wherein a bishop is thought to encapsulate in his person the church which he serves as chief pastor, and is therefore qualified to speak on behalf of that church (diocese). I am, for that same reason, comfortable with the idea of the Lambeth Conference as speaking the mind of the Anglican Communion. I may not like what they say, but I am conscience-bound to give it the benefit of any doubt, and weigh it carefully, before discarding it.

That this principle is still operative within Anglicanism is evident in all the talk about "communion with the See of Canterbury." I personally have immense regard for the current occupant of that See, but it's not about communion with Rowan Williams, it's about communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, because he is a personal microcosm of the diocese and province of Canterbury, and of the authority that office has held for some 1,400 years.

I don't expect the General Convention supremacists to back down from their position anytime soon. But it's good to be clear that, from the vantage point of broad Christian tradition, they are on thin ice.

For example...

Apropos of my previous post on the meaning of "high churchmanship" (which was, in turn, an elaboration of a way earlier thread on ecclesiology), here is what the Rev. Mark Harris, one of the more articulate and erudite bloggers of the "left," has to say as part of a long diatribe on why it may no longer be worth the effort for the Episcopal Church to remain Anglican:

Decent respect for the opinions of faithful Christians of all communities and communions requires that we should declare the reasons for our belief that The Episcopal Church is and always has been a freely gathered community of faithful Christians.

I'll resist the temptation to comment on the Jeffersonian tone of Father Harris' prose, but simply observe that he is articulating a classic Low Church position. The key words are "freely gathered community." This is a church-as-voluntary-association view, as distinguished from a church-as-organic-family view. His remarks also bolster my point about the American predisposition to Low Churchmanship.

High Churchmanship

Today is the lesser feast of William Laud, who served as Charles I's Archbishop of Canterbury in the years heading toward the middle of the seventeenth century. Along with the King, he lost his head to Cromwell's marauding Puritan hordes when they set up shop in 1645. Many Anglicans consider him a martyr.

Archbishop Laud believed in the divine right of kings. That's pretty much how he kept his job...and how he lost his life. But his principal legacy is as an exemplar of what came to be known as the High Church position within the Anglican theological spectrum.

High Church is a widely misunderstood term. Nashotah House, my seminary alma mater, has (or at least had when I was there) a "fight song," pulled out once a year on the occasion of the annual football contest with Seabury Western, known affectionately as the Lavabo Bowl. (For non-liturgy geeks, a real lavabo bowl is what is used when the celebrant's hands are washed at the time the altar is prepared for the Eucharist.) The song goes like this (sung to the tune of "On Wisconsin"):

On Nashotah, down with all those lib'ral Protestants!
Our position on tradition is our best defense. (Hail Ma-ry)
On Nashotah, sacerdotal Cath'lic liturgy,
High churchmanship leads us to victory!

The last line is a stretch, because we were soundly trounced all three years I was there. (I understand fortunes have reversed in more recent years.) The whole thing is a tongue-in-cheek caricature of Nashotah's reputation as an Anglo-Catholic institution, and I sing it with gusto with only the slightest provocation, and no alcohol is necessary.

Unfortunately, it perpetuates the misconception of what High Churchmanship is about. Most people think it refers to liturgical accoutrements such as candles, vestments, incense, bells, chanting, and the like. These are all wonderful things, and I heartily indulge in them. But they have little or nothing to do with being High Church.

High Churchmanship has...well...a high view of the nature and significance of the Church. It sees the Church as the sacrament of Christ, even as Christ is the sacrament of God--a sacrament being an outward and visible sign. High Churchmanship is reluctant to make too sharp a distinction between the mystical Body of Christ and the institutional Body of Christ. At the fringes, they are distinguishable, but between those fringes, there is a great deal of overlap where they cannot be effectively picked apart. To touch the institution is to touch the Mystical Body, and there is no contact with the Mystical Body except through some institutional expression. (I tell adults whom I baptize that they are simultaneously becoming a Christian, an Episcopalian, and a member of St John's; the three dimensions cannot be separated.) The "being" of the Church is prior to the "being" of her individual members.

A Low Church view, by contrast, sees the experience of the individual members as logically prior to the reality of the whole. A person meets Jesus, and therefore wants to hang out with others who have met Jesus, for all sorts of good reasons, but the main thing is that 'I' have met Jesus. The institutional dimension is just a matter of expediency.

Americans are, I fear, hard-wired toward a Low Church position. Voluntarism is a core value in our national DNA. Membership in the Church, speaking institutionally, is not qualitatively different from membership in a bowling league or a service club or a fraternal organization or a political party. We join when it suits our purposes and we leave when it no longer does so.

Of course, Anglicans of a Catholic bent are pre-disposed toward High Church theological views, and Evangelical Anglicans are given to Low Churchmanship. It has been thus for going on five centuries. Just ask William Laud and Oliver Cromwell. But in the present ecclesiastical wars, I seem to notice that even some self-styled Anglo-Catholics tend to forget to think like Catholics, and have become de facto Low Churchmen. Among Episcopalians who contend for a traditional understanding of authority and sexual morality, there is a divide between those who are eager to separate institutionally from the Church-of-General-Convention and those who are alarmed at the very prospect. I think the former are thinking Low Church, and the latter are thinking High Church.

This is a theme worth developing.

Blessed William Laud, pray for us.

Be Careful for Nothing

The experience of parish ministry has made me a believer in thinking systemically. The late Rabbi Edwin Friedman is the godfather of applying family systems theory to congregational life. His prime directive for leaders is: Be a non-anxious presence. Stay authentically connected to the system, but don't amplify and transmit its anxiety. The undoubtedly more accurate RSV translation of St Paul's admonition to the Philippians about rejoicing reads, "Have no anxiety about anything." The KJV, which sticks in my mind probably because of the Henry Purcell anthem on that text, reads, "Be careful for nothing."

I strive religiously (after all, how else would a priest be expected to strive?!) to follow this advice. Sometimes I do well. At other times I don't. But I keep trying nonetheless. It's important. And it's difficult. In my effort to be non-anxious, some might think I don't care. The temptation is to get sucked back into an anxious state. Anxiety, like misery, loves company. My job in those moments is to have a high tolerance for people's disappointment with me. I serve them best as a leader and pastor when I don't come to the rescue--theirs or my own.

The Anglican world will be a source for plenty of anxiety over the next few weeks for those who are looking for it. Today it was announced that the heretofore do-nothing Panel of Reference actually did something. It essentially vindicated the Diocese of Fort Worth with respect to their position on the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate--in short, that their position is within the bounds of Anglican theology, that they have the right to hold it and practice it without being subject to sanctions from the Episcopal Church, that they have the right when the time comes to elect a bishop who will continue that position and to have that election consented-to by the rest of the church, that their arrangement with the Diocese of Dallas for assisting women with their discernment of a call to priestly ministry is a commendable example, and that the matter itself is indeed in a process of "reception" that will probably not be concluded during the lifetime of anyone currently active in the debate.

This is fairly big, but its bigness has to do not so much with the actual issue of women's ordination, about which nothing will really change, as with the notion that offshore Anglican authorities (such as, in this case, the Panel of Reference) are acting legitimately when they hold particular provinces (such as, in this case, the Episcopal Church) accountable to a measure of discipline that transcends that province's own constitutional formularies. The predictable voices are already crying "Foul!" They are anxious, and understandably so. This is not a defining moment of mega-importance, but it is one more link in a chain of events that bolsters my continued confidence that real Anglican realignment is in the offing, and that a new thing is being done.

The second Camp Allen meeting of "Windsor Bishops" has come and gone, with only a brief and not very informative statement finally being issued today by Bishop Wimberly, the host and convener. Speculation is rampant, but futile. I'm not showing up to that party. It does raise anxiety all around, however.

But the real anxiety producer at the moment is now scarcely more than a month away, and it's the next meeting of the Anglican Primates, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Many are expecting, and many more are hoping, that this will be truly a defining moment. Decisions are being delayed in view of potential outcomes from that meeting--decisions by individuals, decisions by congregations, and decisions by dioceses. We now know that the Presiding Bishop has been invited. But, once there, will she be allowed to stay? What effect will the Dromantine Statement have on the level of her participation? We now know that there will be a "pre-meeting" involving TEC bishops other than the Presiding Bishop. Who will they be? Will they include Bishop Duncan, the putative "shadow primate" of the Network? Will the larger group of Windsor Bishops be represented? Once the actual meeting begins, will either or both of these be invited to stay? Alongside Bishop Jefferts Schori? In place of her? Will there be some formal word of "discipline" for the Episcopal Church? Will any details from the developing Anglican Covenant be revealed? Will there be any hint of who will and who will not be invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conference?

Can you feel the anxiety rising?

I think those who are looking for Dar es Salaam to be an unmistakable watershed in Anglican history will be disappointed. Important things will happen there, but the sort of unambiguous clarity that many are looking for will not materialize. Rather, it will be another link in a long chain. When we look at history, we find that, in the vast majority of circumstances, clarity only emerges in retrospect. We look back at events and can discern directions and trends and patterns. But we don't know it in the moment. There will be no moment when the Anglican world holds its breath and experiences realignment. It will not be either a Pauline "Damascus Road" experience or a Wesleyan strange warming. Instead, somewhere in the process of muddling through, it will dawn on Anglicans--not all at the same time, no doubt--that things have changed, that the shift has occurred.

I am on record as believing that it will be a good shift. I continue to hold that hope. I'm trying not to be anxious.

Epiphany Update

In my previous post I ascribed to the Bishop of Washington possible (probable?) responsibility for abridging John 14:6 at Gerald Ford's National Cathedral funeral. This was based on information from someone I know who is very well connected in national church circles. I have since been contacted by someone who is in even a better position to know, and I believe this person's denial that Bishop Chane's finger was in this pot. I retract my suggestion that it was.

The substance of my observations about the significance of the omission, however, remains intact.

Epiphany

With what's left of my seminary Greek after eighteen years, I can break the word down into a prefix epi--"out-outer-over"--and a verb stem phan--"show." So we get something like "show forth" or, in more traditional English parlance, "manifest." In the Prayer Book tradition, the subtitle of today's feast is "the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles." Jesus is for everybody, not just for the cultural heirs of Christendom. See yesterday's post.

This is not a neutral assertion. It is controversial. As recently as this past week, there was a flap in the Anglican blogsphere over a detail in the Washington Cathedral station of President Ford's peripatetic funeral. One of the standard lectionary choices for a Prayer Book burial service is John 14:1-6. The final verse reads "Jesus said to [Thomas), 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, but by me.'" Only when the lesson was read in the service, the final phrase ("no one comes...") was omitted.

Oops.

To my knowledge, nobody has claimed credit for this bit of latter-day redaction. A source who may be in a position to know asserts with confidence that it was the decision of John Chane, the Bishop of Washington, on whose turf the rites were taking place. In turn, his behavior may have been prompted by the fact that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is still feeling the aftershocks of her pre-installation remarks in the press to the effect that Jesus is one way to God, but there are others.

It's tricky to sort out the substance from the reactivity in all this. My own take is that the P.B. has wandered off the reservation on this one. Maybe she would like to slip back in under the fence if she could do so without being noticed. But she's clearly out of bounds, as a Christian leader, in her assertion that there are pluriform and equally efficacious routes to reconciliation and communion with the Creator of all things.

Nonetheless, I can appreciate where she and others get some of their animus. There are Christians who give Christianity a bad name by taking verses like John 14:6 and turning them into cudgels with which they bludgeon the very souls Jesus wants to save. They are more interested in the precise nature of Hell and who actually goes there than they are with preventing its overpopulation.

As a matter of logical necessity, I believe in the existence of Hell because I believe in free will. I tend to believe that Hell is actually populated, because I've known of some people who were so immersed in evil that they seem to have lost any semblance of humanity. I know that faith in Christ and communion with his Church is the sure and certain route to Heaven, and that it is therefore of the essence of the Church's mission to constantly and winsomely invite all people--yes, even Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Wiccans--into her fellowship. But I certainly don't try to shackle God's love by pretending to know what God has not actually revealed. If He wants to save some who have never "professed and called themselves Christians," then that's His business. More power to Him.

Shine, Jesus, shine.

Twelve Drummers Drumming

Happy Twelfth Day of Christmas.

That would make this evening, of course, Twelfth Night, an observance that inspired the title of Shakespeare's play. It is the Eve of the Epiphany, one of the seven occasions styled Principal Feasts in the (American) Book of Common Prayer. Our liturgical celebration of the feast at St John's will take place tonight, with a Mass and dinner.

Among other things, Epiphany is a celebration of the universality of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The significant descriptor of the Wise Men (the primary symbol of Epiphany in western Christianity) is that they were not Jews, and, hence, represent all who are not Jews. Even though God is in a covenant relationship with the people of Israel, and his Messiah--the anointed One, the Christ--became incarnate as a Jew, what the Christ accomplishes is for the sake of all people everywhere in every time. One of the marks of the Church is that it is "catholic"--from the Greek kata holos, "according to the entirety." That mark is diminished to the extent that we fail to find ways to effectively communicate the gospel across languages and cultures.

One of the candidates for ordination that I helped examine this week is a young man from an Asian country--his English is passable but not fluent--whose primary ministry at this time is doing front line evangelism among a specific Muslim population in a California city. I am completely in awe. Since my subject area for examination is Liturgy and Church Music, I questioned him some about how he uses music in settings where the Hymnal 1982 would be a virtually worthless resource. He acknowledged the power of music in the process of evangelization and faith formation--a fact which Christians have recognized at least as far back as St Augustine of Hippo--and said he tries to find music that is already part of the culture in which he is working and see if it can be adapted to his purposes. It's a tricky endeavor, because one never knows what unspoken associations people may have with the music that might turn out to make its use counterproductive. Yet, Martin Luther used the same technique, adapting popular German drinking tunes to sacred texts. They became the chorales that Bach turned into high art some 200 years later.

Another ordinand was an older gentleman who already has a thriving prison ministry, and believes himself called to continue that work as a priest. This is a demographic segment that, for the most part, will not naturally be drawn to the Anglican ethos at such time as they may rejoin mainstream society. Once again, I am in awe. I would never be able to come close to doing what either of these guys is up to for the sake of the Kingdom, bearing witness to the universality, the catholicity, of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And this all puts me in mind of a question that has gnawed at me for some time. North American Anglicans are not very good at being a "peasant" church. We don't know how to be "blue collar." It isn't so much lack of desire or conviction. It's simply that, with some local exceptions, we just don't know how. We have a lot to offer those who are college educated, those who have an affinity for the fine arts, as well as English majors and Anglophiles. We minister among this demographic segment naturally. We could do it in our sleep. But with the Country & Western, or Hip-Hop, or Mariachi crowd (I'm not talking about musical tastes with these categories as much as a holistic cultural vocabulary), we're clueless.

Doubtless some will say, "Get yourself a praise band and sing praise choruses." But I'm not really talking about the sort of folk who are flocking to Willow Creek and Saddleback-style mega-churhes. A lot of them are educated professionals. I'm talking about people who are, by reason of education or ethnicity or economic status, more marginal than that. I don't know of any liturgical-sacramental church that does a good job evangelizing and retaining large segments of such populations. The Roman Catholics, of course, do so to some extent, because of cultural interia among Hispanics and some Asians (and, to the extent that any are still culturally marginalized: Italians, Poles, Irish, and Germans). But even they are nervous about the inroads made by Evangelicals and Pentecostals.

I'm a "High Church" Anglican. I'm not talking about an affinity for certain liturgical practices, but a conviction that an ecclesial culture that is fully sacramental, eucharistically focused, and episcopally-ordered represents the fullness of what God wills for his people, and that churches that lack any of these elements are impoverished for doing so. With such convictions, there is no option of simply saying "different strokes for different folks" and letting the Assemblies of God have all the cowboy Christians, while we wait on the sidelines to skim off the few who pick up a book on church history and "get it." Episcopalians have too long been ecclesiastical scavengers in that way.

If we take seriously the message of Epiphany, and the importance of Catholicity, we will find a way to do better.

Dancing Ladies & Leaping Lords

...and probably Piping Pipers as well.

Happy Ninth and Tenth (and maybe Eleventh) Days of Christmas.

I'm shortly off to our diocesan conference center, where there is a wireless network signal, but I won't really have any time. Then, on Thursday, our son and his wife will be arriving for a brief visit, and I will be appropriately consumed with picking them up at the airport and visiting.

I will be spending tonight and all day tomorrow (until about 10 PM) participating in the oral examination (no, we won't be looking into their mouths, but will be interested in what words come out of them) of four future priests of this diocese. I chair the Board of Examining Chaplains, and serve as the examiner in the subject area of Liturgy and Church Music. (The others? Church History, Christian Theology, Scripture, Ethics & Moral Theology, Church & Contemporary Society, and Theory & Practice of Ministry). I grant that it will be grueling for the candidates, but their ordeal will be over in three hours. (Well, they did spend three days last week with the written portion, the results of which will form the basis of our "conversation.") But it is exhuasting for the examiners, as we will be spending twelve hours of total face time with the four of them. I walk away from each of these events thoroughly drained, but grateful for the opportunity to take a part in the academic formation (yes, there are teaching moments even at this late stage) of these ordinands.

Now...does anyone else notice a problem? There are ten Lords a-Leaping but only nine Ladies Dancing. One of the Lords is going to be a little miffed.

Eight Maids A-Milking

Happy Eighth Day of Christmas.

Among the churches that follow a liturgical calendar, there is some variation as to what this day is. For Roman Catholics, it is the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. For Episcopalians (and Anglicans in some, but not all, other provinces), it is the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. (Apparently, from my short internet search, the RCs now keep that observance on January 3rd.)

In former incarnations of the Prayer Book Calendar, it was the feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord Jesus Christ--a religious ritual act that was prescribed for the eighth day of a boy child's life. Some have contended that the by-product of that event found its way to a church in Italy, where it has been an object of veneration for centuries. Alas, it has recently been absconded with. What a scandal!

The name Jesus (aka Joshua, aka Yeshua) means "the LORD (Yahweh, that is) saves." The whole notion that names actually mean something objective is foreign to most contemporary Americans. Instead, we see naming as an opportunity to either honor family tradition, or a family member (my nephew and his wife just named their newborn daughter after her aunt), or, more and more frequently, to exercise creative autonomy, making up names from whole cloth not because of what they mean but because of how they sound--and spelling them any old way; there was a recent spate of letters to Dear Abby on this subject, and she stepped to a few toes!

As a society we are treading new ground in thus trying to be original, and, I suspect, unwittingly impoverishing ourselves. Other cultures retain the sense that a person's name is a sign of some aspect of that person's essence. I still recall being struck in the film Dances With Wolves how a woman was named Stands With a Fist, in token of her capacity for self-assured confrontation. (And, of course, the movie's title is the name given the main character by the Indians he befriended.) What have we lost in our social discourse by discarding the connection between names and meaning, turning the process of naming into a form of abstract expressionism? I don't know that I can say for sure, but my intuitive hunch is that it's significant.

I'm grateful for having had the opportunity to study some Hebrew while in seminary, and learning the precise breakdown of my own given name. "Daniel" is usually explained as "God is my judge." More literally and pedantically, it is "judge of me--God." For what it's worth, if you're into the Myers-Briggs thing, I'm an INTJ, which means, among other things, that exercising judgment comes very naturally to me! A former spiritual director once told me I had a "ministry of boundary setting." If I had an animal totem, it would undoubtedly be the Border Collie, which is perhaps why I find myself jealous of the attention my wife pays to her dog, who actually is a Border Collie.

A name means something. Even if we don't know what that meaning is, we still want people to get it right, pronounce it right, spell it right. If if means nothing else, my name at least means me. I regularly get junk mail addressed to "David Martins." No offense to anyone named David, but it ain't my name. More frequently, the final letter of my surname is omitted. It irks me every time. For similar reasons, it annoys me greatly when people use the holy name of Jesus as a casual expletive. I'm not a prude about vulgar language. Very little in the lexicon of words that would arouse the attention of the FCC offends me. This one does, and when I hear it, I want to cover my ears and say, "Oh, that hurts. Please don't do that."

Blessed be the Holy Name of Jesus.

Oh...in the secular calendar, it's also New Year's Day. So Happy 2007 to everyone in that small but elite group who look at this humble blog!

Seven Swans A-Swimming

Happy Seventh Day of Christmas.

Christmas is multi-dimensional. There's the very concrete narrative of Christmas Eve, brought to us by St Luke, with the angels and shepherds and animals gathered at the manger. Such concreteness is important; a sacrament, after all, has to have an outward and visible sign. But that aspect of Christmas is surely vulnerable to "Hallmarkization," to being taken hostage by the cult of cute.

So I am grateful for the Christmas that is brought to us by St John, in the mystical prologue to the Fourth Gospel, with light penetrating darkness and the Word becoming flesh. This is the "inward and spiritual grace" of Christmas. It may be more cerebral and theological than the warm and fuzzy nativity scene. But it is also cosmic in scope, and indicative of the grand mysterium fidei--the mystery of faith.

Back in a previous lifetime--aka the mid-seventies--I earned a Master of Arts degree in Music History from the University of California at Santa Barbara. (I was dissuaded from an academic career by an awareness of the role politics plays in such environments, so I opted for an ecclesiastical career instead, which is free of politics. .... Right?) My thesis focused on a capella settings of the Latin Mass composed in the twentieth century. Composers who set out to write a choral setting of the Mass texts have to deal one way or another with the intertial momentum of a great number of formal conventions accumulated over the centuries. One such convention is that when the text of the Nicene Creed gets to et incarnatus est ("and became incarnate"), the music gets simple, slow, and quiet. This mood lasts through, and culminates with, et homo factus est ("and was made man").

For the record, most twentieth century composers who set the Mass dutifully followed this convention. It reflects the same impetus that leads to bowing or genuflecting at these words of the creed, or standing quietly in place when the Angelus bell is rung. It is a response of the heart and spirit, not to the touching story of a harrowing experience for a young mother giving birth under difficult circumstances, or to a cute baby, but to the crushing mystery of the Infinite becoming finite, the Eternal becoming temporal, the Great becoming small, the Wholly Other becoming familiar, and the inaccessibly Far becoming accessibly near. In the words of the ancient Matins antiphon for the First Sunday after Christmas: "While all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her swift course, your Almighty Word, O Lord, leaped down out of your royal throne." The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us: Come, let us adore him.

Six Geese A-Laying

Happy Sixth Day of Christmas.

One of the legends associated with the song The Twelve Days of Christmas is that it was originally a piece of coded catechesis for recusant English Roman Catholics in the decades following the separation between the Church of England and the See of Rome. Each of the gift items is said to represent one of the items of Catholic faith and practice. There are some very good reasons, detailed here, why this is probably not true. Nonetheless, it provides a pretext for this Anglican's reflections on the Church of Rome.

Most Anglicans of a Catholic bent get Roman Fever from time to time. I know I do. But I was brought up short this week by the published confession of a prominent Evangelical Anglican, the Very Revd Paul Zahl, Dean of Trinity (Episcopal?) School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. "I could become a Roman Catholic in a heartbeat," he said in this interview. Of course, he went on to explain the reasons why he does not plan to do so...but still, this was an arresting line for one who authored a book called The Protestant Face of Anglicanism.

The fact is that Anglicans, consciously or not, perpetually define themselves in relation to the Roman Catholic Church. It is the constant backdrop that we can never really escape. Evangelicals and Liberals tend to respond to this reality by painting themselves a contrasting color, as if to say, "See what we are not!" Anglo-Catholics are generally more chameleon-like: "See how alike we are!" But no matter how you look at it, the Roman Church is the 900-pound gorilla in the ecclesiastical jungle, and all the other animals, of whatever size, have to live and move and have their being in relation to it. (The only ones who seem not to do so are free-church evangelicals, for whom the tag "Christian" means only...well...them.)

One of the things I admire and envy about said gorilla is the lack of theological and liturgical idiosyncrasy at a local level. There are some features of contemporary American Roman Catholic liturgy that make me furrow my brow (more on that in a later post, no doubt), but, in my limited experience, there is a universality about it from parish to parish and diocese to diocese that I find appealing. There's less a sense that the local pastor is imposing his own predilections on the congregation than I find to be the case when I travel around the Episcopal Church. For our Roman friends, the Pope is in Rome. With Baptist, every believer is his or her own pope. But for Episcopalians, it is the local priest who all too often, in my not so humble opinion, speaks ex cathedra about all manner of things that should be beyond presbyteral comptetence.

Over on the House of Bishops/Deputies listserv, there's been a thread the last few days on the proper function of lay Eucharistic Ministers in relation to the liturgical duties of priests and deacons. I'm really concerned by the crazy ideas that are out there on the subject. It's not in and of itself earth-shatteringly important, but it's a weathervane for the sad state of theological and liturgical formation even among the clergy in the Episcopal Church. (And, interestingly, it's not an orthodox/revisionist divide; many well-known "reappraisers" have the right views on the subject--namely, they agree with me!)

Five Golden Rings

Happy Fifth Day of Christmas.

We have no "major holy day" today, beyond being in the midst of a festal season, but we do have a "lesser feast" of more than passing importance. This is the commemoration of St Thomas of Canterbury, aka Thomas Becket. There's a delicious scene from the 1964 film Becket, with Richard Burton in the title role, and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II (a clip is available here, but I do not have the technical smarts to provide a direct link), in which Henry reveals his brainstormed plan to place Thomas--his chancellor, drinking buddy, and whoring partner--in the suddenly vacant See of Canterbury, thinking he would thereby have his own inside man on the throne of St Augustine. Thomas tried to dissuade him. Henry should have listened.

The current axiom among cynical Episcopalians (if that isn't a redundancy) is that, when a new bishop is consecrated, the huddle of co-consecrators that obscures him from the view of the congregation for a minute or two while the actual deed is done actually masks a surgical procedure--the removal of the spine! In Thomas Becket's case, the opposite was the result. He grew a spine, repented of his dissolute ways, and stood up for the rights of the Church in the face of assaults from the Crown. Henry is then said to have uttered the rhetorical question, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Some of his aides apparently took him seriously, and on 29 December 1170, they dispatched the Archbishop in the north transept of Canterbury Cathedral. Pictured here is the shrine now on that spot, which it was my great joy to visit and offer prayers at in April of 2005. (In 1981, Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Robert Runcie prayed together at the same spot.)

Becket was relatively quickly canonized, viewed as a martyr, and Canterbury Cathedral became a major place of pilgrimage in the late Middle Ages, thus providing the inspiration for one of the classics of English literature, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. (I still recall the intermittent snickers erupting from my classmates in high school World Literature as we read together, silently but simultaneously, The Miller's Tale, which is on the racy side--at least by 1968 suburban Chicago standards).

Some 836 years later, St Thomas' successor on Augustine's throne, Rowan Williams, is in as much a need of a backbone as anyone who ever donned a miter. He is universally lauded as a theologian and scholar, and is undeniably in possession of a world class brilliant intellect. Not everyone agrees, however, with respect to his political and leadership skills and instincts. Many, on both the right and the left, think he's in over his head. I tend not to be in that camp. His latest letter--well-dissected elsewhere in cyberspace, but particularly here--exhibits idealism, wisdom, prudence, pragmatism, and hope all in one place. I pray for him daily.

Four Calling Birds

Happy Fourth Day of Christmas.

As I mentioned two days ago in connection with St Stephen's Day, it is slightly ironic, and also slightly appropriate, that in the midst of our yuletide rejoicing, blood is shed. This time it's that of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, whose feast we observe today.

The currently-showing film The Nativity Story frames its narrative with this gruesome event (but circumspectly--I don't recall actually seeing any blood, though there was plenty of "Rachel weeping for her children"). As is their wont, New Testament scholars are apt to attribute our knowledge of this barbarism to Matthew's keenness to provide a pretext for the Holy Family's sojourn in Egypt, in order to set Jesus up as the "new Moses." But the slaughter of innocent children hits most people at such a visceral level that erudite pronouncements of that sort seem trifling.

That leaves us with a bit of a scandal, related to the age-old question of theodicy, perhaps the single biggest challenge to Christian apologetics: How can a good God allow such awful things to happen? (To quote from Archibald MacLeish's play JB: "If God is God, then he is not good; if God is good, then he is not God.") And to compound the problem, the little boys of Bethlehem were put at risk precisely because of Jesus' presence among them. So does it not seem manifestly unfair that an angel would warn Joseph to get out of Dodge, but not slip a note to the other parents in town?

I'm not going to attempt to solve that dilemma in a blog post. This is the sort of thing where our Enlightenment scientific presuppositions get us in trouble. Being too literal only intensifies the pain. The symbolic and allegorical approach of our Patristic forbears is probably more helpful--at least in making sense of the observance (one hesitates to say "celebration") of the liturgical feast, if not of the event itself. The cardinal principle is that life is sustained only through the shedding of innocent blood. Whatever animals provided full-length clothing for Adam and Eve as they were banished from the garden were the first to learn this. Anyone who buys a pound of ground beef at a meat market should know the same thing. (Not to let vegetarians off the hook: Any fruit or vegetable has had its natural life cycle violently interrupted in order to become food.) The innocents of Bethlehem are a link in a long chain. Every link is ultimately connected to the Lamb of God, who by "his one oblation of himself, once offered" (BCP), takes away the sin of the world and grants us the peace of God by granting us peace with God.

Three French Hens

Happy Third Day of Christmas.

It's also St John's Day--the patron saint of my parish, and a great many others. It's too bad for John that his feast day comes two days after Christmas. Because the season of Christmas trumps most anything else liturgically, even churches dedicated to him are not allowed to transfer the observance to a Sunday, and hardly anybody is up to a proper weekday celebration when they're still worn out from Christmas Eve and everything that went on during Advent.

Fortunately, John himself has sufficient gravitas that he doesn't depend on a liturgical feast day to attract a critical mass of attention.

There's a bit of a divergence, of course, between ecclesiastical tradition and the currently prevailing scholarly consensus about John. The tradition holds that the Beloved Disciple, the Fourth Evangelist, the author of the three short epistles that bear his name, and the Book of Revelation are all one and the same person. New Testament scholars mostly think such a "John" is an amalgamation of several different individuals, all connected with an early ecclesial community that had something of a distinct existence until it was subsumed by the emerging catholic tradition early in the second century. Intellectually, I can track with the scholars, and what they say makes sense. Spiritually and pastorally, however, I'm more agnostic, and choose to "preach" (broadly construed) from the tradition. It is more nourishing than spending energy trying to get people to follow academic arguments that have very few concrete implications for them.

Glory ... light ... life (especially the eternal variety) ... the Good Shepherd--these are just some of the Johannine themes and images that pervade everyday Christian theology and devotion. The Lenten gospels for Year A, texts that formed the core of ancient catechesis, are an excellent "short course" in the essence of the gospel and the meaning of the baptismal mystery: Jesus and Nicodemus, the Samaritan Woman, the Man Born Blind, and the Raising of Lazarus.

Appreciating John requires, I think, a capacity to respond poetically. So much of the Johannine literature is poetic in nature, if not strictly in form. Trying to read the first epistle as if it were from Paul can be an exercise in immense frustration, especially for a linear thinker such as myself! This was a realization of adulthood for me; hence, I never saw the Eucharist in the sixth chapter of the Fourth Gospel. Now I can't not see it.

Holy John, pray for us.

Two Turtle Doves

Happy Second Day of Christmas ... aka Boxing Day ... aka St Stephen's Day (as in when Good King Wenceslas looked out on the deep, crisp, and even snow "on the feast of Stephen"). Probably more than one Christmas sermon included the thought that, as it has been put, "the shadow of the cross falls across the manger." The fact that we celebrate the Church's proto-martyr on the day after Christmas drives that point home with some urgency.

It was a bit of a pared-down Christmas in the Martins household this year. Because of the obligations of adulthood and marriage, two of our children did not make it to Stockton; only our oldest made the journey, flying in from Atlanta, for which her parents are immensely grateful. She was given (not by us) a gift that we all enjoyed this morning--a DVD of Handel's Messiah performed by the choir of King's College, Cambridge under the direction of Stephen Cleobury. It's unabridged, and we watched the whole thing. I highly recommend it. The choir of men and boys is crystal clear and precise. The baroque period instruments in the orchestra get their point across (i.e. "this is not anybody's Philharmonic") without sounding quaint or fashionably out of tune. The soloists are superb. Of particular note is the contralto, Hilary Summers. If you have any doubts about who may abide the Lord's coming, or whether he is really like a refiner's fire, hearing and watching her sing will make a believer out of you. The setting is sumptuous (a Dutch church) and the video production well-planned (focus on appropriate performers and appropriate times) and executed. If you happen to go looking for it on Amazon.com, I surely do invite you to do so though my parish website, because St John's will then get a cut!

Thanks to my habit of cruising Anglicans Online once a week, I ran across this video blog that seems worthy of a look just because of the concept: A young Episcopal priest (a rarity in itself) using the cultural vocabulary (technology, music, cinematic style) of his generation to connect with...well...the people of his generation, but not in a way that jettisons the symbols and vocabulary of his (Anglican) tradition. Refreshing. I haven't watched all his entries. It could be that I would find some theology that would make me gag. But I haven't yet. Give it a look.

Just before Christmas, the Archbishop of Canterbury gave the spinmeisters more raw material, and they've been busy since. I will weigh in soon, I'm sure. For the time being, I think Brad Drell gets is pretty well right--but mostly because he agrees with my own upstream speculations!

Friendly Fire

Apropos of the most recent blog post before this one, I find myself increasingly concerned by tensions within those quarters of the Anglican world that understand themselves as reasserting the received theological and moral tradition in resistance to the movements of the last several decades to radically reassess and revise that tradition. (If you found that opaque, it's because I'm trying to avoid such unhelpful labels as "conservative" or "orthodox" or "traditional.")

Significant events are occurring with some regularity, and the landscape is constantly shifting. Earlier this month, the Diocese of San Joaquin (full disclosure: my diocese) voted overwhelmingly to prepare the way for separating from the Church-of-General-Convention (aka the Episcopal Church) en route to . . . well, that's not entirely clear, but en route to something else, some other way of being Anglican. More recently, the Virgina secessions have been announced, and the spin doctors are in the red zone.

Whether, and how, all this will reach a tipping point is anybody's guess, and that uncertainty is spawning a fair amount of internecine squabbling. There are those who have already made the break (I hesitate to say "left" because that opens up the question of who's actually "leaving.") There are those who are fully "orthodox" in their faith and morals but have announced that they see no need, and foresee no possibility of a need, to separate from the Episcopal Church. Here one thinks of some of the "Windsor bishops" who are not affiliated with the Network. And then there are those at various points in the middle. I would number myself in this latter category.

As long as everything was theoretical, "reasserters" of various persuasions were capable of making common cause and being of great mutual support. Now that the quantity of "facts on the ground" is increasing at an ever faster pace, people are having to choose sides, make difficult decisions. This leads to strained relationships among friends, and sometimes outright ruptures. Parish communities are split down the middle. Diocesan colleagues find themselves at odds.

My biggest fear, and the Evil One's hope, is that the whole thing will develop a revolutionary psychology. The dark side of revolutions is that they inevitably consume their own. Monsieur Gilloutin eventually lost his head on the device he had invented to prosecute the cause of the revolution. In the Islamist revolution in Iran in 1979, two of the early leaders of the Ayatollah's new government were before long executed by that government. The specter that hangs over the Anglican realignment is the potential development of a "more orthodox than thou" revolutionary zeal.

Great will be the tragedy if the Anglican Communion founders on the rock of such misdirected zeal. I am at a loss to suggest what concrete actions might avert such a fate. I can only pray.

It's Not Just in Virginia

In the ongoing drama of the realignment of American Anglicanism, most of the attention over the last few days and weeks has been focused on Virginia, and the 15 congregations (including two of the largest and oldest in the diocese) that have voted to shift their allegiance to the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a mission of the Nigerian church.

Outside the media glare, however, are quiet tragedies playing out, I’m sure, all over the country, that are just as much casualties of the Anglican-Episcopal wars as when there is a clean break. I ran across the following from a parish website. I have a passing familiarity with the place, having had an interest in one aspect of the ministry of one of its previous rectors some years ago, and having worshiped there once on a Sunday when visiting the area. As recently as two years ago, it was a large and vibrant congregation in an urban area of a diocese that has no reputation for being particularly liberal or particularly conservative. What follows is a letter from the Senior Warden. I’ve taken out all the names. Read it and weep. I did.

Lest anyone here missed a few of the turns, let me remind you that a year ago at this meeting, we had five clergy associated with this parish – three full time priests, a vocational deacon, and a priest associate. Our Associate Rector N.N. retired last Christmas, our Rector N.N. and Deacon N.N. left during Lent, our Associate N.N. left this October, and our then Assistant now Interim Rector N.N. will follow this Christmas. With great hope, we hired a new transitional deacon in July, only to have him leave “St Swithun’s” and the Episcopal Church in September – on Rally Day no less. In addition, in early summer we canceled our contemporary worship service, and released two staff members, N.N., our Contemporary Worship Music Director, and N.N. who led our youth. In March, N.N., our long-time Office Manager, retired, and N.N., our Christian Education Director, will depart this Christmas with Fr. N. It has been a heck of a ride.

Our lay leadership and membership were also in transition. The national issues associated with the 2003 and 2006 General Conventions prompted three members of our Vestry to leave “St Swithun’s.” Senior Warden N.N., and Vestry members N.N. and N.N. left us and the Episcopal Church. I transitioned from junior to senior warden on July 1st, and N.N. accepted my former role. Later, N.N. and N.N. were selected to replace two of the Vestry members who left us. Since June, about 70 parishioners have left “St Swithun’s”, with most of those leaving the Episcopal Church. In terms of both attendance and finances, the third quarter of this year was probably the worst our parish has experienced in decades.

This almost literally makes me ill. To see a thriving witness to the Good News of Christ, a robustly healthy parish community, be ripped apart by dissension not because of what’s happening within, but because of varying responses to what’s happening outside the congregation, is heart-wrenching. This is not a “heretics vs. orthodox” parish conflict. It’s a battle between those with very traditional theological views. It’s a firing squad assembled in a circle. It makes me angry with the self-styled “progressives” who have militantly prosecuted their agenda without any regard for the larger ecclesial context. “St Swithun’s” is an innocent bystander in the culture wars. It also makes me angry with many self-styled “orthodox” who are apparently much more formed by the values of American (Protestant) individualism than by the organic Catholic ecclesiology of their Anglican inheritance. Kyrie eleison.

Seventeen Years

There's no particular reason to mark the seventeenth anniversary of anything, except perhaps that it's a prime number, and that should count for something. Anyway, seventeen years ago tonight I was ordained a priest at St Luke's Church, Baton Rouge, Diocese of Louisiana.

Those who know me will no doubt attest that I haven't aged a day.

Right?

Over my left shoulder in the picture is the good bishop who did the deed, James Barrow Brown, now retired. I remember him with fond gratitude, because he cheerfully took me in as a homeless deacon, having been more or less cut loose by my originating diocese. The other mitred man on my right is John Maury Allin, XXIII Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, who, in fairly recent retirement, was the preacher for the occasion. He was a bit of a giant of the sort they don't make anymore. May he rest in peace. We had the honor of his presence, I recall, because he was related by marriage to the then rector of St Luke's, Charles Jenkins, now Bishop of Louisiana.

The other fellow in the photo was ordained along with me, both of us serving as curates at St Luke's. The last I heard of Jim Anderson was when he wrote me in 1994 to say that he was resigning his ministry and leaving the Episcopal Church. I hope he found what it is he was looking for.

The next day, on the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle, I celebrated my first Mass--a liminal moment for a priest. The feeling cannot really be described. I was fortunate to begin my ordained ministry in a large, healthy, and vibrant parish. It was an affirming experience on which I "imprinted," and which therefore sustained me through some less affirming moments as a Vicar and Rector in the ensuing years.

Re-connecting with my sense of vocation-- striking the original match, so to speak--is a salutary blessing as I try to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit in this time of heightened ecclesial angst. Yes, we live in a difficult historical moment, a moment that I am finding demands every ounce of wisdom I might have, and every impulse toward self-differentiation I can muster. But it is all done in the context of, and for the sake of, being a bread-breaker and word-proclaimer to a particular community of Christians who are trying to get through the changes and chances of this life and somehow come to look more like Jesus in doing so. Whatever organizational, administrative, rhetorical, and political tasks I might engage as I fulfill my ordination vow to take my share in the councils of the church, it's all done for the sake of helping people learn to live in the Kingdom of Heaven, to be able to look God in the eye and not be turned to dust.

This is often what makes it possible for me to get out of bed in the morning.

An Honor Never Sought

The blog Stand Firm is hosting the 2007 (first annual?) Anglican Blog Awards. My humble and unworthy offering has been nominated--by whom I know not--in the category of Best New Blog. I would never have dreamed or desired such a nomination, but now that it's out there, I fear being reminded that this blog is even more humble and unworthy than I thought. (You see, I don't have a hit counter mainly because I can't figure out where to put the code, but not having one also spares my ego.) I'm getting creamed out there, folks. At the moment I've got all of two votes and I think I know where they both come from! So, while I don't expect to win, or even not come in last--Anglican TV, the runaway favorite, having all the hi-tech wizardry I know nothing about--I do invite those who may be so inclined to help me hold my head a little higher.

Prognosticating

Anyone who has participated on an internet message board has learned that cyberspace is a harshly unforgiving environment. Whatever we write is just out there, and probably stored on an incalculable number of hard drives, ready to be retrieved by ever more clever search engines. Such indelibility leads to a certain circumspection about what one says in the first place. I try to bear that in mind.

The Anglican corner of cyberspace is once again buzzing today, with the announced departure of several parishes from the Diocese of Virginia, representing nearly one-fifth of its total average Sunday attendance. That's a chunk. And it is not an abstraction for me. I served on a General Convention committee with Bishop Peter Lee and had fairly extensive exchanges with (now Bishop) Martyn Minns, who monitored the work of Committee 26 very closely. I have great respect and affection for both men, and it pains me to see them at odds with one another now.

With these "facts on the ground," and with San Joaquin's action earlier this month of releasing the safety and cocking the gun, though not yet pulling the trigger, still hanging out there, attention turns now to the meeting of all 38 Anglican Primates in Dar es Salaam in about two months' time. Speculation is rampant about whether they will allow Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori to even be seated, and whether the Global South Primates (23 of the 38) will prevail in their insistence that Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh be seated, effectively in her stead. Such speculation then extends to whether the Primates, or the 2008 Lambeth Conference, or anybody, will "kick the Episcopal Church out of the Anglican Communion."

For whatever it may be worth, I place the odds of a Schori-Duncan switch at about 50/50. (How's that for going out on a limb?!) I'm not predicting this, but it will not surprise me if some deal is brokered that puts both of them in the room on some basis. Just what basis I can't say. But it will be messy and ambiguous. We are, after all, still Anglicans.

And precisely because we are all still Anglicans, I have a firmer sense about whether the Episcopal Church will get "kicked out" of the Anglican Communion. It will not happen--not just like that, at any rate. Not by the Primates, not by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and still less by the Anglican Consultative Council, which I believe is operating on borrowed time, and will soon cease to exist or morph into something quite different under the coming Anglican Covenant. Rather, the conditions will be created under which TEC will pull the plug on itself. Lambeth will approve a draft Covenant and send it to the Provinces. The question on the floor in Anaheim in 2009 will be, "Do we opt in?" It will be an up or down vote, and amending the Covenant will not be one of the options. There will probably be another Special Commission and Special Committee, with lots of witnesses and hearings. But when the vote by orders is tallied, the question will fail. The Anglican train will simply keep moving on to the next station, leaving the Episcopal Church behind.

Lessons & Carols Afterglow

It was a lovely service, a full church, a great choir, fabulous music, with the measured unfolding of the drama ("The Mystery of Our Redemption, Part I: The Incarnation") in the words of Holy Scripture--from the narrative of the Fall in Genesis to the luminous prologue to John's gospel--taking us right to the place where we need to be in these last few days of Advent.

My amazing wife--who doubles the size of our parish choir every year for this event with extra singers from around the community through her sheer musical magnetism--also produces a gem that she is often not even given credit for in the program, and that's a series of notes on the carols that are being sung. I wish there were some literary award I could nominate her for, because, quite apart from the texts and music they describe, they are treasures in themselves. I share them herewith:

Adam Lay Ybounden: A famous and much-set text not only describes the key points of the ‘fall’ in the garden of Eden, but goes on to revel in that disaster as a catalyst for wondrous grace: “Blessed be the time that apple taken was!” Matthew Larkin’s setting for women’s voices evokes swirling and colliding spirit-winds in the cosmos – a primeval sense of redemption activated, even pre-existing the need.

What Sweeter Music: The apex of mystical poetry is surely represented in this Robert Herrick poem, with its winning images of the world awakening to welcome its king. And certainly nothing can compare with the hushed moment of sweet recognition at the center of this work: ‘We see him come, and know him ours’. Masterfully set by the great Anglican composer, John Rutter.

What Cheer?: The traditional English response is ‘Good Cheer!’ The occasion for ‘this good New Year’ is not a calendar one, but the complete joy and sense of all things being made new in Messiah’s birth, foretold in the Isaiah lesson. William Walton musical setting conjures up a village in celebration, with the cheery greeting and response echoing/reverberating among its reveling and delighted inhabitants.

God is with us: a Christmas Proclamation: John Tavener sets a dramatic musical table here with an interacting set of characters. Men begin with the title drone, evoking a sense of the presence of God underlying all of creation. The full choir plays the role of nomadic evangelists. As they wander, proclaiming their message, one can almost taste the dust of a middle eastern desert and sense whether they’ve arrived in the next town or are directly in front of us, by their dynamics. The solo evangelists give the star message, proclaiming the good news of the prophet Isaiah. These three components interact and weave together, with the choir picking up the drone, which rises to an excited pitch that almost drowns out – or at least joins – the evangelists. The final declaration, “Christ is Born!” is punctuated by a new character – the organ – as it speaks a visceral amen from the throne of God.

I Wonder as I Wander: John Rutter arranges this traditional Appalachian carol with his signature, characteristic sweet warmth. Not the only carol to span redemptive time, it connects the birth and foreshadowed death of Jesus, mixing images of the sweet birth of the newborn king with the poignancy of His future chosen sacrifice.

There is No Rose: Robert Young has been described as a “master at keeping 20th century music tasteful.” This lush setting of a traditional text, extolling Mary as the Rose that bears the fruit of the tree of Jesse, hearkens back with chant-like phrases and captures contemporary imaginations with its energy and complex harmonies. Each verse of text concludes with a trinity of Latin phrases.

Corpus Christi Carol: Lullaby carols typically use the sweet “lully, lullay” phrase to portray the effect of a mother cooing to her child. In this carol, that refrain becomes more and more anguished as Mary has a premonition of her Son’s death. The medieval text portrays God as a ‘falcon’, Mary as a ‘maid’, and Jesus as a mortally wounded knight. Her final vision is of a headstone with the inscription “Corpus Christ” (Body of Christ). One can almost sense a heart-broken, fist-shaking Mary sobbing her lullays.

Lux Arumque: Eric Whitacre is an expert in galactic sounds of the human spirit. His glittering, impressionistic effects transform the concept of a well-defined gold ring ‘halo’ into something closer to light’s essence of liquid gold. The overall sound evokes the texture of angels’ wings.

In Time of Softest Snow: John Carter matches the sweet-storytelling of Mary Kay Beall with music that poetically and palpably punctuates the nativity story. Can you feel the ‘softest snow’ on your mittens? Perhaps you’re pushed aside as three kings hurry to the child? Arriving wise men take time to ponder; hearts almost stop at mention of the ‘pure and gentle Lamb’. And then - the striking awe of ‘the great I Am’! The Christmas scene is painted, and we’re drawn in to the action: nativity characters in their traditional places catch our observer eyes and you just might feel the invited singers kneeling in love…under the stage light of ‘the Star’.

Silent Night: What can we say? This is the first time, in our nine years of presenting this service that we’ve included a traditional, recognizable carol – a melody that everyone can hum! Mark Johnson’s captivating setting frames a stacked-up, expansive, universe-reaching middle verse with pure, holy night verses by the women (opening) and then the men (closing). Sheer ‘ah’…

While All Things Were in Quiet Silence: This carol hearkens back to where we began with our first carol. Hints of swirling spirit expand, taking on ever more form and presence in surrounding an unspeakable event – the leaping of The Word from the throne of God. Rorem’s compositional vehicle might be compared to a musical spaceship that, with ever transitioning harmonies, hints at touching down, but only settles at the holy end.

A Shameles Plug

For any of you out there in blogland who happen find yourselves in central California this weekend, come on over to Stockton and experience the Ninth Annual Festival of Lessons & Carols at St John's Church. Your soul will thank you.

For those of you who are aficionados of the genre, we do it "Sewanee style"--that is, beginning very much in Advent (with the Palestrina Matins responsory "I Look from Afar") and then sliding in to full-out Christmas by the end (with "Once in Royal David's City").

The choir is serving up an incredibly rich fare, with nothing written before 1960!:

Adam Lay Ybounden (Matthew Larkin)
What Sweeter Music (John Rutter)
What Cheer! (William Walton)
God Is With Us (John Tavener)
I Wonder as I Wander (arr. Rutter)
There Is No Rose (Robert H. Young)
Corpus Christi Carol* (Trond Kverno)
Lux Aurumque (Eric Whitacre)
In Time of Softest Snow (John Carter)
Silent Night (arr. Mark David Johnson)
While All Things Were in Quiet Silence (Ned Rorem)

*my personal favorite--you must check it out!

It's at 6:00 PM. For directions see the St John's website.

Since I sleep with the choir director, I'm obligated to say that it's the best L&C west of the Continental Divide. But even if I weren't obligated, it would still be true!

The Anglican News Day

This is not a news blog. I don't attempt to scoop anyone. And I try to avoid fomenting what seems to me much of the time to be a highly cannibalistic Anglican blogsphere. So, since I neither originate news nor, except incidentally, spread news, I depend on the worthiness of my reflections and comments. Or, from time to time, the worthiness of others' comments, i.e. those that are not generally accessible to the public.

I spoke on the phone today with a good friend of mine, a priest of another diocese, and he read me an eMail message to another, mutual, presbyteral friend, and I thought it so incisive and apposite with respect to the present Anglican angst, that I asked him to send it to me as well, for the express purpose of doing what I'm doing now--that is, sharing it.

But first, the news...in digest. Two items came out today that are of broad interest to Anglicans. The primate of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi, issued a statement re-affirming an earlier declaration that his province is not in communion with the Episcopal Church, that they will take no more money from TEC or entities thereto related, save for those bishops, dioceses, parishes, and institutions that are related to the Anglican Communion Network, that they will send no students to Episcopal seminaries, except for TESM and Nashotah, and--here's the important part--he will join in a request to Canterbury that the Presiding Bishop of TEC not be seated at the Primates' Meeting set for February in Tanzania, and that a bishop representative of the Network be seated in her stead. This gives some further traction to the Kigali Statement issued by the Global South Primates last September.

We also heard today of a meeting between representatives of a large contingent of Church of England evangelicals and Archbishop Williams, wherein His Grace was presented with a list of what amount to demands that British evangelical Anglicans be freed from some of the political and bureaucratic procedures that they feel shackle them in their work and witness and deprive them of a level of power that would be commensurate with their numerical strength. Their demands were articulated in the form of a proposed "Covenant," upon which it is that my friend comments:

I'd grabbed the "covenant" off of the "Mainstream" website before I got your forward and was enthusiastic at the thought that something significant had begun. Maybe it has. Unfortunately, it is in a direction that I cannot go. I've come to realize that all the talk of restoration, reformation, and renewal contrasts deeply with my own conviction that what Anglicanism needs is renunciation, repentance, and return. I could almost say "romanization," but that would imply a dismissal of the Orthodox that I neither intend or believe. It would also suggest a contentment with the way our latin fellowship manages being the church, and that too would be incorrect. RCism is a mess. At least it is Church.

Like all of our protestant kin, we have inherited the tendency of perpetual division and fragmentation. Calls for renewal and reform always mean some form of overthrow of tradition and its divine authority. It always tends to exclusive fellowship centered in the local (formerly congregational). And it always spawns further fragmentation in the next generation. I grew up in what was then seen as an extreme offshoot of that tendency. Now it is rather mainstream, and the newer megachurches have taken over its former market.

Either of today's developments would have noticeably raised the heat under Dr Williams. Together, they cannot be contributing to his peace of mind. Neither do they contribute to my own! Anglicanism is in a high stakes poker game at the moment. Nobody knows exactly who's holding what cards, or who's got the best poker face. In the dead of the night, my blood runs cold with premonitions of the sort of escalating fragmentation that my friend describes. He is a conservative Anglo-Catholic; I dare say, more conservative than I am. So he's no Episcopal Church corporatist trying to get everyone to "stay at the table."

Jesu, mercy. Mary, pray.

The Nativity Story

The youth group of St John's made an outing to the cineplex across the street from the church this afternoon to take in The Nativity Story, and they very kindly invited their Rector to accompany them, which I was all too happy to do. I enjoy movies, and I am, by professional commitment if nothing else, a fan of the nativity story, generically construed, so it was a no-brainer.

In my alter ego fantasy world, where I am a film maker (among several other things), I have long fantasized about doing a project of this sort. I don't think it's ever been done particularly well. There are a couple of what I consider worthy efforts that deal with the other end of Jesus' life on this planet--Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ and Mel Gibson's more recent The Passion of the Christ. But nothing of comparable edginess--nothing that I am aware of, at any rate--has been done with the beginning of the story.

I walked into the theater with modest expectations, and was therefore only slightly disappointed. It has been slammed by critics as being essentially a Sunday School Christmas pageant with a big budget and great costumes, and that assessment is not far from the mark. There were some bright spots: Framing the story as a flashback from the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem, and then weaving three distinct strands--the folks in Nazareth, Herod & Company in Jersusalem, and the Magi making their way in from Persia. The musical score, while not outstanding, showed some imagination by just hinting at several classic Christmas carols without ever indulging in a clear and complete statement of any of them. Depiction of village life in Nazareth--particularly life on the edge of economic viability and in constant fear of Roman tyranny--was nicely done. And, like I said, the costumes were great.

Broadly speaking, however, the film is...How shall I put this?...unchallenging. It may as well have been made by Hallmark. It's a harmonized redaction of the gospel material from Luke and Matthew, garnished with a sprinkling of John (from a most unlikely source--one of the Magi commenting on his gift being fit for a God who has been made flesh), then amplified with such creative details as the arranged betrothal of Mary to Joseph (Mary was not pleased) and the way in which her pregnancy was revealed to all concerned.

That said, I have two comments: First, The Nativity Story does no harm. It does not fail to achieve what it attempts, because it doesn't attempt much. If it is not high art, neither is it bad catechesis. I was glad to have our youth group there. Reinforcing the gospel infancy narratives--narratives that will shortly figure prominently in their liturgical experience--and doing so in a dramatic and compelling way, is not a bad thing. As a pastor, I was grateful for it.

But as a lover of the cinematic arts, I was left hungry. And I have finicky tastes. If I'd like to see something that transcends the level of greeting card piety, that doesn't mean I'm looking for something that is scandalous or iconoclastic. I'm not looking for a film that distorts or mocks how Christians have apprehended the biblical story of Jesus' birth just in order to shock, or just because it can be done. No, I am looking for something that is apparently elusive, because I'm not aware of it ever having been done. I'm looking for something that is sympathetic to--or at least respects--Christian piety, but is also imaginatively speculative both in presenting the details that the gospel evangelists do give us and in filling in what they leave blank. In other words, something edgy. I've got a few ideas, but I'll save them for when a producer contacts me!