More on Christian Diversity

The Week of Prayer for Christian Diversity has had me thinking about what praying for diversity is all about. I have been asked, for example, “Do you really want Christians not to agree with one another?” Well, not exactly. The Rev. Bosco Peters, who thought up the idea for this week, put his essential insight this way:

The Week of Prayer for Christian Diversity prays that we realise that agreeing to disagree will be the only way forward.

Conflict over doctrine, often doctrine that, in retrospect, is anything but central to the gospel, has bitterly divided Christians over the centuries, has even inspired wars. In our own day, the status of homosexuals in the church and society has been an issue that has seriously divided the Anglican Communion. I feel confident, however, that, in the twenty-second century, homosexuals will no longer be a special group we argue about; they will simply be people like the rest of us (including women, of course), who will routinely marry and be ordained without any special notice. Moreover, the historical arguments within the church about homosexuals will be seen as ignorant and trivial. Agreeing to disagree about homosexuality now—tolerating our present diversity—will get us through our present uncomfortable divisions.

This is not to say that tolerating diversity always leads to an eventual consensus. It does, I think, lead to perspective and, in many cases, to a common view. (One is hard-pressed to find Christian defenders of slavery today.) But there appears to be an inexhaustible source of disagreements among Christians, and, as old debates die down, new ones are born.

There is, however, a positive aspect of diversity. The willingness to articulate unorthodox, even heretical, ideas within the church is necessary for the kind of dialectic that leads to new insights, and, ultimately, to new consensus within the church. Abolitionists within and outside the church, were needed to challenge the orthodoxy of the acceptability of slavery in order to bring the church to a new missional understanding that enslaving our fellow human beings is fundamentally wrong.

We therefore should be praying for a tolerance of diversity to prevent unnecessary and damaging disunity within the church, but we should also be praying that our comfortable but mistaken beliefs will be challenged by those willing to oppose the current orthodoxy.

The forgoing is really an introduction to things I have written over the years which were informed by my work with Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh involving trying to prevent the schism that eventually befell my diocese. This will, I hope, contribute to the commemoration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Diversity.

The first of these compositions is a collect for unity, written in October 2004:

Creator of the universe, who made us different from one another in myriad ways we can see and in more ways we shall never know, yet made us all in your image; fill our hearts with your love and our minds with your wisdom, that we may truly become brothers and sisters of your only Son, our Savior Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

More information about this collect can be found on my Web site here.

Next is a poem about Christian unity written even earlier, in September 2002:

Christian Unity

Around the table gathered, we

Are one in sweet community,

For Christ has ransomed one and all

Who answer to his loving call.

  

We worship God in many ways;

We celebrate on different days;

But Jesus is the guiding star

For Christians near and Christians far.

 

God’s plan for us is seldom clear;

We may a different drummer hear;

Yet, if we study and we pray,

The kingdom will be ours some day.

 

So let us vow to never fight

About who’s wrong and who is right

Concerning truths we cannot know

That turn our Christian friend to foe.

 

And let our worship fit our needs;

Let us unite in Christian deeds;

May we God’s love and mercy show

To those who don’t the Savior know.

More information about this poem is available here.

Finally, there is another poem on the unity in diversity theme, which I wrote in April 2011:

That They All May Be One

“That they all may be one,” they say he said,

But what of us when thus we pray?

Are not our bonds of wine and bread

Sufficient for the Church today?

Must Christians understand as one

The mysteries of God above?

Or should we learn from God the Son

That unity derives from love?

More information about this poem can be found here.


Postscript. It seems only fitting that I should include another poem of mine in this little essay that is actually titled “Diversity.” The poem—a limerick, really—is not about theological diversity, but its subject is not unrelated to ecclesiastical concerns. This poem was written in July 2000 and was tweaked a bit a few years later. More information can be found here. Consider this comic relief.

Diversity

There once was a priest of St. Mary’s

Who blessed all the dykes and the fairies.

When I asked, “Is that right?”

He said, “Don’t be uptight.

“God gave us a preference that varies!”

Week of Prayer for Christian Diversity

The Rev. Bosco Peters, an Anglican priest in Christchurch, New Zealand, writes the Liturgy blog. Bosco has declared, unilaterally it seems, the Week of Prayer for Christian Diversity. The week (octave, really) begins today, Sunday, January 27, 2013, and ends next Sunday, February 3, 2013. He writes on his blog

This week acknowledges and is honest about our diversity. In the Northern Hemisphere, Christians have just concluded a Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In the Southern Hemisphere, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity happens in the Easter Season. Christians cannot even agree when to pray for unity! Let us be honest about our extreme diversity of beliefs. Let us be honest about our enmity—Christian against Christian. Let us be honest about our disagreements. Let us be honest about the diversity of our actions—from some really good stuff, to quite a bit of downright evil. Let us be honest about getting some things right, and quite a bit wrong.

Christian unity is a lovely idea,, but Bosco wisely recognizes that, to many Anglicans, unity means uniformity. Thus, he concluded, we must celebrate Christian diversity explicitly. Bosco is on to something important, and I plan to celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Diversity as best I can.

I have adopted Bosco’s badge celebrating Christian diversity. I have reproduced it below, and it now graces every page of my blog. I encourage other bloggers to adopt Bosco’s badge as well.

“That they all may be one” does not mean—should not mean—“that they all may agree.” There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, but that faith is not a large set of propositions on which all Christians must agree. Let us each proclaim and live out the gospel as we understand it and love our Christian brothers and sisters, even when their understanding of the gospel differs from our own.

Spiking Down the Pages

Many years ago, my aunt gave me a railroad spike. I don’t know the history of the spike, but it is a used one. After it was pulled up, someone had it bronzed, so it doesn’t rust. I have long used this 12 ounce, 6½ inch artifact as a paperweight.

The other day, I was writing in my notebook and having a hard time keeping the book open to the page I was using. The spike was nearby, and I though it might be just the thing to weigh down the page, so that it did not turn on me. As I was putting the spike down, the thought occurred to me to place its head between the left and right pages. It worked perfectly, almost as if the spike had been made for the purpose! (Click on the photo for a larger view.)

Second Inauguration

I wrote a poem for Barack Obama’s first inauguration. That poem, “Hail Barack Obama,” was perhaps overly optimistic in tone. Four years later, we face President Obama’s second inauguration more soberly, but we must hope that he can help us bring about a better America.

I could hardly help writing a second poem for an Obama second inauguration. That poem—or perhaps only a first draft of it—is below. I began writing it yesterday, the day on which Mr. Obama took the official oath. I finished the poem today as the President was just beginning his inauguration speech.
 

Second Inauguration

by Lionel Deimel

Once again, Barack Obama,
Hunter of the dread Osama,
Author of Obamacare,
And bane of every billionaire,
Lifts a hand and swears an oath,
And to our Union pledges troth.

Thus begins a second term
In which, perforce, he must be firm
When steering through the rocky shoals
Where Congress often smashes goals—
Progressive measures have no chance
When retrograde ideas advance.

The President must deal with debt,
With war and peace and terror threat;
He must confront the climate’s warming
And how the power grid’s performing:
Guns and jobs and immigration
All will vex Obama’s nation.

Barack Obama, President,
For four more years the resident
In the highest seat of power,
Goes forward from this hour;
Hope abides, and prayers ascend
That change our future may attend.

A Contribution to the Gun Discussion

Following the Sandy Hook massacre, everyone seems to be talking about what to do about guns. With President Obama having made his own proposals yesterday, the discussion will only intensify.

Also yesterday, I left a comment on Facebook about gun ownership that I thought needed to be said. It quickly became a mere drop in the wide and fast-moving Facebook river. I decided, however, that the thought required a bit more prominence, so I offer an expanded version of it here.

Many people have suggested that the government ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, or other weapons or accessories. This seems like a commonsense idea, but it is often met with the objection that there is already an unacceptable quantity of such material in the hands of citizens. This is a serious objection.
 
The proper response to the objection is to make possession of certain materials illegal without grandfathering current owners. In other words, ban not only the sale of, say, assault weapons, but also make possession of them illegal, giving their current owners a reasonable period during which their weapons must be surrendered to or purchased by the government. This, of course, constitutes “taking people’s guns away.” something no one seems to have the courage to suggest might be right and proper. The NRA knows this and is trying to convince us all that “taking people’s guns away” is simply unthinkable. In fact, it is not.

Some additional thoughts—

The NRA says that if people are forced to surrender their guns, only criminals will have guns. That might be an improvement. Admittedly, it is not a good thing that criminals have guns. It is a much greater problem, at least in public perception, that crazy people have guns.
 
Apropos of crazy people, I am skeptical of the provision of the law just passed in New York that requires therapists to report threats of gun violence made by their patients. This seems like a good idea, but will be problematic in practice. New York therapists may lose a lot of sleep in the future trying to balance their professional and legal responsibilities and their potential personal liabilities. Therapists are not and should not be expected to be clairvoyant.

There is no silver bullet to fix the crazy mass murderer problem. What we can do is to take steps to improve the mental health of the population generally. This will involve treating mental illness like other illness. It will require removing barriers to obtaining (or obtaining adequate) mental health services and campaigning to remove the stigma often associated with psychological abnormalities.

On Expanding the First Amendment

Trends can be hard to spot, sometimes even if you’re caught up in them. Having someone name an ongoing phenomenon of which you have been only subliminally aware, however, can be an epiphany.

I had such an epiphany while reading an article published by Political Research Associates. “The New Religious Freedom Argument: Gay Marriage in the 2012 Election” by Amy L. Stone points out that the religious Right is trying to expand the notion of freedom of religion beyond what is normally thought to be guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The argument recently advanced by Roman Catholic bishops in support of exempting church-related institutions from provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was perplexing to me. It was not at all clear why requiring, for example, Catholic hospitals to provide reproductive services to their employees impinged on the rights of management by requiring them to support something of which they disapprove.

The government regulates commerce at many levels. In particular, it has long specified certain terms of employment through such legislation as minimum wage laws. The requirements of the ACA are no different in principle. If a Catholic hospital is required by law to provide no-cost contraception to female employees, how is it complicit in facilitating what the Catholic Church considers a sin? It is simply complying with a law passed democratically to which all employers in the country are subject. If a church-related employer is complicit in sin by providing contraception mandated by the ACA, is it any less complicit if an employee uses her wages to buy birth control pills herself? But the church has not argued that such an employee should not be allowed to buy the pill because it would compromise the church? Of course not; to do so would be ridiculous. It would make employment look more like slavery!

Amy Stone’s paper demystifies the Catholic Church’s argument and those of the likes of Hobby Lobby, a private “Christian” company that is objecting to the ACA requirement to provide reproductive health services to its employees as a restriction on the owners’ freedom of religion. (Hobby Lobby is suing the government over the requirement.) In such cases, the proponents argue that they have a constitutional right to live life in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Although “The New Religious Freedom Argument” focuses on marriage equality, Stone’s larger message is about how the religious Right is pursuing its agenda. She writes, “The Right’s new focus on religious freedom tries to reach a broad audience by using civil rights style language rather than morality to make its claim.” Thus, Hobby Lobby CEO David Green is not arguing that the burden of complying with the ACA should be lifted because complying with the law—and therefore the law itself— facilitates immoral behavior. Instead, he is claiming that religious freedom extends beyond freedom of belief and worship to—Stone quotes Matthew Wilson, associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University here—“the ability to live a life of faith in the world, to act socially, economically, politically, etc. in concert with one’s convictions, without fear of being coerced by government into violating the tenets of faith.”

Moral arguments are unavailing when targeted at people who do not share the underlying belief of those making the argument. By using the rhetoric of civil rights, however, the Right seeks to appeal to a broader constituency concerned about fairness and civil liberties. The hope is that people of good will who are not religious extremists will buy the specious argument that “freedom of religion” should allow everyone to behave in accord with his or her own religious beliefs without concern for others. The religious Right is exhibiting the same attitudes we saw in the opposition to the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Law of 1964, albeit with additional religious dress—“this is my business, and I should be able to run it any way I like, including serving whites only.”

If this expanded view of “freedom of religion” is embraced by a gullible nation—I suspect, or at least hope, that it will not be—it will result in an American society even more contentious and fragmented than it is already. It will not expand liberty, though it may provide more freedom to the wealthy at the expense of the non-wealthy, as if we need more of that in 2013.

It is easy to see what Stone calls the new religious freedom argument as nothing more than a power grab. It is that, of course, particularly on the part of right-wing media agitators. Those people, however, have encouraged the bewildering phenomenon of Christian paranoia. Although, by any practical measure, the United States is the most Christian (or, if you like, Christian-friendly) country in the world, Christians on the right have been convinced that they and their beliefs are under attack. The craziest of the crazies are even planning armed insurrection in defense of their “rights.” God help us.

Some sanity has recently been brought to the matter of religious freedom from, of all places, Europe. The European Court of Human Rights ruled yesterday on four cases from the United Kingdom of alleged persecution of Christians. Two cases involved wearing a cross at work, and two cases involved a refusal to perform one’s job when doing so involves serving gay people. The court found in favor of a plaintiff in only one case, that of one Nadia Eweida, an airline employee who wanted to wear a cross on a necklace along with her airline uniform. (The court’s 53-page opinion can be read here.)

Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, summarized what the court did and how a democratic society should rationally deal with matters of religious practice. America should pay careful attention to his commonsense wisdom, which suggests what the response should be to the likes of the Roman Catholic Bishops and the CEO of Hobby Lobby. Copson’s statement, except for its British spelling and punctuation, could easily be the opinion of a wise American. He wrote

The European Court applied exactly the same tests and measures that we have been advocating for years. They asked the question “Will this manifestation of a person’s religion interfere with the rights of others?” In three out of the four cases they found it would and rightly dismissed them.

These cases have been repeatedly lost in court after court and have wasted an enormous amount of time just as they have generated a huge amount of unnecessarily divisive feeling amongst the public. The victim narrative that lies behind them, whipped up by the political Christian lobby groups that organise them and the socially conservative media that report them, has no basis in reality. The widespread misreporting of these cases under the guise of “Christian persecution” when they are anything but has undermined the chance of the public to get a really clear understanding of what the issues engaged by these cases really are.

What they describe as discrimination and marginalisation of Christians is in fact the proper upholding of human rights and equalities law and principles – principles which protect all people against unfair treatment – and we are pleased that the court has recognised this. All reasonable people will agree that there is scope in a secular democracy for reasonable accommodation of religious beliefs when that accommodation does not affect the rights and freedoms of others. But if believers try to invoke their beliefs as a defence for treating other people badly – denying them a service because they are gay or claiming a right to preach at them in a professional context – the law is right to prevent them. It’s not persecution of Christians; it’s the maintenance of a civilised society for all.

Days for Baptisms

Holy Baptism is especially appropriate at the Easter Vigil, on the Day of Pentecost, on All Saints’ Day or the Sunday after All Saints’ Day, and on the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord (the First Sunday after the Epiphany). It is recommended that, as far as possible, Baptisms be reserved for these occasions or when a bishop is present.

— BCP, p. 312

This past Sunday was the First Sunday after the Epiphany, and my church did indeed perform a baptism at the service I attended. Baptisms show up on our worship schedule unpredictably, however. The rector of St. Paul’s does not feel especially constrained by the paragraph above, which begins the Additional Directions that follow the Holy Baptism liturgy in the Episcopal Church prayer book. I have complained about our failure to restrict the times we celebrate Holy Baptism, but I haven’t been given much of a hearing.

The most common reason for holding baptisms at times other than those suggested in the prayer book is the convenience of the family. In this busy age, it may indeed be difficult to assemble all the friends and family who want to be present for a baptism, especially if some are coming from out of town. My rector is hardly the only priest to succumb to the entreaties of the candidate or the candidate’s relatives. On the other hand, I have always suspected that my rector does not take “as far as possible” very seriously and is more interested in receiving another soul into the household of God than in applying at least a little pressure to schedule a baptism on one of the “especially appropriate” occasions.

I confess that my argument for following the Additional Directions more conscientiously has been primarily as a prayer book wonk. We should be honoring our tradition, even if that tradition may not technically qualify as ancient. I have avoided the argument that going to church and finding Holy Baptism substituted for The Holy Eucharist Rite Two makes me feel like a victim of a bait-and-switch ploy

At Sunday’s service, another reason for restricting the times when our church celebrates baptism occurred to me. Additional Directions suggests that a candle may be given “to the newly baptized or to a godparent.” My church does this, and I do think the candle well serves as a reminder of an important spiritual event. My rector sometimes suggests, when presenting the candle, that it might be lit on the anniversary of one’s baptism. He has suggested that the anniversary be honored on the same date every year, say, on February 3. However, with so many dates to remember—birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and the like—a personal baptism date is likely to be forgotten.

My epiphany was that, although one might not easily remember having been baptized on February 3 in some year in the distant past, it would be easier to remember having been baptized on, say, the Day of Pentecost. If the baptized person regularly attends a liturgical church and is aware of the church calendar, remembering one’s baptismal day becomes significantly more probable, perhaps even an anniversary that will be anticipated in the days leading up to Pentecost or one of the other feasts of the church. One might even be inclined to rummage around in some little used drawer to find that baptismal candle.

This is another, and perhaps better, reason to take the prayer book direction seriously. I might even try out the argument on my rector.

Air Force Women

An NPR news story about an Article 32 hearing at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland was part of the news summary today at the beginning of All Things Considered. The subject of the hearing is the behavior of Technical Sergeant Jaime Rodriguez, an Air Force recruiter accused of sex crimes  The item was reported by Eileen Pace of Texas Public Radio. (The report updates a story you can read or hear on the TPR Web site.)

I had just returned home after running a few errands and was rather casually listening to the radio, but my ears perked up when I heard this sentence from Pace: “In three days of testimony, four female airmen and the Navy enlistee nervously offered graphic details to the court about the former recruiter.”

Four female airmen? Really? I can’t decide if this locution is sexist or simply clumsy. It is assuredly jarring to someone unused to it. The obvious female equivalent of airmen is airwomen, of course, though this sounds strange to the American ear, and perhaps no one here uses the word. The U.S. Air Force seems to use the term airmen, but not airwomem. A search of the Air Force Web site finds instances of the first word but not the second. There are several references to female Airmen. (Airmen is always capitalized.)

Sometime in the past, female Airmen may have seemed devoid of irony, but not today. I wonder if females in our Air Force object to this term now (or will in the future). Interestingly, the Air Force in Australia (and perhaps in other countries) avoids oxymoronicity—if that isn’t a real word, it should be—by the use of the lowercased airwomen. (See an instance here.)

Do you think that female Airmen is acceptable in 2013 America? If not, what alternative would you like to see? Would Air Force women work?

Patti Page RIP

I was saddened today to learn that singer Patti Page died on New Year’s Day. She was 85, having been born Clara Ann Fowler in Claremore, Oklahoma, in 1927.

Over the years, Patti Page sold more than a hundred million records, but she did not always get a lot of respect from music critics. In fact, she was an accomplished singer whose repertoire (and fans) spanned genres. She began as a country singer but is probably best know for her pop hits. Her voice was sure, and she always retained a certain country twang.

Of her well-known songs, “Tennessee Waltz,” “Old Cape Cod,” and “Allegheny Moon.” are my favorites. I am fond of her occasional use of overdubbing, allowing her to act as her own backup singers. (A good example of this technique can be heard in her original recording of “Old Cape Cod.”) “Doggie in the Window” is unforgettable, but a bit cute for my taste.

I own only one Patti Page album, the 1956 In the Land of Hi-Fi (see photo). It is perhaps out of the mainstream of her oeuvre, but it is a prized element of my record collection. My mother bought the album for me along with several other discs to build up my meager LP collection shortly after I got my first phonograph capable of playing LPs.

In the Land of Hi-Fi includes songs by Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, and others. The jazz arrangements on the album are by Pete Rugolo, who also conducts an orchestra of 23 musicians. I have a hard time picking favorite tracks from this album, but I will mention a few favorites: “Love for Sale,” “The Thrill is Gone,” and “Taking a Chance on Love.” This is the album that convinced me that Patti Page was a singer to be taken seriously.

Patti Page was to receive a Grammy for lifetime achievement in February. Unfortunately, the award will be posthumous. I will miss her.


Additional Links:

Patti Page entry on Wikipedia
Discography (Wikipedia)
Official Web site

Café au Lait

I generally began taking my coffee black when I became concerned about cholesterol. Of course, this meant that I no longer was brewing the dark roast coffee and chicory with scalded milk that I grew up drinking in New Orleans. Tonight, I decided to make myself a cup of café au lait. I put what seemed like an outrageous amount of coffee and chicory in my coffeemaker, scalded some milk, and used real sugar, rather than Equal. Ah, yummy. Too bad I didn’t have any beignets!

Whither Sandy Hook Elementary?

This morning, NPR reported that Sandy Hook Elementary will be closed for months and may never reopen. I already knew that surviving faculty and students were being shuffled off to a nearby mothballed school and wondered if that was absolutely necessary. On reflection, I realized that Sandy Hook is a crime scene and a building scarred by blood and bullets. Police (and Newtown residents) want to learn all the details they can about Friday’s massacre, and the building surely needs to be cleaned up before it can be re-occupied.

Sandy Hook Elementary School

I am distressed, though, by the thought that the school might never re-open. In recent years, Americans have shown an inclination to abandon sites of tragedies and turn them into memorials. This is an easy path to take when there has been substantial destruction at a site, such as in the cases of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City or the World Trade Center in New York. After the shooting at the Aurora, Colorado, cinema, there were calls to close the Century Aurora 16 permanently . (The theater is being renovated, however, and is scheduled to reopen soon.) The Columbine High School library, where 13 students died, was demolished and turned into a memorial, though the school remains open. After a small child fell from an observation platform at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium and was mauled by African painted dogs below, there were calls to close the exhibit and send the surviving dogs to another zoo. It was decided instead to remove the viewing area from which the boy fell “out of respect for the community and for the Derkosh family [that of the boy who fell].”

Will Sandy Hook Elementary School be demolished and turned into a memorial “out of respect for the community and the families of the victims”? I sincerely hope not. It is a substantial facility and community asset, and its loss would be unfortunate. (See photo above.) That is not to say that no memorial should be erected to acknowledge the Newtown tragedy, but we need to keep matters in perspective. Not every awful event deserves to have acres of real estate devoted to its memory or to have associated structures forever removed from public view.

Are we becoming a nation of extravagant monuments? Do we need—and can we afford—all these memorials? I don’t doubt that many family members of Newtown victims will never want to enter (or even see) Sandy Hook Elementary again. Some may choose to move to another town. But do the rest of us have such refined sensitivities that we never again want to see or use Sandy Hook Elementary?

Memorials have their place, but so many recent ones have been costly, both to construct and in lost opportunity costs represented by land and structures taken out of normal productive use. At least some of that money that might be poured into memorials could be used to relieve other instances of human suffering or to memoralize significant events that have not benefited from our current passion for monuments. (The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire still awaits a memorial.)

Sometimes an appropriate memorial is just a brass plaque by the side of the road.

For Gwen

My friend Gwendollynn Santiago was ordained to the priesthood yesterday at Pittsburgh’s Trinity Cathedral. Charles Hamill, Terence Johnston, John Schaeffer, and Todd Schmidtetter were ordained at the same service, the first ordination presided over by our new bishop, Dorsey McConnell. (I took my camera to the service but decided to let Andy Muhl document the event with his much better equipment. You can see his photos here. The photo below is courtesy of Andy.)

As I have often done, I wrote a poem in honor of Gwen’s ordination. (My other ordination poems can be read here, here, here, and here.) These poems often reflect the troubled context of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Gwen’s poem, reproduced below, is no exception. I pray that my next such poem need make no allusions to what the recently retired Harold Lewis called “the recent unpleasantness.”

For Gwen

by Lionel Deimel

A priesting in our diocese
Is now a time of joy
Devoid of worries for those things
A bishop would destroy.

Each priest can now be healer,
Evangelist and friend,
A comforter and confidant
On whom one can depend.

The troubles of a broken world
That lately filled the news
We’ll contemplate another day
And file into our pews,

For Gwen today becomes a priest
Who’ll help mend what’s been rent,
She’ll do her work with grace and love,
Enlarging God’s big tent.

New priests with bishop: (L to R) the Rev. Charles Brent Wagner Hamill,
the Rev. Gwendollynn Gettemy Santiago, the Rt. Rev. Dorsey W.M. McConnell,
the Rev. Terence Lee Johnston, the Rev. Todd Thomas Schmidtetter,
and the Rev. John Robert Schaeffer

Right to Work

Michigan just passed a right-to-work law, and, by way of providing background, NPR ran a brief story this morning about the origin of the term “right to work.” It was pointed out that the term does not have an obvious and precise meaning and that liberals do not have a catchy, alternative for it. Like “right to life,” however, “right to work” is catchy and has a positive ring to it. President Obama’s “right to work for less money” doesn’t quite fly as a slogan or as a description (as in “right-to-work-for-less-money law).

The story got me thinking and inspired me to post the graphic below on Facebook. (Click on it for a bigger image.) “Right to exploit” may not be the perfect alternative to “right to work,” but I think it’s in the right neighborhood.

TSM and The Episcopal Church

Many would argue that Trinity School for Ministry (TSM) has played a critical role in undermining The Episcopal Church. (The official name of the seminary remains Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, but “Episcopal” has lately disappeared from all publications.) Ostensibly, the seminary was founded to advance the evangelical cause within an increasingly liberal Episcopal Church. Arguably, it was successful in doing that, at least up to a point. Many of the school’s graduates have now left The Episcopal Church for the Anglican Church in North America or other ultraconservative denominations. Thus, Trinity and its alumni (and alumnae) are engaged in decreasing the influence of evangelicals in The Episcopal Church.

I don’t intend to document the trajectory of TSM here or to justify my belief that it should no longer be considered a seminary appropriate for the education of Episcopal clergy. Instead, I am writing this modest essay in response to my having just browsed through the Fall 2012 issue of TSM’s magazine Seed & Harvest. (The issue has not yet been posted on-line, so I cannot link to it here.)

An article titled “The Year in Review” can be found on page 11. It begins by mentioning the addition of three new faculty members at TSM. Two of the three are ordained, but neither is an Episcopalian. (I can verify Episcopal clergy on-line but have no sure way of identifying Episcopalian laypeople.) The story later notes that, last summer, “we had the opportunity to participate in three major denominational conventions,” namely, the Provincial Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), The Episcopal Church’s General Convention, and the Convocation of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). I can attest that TSM was represented at the General Convention, but I think it more significant that TSM had a presence at the ACNA gathering—ACNA was formed largely by congregations “liberated” from The Episcopal Church, ably assisted by TSM faculty and graduates—and the NALC Convocation. (NALC split from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with which The Episcopal Church is in full communion.) In reality, although TSM serves many churches, it is most conspicuously the principal seminary for ACNA.

Page 14 for Seed & Harvest lists TSM’s Board of Trustees and Faculty. (This information is also available on the TSM Web site.) Sixteen faculty members are listed, 10 of whom are ordained. Only three are Episcopalian; Dean and President Justyn Terry is not among them. Of the 25 trustees, I could identify only two Episcopal clergy, one of whom, the Rt. Rev. Greg Brewer, is bishop of the very conservative Diocese of Central Florida. The Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence is also on the board, but, of course, he is no longer an Episcopalian. Most of the remaining names, both of clergy and laypeople, are known to me to be ACNA members, including chairman Wicks Stephens, Robert Duncan, and Alison Barfoot. Geoffrey Chapman (of infamous Chapman Letter fame) is among the retiring trustees.

It must be admitted that TSM is working hard to to achieve acceptance among Episcopalians. The seminary is physically within the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, and it has not only had a presence at diocesan conventions, but has also provided food for receptions. Moreover, I don’t mean to suggest that all the school’s graduates remaining in The Episcopal Church—many are in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh—are members of a fifth column. I believe it is time to admit, however, that TSM has lost any legitimacy it may have had to be considered an Episcopal seminary.


Postscript. I can offer an earlier post on my blog to suggest the nature of TSM’s influence and that of its supporters. As I suggested earlier, I do not intend to be offering the definitive case against the school here.

“Jingle Bells” Misunderstood

When I was a young child, I was under the mistaken impression that there were two distinct songs, “Jingle Bells” and “Dashing Through the Snow,” that were sometimes sung together. The two melodies seemed too different to be part of the same composition. Somehow, I overlooked the relatedness of the words associated with those melodies, which might have disabused me of my misunderstanding. I don’t remember when I realized that “Jingle Bells” and “Dashing Through the Snow” were really parts of the same song, a song that includes a chorus.

By the way, some interesting facts about “Jingle Bells” can be found on Wikipedia.

Do any readers share my childhood misunderstanding?

Blog Updates

Under the heading LINKS at the right, I have added two links. You can now go directly to my Facebook page or to my page on Twitter.

I have also updated my blog table of contents. I have been remiss in adding new blog posts to the table of contents, but I am now up-to-date.

I suspect that most readers are unaware of this blog’s table of contents, as such a listing is not a common feature of blogs. (A link to the table of contents can also be found under LINKS.) I also suspect that the feature is more useful to me than to my readers, but perhaps not. In any case, since I do not tag posts with keywords, one cannot use tags to find related posts. Both the table of contents and the search box on the Blogger toolbar at the top of blog pages can be used to find a particular post or related posts. If you have a good idea of when a post appeared, the blog archive, also shown in the right column, can be useful.

“Hawk!” the Herald Angels Sing

Ideas often spring from multiple  influences. The day after Thanksgiving, I was stalking eagles, hawks, and waterfowl in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. Now my choir is preparing music for Advent and Christmas. Somehow, these activities inspired the verse below that is intended to be sung to the familiar Mendelssohn tune for “Hark! the herald angels sing.”

“Hark! the herald angels sing” was originally penned by the prolific hymnist Charles Wesley, though his version began “Hark, how all the welkin rings, / Glory to the King of Kings!” Wesley associate George Whitefield is responsible for changing that into the opening we have come to know.

I have often found that first couplet of the text strange or ambiguous. What is being said by the poet, and what is being said by the angels? The confusion is encouraged by the fact that the hymn has been variously printed. The current Episcopal hymnal renders the first couplet as “Hark! the herald angels sing / glory to the new-born King!” I have an older Presbyterian hymnal that shows this as “Hark, the herald angels sing, / “Glory to the new-born King; … !” (Two versions of words and music can be found here and here.) On reflection, by the way, “Hark,” meaning harken to, is not intended to be a word spoken by the angels.

My verse, a parody, really, is below. I have formatted it in my own usual style rather than trying to follow any particular rendering of the traditional hymn in a hymnal or elsewhere.

“Hawk!” the Herald Angels Sing

“Hawk!” the herald angels sing;
“Watch those raptors on the wing!”

“Peace on earth,” the angels cry,
Struggling hard to rule the sky.

Joy they bring to those below
While large birds dart to-and-fro.

Angels, guard your wings and face
As you sing of heav’ly grace.

“Hawk!” the herald angels sing;
“Watch those raptors on the wing!”

In (Rare) Praise of Rowan Williams

I have not been a big fan of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. As he comes to the end of his tenure, however, I’d like to say a few words on his behalf. In this, I am inspired by a story from Anglican Ink titled “Archbishop of Canterbury defends ACC-15 from claims it is irrelevant.” The article reports on what the archbishop told the General Synod regarding the work of the recently concluded meeting in New Zealand of the Anglican Consultative Council.

The essence of Williams’ defense of what was done in Auckland can be seen in this excerpt:

The archbishop said the model employed at ACC-15 was akin to that he introduced to the 2008 Lambeth Conference were [where?] issues were not discussed so that conclusions or actions could be reached, but to give disparate voices a platform for their views to be heard.

Personally, I was greatly relieved that the 2008 Lambeth Conference did not assume a legislative role, a role that has been greatly misunderstood and misused in the past. I was particularly gratified (and surprised) that ACC-15 passed no resolution regarding the Anglican Covenant. A general discussion of the Covenant would, no doubt, have been acrimonious, and, at any rate, approval or rejection of the Covenant is out of the hands of the ACC. (Action by the ACC may eventually be called for when, as seems likely, the failure of the Covenant to be widely adopted becomes painfully apparent.)

Williams suggested that what was most important at the ACC meeting was not corporate decision-making but small-group discussions aimed at understanding one another:

It was his belief the communion did not need further “bureaucratic, public, administrative decision making” but was better served by the different factions of the church “reading the Bible together.”

Perhaps the archbishop has indeed learned a thing or two during his decade-long tenure. Moreover, his view of the future was something of a surprise:

Dr. Williams also spoke of the rising importance of the networks of the Anglican Communion, which represented “some of the most creative, most universally supported work that we do.”

The archbishop added that networks may be the future of the communion’s ecclesial structure replacing the current crop of “instruments of communion.”

“Perhaps the larger question that we’re up against is how do we hold together the burgeoning life of networks, alliances—less formal associations across the Communion—with the unavoidable need for decision-making and managing bodies,” he asked.

Networks, which have been much encouraged by the departing archbishop, are largely concerned with common mission rather than divisive theological issues. An emphasis on networks, along with a corresponding reduced role for the Instruments of Communion (especially the Archbishop of Canterbury) might make for a more effective, less contentious Anglican Communion. Perhaps “the need for decision-making and managing bodies” will be less than Rowan Williams imagines.

Further Thoughts on the Church of England’s Failure to Authorize Women Bishops

Last Tuesday, the General Synod of the Church of England rejected a measure to allow women to become bishops. (See “Church of England Rejects Women Bishops Legislation.”) Since then, it has been hard to keep up with all the commentary on the General Synod’s  decision, a task complicated by my visiting my son and daughter-in-law for Thanksgiving.

Bishops and clergy approved the measure, but the lay vote fell short of the two-thirds majority required for passage. It is not yet clear why each of the negative lay votes was cast. One might imagine that some voted against the legislation because they

•  Oppose making women bishops (or oppose the ordination of women generally);
•  Believe that the legislation compromised the status of future women bishops by granting too much to those opposed to women bishops;
• Believe that insufficient concessions were made to opponents of women bishops;
• Were uncomfortable with the uncertainty about how the legislation would work in practice, given that the Code of Practice was not specified; or
• Thought the legislation was otherwise defective.

How people voted is now available, though, as an Episcopalian, I have no idea what to make of this information.

The press has generally seen the General Synod vote as a debacle indicating that the Church of England is out of step with the people of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury has been blamed for inadequate leadership; the bishops of the church have been blamed for mucking with an apparently viable compromise measure; the structure of General Synod has been attacked for failing to produce the “right” result, and opponents of female ordination have been criticized for aggressively recruiting candidates for General Synod sympathetic to their position.

Linda Woodhead, writing on the Modern Church Web site, put her finger on not only the cause of most recent church disaster, but on the explanation for why Rowan Williams’ tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury has been that of one spectacular failure after another. Woodhead’s essay is “It’s believing in the common good that’s got the Church of England into this mess over women bishops.” The underlying problem, she asserts, is concern for the “common good,” the belief that unity must be achieved at any cost. The church has tried to keep everyone happy, and it has done so by making concessions to those who cry the loudest. She says

You can see the same principle at work it in the way Rowan has considered maintenance of the unity of the Anglican communion a greater good than support for the cause of women and gay people in the church. Even the slow death of the church in Europe is considered a price worth paying for the ever-receding goal of the common good.

Woodhead, a Professor of Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University, criticizes the church’s aversion to conflict that puts undue power into the hands of vocal minorities. She questions whether “oneness” is Christian at all. In contrast to John 17:21’s “that they all may be one,” she offers this:

There’s rather a deal more in Jesus’ teaching about hating father and mothers, and setting brother against brother. ‘Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I came to bring not peace but a sword.’

She concludes with this:

Clinging to an impossible ideal of unity discounts justice, and paints honest disagreement as dishonourable troublemaking. You can see the fruits of this state of mind in where the Church of England has ended up in its treatment of women.

I find it hard to argue with anything Woodhead has to say. It is helpful, however, to look more deeply into what unity can, in practice, be achieved.

An essential feature of Anglicanism derives from the Elizabethan Settlement—members of the church agree to worship in a uniform fashion, but they are not required to hold the same underlying theological views or to have a common understanding of their common worship. Whether one believes in transubstantiation, say, has essentially no bearing on one’s position in or relationship to the church. Such Anglican diversity allows the church to pursue mission in the world without the constant distraction of theological battles that have plagued so many Christian traditions. (In practice, we have seen a weakening of common worship, but, so far, this has not led to a crisis.)

Within the Anglican tradition, as within other traditions, certain conflicts die out over time. Episcopalians once argued over slavery and over whether it was proper to have candles on the altar. One would be hard pressed to find a contemporary proponent of slavery or a rabid opponent of candles. People have left, the arguments have lost their energy, and people have died.

One can easily imagine an Anglican resolution—one allowing forward movement at any rate—to such difficult matters as same-sex blessings: Let those who want to perform them do so, but require no one to do so. This is almost what The Episcopal Church has done, though it let bishops decide for their dioceses, rather than a more democratic (and Anglican?) scheme in which individual parishes could make that decision. Under such a regime, if I attend a parish that does not bless same-sex unions, how am I harmed by the existence of other parishes that do?  I may think the rector and parishioners of the blessing-friendly church mistaken in their theological views, but I already tolerate all sorts of presumed theological error among friends and enemies alike. Besides, I could be wrong.

The ordination of women, however, is another matter. To begin with, it makes no sense to allow for women priests but not for women bishops. In fact, some people go so far as to argue that, if we are not going to ordain women, we should stop baptizing them. Not everyone subscribes to such Christian equality before the Lord, but women priests are a reality, even in the Church of England and despite the indignity of their status inflicted by the existence of flying bishops.

Some, of course, argue that sacraments performed by women are not valid, and allowing women to be bishops will, in time, contaminate the whole body of English clergy. It is difficult to take this argument seriously, as Article XXVI of the Thirty-nine Articles explicitly rejects such a Donatist argument. In the end, opposition to women bishops comes down either to the belief that it is improper for women to have authority over men or that men simply don’t want to give up authority.

For the sake of argument, assume that there is a defensible argument against women bishops. The vote in General Synod indicates that very few hold such a view. Should the view of those few be not only respected (i.e., tolerated), but should special accommodation also be made for it? I think not—not for any theological reason, but for an organization one. It is simply impractical to forever maintain a two-tier clergy distinguished by who has or has not been involved in the ordination of women. The two groups will necessarily intact in synods, in conferences, on committees, etc. How can one group not be “tainted” by the other? Will they wear either black or white armbands to distinguish the two groups? How can priests preach unity to parishioners while keeping many colleagues at arm’s length?

Additionally, distinguishing clergy, as the defeated measure would have done, would only perpetuate the disagreement and make it difficult ever to unify the clergy. (It is always easier to split than it is to come back together.) Opponents of women bishops actually want to assure that their views will always be represented in the church, but this would not actually be good for the church. Sometimes, the church simply has to make a decision and live with it.

Views of small minorities die out slowly. It took about thirty years after women were allowed to be ordained in The Episcopal Church for them to be ordained in every diocese. It will take time for women to be considered seriously for episcopal appointments in the Church of England. The church needs to get on with making that happen, and it should do so with no concessions to those opposed to having women bishops.

Friendship

Here is another poem inspired by Facebook. I wrote his poem this morning.

Friendship
by Lionel Deimel

When Facebook friends are many,
But real-life friends are few,
And there really aren’t any
Who will deign to dine with you,
It might be time to ponder
If there’s something that you do
That makes other people fonder
Of folks that aren’t you.