Purple Fever: A Retrospect

The honour I never almost had:

Purple Fever is an awful disease, it was candidate’s night, and the next day was the election of a Bishop.  I who was never nominated, and did not desire to be nominated, am somewhat chagrined that not only will I not be elected, but I will not even have bragging rights of saying; “Back in two thousand and something I was nominated for Bishop.”  Even the possibility of a small self-glorifying exaggeration is clean cut off, I fortunately can’t even say, “I was almost elected.”

I looked over the slate of candidates.  There were two obviously good men who were willing to let themselves be lured into a greater suffering on behalf of the church.  Of the others, two had been afflicted with purple fever.  One of them eventually would end up in legal problems, the other was just a sad individual.  At least they had bragging rights.   Come to think about it, at an earlier election one devout and holy candidate, or so we were told, was eventually defrocked for child abuse.  Purple fever can, and does, infect the most unsuitable candidates.

This purple fever is an insidious disease that has led some to leave The Episcopal Church in their lust to become bishops.  I know one “bishop” duly consecrated by somebody, somewhere, who has no diocese, no churches, no priests, and worked as a gardener, and another who admitted to having only 12 people in his congregation, and six similar sized congregations under his shepherding care; but he’s a bishop and he holds wonderful ordinations for his poorly trained disciples.  I know another who left The Episcopal Church with great fanfare and great expectancy hoping to become a bishop in one of the African dioceses, only to discover too late that they don’t consecrate divorced men as bishops.

It’s a terrible thing, this irony of not being nominated for a job I wouldn’t want and wasn’t even nominated for. It’s somewhat akin to being a guardian cherub desiring ultimate enthronement and then being summarily forced out of heaven by those insufferable angels.  “I, the Morning Star, I have fashioned for myself a coat of many colours, I do not have to dress in white.  I do not want to be dressed in white kowtowing to His royal goodness YHWH.  I almost seized the heavenly throne; a throne I could have had, if only, so at least I have bragging rights.”

The great mistake in all this is the attempt to affirm one’s value by seizing power and becoming a human doing instead of accepting the humiliation of being a human being.  In this unrestrained ambition the greater the doing, the greater the power, the emptier the soul!  The truth is that it is a fatal error to say, “I do, therefore I am,” and perhaps René Descartes missed the truth, “Je pense donc je suis,” “I think, therefore I am.”  It is closer to the mark to say, “I love, therefore I am.”  Ultimately our human identity is defined by our relationships.

Hierarchy and the Dance of Life

Some people are destined for misery, it can be no other way. Their problem is not understanding their place in the dance of life. For a start they do not know, or choose not to know, that there is a natural hierarchy in the created order simply because there is a Creator, and all else by very nature is creation. In the dance of life He leads and all the rest of us are feminine in contrast to his overwhelming masculinity.

This is very difficult both for men and “liberated” women. It is not easy even for women who profess that their husbands are the head of the house and say in the same breath, “But, I’m the neck that turns the head.” Unlike their unfortunate husbands God cannot be manipulated no matter how lovingly.

Hierarchy is the principle of organization for creation and for every human society, even the Church. Remember that Christ Jesus is the Head and we are his body. That is reflected in the four orders of ministry; bishops, priests, deacons and laity. The bishop who said that he was the servant of the servants of the servants of God spoke only a partial truth, and we all know that a partial truth is a heresy. This particular heresy is endemic in the American Church where those who proclaim it most loudly discover that they have lost their authority (how odd?) and end up having to go to the secular courts to sue their brothers over property. Here the problem is the disconnected hierarchy of the American Church that refuses to acknowledge any authority greater than itself. Where is no hierarchy there is no dance of life.

Surrender to the reality of hierarchy is surrender to an hierarchical order that is by nature an authority structure. That should be too obvious to bear mention, but it’s not. The only other alternative is chaos. Dare I mention an unpardonable word? Obey! Dare I interject that word into our understanding of the hierarchical order of bishops, priests, deacons and laity? Humility is understanding and accepting your place in God’s created order. The kingdom of God is not a democracy, and where it attempts to be a democracy it fails to be a kingdom. In a kingdom one reverently obeys the King. One also obeys his delegated officers and ministers. In American democratic fantasy people fancy that they decide things by a popular vote. That is idealized in the Town Meeting system that has the unique characteristic of not working very well, which is why we elect temporary rulers to argue and vote among themselves while the rest of us are just expected to obey. Now my remarks about hierarchy may not seem very American or democratic, but that is because my allegiance is to a kingdom with another King.


Not all are comfortable with the idea of kingdom because the notions of hierarchy and obedience cut cross grain across self-centered human nature and leave them feeling that their freedom of choice is impaired, that their rights are being trampled on. St. Paul points out an uncomfortable reality. We are slaves of sin or we are slaves of righteousness. There is no middle ground. We will end up obeying one or the other. The only alternative to God’s hierarchy, its obedience, order and joy; is chaos, desolation and misery. The reason why some will live in misery is that they do not know that the truth will set them free, and that freedom is of necessity freedom from the tyranny of self, and sin, and freedom from isolation from the dance of life.

What Constitutes Renewal?

     

What constitutes spiritual renewal?  Are we not talking about authenticity, about integrity in worship and in life?  I am renewed when I am most genuine before God, when I am laid bare before God and He has poured out His Spirit upon me.   Renewal is ultimately wayless and formless, but that does not mean that in corporate worship traditional forms have to be replaced by contemporary forms that have an illusion of being wayless and formless, if only because they are both poorly conceived and poorly formed.  Does “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9) actually demand that we abandon beauty in favor of T-shirts and jeans?

            While there was some need to revise the BCP, perhaps even some need to enrich its selection of canticles, did wholesale revision of either the BCP, or the Hymnal leave us with something more, or something less?  In using both the new BCP and Hymnal over the past few years, my soul (nephesh ~ my inner man) cries out for the something more because instinctively I recognize that I have ended up with something less.

            The same is true of worship music and hymnody.  How much contextualization is actually constructive?  Why do I spend so much time listening to classical music?  Why do I still prefer, greatly prefer, Handel’s Messiah to the current offerings of contemporary gospel?  Something identifiable, and negative, has happened to Gospel praise music in the last twenty years.  It has moved from praise, ranging from simple to almost, but not quite lofty praise of Maranatha and other groups; to the current stuff with insipid melodies and clanging rhythms often featuring pseudotestimonial songs about me and Jesus, and us and Jesus, and what he done did for ME, all of which is often told in a rambling sentimental personal stories.  Did I say sappy?  I meant to!  You can listen for quite a while on Christian radio and never hear actual praise, and when you do hear it, it seems noisy, cold and incomprehensible.  When did contemporary gospel music move from being group led (Maranatha and many others) to individual praise leaders, and is that necessarily an advantage?  Is it not rather a symptom that contemporary praise music has moved away from congregational singing to professional performance?

 Why should I just pick on contemporary gospel?  The other day someone told me of a “glorious” service at one of our large downtown churches that “wow” even had “paid singers”.  Of course what I want to know is what does that have to do with worship?  That by the way is also reflected in the shift from the 1940 Hymnal to the 1982 Hymnal.  In the former about 50% at most was singable in the average congregation, and in the latter 30% is singable if you are lucky.  It was of course actually put together by professional church musicians from that school that advises that you tighten your buttocks in order to better project your voice.  Woops.  That was uncalled for and perhaps unjust, but it certainly reflects the attitude of one very influential seminary music professor who it turns out actually became the General Editor of the 1982 Hymnal.  Having “sat under” his instruction I can easily see why the 1982 Hymnal is so ineffective for the average congregation.  It was all just too precious to be well balanced!

A Song of the Church

It is fashionable in our age to criticize the Church, but what does the Lord of the Church have to say about his own?

“Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with banners?”[i]

Who is the Accuser who would say otherwise?

We who are the Church, the Body of Christ, have accepted the Devil’s assessment of the Church and have been led with a ring through our nose into the attack on ourselves.  Immediately comes to mind the accusation that the Church is the only army that shoots its wounded.  Oh, really?

I note that in the usual form of this accusation that the Church is referred to as an ‘army’ that shoots its wounded.  That accidentally acknowledges that the Church is an army on the front line of a battle.  The world does not take that seriously.  It would never do to admit that the Church is involved in the global warfare between good and evil.  That is so much out of favour that in some places those called by the name of Christ won’t even sing Onward Christian Soldiers.

What must be considered is that the world is in the Church and the Church like any human organization has within it people of divided loyalties.  The Accuser holds up the shining mirror of the Church in the radiant glory yet to come and says, “See!  You are hypocrites; you do not live up to your image.”  Of course not!  The image is for the future, it is the wrong image and the Enemy would sell us a subtle deception. 

What is the correct image?  We are not yet the glorified Church, but we are a Church in transition; an imperfect Church made up of imperfect people.  Once we were lost, but now we are found.  We are a communion of sinners in the process of transformation.  We are a blood washed band on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land.  That is what so enrages the Devil.

Are people wounded by the Church?  Yes, insofar as the world is in the Church, and the Church is in the world.  There are tremendous flaws within the Church because of the humanity of the Church.

One of the reasons the world hates the Church is because in the Church the world sees its own mirror image, and more than that it sees its mirror image in the process of redemption.  The world is threatened by the demonstration in the Church that change is possible, that salvation and transformation can be seen in the ongoing salvation history of the Church and its individual people.

It is the image of a glorious Church in transformation from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Light, and in fury the Enemy cries out, “How dare you say that salvation and change is possible?”  From his perspective that wrecks all!  The Church in this world, already beginning to reflect the glory of God, is a serious affront to the world, the flesh, and the Devil; because is true that even as the Church beholds the Light it is in the process of being transformed into Light.

The vision is for the future, but it is already in process now.  Therefore the Devil cannot stand it.

And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."[ii]

---

[i] Song of Songs, 6:10;

[ii] Revelation 21:2-4   

Katherine Jefferts Schori: The Heartbeat of God

A Brief Review[i]

There is a principle that theology should not be based on experience, but rather that experience should be evaluated on the basis of theology.  What is Schori’s theological method and what exactly is the basis on which her theology is formulated?

Schori’s theological method is: If I’ve experienced it and it agrees with my presuppositions it must be true.   Right at the outset she tells us, “We are all running down the same road, and our task is to break through the obstacles and make the road smoother for one another.  If you read the Hebrew Scriptures closely, you discover that God’s promise of full larders and planted fields and repopulated cities is followed by metanoia—a new mind and a new heart.”

She presents us with a naïve secular utopianism disguised in religious language.  It is naïve because it is based on an inadequate theological understanding of human nature.  Our job, the mission of the Church, is to usher in the Kingdom of God on earth.  What makes it difficult to comment on is that she is in part correct, but partial truth is a dangerous thing.  One wants to ask, “Are we indeed running down the same road?  And, if so, are we all running in the same direction?” [ii]

She clearly does not think that some are running down the same road.  She says, “Given the stories I’ve heard in the Dioceses of San Jaoquin and Fort Worth, leadership looked a lot like control and fear-mongering, and intimidation was used to keep people in line.  Bishops and clergy insisted that they had the fullness of God’s truth, and if anybody disagreed, well, then, they must be godless heretics.”[iii]  She makes a practice of vilifying those who do not agree with her, and at the least show herself no better than those she critiques, that is providing her assertion is correct. 

Please note that she bases this on stories that she has heard.  I know personally some of those she critiques so savagely, and while I do not agree with their separation, I would not call into question their orthodoxy, their morality, and is some outstanding people among them their love and charity.

She has in her opening introduction a misunderstanding, whether wilful or not.  She says that God’s promises of blessing are followed by metanioa—a new mind and a new heart.”  She is wrong.  Metanoia, is repentance, and as such precedes necessarily the gift of a new mind and a new heart, not the other way around.

Consistently through her book she evokes the questions preceding the baptismal covenant.  What she consistently ignores is the three renunciations of evil and the three baptismal questions that each adult candidate must answer for himself or herself, and each baptized child must eventually affirm at Confirmation.

What are those questions?  They are the expression of the very faith that she has condemned in a General Convention address as a Western Heresy, “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?  Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?  Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?”

She is a secular utopian humanist with a predilection for the radical methodology of Saul Alinsky who felt that the greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by religious, political and racial fanatics; and she is glad to identify her opponents as those very fanatics.

---

[i] I actually read the book.  I bought it on Amazon for $4.95

[ii] Katherine Jefferts Schori: The Heartbeat of God, (Woodstock, Vermont:  Skylight Paths, 2011), p. xxxiv

[iii] Ibid, p. 163

The Call for Integrity

The Obedience of Faith Reflection 4

The first chapter addresses the morality and excesses of the Gentile world.  Now Paul turns his attention to the Jews who are standing in judgment on the Gentiles.  Understanding the relationship Jew to Gentile in the Early Church, one has to remember what Paul said in Ephesians, “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands - remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”[i]  Paul’s audience in Rome is a mixed congregation of Diaspora Jews and Gentiles who have come to faith in Christ Jesus.  Remember that Aquila and Priscilla who shared the ministry with Paul in Corinth were Jews from Rome. 

We have a similar alienation within the Church today between the Sadducean Revisionists and the Pharisaic Schismatic.  Not all that are within The Episcopal Church are Sadducees and not all who are within the schismatic “Anglican” groups are Pharisees.  In terms of alignment with one party or the other there is no middle ground; although I find it difficult to think that Jesus himself would have looked at the impure state of Judaism and have become a schismatic.  Rather than that, through the Holy Spirit, he let the Gentiles in.  That is quite another matter. 

Leaving because you think the grass is greener on the other side of the Gospel fence is not the same thing as being forced out of the structure because you are transforming it from within.  St. Athanasius and St. Cyril of Jerusalem provide a model for today’s struggle within the Church.  Both would rather fight than switch, both were deposed, and both eventually returned to their Episcopates.  Neither one left to start a new church.

Paul leaves no quarter for those Jews who were judging the Gentile world.

Romans 2:1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.  ² We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who do such things.  ³ Do you suppose, O man - you who judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself - that you will escape the judgment of God?  ⁴ Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 

The underlying issue is the lack of integrity.  The Psalmist affirms, “I will live with integrity,”[ii] but that integrity has been lost.  There is an affirmation here in the midst of judgment; God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance.  To continue to ignore that kindness stores up wrath for us on the day of judgment.

⁵ But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.  ⁶ He will render to each one according to his works:  ⁷ to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking¹ and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. 

A truly biblical theology will not use this as a proof text for salvation by works.  Bear in mind that faith issues in good works, and where there are no good works, there is no effective faith.  We are saved by grace through faith, and faith without works is dead.

⁹ There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.  ¹¹ For God shows no partiality.”

That last statement was no doubt a surprise to both Jew and Gentile.  We should remember that in this age of disparate denominationalism.  Be careful with the tar brush when you try to paint others black; the Lord will use that same tar brush on you.

---

[i] Ephesians 2:11-13 

[ii] Psalm 26:11 BCP

The Obedience of Faith Reflection Three

Paul started with the immediate social problem of his day; the commonly accepted sexual practices of the world around him, particularly same-sex sexual acts, but at this point he broadens the spectrum.  That is only one facet of a larger problem.  God in his wrath allows them freedom of will, and as a result they have reaped what they have so gladly sown and have surrendered themselves to having a debased mind.  Here the argument extends to a wide-ranging characterization of “all manner of unrighteousness.” With a broad stroke brush he paints a quick picture of the fruit of unrighteousness.

Romans 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.  29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

In this brief picture he moves to the unrighteous behaviour of those who sit in judgment over the sexual behaviours so evident in his society and ours.  When the sluice gate of rebelliousness is willfully opened, all kinds of filth floods in.  Note the quality of the sins that Paul has cited.  The list includes, “gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.”  It’s what I think of as a “Woops” list.  The net of kingdom judgment is wide enough that none of the evil that we do is left outside of the net.  In following chapters Paul will make it clear that sinners can’t afford to sit in judgment on sinners, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

There is another issue that we cannot afford to miss.  Did you know that unrighteousness is “evangelical” and seeks to convert you to its own way?  This last verse of Chapter One is alarming:

Romans 1:32  “Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”

Let me share a memory with you.  I am a recovered alcoholic and I had better never forget it.  Towards the end of my second year of sobriety (forty years ago) we had a Sunday morning baptism at the Church I was serving.  Following the baptism we went back to the home of the parents for a baptismal party where we were met at the door by the child’s grandmother with a drink in her hand.  She was obviously too merry for 11:30 in the morning.  The first thing she did in greeting me was offer me a drink.  I said, “No thank you, I don’t drink,” but she did not want to take “No” for an answer.  She was drinking and she needed me to join her in her dissipation and she continued to press me to join her in drinking.  Not just once, but several times.  At last, in frustration, I said, “I don’t drink because I’m a recovered alcoholic.”  She responded, “You can’t be.  You’re too young.”  For the rest of the party she made herself scarce and avoided me like the plague.  Above all it was apparent that she, who was having a problem with alcohol, needed the priest to join her so that she could feel justified in drinking that early in the day. 

Never mistake the malignant evangelicalism of evil.  What the unrighteous want you to do is to share in their wicked deeds so that they can avoid the challenge with which your life confronts them.  In the context of the sexual immorality of our day it is clear that those who do such things desperately seek our approval, for the very thing they want to avoid is that those deeds are not in the sight of God acceptable.  That is one reason why there is such a press towards the acceptance of same sex marriage in the church.  For them it is a terrible thing that you avoid the sparkling sins that for them are the very sign of their liberty from an oppressive God.  But be careful, the next chapter will be merciless on the self-righteous who themselves have their own sparkling sins.