St. George and the Dragon

A Song of the Church

2012-01-27T08:24:00.000-08:00

Itis fashionable in our age to criticize the Church, but what does the Lord ofthe 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]

Whois the Accuser who would say otherwise?

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

Inote that in the usual form of this accusation that the Church is referred toas an ‘army’ that shoots its wounded. That accidentally acknowledges that the Church is an army on the frontline of a battle. The world does nottake that seriously. It would never doto admit that the Church is involved in the global warfare between good andevil. That is so much out of favour thatin some places those called by the name of Christ won’t even sing OnwardChristian Soldiers.

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

Whatis the correct image? We are not yet theglorified Church, but we are a Church in transition; an imperfect Church madeup of imperfect people. Once we were lost,but now we are found. We are a communionof 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.

Arepeople 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 Churchbecause of the humanity of the Church.

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

Itis the image of a glorious Church in transformation from the kingdom ofdarkness to the kingdom of Light, and in fury the Enemy cries out, “How dareyou 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 truethat even as the Church beholds the Light it is in the process of beingtransformed into Light.

Thevision 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 herhusband. And I heard a loud voice fromthe throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He willdwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with themas their God. He will wipe away everytear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there bemourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passedaway."[ii]

[i] Song of Songs, 6:10;

[ii] Revelation21:2-4

Katherine Jefferts Schori: The Heartbeat of God

2011-12-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

A BriefReview[i]

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

Schori’stheological method is: If I’ve experienced it and it agrees with mypresuppositions it must be true. Right at the outset she tells us, “We are allrunning down the same road, and our task is to break through the obstacles andmake the road smoother for one another. If you read the Hebrew Scriptures closely, you discover that God’spromise of full larders and planted fields and repopulated cities is followedby metanoia—a new mind and a newheart.”

Shepresents us with a naïve secular utopianism disguised in religious language. It is naïve because it is based on aninadequate theological understanding of human nature. Our job, the mission of the Church, is tousher 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 samedirection?” [ii]

Sheclearly does not think that some are running down the same road. She says, “Given the stories I’ve heard inthe Dioceses of San Jaoquin and Fort Worth, leadership looked a lot likecontrol and fear-mongering, and intimidation was used to keep people inline. Bishops and clergy insisted thatthey 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 whodo not agree with her, and at the least show herself no better than those shecritiques, that is providing her assertion is correct.

Pleasenote that she bases this on stories that she has heard. I know personally some of those she critiquesso savagely, and while I do not agree with their separation, I would not callinto question their orthodoxy, their morality, and is some outstanding peopleamong them their love and charity.

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

Consistentlythrough her book she evokes the questions preceding the baptismalcovenant. What she consistently ignoresis the three renunciations of evil and the three baptismal questions that eachadult candidate must answer for himself or herself, and each baptized childmust eventually affirm at Confirmation.

Whatare those questions? They are theexpression of the very faith that she has condemned in a General Conventionaddress as a Western Heresy, “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him asyour Savior? Do you put your whole trustin his grace and love? Do you promise tofollow and obey him as your Lord?”

Sheis a secular utopian humanist with a predilection for the radical methodology ofSaul Alinsky who felt that thegreatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by religious, political andracial fanatics; and she is glad to identify her opponents as those veryfanatics.

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

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

[iii]Ibid, p. 163

The Call for Integrity

2011-12-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

TheObedience of Faith Reflection 4

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

We have a similar alienation within the Church today between theSadducean Revisionists and the Pharisaic Schismatic. Not all that are within The Episcopal Church areSadducees and not all who are within the schismatic “Anglican” groups arePharisees. In terms of alignment withone party or the other there is no middle ground; although I find it difficultto think that Jesus himself would have looked at the impure state of Judaismand have become a schismatic. Ratherthan 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 sideof the Gospel fence is not the same thing as being forced out of the structurebecause you are transforming it from within. St. Athanasius and St. Cyril of Jerusalem provide a model for today’sstruggle within the Church. Both wouldrather fight than switch, both were deposed, and both eventually returned totheir Episcopates. Neither one left tostart a new church.

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

Romans 2:1 Therefore youhave no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment onanother you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very samethings. ² We know that thejudgment of God rightly falls on those who do such things. ³ Do you suppose, O man - you whojudge those who do such things and yet do them yourself - that you will escapethe judgment of God? ⁴ Or doyou presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, notknowing 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 withintegrity,”[ii]but that integrity has been lost. Thereis an affirmation here in the midst of judgment; God’s kindness is meant tolead us to repentance. To continue toignore that kindness stores up wrath for us on the day of judgment.

⁵ But because ofyour hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the dayof wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ He will render to each oneaccording to his works: ⁷ tothose 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-seeking¹anddo not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath andfury.

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

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

That last statement was no doubt a surprise to both Jew andGentile. We should remember that in thisage of disparate denominationalism. Becareful with the tar brush when you try to paint others black; the Lord willuse that same tar brush on you.

[i] Ephesians2:11-13

[ii] Psalm 26:11 BCP

The Obedience of Faith Reflection Three

2011-12-15T05:38:00.000-08:00

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

Romans 1:28 And since they did not see fit toacknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to bedone. 29 They were filled with allmanner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy,murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, hatersof 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 ofthose who sit in judgment over the sexual behaviours so evident in his societyand ours. When the sluice gate ofrebelliousness is willfully opened, all kinds of filth floods in. Note the quality of the sins that Paul hascited. The list includes, “gossips, slanderers,haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient toparents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” It’s what I think of as a “Woops” list. The net of kingdom judgment is wide enoughthat none of the evil that we do is left outside of the net. In following chapters Paul will make it clearthat sinners can’t afford to sit in judgment on sinners, because all havesinned 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 deserveto 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 wasserving. Following the baptism we wentback to the home of the parents for a baptismal party where we were met at thedoor by the child’s grandmother with a drink in her hand. She was obviously too merry for 11:30 in themorning. The first thing she did ingreeting me was offer me a drink. Isaid, “No thank you, I don’t drink,” but she did not want to take “No” for ananswer. She was drinking and she neededme to join her in her dissipation and she continued to press me to join her indrinking. Not just once, but severaltimes. 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 herselfscarce and avoided me like the plague. Above all it was apparent that she, who was having a problem withalcohol, needed the priest to join her so that she could feel justified indrinking that early in the day.

Never mistake the malignant evangelicalism of evil. What the unrighteous want you to do is to sharein their wicked deeds so that they can avoid the challenge with which your lifeconfronts them. In the context of thesexual immorality of our day it is clear that those who do such thingsdesperately seek our approval, for the very thing they want to avoid is thatthose deeds are not in the sight of God acceptable. That is one reason why there is such a presstowards the acceptance of same sex marriage in the church. For them it is a terrible thing that youavoid the sparkling sins that for them are the very sign of their liberty froman oppressive God. But be careful, thenext chapter will be merciless on the self-righteous who themselves have theirown sparkling sins.

The Obedience of Faith Continuing Reflection 2

2011-12-14T08:18:00.000-08:00

Did you know that unrighteousness is malignantly “evangelical” and seeks toconvert you to its own way? This lastverse of Chapter One is alarming:

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

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 wasserving. Following the baptism we wentback to the home of the parents for a baptismal party where we were met at thedoor by the child’s grandmother with a drink in her hand. She was obviously too merry for 11:30 in themorning. The first thing she did ingreeting me was offer me a drink. I said,“No thank you, I don’t drink,” but she did not want to take “No” for ananswer. She was drinking and she neededme to join her in her dissipation and she continued to press me to join her indrinking. Not just once, but severaltimes. At last, in frustration, I said, “Idon’t drink because I’m a recovered alcoholic.” She responded, “You can’t be. You’retoo young.” For the rest of the partyshe made herself scarce and avoided me like the plague. Above all it was apparent that she, who washaving a problem with alcohol, needed the priest to join her so that she couldfeel justified in drinking that early in the morning.

Never mistake the malignant evangelicalism of evil. What the unrighteous want you to do is to sharein their wicked deeds so that they can avoid the challenge with which your lifeconfronts them. In the context of thesexual immorality of our day it is clear that those who do such thingsdesperately seek our approval, for the very thing they want to avoid is thatthose deeds are not in the sight of God acceptable. That is one reason why there is such a presstowards the acceptance of same sex marriage in the church. For them it is a terrible thing that youavoid the sparkling sins that for them is the very sign of their liberty froman oppressive God. But be careful, thenext chapter will be merciless on the self-righteous who themselves have theirown sparkling sins.

The Obedience of Faith: Continuing Reflection 1

2011-12-13T15:14:00.000-08:00

We are past the era when wewould name a child “Wrath of God Smith.” However just because I have burned my fingers several times cookingdoesn’t mean that I shouldn’t continue to cook. Cooking is necessary, especially if you don’t like your beef raw, andacknowledging the reality of the wrath of God is necessary, especially if youdon’t want to end up cooked at the end. It is not that God is wrathful as man is wrathful. No, not at all! When man is wrathful all kinds of godlessemotional overtones are in man’s wrath, fear, anger, rage, and loss ofcontrol. God’s wrath is quite different;it is part of his very nature. GeorgeMacDonald says, that “It is the nature of God, so terribly pure that itdestroys all that is not pure as fire,” and again, “Therefore all that is notbeautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love’s kind mustbe destroyed. And our God is a consumingfire.”[i] The only way to stop the burning is toembrace the fire with penitence and a resolution for amendment of life. The wrath of God is a purifying fire, not anarbitrary wrath marked by the loss of self-control.

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God isrevealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who bytheir unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God hasshown it to them. 20 For his invisibleattributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearlyperceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have beenmade. So they are without excuse. 21 Foralthough they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him,but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts weredarkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, theybecame fools, 23 and exchanged the gloryof the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals andreptiles.

The wrath of God, that burningfire, is directed not only against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,but especially against the fact that they willfully “supress the truth.” C. S. Lewis gives a wry explanation of theevolvement of the apostasy of a bishop in his book The Great Divorce,” Let usbe frank. Our opinions were not honestlycome by. We simply found ourselves incontact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into it because it seemedmodern and successful . . . When did weput up one moment’s real resistance to the loss of our faith?”[ii]

The problem is self-centeredpig-headedness! Our independentrebelliousness is mocked by T. S. Eliot’s poem about the cat Rum Tum Tugger,“For he will do, as he do do, And there’s no doing anything about it.”[iii] St. Paul tells us that all of creationtestifies to eternal nature and power of God and willful man shies away fromthat revelation because he do do, what he do do, and that’s the way it is. The result is that futility descends upon thethinking of the rebellious, and their foolish hearts are darkened. It is not that men in that condition can evenrecognize what they are becoming. GeorgeMacdonald speaks the truth, “A beast does not know that he is a beast, and thenearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it.”[iv]

Paul then focusses on theimmediate social problem. The wrath of Godis not a bolt of furious anger burning the ungodly to a crisp, rather it is thedivine acknowledgment that the unrighteous have freedom of will. “They pays their money and takes theirchoice.” C. S. Lewis puts it this way,

Thereare only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will bedone,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be noHell.[v]

God’s wrath is exercised inthis, that God gives them up “in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to thedishonoring of their bodies among themselves.”

24 Therefore God gave them up inthe lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies amongthemselves, 25 because they exchanged thetruth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than theCreator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

The reason for divineabandonment is that this is the choice they have made in their wilful flightfrom the truths that are evident to all even in general revelation, thatgeneral revelation being Creation itself. I feel a sting here, even though I have forsaken sparkling sins thelesser ones nag at me, and as I work on that continual surrender, I hear thesame voices that St. Augustine heard, “Can you cast us off? And: From thismoment, never more to be with us?! And: From this moment, never to do this, notever, or to do this!”[vi] The surrender of my right to eat the thirdDanish at breakfast is subtly difficult, never mind the call on the life of theunrighteous to abandon the sparkling sins of the flesh that they say they loveso much. Oops, did I say “third Danish?” I actually have to surrender my right to eatthe second Danish. Surrender on anylevel is hard which is why we should have mercy on others. All God ever asks of us is that we surrenderourselves, that we die to ourselves. What God is asking means that we have to surrender even what we thinkare our identities or our orientations.

Let me not mince words. Paul’s immediate social problem is lesbianand homosexual physical acts. He willlater say the same thing regarding heterosexual adultery and fornication;further what he says also clearly applies to pornography. But don’t miss this. The presenting problem is that women arebeing consumed with lust for other women, and men are being consumed with lustfor other men. Some will cry out, “Butthat’s my orientation!” It has nothingto do with what you might claim to be your orientation; it has to do withfondling your lusts and with your chosen actions. Naturally polygamous men are not condemnedfor their temptations, but only for acting them out. Homosexuals and lesbians are not condemnedfor their temptation but for their various sexual actions. As fallen creatures, we have diverseorientations; that’s not really the problem.

26 For this reason God gave them upto dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for thosethat are contrary to nature; 27 and themen likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed withpassion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receivingin themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them upto a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Here is the tragedy: As they areconsumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with menthey receive in themselves the due penalty for their error. Their personhood is formed around theirpassions, and in those passions they find a fulfillment which bends their personalitiesto their lusts and leaves them prey to a host of other behaviours.

29 They were filled with all mannerof 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. 32 Though they know God'sdecree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only dothem but give approval to those who practice them.

The lives of some of those committinghomosexual or lesbian acts are no worse than the lives of adulterers orfornicators; and in both opposing groups of “orientation” there are some veryaffable and socially acceptable people. Not only that, there are some very straightand moral people who are just cranky and unpleasant to be around. It takes more than just sexual morality tolive into the image of Christ.

[i] C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, AnAnthology, (New York: Macmillan, 1978), p. 2

[ii] C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce,(New York: Harper, 2011), p. 36, 37

[iii] T. S. Eliot, “Old Possums Book ofPractical Cats,” in The Complete Poems and Plays, (New York: Harcourt Brace,1980), p. 153

[iv] MacDonald, p. 141

[v] C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, (NewYork: HarperCollins, 2001), p. 75

[vi] St.Augustine, The Confessions, Garry Wills, trans. (New York: Penguin, 2006] p. 179, 180

2011-12-12T07:26:00.000-08:00

Ask Where the Good Way is and Walk in It

The Obedience of Faith: Intoduction

In the first chapter of hisLetter to the Romans Paul states clearly what his understanding of hiscommission from Christ Jesus:

Romans 1:1-6: 1 Paul, a servant ofChrist Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through hisprophets in the holy Scriptures, 3concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God inpower according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead,Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about theobedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, 6 including you who are called to belong toJesus Christ,

Paul’s purpose is stated inverse 5: “we have received graceand apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name.”

Our charge is to bring about theobedience of faith and the first challenge is the question of our own obedience. Immediately I see that bringing about perfectobedience in others is not the charge; at least not until we ourselves haveachieved perfect obedience. I can’tremember who said, “Faith cannot abide sparkling sins.” It might have been VanRuysbroek, or perhaps even John Cordelier.[i] Before the end of this first chapter ofRomans, Paul will begin to speak clearly about those sparkling sins. Our current generation looks back on theancient world and says the ancients did this or that, so it is natural that weshould do the same things; therefore we are justified by the example of theancients. Paul says “No!” That is one reason why the authority ofScripture is called into question; unfortunately it attacks the corruption of theages.

That Socrates did such and suchis no justification of our actions. Onone level I feel like a cad saying this; a thousand compassionate voices arecrying out against my opinion, but compassion without truth would let othersdescend into bestiality rather than be so harsh as to say “No!” Love without truth is a lie. On the other hand I don’t think Paul holdsthe view that there are mortal and venial sins. For him a sin is a sin is a sin. Each sin, whether socially more acceptable than others, breaks not onlythe law of God, but also flies in the face of created order. To be blunt there is no qualitativedifference between homosexual acts, or heterosexual adultery, orfornication. By the time we have arrivedat chapter six Paul will have had a go at most of the things that men thinkthat they love to do. Whether theyactually love to do them is another matter.

In our baptismal vows we notonly accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and put our whole trust in his grace andlove, but we also declare that we will follow him as our Lord. In that threefold vow, for each part isinseparable, we acknowledge our continuing need of a Saviour, our heartfeltintention to trust Him, and our pledge of personal obedience. That’s tough stuff, but its Gospel toughstuff.

Paul goes on to say:

Romans 1:16-32: 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, forit is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew firstand also to the Greek. 17 For in it therighteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written,"The righteous shall live by faith."

What is the gospel?

1 Corinthians 15:1-4: 1 Now I wouldremind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, inwhich you stand, 2 and by which you arebeing saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless youbelieved in vain. 3 For I delivered toyou as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sinsin accordance with the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with theScriptures.

A mistake common to our age ofwishful thinkers is that you can have the pure gospel without gospelholiness. That is a fiction that wouldhave horrified Paul and the Early Church. You cannot in fact separate faith from works. If you think that is possible sit down at thebreakfast table and have a discussion with Paul and James. By the time the last Danish pastry is eatenyou will find that they essentially agree that faith always issues in goodworks even though they express it differently.

Faith is not mere assent to aset of propositions. Faith is restingyour entire being, your past failings, and your future hope of glory on thefact that Christ died for you; that you are have been forgiven, that you willbe forgiven, and that you are accepted by our holy God who is a consuming fire. Faith lives out the truth of the gospel inthe process of theosis, that is, that we are being transformed from one gloryinto another, and that transformation has the practical effect of separating usfrom our sparkling sins. In the contextof this first chapter of Romans the knight of faith can no more continue in consumed with passion for other men than he can be consumed with fornicationwith women. In fact the knight of faithdoes not look like other men in our society; rather he shows that the image ofthe Christ is in the process of being stamped upon his face. That idea is so odd that we are embarrassedif anyone points refers to us as “a holy man.” Have we yet reached the point that being called a holy man is an insult?

[i] Evelyn Underhill

The Emerald Witch

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There is a helpful image from C. S. Lewis’s Narnia Tale, “The Silver Chair.” Young Prince Rillian, the son of King Caspian, has been held prisoner by the Emerald Witch. Aslan, the Christ figure, sends the children Eustace and Jill to rescue him. On their journey they are accompanied by Puddleglum the Marshwiggle.

They release Prince Rillian from the enchanted silver chair, and just as he is freed the Emerald Witch returns. She cannot bear to see the prisoner free for she is not free herself. Softly she strums her mandolin as the hypnotic fragrance of the world arises from the fires of the Underworld. The Emerald Witch intones, “There is no Narnia, no Overworld, only Underworld. There is no sun, it is only an imaginary reflection of the lamps I have made. There is no Aslan, there is only my familiar, the cat who roams the streets of Underworld. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.”

As they begin to sink into an enchanted sleep the Marshwiggle stamps his webbed foot on the fire; it burns his heel, and the odor of burnt Marshwiggle begins to dispel the fragrance of the world. The Marshwiggle echoes Pascal, “Even if Aslan and the Overworld do not exist, that is better than the deception you are offering us.” The spell is broken.

The Emerald Witch continues to strum her mandolin as the fragrance of the world arises and intones, “There are many roads to God, and Jesus is only the way for Christians. Taking Jesus as a personal Saviour is a Western heresy. Understand that Jesus Christ is the spirit of the world, and that the spirit of the world is Jesus Christ, and he is called by many other names. He has many names, Apollo and Aphrodite, Shiva and Kali, and all ways are the one way. The true mission of the Church is the millennium goals. There is no objective Tao, no single Truth, only our feelings about what is right. Our feelings, not your feelings for you have been conditioned by the narrow unrealistic faith of bygone generations. We are right. You are wrong. We are right. You are wrong. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

I stamp my webbed foot upon the fire saying, “The God we serve is able to deliver, but if he will not deliver the church at this time, we will not serve your gods are worship them.”

Mother Church?

2011-11-20T17:09:00.000-08:00

Rochester Cathedral Nave

There is the story of a mother nursing her growing baby. He bit her on the nipple, so she whacked him on the head, so he bit her on the nipple, so she whacked him on the head. What was missing on both sides was respect born of love.

When you criticize the Church remember the plaint of the Psalmist, “Your servants love her very rubble, and are moved to pity even for her dust” (Psalm 102:14, BCP).

But what is the Church? The Church is the Body of Christ. It is the Church within the church. We make a mistake in not understanding that The Episcopal Church and every other denomination is by nature a “communion” of sinners. Therein lies a problem. Unity within the church is not based on kneeling at the altar rail together; we actually invite to that altar rail all who are baptised and believe that Christ is truly present in the sacrament. But be aware that there is a movement to make baptism unnecessary for membership.

Unity within the Church is not based on kneeling at the altar rail. It is based on three things: “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Saviour? Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?” (BCP). The answer is very personal, “I do.”

Unity within the Church is based on what Jefferts Schori has called a Western Heresy. If she believes what she has said in a mood of irritation, her declaration leaves her outside of the Church even while she remains the titular head a branch of the Church. That is a tragedy both for the Church and for her, which is one reason why all Episcopal Churches should pray for her at the altar rail every Sunday. Have compassion on her. For her to surrender to the only true God, she, like all of us, will have to surrender every pretension. That is a very painful challenge. Our God is a consuming fire!

Purple Fever: A Retrospect

2011-11-16T22:08:00.000-08:00

The honour I never almost had:

Purple Fever is an awful disease, it was candidates night, and the next day was the election of our Suffragan 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; “Back in 2008 I was nominated for Suffragan Bishop.” Even the possibility of a small self-glorifying exaggeration is clean cut off, “I was almost elected.”

“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, and I almost seized the heavenly throne; a throne I could have had if only, so at least I have bragging rights.”

The World in the Church

2011-11-12T16:24:00.000-08:00

What has been is what will be,

and what has been done is what will be done,

and there is nothing new under the sun.[i]

The culture of the Weimar Republic in the 1920’s was hedonistic, immoral, and degenerate, and the emergence of new artistic movements added to the malaise. We find today some of those same elements in full flower in our media driven culture. The collapse of the economy in 1929 ushered in a Great Depression. Unemployment, crime, and despair rose sharply. We find echoes of that in our own economy with rising unemployment and undisciplined crowds occupying city centers with mixed approval and disapproval from the rest of us.

It was during the early 1930s that Bonhoeffer, in a lecture given at the University of Berlin, said the following:

“The old world cannot take pleasure in the Church because the Church speaks of its end as though it had already happened--as though the world had already been judged. The old world does not like being regarded as dead. The Church has never been surprised at this, nor is it surprised by the fact that again and again men come to it who think the thoughts of the old world--and who is there entirely free from them? But the Church is naturally in tumult when these children of the world that has passed away lay claim to the Church, to the new, for themselves. They want the new and only know the old. And thus they deny Christ the Lord.” [ii]

In the Church of today the “children of the world that has passed way lay claim to the Church, to the new, for themselves. They want the new and only know the old. And thus they deny Christ the Lord.” That denial is clear, specific, and oddly self-righteous. They tell us that Jesus is only a way for Christians, and that other ways are of equal or greater value. They tell us that the acceptance of Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour is a Western Heresy, being obviously ignorant that Eastern figures like St. Cyril of Jerusalem taught the same “heresy.” They tell us that we must accommodate to the culture of the world. For them the Church is the not the salt of the world, but the world is the salt of the Church.

A new thing has emerged. In the past history of the Church, heretics left the church and attacked it from without, but now the heretics stay in the Church and attack it from within.[iii] Integrity would demand that they leave the Church that in fact they hate, but they are driven by selfish ambition and the lust for personal power over others. We are in the midst of a spiritual warfare that is increasingly less and less subtle.

The solution is not cowardly flight, but courageous fight. Once more we need to strongly embrace the declaration, “I will live with integrity.”[iv] Rather than cringing with fear at the accusation that we are narrow minded (the insult being that we are Fundamentalists) we must with boldness declare that there is an objective Truth, the universal Tao, and that moral and ethical standards have an eternal origin and value.

Once more we must confess that not only do we believe in Jesus Christ as an intellectual proposition, but that we have in fact undeniably met him, and him alone will we serve.

[i] Ecclesiastes 1:9

[ii] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, translated by John C. Fletcher. (New York: Macmillan, 1959), 11

[iii] Peter Kreeft in a Question and Answer period at the Stanton Lecture Series, in Dallas, Nov. 12, 2011

[iv] Psalm 26:11, BCP

Egypt’ Land

2011-11-09T10:38:00.000-08:00

I ran into a disturbing text this morning and immediately thought of the continuing attempts to accommodate the Church to the standards of the world. Certainly the opening sermon of the last diocesan convention invited us into such a process of transformation. The process was called smoltification. Smoltification is the process of transformation in the young salmon as it adapts to the sea and becomes a mature fish.

But what for us is the sea if not the world itself? "The waters that you saw, . . . are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues (Rev. 17:1). Creation is a wonderful gift, and when we are invited to set our minds on “whatever is true,” we are also invited to set our minds “whatever is pure” (Philippians 4:8). You know the old axiom: We are called to be in the world, not of the world; and there is a difference.

Here is the disturbing text:

"Ah, stubborn children," declares the LORD, "who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! (Isaiah 30:1-2).

“When Israel was in Egypt’ land,

Let My people go!

Oppressed so hard they could not stand,

Let My people go!”

All of us were once in Egypt’ Land, why would we want to go back there again? We already know that “If anyone loves the things of the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Why on middle earth would we want to transform the standards of the Church to the standards of the world? Middle earth exists between Heaven and Hell, and those are both options. I think I would rather take C. S. Lewis’s bus to the elysian fields of paradise than accommodate myself to the endless Shadowland that ultimately goes you know where.

Let my people go? That’s not really an option. I would much rather fight than switch!

For a further reflection on the sermon at convention see: http://anglicanissues.blogspot.com/2011/11/soft-cudgel.html

The Soft Cudgel

2011-11-08T04:18:00.000-08:00

Did you see what I saw, the preacher high and lifted up above the peoples? He was courteous and even smiled appropriately, but there was a subtle undertone. He didn’t know us, he just assumed that he did. As a result he was supercilious, talking down to the gathering before him. A few were enraptured because they agreed. A few were enraptured because he was important and they enjoyed his finely judged interjections of humour, after all a preacher needs to be entertaining? Many were initially open and enquiring, but as he wielded his soft cudgel they drew farther and farther away, and some of them didn’t even realize why. Some were just angry that he had even been invited to preach. Perhaps they needed a cudgelling, but one more forthright and planted on the Rock.

The preacher used the gospel instead of preaching the gospel. He had an agenda that was not the agenda of the living Word but the agenda of the culture that he had adopted as his own spiritual agenda. Just because something is spiritual doesn’t mean that it represents the balance of the written word of God; even though that is not determinative for those who hold the agenda of whatever is the current culture. Truly all men before God are equal, and that as a principle is fair enough, but it’s not the whole Truth; there are other truths and only one Truth can govern them all: Jesus Christ is Lord; not the teachings of the current culture.

To be quite fair the preacher was being as honest and as fair with us as he knew how, but a lack self-knowledge is often one of our limitations. By his own admission the message of the soft cudgel was not the one he grew up with. He had grown up with the hard cudgel and that was just as bad with its intolerant attitudes. If you grow up with a hard cudgel it’s hard not to cudgel others even when you reject the hard cudgel . What he didn’t know was that it wasn’t necessary to throw out the baby with the bath water.

Oh what a style! No hard cudgel here, not the least, but a cudgel nonetheless, softly cudgelling with a smothering stroke; self-righteous, possessing the only truth, such as it was. Part of the problem was that he was blind to his audience and couldn’t see that he wasn’t addressing a hard cudgel audience but many moderate, temperate people who would not enjoy being cudgelled with a truth out of the context of the larger Truth. Such cudgelling polarizes people who don’t even realize they are being cudgelled. On reflection most thoughtful people can tell when the cudgel is the preacher’s agenda and not an agenda of the Spirit of God. People tend not to like being cudgelled no matter how soft the cudgel.

Honey and Hemlock

2011-07-19T16:45:00.000-07:00

It is impossible to take the Church out of the world, and it is impossible to take the world out of the Church. Jesus forbade it. “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while he was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.”[i] The weeds were zizanion, tares, a form of darnel which resembles wheat, but its grains are black and poisonous. Zizanion produces a form of intoxication which can end in death; so also do the doctrines of the apostates in our field of the kingdom.

When the servants asked the Master if they should pull out the zizanion he forbade it, saying, “No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.”[ii] When the grains of wheat are ready for harvest they bend down, but the zizanion stands up above them and can be easily identified and removed. There is a lot of zizanion in the Church, but the fruit of the Church, thirtyfold, sixtyfold and a hundredfold is not yet mature enough to be harvested.

In the field of the visible Kingdom, the Church, there is good grain and zizanion, and often the servants of the Church become panicky and want to pull out the zizanion, or failing that, pull out the Church from the field. If you try to pull out the zizanion some of the wheat will be damaged. If you try to pull out the sons and daughters of the Church you inevitably will pull out some of the zizanion them. In the premature harvest some of the tallest stalks will not be wheat. You can’t purify and preserve the Church by pulling it out of The Episcopal Church, or out of the Anglican Communion; and be aware of some of the tallest stalks when you try to do that.

In the field of the kingdom, the world is in the Church and the Church is in the world. Obedience demands courage and steadfastness, not flight. Of the servants of the kingdom let it be said, “Your servants love her very rubble, and are moved to pity even for her dust.”[iii] When you live in the field of the kingdom you will by necessity be faced with the mixture of honey and hemlock. “So it is most needful that those who wish to separate out the honey from the mixture should beware that they do not take the deadly residue by mistake.”[iv]

There are two basic tests for hemlock, correct doctrine, and love.[v] Vincent of Lerins is correct when he says, “We take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all.”[vi] To negotiate away from either the authority of Scripture or the witness of tradition is to feed on the intoxication of zizanion. To sue your brothers over property is a witness the quality of your love.

The first solution is not flight, but in steadfastness and in the clarity of the doctrine held by loving hearts. When a prominent church leader tells us that a personal saving faith in Jesus is a western heresy, and we know full well that Eastern saints like Cyril of Jerusalem held that everyone coming to baptism must have a personal faith in Christ, we see the parable of the zizanion and good wheat clearly illustrated. Until the harvest time our clear and loving response is to point out the zizanion and say, “Don’t eat it!”

Let’s be honest, some of the fields of the kingdom are almost entirely run over with zizanion. The Lord himself declares, “I know your works. You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die.”[vii] He does not say that the faithful should flee but rather, “You have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments and I will never blot his name out of the book of life.”[viii]

The one who conquers is not the one who flees, or even wins the political battles in the field of the Church, but the one who remains steadfast and faithful. I and others who refuse to flee, say with Paul, “I make up in my own body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ on behalf of his body which is the Church.”[ix] That is not a ministry of giddy happiness, but it is a ministry of a very real and unique joy in sharing in the incarnate presence of Christ Jesus who loves his Church on earth.

There are others who share that same ministry of suffering joy, and they have been driven out of the Episcopal Church. It is hard for us who would rather fight than switch to judge when enough is enough. How does a priest in a diocese in the northeast survive when she is told by her peers that she is not welcome at the clericus because she does not support the homosexual-lesbian agenda? Woops. Did I say “she”? She would not be welcome in some conservative dioceses either. Some who would reject her because she is a female priest don’t believe in the resurrection either, but they do hold their fingers correctly when they “say the Mass”. Churchmanship is no guarantee of either orthodoxy or charity.

There is a solution, but whether or not you appreciate it depends on whether or not you irrevocably want your own way despite the cost to the Church itself. That solution is submission, dare I say “obedience” to the proposed Anglican Covenant. The Covenant is not a perfect solution, but it will provide the basis for unity for the greater majority of the Anglican Communion. This solution is actually a submission to Catholic Order and to what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. I would suggest that integrity would demand that if you don’t agree with the Anglican Covenant you should humbly acknowledge that and take the necessary steps to remove yourself from the Anglican Communion, instead of trying to drive out those who do share a common faith.

[i] Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43

[ii] Matthew 13:29

[iii] Psalm 102:14 BCP

[iv] Gregory Palamas, The Triads, I, i. 20

[v] I John 4.

[vi] Chapter 4 of The Commitorium, AD 434

[vii] Rev. 3:1b-2

[viii] Rev. 3:4-5

[ix] Col. 1:24

The Apostasy of Division

2011-06-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

There is a great misunderstanding being promoted by conservatives who have left The Episcopal Church, a misunderstanding that is the other side of the revisionist heresy, that forcing a change establishes new truth. On neither side is this theologically, or biblically, thought through.

In part the mistake of the revisionists is that you can’t drive out the impurity by expelling conservatives from your midst; you will, in your own way, become the new conservatives, a new cast of fundamentalist liberals. That is already clearly happening and in some dioceses those with conservative views are not tolerated.

The great misunderstanding of some of the conservatives who have left The Episcopal Church is that you can’t come out from amongst them and be clean; you take your sins with you. If they have left a diocese with a godly bishop there is no excuse for their actions.

Trapped in the middle is the greater part of what used to be The Episcopal Church. Some have been driven out with the conservatives who have left seeking purity; some have stayed to struggle in the midst of a church which is increasingly in danger of becoming apostate. All are wounded and grieved by the actions and attitudes of rigid militants on either side.

Both sides of the coin are reacting emotionally rather than rationally, establishing on either side what they feel as the foundation on which to build a new purified church.

The hope for health for the Church is in those of us who are trapped in the middle. It is not enough for us to wait passively; waiting passively will only contribute to the current decline in the Church. Those of us in trapped in the middle must find our voice and let our views be known.

Not only that, but what we say must be based on a sound biblical theology that is informed by the tradition and history of the Church. This voice must reflect not only a love of the truth, but a love of Him who alone is the way, the truth, and the life.

The Church in Troubled Times

2010-09-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

In this day when the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion are fractured by dissension I find the following excerpt from Origin helpful.

“I think that both the temple and the body of Jesus can be seen together as a type of the Church. For the Church is being built out of living stones; it is in process of becoming a spiritual dwelling for a holy priesthood, raised on the foundations of apostles and prophets, with Christ as its chief cornerstone. Hence it bears the name “temple.” On the other hand, it is written: You are the body of Christ, and individually members of it” (Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John).

This refers to the Church as it is, not to the Church as idealized. The key phrase is, “it is in process.” Karl Barth, a last century theologian remarked that one of God’s miracles is that the Church still survives. When looking at the Church and its troubles, take the long view, God does. He views the Church from an eternal perspective. There is nothing new under the sun, not even the dissension that marks our contemporary experience.

Origen goes on to comment on the Church of his day.
“Thus even if the harmonious alignment of the stones should seem to be destroyed and fragmented and if, as described in the twenty-second psalm, all the bones which go to make up Christ’s body should seem to be scattered by insidious attacks in persecutions or times of trouble, or by those who in days of persecution undermine the unity of the temple, nevertheless the temple will be rebuilt and the body will rise again on the third day, after the day of evil which threatens it and the day of consummation which follows” (Origen’s Commentary on the Gospel of John).
Origen links together Christ’s body and the Body of Christ which is the Church.

Accordingly the Psalmist says prophetically of the Christ and his Body,
“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet- I can count all my bones- they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Psalm 22:14-18).

The Church is indeed scattered by insidious attacks in persecutions, times of trouble, and by those who in our days undermine the unity of the temple which is the Body of Christ. Make no mistake; the unity of the Body of Christ is founded upon a common understanding of the teaching of the Church. To quote St. Vincent of Lerins (AD 434), “we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all.” In our day that finds clear expression in the Anglican Covenant. To undermine the unity of the Body of Christ by claiming some “prophetic” superiority to the Body as a whole is perilous. The Lord testifies, “They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:16).

Rather than follow the dubious spirit of theological innovation, follow the recommendation of the Lord Himself! “Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it’ (Jeremiah 6:16). The long history of the Church has many examples of those who want to drink from a different well. There is nothing new under the sun!

This has tremendous implications not only for the Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church, but for us also as individual believers. It is of vital importance that our feet are firmly planted on both Holy Scripture and the Teaching of the Church as it comes down to us through the centuries. One way of preserving this is by embracing the characteristic three-fold Spiritual model provided by Anglican Spirituality: The Daily Prayer Offices; Recollection, the practice of the awareness of the Presence of God in meditation and short informal prayers: and in frequent Eucharist. This three-fold emphasis flows down to us through the Benedictine tradition. You and I have the unique privilege of anchoring our faith in this tradition by affiliating with the Order of St. Benedict. If you are interested, ask me how.

There is a day coming of restoration for the Church, not only the final day when Christ comes to claim his own, but the history of the Church testifies that there have always been seasons of spiritual renewal for the Church which is the body of Christ. Until that day we are called to make firm our faith; and to pray and labour for fresh springs of the Spirit in the life of the Church.

The Hierarchy of Love

2010-07-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

There is a Hierarchy of Love that flows from the very nature of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity and is implicit in the names, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. While the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, the Son in love delights to obey the Father, and the Holy Spirit in love and obedience delights to reveal the Father and the Son. In the co-inherence of the separate persons of the Trinity there is a tumult, a superabundance of love, that flows out into all creation in the perfect hierarchical ordering of the Co-Equal Trinity establishing a pattern of perfect joy and harmony for all created beings. Adam and Eve break their co-inherence with their Creator preferring themselves and their own will to God in an essential act of disobedience. They wish to be as God and are not satisfied with their hierarchical place as beloved Creation, beloved sons and daughters of God.

The very first thing that happens is that they lose the mutuality of co-inherence with each other and their revelation of the order of hierarchical love. Eve says, “Eat this” and then Adam, who has freedom of will eats and then blames Eve. That fall from co-inherence, mutual submission and family order has plagued humankind ever after and has all but indelibly marked the nature of each human family, of each husband and wife, of their relationships with their children, and has contaminated the relationship of Christ and His bride, the Church. The result is a broken Hierarchy of Love in which authoritarianism replaces love and the give and take that is necessary for the hierarchy of love to function in a normal manner. The experience of redemption begins a reversal of the broken Hierarchy of Love which deepens with our growth of love and obedience to the Lord who is the source of love.

In the Co-equal, Co-inherent and forever blessed Trinity most carefully we confess that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit each have equal value. “In this Trinity none is afore, or after another; none is greater, or less than another,” yet we recognize that the function of each member of the Trinity differs from another and that there is in this Co-Equal Trinity a Hierarchy of Love. In the ordering of Creation Adam and Eve, man and woman, are created in the image of God each reflecting the nature of God, each being equal, but in that reflection of the nature of God, each has their own role and function in the Hierarchy of Love.

Here I have the sensation of sailing to close to the edge and precipice of our theological flat earth and I feel the threat of trouble brewing; but far be it from me not to, in obedience, sail on. This Hierarchy of Love is precisely what St. Paul was hinting at when he indicated that the fullness of the Spirit comes with mutual submission one to another, the man to his woman and the woman to her man. The husband and the wife stand also in a hierarchical relationship of love to one another, and their children stand in that Hierarchy of Love in their own unique and necessary relationship with their parents. We quail at the words, “the man is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church.”

How dare Paul say that and how dare I repeat it? Husband, wife, and child are in the family co-equal and co-inherent, but the husband is the head; to him the wife stands in loving submission, and the child stands in humble obedience to them both, submission and obedience being two different states. The headship of the husband is as the Headship of Christ who gave his life for his bride the Church, even so the husband is to give his very life for his wife. In turn the wife is to acknowledge that headship and submits to the husband in turn giving her life for her husband, and the child who has equal value with them is to obey the husband and wife. Within that Hierarchy of Love, an echo of the divine, is a perfect harmony of joy.

Contemporary society lives, and for some time has lived in a fractured reversal of hierarchical love. Now there exists within families usurpation without atonement and an angry societal rebellion against the very idea of created hierarchical order. The reversal is complete. The child rules the parent, and the wife gives orders to the husband and is affronted when he does not submit. Stubbornly she will stand upon what she fancies are her rights. This personal liberation from the Hierarchy of Love works its way out in the relationship of the parents to the children. You think this isn’t so? Look into any American family and ask the question, “Will little Jamie go to Youth Group tonight?”, and you will hear the answer, “I don’t know. I’ll ask him if he wants to.” There is here no parental limits, no hint of the words, “the child will obey” the parents. Quite the opposite, the parents are hostage to the emotions of the child and will obey the moods of the child lest the child be offended at learning obedience and the implicit loss of autonomy. There is even a feeling that the will of the child should not be broken lest the child be damaged. The truth is that the surrender of the will is an essential element not only of spiritual life, but also of all interpersonal relationships. Individuals are free, not each one to be little independent gods, but free to live in the hierarchy of love with the mutual surrender necessary for society to function. The child in the American family is a spiritual cripple not discovering the joy of the words, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

But remember that the relationship of the husband and wife, is a parable of the relationship of Christ and the Church. The Church itself is called to live within that same structure of hierarchical love. The Bishop, the Priests, the Deacons, and the Laity, the People of God are Co-equal and are called to a blesséd co-inherence bearing one another’s burdens and sharing one another’s joy. Gregory the Great spoke only a partial truth when he said that he was the Servant of the Servants of God. The popularised Anglican version is that the Bishop is the Servant of the Servants of the Servants of God, thus including Laity, Deacons, Priests and Bishop in an reversed pattern that in effect denies the Hierarchy of Love flowing from the very nature of God Himself.

The early Church did not view it so. Listen to what St. Ignatius says, “Wherefore it is fitting that you also should run together in accordance with the will of the bishop who by God's appointment rules over you. Which thing you indeed of yourselves do, being instructed by the Spirit. For your justly-renowned presbytery, being worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Thus, being joined together in concord and harmonious love, of which Jesus Christ is the Captain and Guardian, do you, man by man, become but one choir; so that, agreeing together in concord, and obtaining a perfect unity with God, you may indeed be one in harmonious feeling with God the Father, and His beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (Ignatius Letter to the Ephesians). In the early Church view of the relationship of Bishop, Priests, Deacons and Laity, we see a clear image of the order of hierarchical love. The early Church bishops did indeed give their lives for the Church, even as the Church obeyed them and also surrendered up their own lives in joyful obedience.

There is and ought to be a hierarchy of love in the Church for the Church is the family of God the Holy Trinity, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Son in love delights to obey the Father, and the Holy Spirit in love and obedience delights to reveal the Father and the Son. Within the Anglican Communion we have a working out of that same principle within the Four Instruments of Unity: The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Lambeth Conference, The Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meeting. The challenge of the present time in the Anglican Communion is the restoration of the identity and function of these instruments in a Hierarchy of Love and trust capable of leading the Church.

When the Instruments of Unity together affirm that we need to renew and formalize an Anglican Covenant and the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church declares that the Archbishop of Canterbury has no authority to recommend her compliance with the results of that covenant we have a clear and angry denial of the call to live within the Hierarchy of Love. If your frame of reference is that self-actualization and the exercise of power are the guiding values of the Kingdom of God you have a denial and rebellion against that same Kingdom of God. In the Hierarchy of Love there is such a thing as godly authority; when that is broken we see a demonstration of the first rebellion of Adam and Eve. In the old, old story, what happens next is that when Adam and Eve confirm in action their decision to walk apart from God they are cast out from the Garden, their family is destroyed, and Cain kills Able.

Why Do Faithful Christians Stay in The Episcopal Church?

2010-05-24T07:39:00.001-07:00

When I felt the call of God to join the Episcopal Church in the late nineteen sixties all of the present heresies were already flowering with the Episcopal Church. There is nothing touted in TEC today that wasn’t already being taught and modeled by the seminary that I graduated from; Death of God Theology, Situation Ethics, and Saul Alinsky style social reform, all were part of the ongoing agenda. Where do you think our current crop of Episcopal Church leaders came from? Even then the roots of the Episcopal Church sank down through an immense heap of rubbish into the deep soil and bedrock of church history.

In the first Epistle of John two fundamental heresies are identified. One is a heresy in the doctrine of Christ; the other is the heresy in praxis, fundamentally the failure of love. TEC notably demonstrates the failure in doctrine, and many of those who have fled from TEC in fear demonstrate a failure of praxis. To read some of their published comments is enough to caution those within TEC, faithful Christians, or blatant apostates, that the critics are both incredibly arrogant and loveless.

Those who have fled, and I have know some of them personally, also have some doctrinal flaws that alarm me; notably an inadequate understanding of the nature of humankind, “there are none righteous, no not one, not even in the separatist groups. They also frequently betray a failure to understand the doctrine of the Church itself. What is amazing to me is to see catholic Christians aligned with protestant evangelicals and charismatics although there is no common ground in their view of the nature of the Church and authority.

Salvation and holiness are not assured by jumping ship and uniting with two-thirds world dioceses. I have enough personal experience in Latin America and Africa to know that there are no “pure” churches there either, although I will grant that they are in better doctrinal shape than TEC. Years ago a fundamentalist American college was slammed for their naïve claim that they were “twenty miles from any known form of sin.” Little did they know that like those fleeing from TEC, they carried their sin with them.

Faithful Christians, who have answered the call of God within TEC are grieved and with the psalmist they cry out, “Your servants love her very rubble, and are moved to pity even for her dust (Psalm 102:14 BCP). A reality that we face is that in many places faithful Christians and faithful parishes are being driven out of their dioceses, but that is different than fleeing out of a sense of outraged theoretical holiness. To do so is to betray the fact that you may never have discovered the depths of your own heart.

I’m saddened by the apostasy and blatant immorality of many within TEC but I do not see a viable biblical model for flight. “Come out from amongst them an be ye pure” refers principally to sharing in the life and sins of the children of the world. We too may ultimately be driven out of TEC and TEC itself may end up outside of the Anglican Communion and separate itself from the faithful dioceses, parishes, and Christians currently within TEC. To me being driven out is substantially different than fleeing because I think my doctrine and morality is better than what I see within the covenant community of the Church.

I prefer the model of Moses in Exodus 32:10 when God offered him a way out: “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nations of you.” Moses declined the offer and instead prayed and worked for the transformation of the covenant people of God. These are the days of the Golden Calf, but too many of our “faithful” leaders, unlike Moses, have deserted in hope that God will make a great nation of them. Which of the prophets, which of the apostles fled from the sinful churches of New Testament times in order to become a great nation of theoretically pure doctrine and praxis? Tell me. Which one fled? Why should we?

The Anglican Covenant and the Special Convention

2010-03-08T21:01:00.000-08:00

The Anglican Covenant and the Special Convention of the Diocese of Dallas

There is no reason why we cannot remain in the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion at the same time by accepting the Anglican Communion Covenant. The Anglican Communion Covenant is not something new, but is simply a re-affirmation of our historical position as Episcopalians. We have over the years made a number of covenants and you may review some of them in the Historical Document section of the Book of Common Prayer on pages 863 to 878.

You yourselves have made a number of Covenants in the context of your Episcopal faith. Among these Covenants are Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, and for some Ordination. Every time you say a Creed in church you are renewing your Covenant with the ancient and historical Church. The acceptance of The Book of Common Prayer is a Covenant setting forth the Liturgy of the Church. This covenant is on page 8 of The Book of Common Prayer and says, “This Convention having, in their present session, set forth A Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, do hereby establish the said Book: And they declare it to be the Liturgy of this Church: And require that it be received as such by all the members of the same: And this Book shall be in use from and after the First Day of October, in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety.” This ratification requires that you as a member of The Episcopal Church make a Covenant to accept The Book of Common Prayer as your standard for worship. That Covenant is part of both Baptism and Confirmation.

The making and renewing of Covenants is central to the very nature of the Episcopal Church and our American heritage. It is not at all unusual for us to belong to several organizations by accepting the Covenants of these Organization. For a number of years my wife and I have been members of both the Episcopal Church and at the same time Oblates of the Order of St. Benedict at St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Now St. Scholastica Monastery happens to be Roman Catholic (quite a stretch for an old Scots Presbyterian boy). There is no conflict in making covenant with both the Episcopal Church and the Order of St. Benedict. We are also members of our Scot’s Clans, Clan Chattan and Clan MacNaughton, a two other Clans at the same time. You yourselves are no doubt members of the Episcopal Church and members of a number of other organizations. In most organizations there is an implicit Covenant to accept the rules for membership and pay the fees to maintain your Covenants, and most often you renew those Covenants annually.

Covenant making is part of life, and we do it all the time. To be an Episcopalian is to be a Covenant Maker. I strongly support renewing our “Anglican Covenant” with the Anglican Communion and at the same time remaining within the Episcopal Church.

The Rev’d. Canon Rob Smith +

Postscript: The Special Convention is over. We have not only voted to endorse but also to enter into the Anglican Covenant and the news is now out on the internet. I am saddened by how many of the conservative “departed” who make up the primary audience of “Virtue On Line,” have marginalized themselves by their attitudes and actions. You will note that I have characterized them as loveless. Do you doubt me? Read their responses to any view that does not agree with their strong and self-righteous agenda; then reflect on the truth, “by their fruits you shall know them. I was startled by the claim that the Diocese of Dallas is more liberal as result of the departure from our diocese of some of their number. That reveals that the writer of that remark has no understanding of the trend and history of this diocese over the last twenty years. From my own perspective what is remarkable is that the strong majority of this diocese has supported the Covenant without being radicalized.

A

2010-03-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

The Anglican Covenant
and the Special Convention of the Diocese of Dallas

There is no reason why we cannot remain in the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion at the same time by accepting the Anglican Communion Covenant. The Anglican Communion Covenant is not something new, but is simply a re-affirmation of our historical position as Episcopalians. We have over the years made a number of covenants and you may review some of them in the Historical Document section of the Book of Common Prayer on pages 863 to 878.

You yourselves have made a number of Covenants in the context of your Episcopal faith. Among these Covenants are Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, and for some Ordination. Every time you say a Creed in church you are renewing your Covenant with the ancient and historical Church. The acceptance of The Book of Common Prayer is a Covenant setting forth the Liturgy of the Church. This covenant is on page 8 of The Book of Common Prayer and says, “This Convention having, in their present session, set forth A Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, do hereby establish the said Book: And they declare it to be the Liturgy of this Church: And require that it be received as such by all the members of the same: And this Book shall be in use from and after the First Day of October, in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety.” This ratification requires that you as a member of The Episcopal Church make a Covenant to accept The Book of Common Prayer as your standard for worship. That Covenant is part of both Baptism and Confirmation.

The making and renewing of Covenants is central to the very nature of the Episcopal Church and our American heritage. It is not at all unusual for us to belong to several organizations by accepting the Covenants of these Organization. For a number of years my wife and I have been members of both the Episcopal Church and at the same time Oblates of the Order of St. Benedict at St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Now St. Scholastica Monastery happens to be Roman Catholic (quite a stretch for an old Scots Presbyterian boy). There is no conflict in making covenant with both the Episcopal Church and the Order of St. Benedict. We are also members of our Scot’s Clans, Clan Chattan and Clan MacNaughton, a two other Clans at the same time. You yourselves are no doubt members of the Episcopal Church and members of a number of other organizations. In most organizations there is an implicit Covenant to accept the rules for membership and pay the fees to maintain your Covenants, and most often you renew those Covenants annually.

Covenant making is part of life, and we do it all the time. To be an Episcopalian is to be a Covenant Maker. I strongly support renewing our “Anglican Covenant” with the Anglican Communion and at the same time remaining within the Episcopal Church.

The Rev’d. Canon Rob Smith +

Postscript: The Special Convention is over. We have not only voted to endorse but also to enter into the Anglican Covenant and the news is now out on the internet. I am saddened by how many of the conservative “departed” who make up the primary audience of “Virtue On Line,” have marginalized themselves by their attitudes and actions. You will note that I have characterized them as loveless. Do you doubt me? Read their responses to any view that does not agree with their strong and self-righteous agenda; then reflect on the truth, “by their fruits you shall know them. I was startled by the claim that the Diocese of Dallas is more liberal as result of the departure from our diocese of some of their number. That reveals that the writer of that remark has no understanding of the trend and history of this diocese over the last twenty years. From my own perspective what is remarkable is that the strong majority of this diocese has supported the Covenant without being radicalized.

Hierarchy and the Dance of Life

2009-09-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Apostolic Succession Is Not A Magical Act

2009-08-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

For me one of the best approaches to the nature of the Church comes with this dynamic image from Henry Suso: This is drawn from the account of a vision that a follower of Suso shared with him.

God once revealed this to a chosen friend of God. Her name was Anna, and she was his spiritual daughter. Once in her devotions, she went into an ecstasy, and she saw the Servant saying Mass on a high mountain. She saw an immense host of persons living in him and attached to him. But all were not in the same position: the more each had of God in him, the more they lived in the Servant also; and the more closely they were united to him, the more God had turned to them. She saw how fervently he prayed for them to the eternal God, whom he held in his priestly hands; and she asked God to explain to her what this vision meant. Thereupon God answered her thus: “The vast number of these children who cling to him are all the people who are taught by him, who listen to him, confess to him, or are devoted to him in any other way with special affection. He drew them to me in such a way that I will bring their lives to a good end, and see that they are never to be separated from my joyous countenance. But whatever sufferings may befall him as a consequence of this, he shall be well rewarded by me.”[1]

The image is an uncomfortable one for modern Christians but well worth wrestling with. One of the weaknesses of the contemporary Church is that we have lost a mysterious and mystical appreciation for the nature of priesthood. Suso is being drawn up to heaven in a slow and graceful spiral and those who are attached to him ascend with him in a spiraling motions and mass that expands in circumference from top to bottom. The image is dynamic, in full motion, as the priest throughout his ministry in Christ and through the Spirit is drawn up into heaven. The action starts at the altar as the priest in the midst of his flock lifts high the cup of salvation and calls upon the Name of the Lord. It is a eucharistic action. “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a koinonia in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a koinonia in the Body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one bread (I Corinthians 10:16-17). Priest and people, one blood, one body, ascend together with Christ in the Spirit.

But this is not an isolated act; for the priests ascends thus in company with other faithful priests each attached to the Bishop at his altar: each Bishop historically and actually connected with all faithful Bishops throughout time, each now and throughout the centuries believing what has been believed always, everywhere and by all. This living divine strand of tradition reaches beyond the politically complicated “first among equals”’ at Canterbury. It predates the actual primacy of Rome which has always been debated in the truly catholic Church. This living strand of tradition reaches into the early apostolic Church as it reaches out to the many places in the ancient world. It is hard however to connect it with disconnected Protestantism. There is a grace of the Spirit clearly operative in the disconnect, but the disconnect is needlessly perilous.

Apostolic succession is often misunderstood as though it were a magical passing along of authority and position through the laying on of hands. Grace must be received to be effectual. There are clear biblical blocks that prevent grace from becoming effectual. Among those blocks are heresy in the doctrine of Christ, unholiness in life, and failure to love the brotherhood. Those blocks are clearly present in the hierarchy of The Episcopal Church.

Note that it is also possible for one to become apostate, or at least for inherent apostasy to become finally manifested for all to see. It is foolish to think that God would actually bless apostasy, or to think that an apostate could have a legitimate place in the apostolic succession. God speaks his frightening word, “You thought that I was like you.” That lets out a few popes but it also lets out a score of Episcopal and Anglican bishops. The indelibility of priesthood says its not the man but the sacrament and the faith of the people. In those cases the man, or woman is a void, a nothing, and God in his grace anoints others or skips a generation or two but that doesn’t mean that he abandons his faithful remnant in the Church. At times like these the Protestant disconnect is a rebuke to apostolic succession, a possible means of grace, even a saving grace, but still not God’s first choice.

[1] Henry Suso, The Life of the Servant: The Way of Suffering and of the Cross, Chapter XXII.

The English Way of Doing Things

2009-07-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

There was an old bearded archbishop/
Who dreamt the church would not blowup/
He danced in the middle/
Spouting nonsensical babble/
While putting two lumps in his teacup.

I have heard it said that there is an English Way of doing things that needs to be understood if we are to understand the leadership of Rowan Williams. At least on the surface this is true; there is a quality of gentility, of courteousness, of subtlety and understatement that often characterizes this way of doing things. Yes, there is an English Way of doing things, but as a child of the commonwealth I ask you to remember the other side of the English way of doing things. Remember that this English Way of doing things brought us the Opium Wars in China, the American Revolution, the Boer Wars, the continuing conflict of Northern Ireland, and the disastrous partition of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that troubles the Middle East like a volcano always on the edge of irrupting into massive violence. Finally, please remember that the English Way of doing things lost England its far flung empire, an empire where once upon a time the sun never set.

You see that English Way of doing things in microcosm in the fumbling gyrations of Rowan Williams. The English Way of doing things is characterized by Neville Chamberlain stepping off the plane in September of 1938 and proclaiming, “"My good friends this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace in our time.” You know the result. It took the strong leadership and powerful voice of Winston Churchill to pull England through coming inevitable war. Obviously Churchill demonstrates a different way of doing things.

Remember that the English Way of doing things is not always courteous. In a scheme intended to confiscate the lands of the Irish nobility, the English government under James I in 1609 created state-sponsored settlements and gave the lands of the Irish nobles to encourage impoverished Presbyterian Scots to settle in Ireland. That has given birth to centuries of violence and death. There was in this no more courtesy, gentility, or subtlety than the English exercised under George III at the time of the American Revolution. Throughout English expansionism we see a velvet riding glove wielding a riding crop on an unwilling nag. The image is contradictory; surface gentility all too frequently cloaks a frequently arrogant and violent agenda. Beneath the courtesy one has to ask, what really is going on?

Not all the English do things in this stereotypical way. For every Neville Chamberlain, England is capable of raising up a Winston Churchill. Like the all the rest of us the English can provide either waffling ineffective leaders, or stalwart heroes. We have had our own General George McClellan, but we have also had a Robert E. Lee and a Ulysses S. Grant. At this point in history the English Church needs a Churchill, not a Neville Chamberlain, and the whole Anglican Communion suffers from the English way of understating things with such incomprehensible gentility. The problem in part is obfuscation. It is hard, perhaps impossible, to trust leadership that will not express its true intent with frankness and clarity when you have so many historical examples of the negative exercise of power in English history. Leadership to be effective requires integrity, courage and clarity.

Roots: A Prayer

2009-07-15T12:27:00.000-07:00

My Heavenly Father: Over the years I have often said, “I am an Anglican first, and an Episcopalian second.” That declaration and awareness has comforted me in the past, but what if the Anglican Communion itself is torn asunder? I am saddened, but not shaken by the prospect, because the fact is that my roots are sunk even deeper than the few centuries of our specific Anglican history.

I am on the Canterbury Trail to the defaced shrine of the Holy Martyr Thomas á Becket. Well he understood the problems of royal privilege and its potential for contaminating the Church in England. As an old colonial boy I find it frustrating that the royals and parliament have so much say in the life of the Church, but you know I love the pomp and ceremony, the skirl of pipes and the rumble of drums.

My roots reach back through the long history of the English Church, through Milton, and through Blake who prayed, “And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic Mills?” Through John Jewel and “ the Coming Down of the Holy Ghost and the Manifold Gifts Thereof,” through Cranmer and the Book of Common Prayer, through Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, through Walter Hilton and Richard Rolle, through blesséd Anselm who teaches me that the strength of my salvation is the strength of Christ.

My roots reach further back through Augustine of Canterbury, through Saint Benedict and the ancient Monks of Nursia, through Antony of the Desert and the wild-eyed desert hermits. My roots reach back through Canterbury, past Roman paving stones to ancient Celts and Britons by their smoky fires smouldering in the damp of an English spring.My roots reach even further back through wandering missionaries, Christian tradesmen, and Roman soldiers who bearing the cross on their hearts first tread upon the soil of the land of my forefathers.

My roots reach even further back through the long and dreadful glorious history of the martyrs of the early church, through the letters and missions of Paul and Peter, Jude and James and John and all the Gospellers now radiant in glory. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-20).

It is actually that last declaration that binds together the whole of this tumultuous history of the Church catholic and militant, that I have loved, and still love with every fibre of my being. My Father it is immersion in your Spirit, poured out upon the Church through the hands of Jesus our Head, that makes sense of the whole. It is one of your miracles that the Church in all its brokenness over the centuries still survives.

Time and time and time again you gather the broken shards together and craft again a golden vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the Master of the house, ready for every good work (2 Timothy 2:21). I find that instead of grieving or despairing, I am excited by the shaking of the foundations of our beloved Anglican Communion. When “the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the well” (Ecclesiastes 12:6), nothing less than your holy hands are at work. My Lord, let me see! Show me the new golden vessel as it rises like the Phoenix from the ashes. Break us, mold us, make us, fill us again most glorious Lord and Father. We are yours, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Heresy: That Horrible Word

2009-07-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

It may seem odd to approach the problem of heresy with some observations about falling in love, but it is precisely here that the descent into heresy begins. In his Outlines of Romantic Theology,[1] Charles Williams says, “The experience of love is here followed to its distant and dreadful end in a complete betrayal of itself.[2] The descent starts with “the prolongation of the self-indulgent moments…The next step to preferring oneself in ‘the two of us’ against all else, is to prefer oneself alone. And this leads, inevitably, on that lost and secret path, to the hatred of others who have their own desires,” [3] or in the context of heresy, the hatred of those who hold other views … For every mistake made on the Way of Romantic Love there is pardon and grace; for the deliberate and continued perversion of it, there can be, by the nature of things, no pardon—‘neither here nor in the world to come….The greater mystery deepens….What is heresy? (It is) the clinging to a particular thought or idea because it is one’s own, although it is against the known decision of the Church—the disintegrity of the intellect, the justification to oneself of error and evil. Here that self-indulgence has gone very far.”[4]

C. S. Lewis remarks that errors come in pairs of opposites in a malign mockery of balance. We hear these days equal weight being put on two decisions from a past Lambeth Conference; one the call for a moratorium on same-sex marriages and the ordination of homosexuals and lesbians, and the other, on the insistence there be no cross-border incursions of conservative dioceses and provinces in the dioceses or provinces of the revisionists who are going on full steam ahead with their sexual agenda. These are not two equal and opposite errors. The two things are not moral equivalents. The first involves a clear departure from Holy Scripture and the moral stance of the Church for the last two thousand years; the other a tradition voiced periodically in the Church but not uniformly held semper et ubique et ab omnibus[5] even in the history of the Anglican Communion or in the history of the founding of The Episcopal Church.

Nothing caused St. Augustine of Canterbury to cease from consecrating bishops among the Celts where Celtic bishops already were in place; and nothing stopped Samuel Seabury from receiving consecration from non-juring Scottish bishops in Scotland in defiance of the English Church. One might be tempted to cry foul at offences to courtesy in the incursion of African bishops in the United States, but that is not nearly the moral equivalent of the defiance of some in the leadership of The Episcopal Church regarding what has been believed always, everywhere, and by all; not only in some of the General Convention Resolutions of 2009, but more importantly in the clear, continual disavowal of the authority and teaching of Scripture and two thousand years of Christian tradition and history.

The revisionists in the Episcopal Church have been told quite clearly that they are in defiance of Scripture and tradition. I don’t think stupidity is the issue, but rather willfulness. They know what the large majority of the Anglican Communion thinks about these things, but they really don’t care. Theirs is the deliberate twisting of truth in favour of their own self-satisfaction; they suffer the disintegrity of the intellect, the justification to oneself of error and evil. As St. Paul says, “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.”[6] They willingly and gladly believe the lie that they have made because it is their lie and precious to them.

George MacDonald observes that “the more a man is a beast, the less he knows it.” As one begins to fall ever more deeply into heresy there is a hardening of the heart; a dulling of the mind, a fettering of the imagination, that ends not only in alienation from God, but also in alienation from others, especially those who take opposing views; and those that fall into heresy no longer have the capacity to hear others and often are quick to accuse or mock those who adhere to timeless truths. A sterling example of this is the Barbara Harris quip regarding her fellow bishops at Lambeth, “It assholes had wings this place would be an airport.” Now that’s theology !?

The most recent salvo to be fired by our revisionists is of course the General Convention Opening Address of our Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in which she decries what she calls “the great Western heresy.” This heresy, according to Jefferts Schori is “that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that that salvation depends on reciting some specific verbal formula about Jesus.” In saying this she commits two errors. The first is perhaps a willful misunderstanding that this acceptance of Jesus as Saviour is somehow separate from becoming united to the Body of Christ. The second misunderstanding is the failure to grasp that this is the very heart of our baptismal vows. Here, and here only in The Book of Common Prayer the decision is decidedly personal, and it is that decision that unites us to the Body of Christ. The personal decision for Christ happens in a variety of ways, some slow and subtle, some quick and blunt, it matter’s not how, but the essence of the matter is in these questions which all the faithful embrace, not only in their baptisms, but also in the renewal of the baptismal vows in Confirmation.

Question Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? Answer I do.
Question Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? Answer I do.
Question Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord? Answer I do

I have up to this point been treating those who are spiraling down into heresy as though they all understood or had even worked out the issues theologically. That of course is ridiculous; there is every expectation that not only will there be mindless conservatives, but there will also be mindless revisionists. The former may cling to their conservatism out of habit or fear, but such habits and fears are not necessarily fatal in the spiritual realm, but the latter place themselves and others in peril, not that they believe there is any such thing.

Those who embrace revisionism without theologically working through the issues often seem to embrace their heresy with no moral compass other than that change is in itself good, and that liberalism does not go as far as it needs to in order to create change. What is the standard against which this need for change is measured? The model for change is revealed by Saul Alinsky who wrote: "From all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins – or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom (was) - Lucifer."[7] Far from being a shining morning star Lucifer is a black hole, a no-thing, but the no-thing can be very powerful in a negative sort of way. Ultimately such a press onward and downward into the no-thing is itself the end goal of destructive heresies within the Church. The no-thing hates created order and the Creator of order, and seeks to tear down and destroy. The no-thing puts on justice, fairness, compassion, and the fulfillment of the millenium goals like a stolen cloak for their usefulness in bringing down order into chaos. It should go without saying, but it usually doesn’t, that justice, fairness, compassion, and the fulfillment of the millenium goals are a legitimate outworking of Christian faith, but these things are a fruit, not the cause of faith, and they are not just a means to an end for creating change.

What complicates things is not the incursion of African bishops in an increasingly apostate church, nor even the flight of the faithful from dioceses where they are clearly not welcome unless they apostatize. But while that extreme circumstance does exist in some dioceses, it is not reflected everywhere in The Episcopal Church. What we do see, even in a basically conservative and orthodox diocese is the flight of some, but not all Evangelicals, Charismatics, and Anglo Catholics, from the faithful Body of Christ of which they were previously a part. This new but by nature shallow coalition signals the rising of an old, but perhaps lesser heresy in a new garb. It is the failure to understand the nature of the Church, the Body of Christ; and this failure and flight may well be a departure from the Head Who will not Himself be separated from His Body. On the surface this new conservative coalition confesses the words of a common faith, but a serious question must be raised as to whether or not they all understand those wonderful words in the same way; certainly they don’t when they confess that they “believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church,”[8] and at the same time in practice take an essentially congregationalist stance on a practical level. That is to say they confess one holy catholic and apostolic church and immediately break it up into pieces that agree, or don’t agree with their views. Even conservatives need to hear Jeremiah, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.’ But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”[9]

There is a deep and perhaps more significant failure, the failure to understand the call to commitment to one’s roots. We are after all to be rooted and grounded in Love Himself and that rootedness runs down through all of the history of The Episcopal Church, through Canterbury, through the Early Church Fathers, through the Apostles themselves, all under the unction of the Holy Spirit of God who has called this church into being. It is a dangerous thing to cut oneself off from one’s roots whether you are a revisionist or a conservative in reactionary flight.

G. K. Chesterton points out in his book Orthodoxy that, “A man belongs to this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it … to put shortly what seems to be the essential matter, he has a loyalty (to this world) long before he has any admiration[10] … it is a matter of primary loyalty.”[11] We are a people with particular histories, the stories of our origins, both genetically and spiritually. But here in the West we are an adolescent people in the sense of the long history of our heritage, and here in the West we have suffered the struggles for independence at times needlessly cutting off the very branch of the family tree we have been sitting upon. There is a way for mature humans to be independent and at the same time affirm and live out our heritage, our genetics, our very rootedness in our particular histories with joy and integrity. I find in my seniority of years that I laugh like my father, but that is no very bad thing. I am his son, but also very much an independent son who after adolescent rebellion has had to go back to affirm just who I am by affirming my roots.

Again Chesterton says, “We say there must be a primary loyalty to life: the only questions is … shall it be a reasonable or unreasonable loyalty.”[12] As Chesterton applies this to his own historical context, so I apply this to ours as Anglicans Christians. Chesterton says, “The man who is most likely to ruin the place he loves is exactly the man who loves it with a reason. The man who will improve the place is the man who loves it without a reason … the worst jingoes[13] do not love England, but a theory of England …Thus also only those will permit their patriotism to falsify history whose patriotism depends on history. A man who loves England for being English will not mind how she arose.”[14] There are many these days who have left our roots as Anglicans because it is not Evangelical enough, or not Charismatic enough, or not Catholic enough.

It is not unusual that an age marked by the failure to understand the bond of marriage should also fail to understand the ineradicable bonds that tie us to our roots whether or not we like it. The failure to remain in a marriage, or to stay rooted in our own particular history is not an affirmation of either independence or faith. What we have is a failure to affirm identity itself and to deny the ongoing redemptive activity of the Christ who still actively works to redeem the Episcopal Church that is. We live in a rootless age, and that is not a good thing, but rather a tragedy. This has a direct application to our historical roots through Canterbury and the English Church. What Chesterton, and I, would ask is, can you hate the Anglican Communion enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing; but bear in mind that Anglicanism historically, for good or ill, has been and remains rooted through Canterbury. There is in this apparent rejection and desired divorce from Canterbury a failure to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in the long history of the Anglican Communion and in our own particular branch of it. The flight from Canterbury is a denial of the unction of Spirit on the sinful and glorious history of the church.

It is not a mere matter of the succession of hands laid on heads, some dirty and some clean, but rather the principle of the Incarnation of the Spirit resting on an historical people that despite everything is still an ongoing work of the Spirit. What those who have departed from the church have failed to appreciate is that coming out from among doesn’t guarantee doctrinal purity or holiness of life. Like the east coast evangelical college that advertised itself as twenty miles from any known form of sin, they carry their humanity and imperfections with them. It is my conviction that you either accept the Body of Christ as you find it, or in rejecting that Body you will fail to recognize that the Life of Christ is still being lived out in the midst of that Body.
____________________________________________________________________

1 Charles Williams, Outlines of Romantic Theology, (Berkeley: Apocryphile Press, 2005)
2 Williams, p. 100
3 Willaims, p. 100
4 Williams, p. 101
5 Vincentian Canon: that which is held always, everywhere and by all.
6 Romans 1:32 ESV
7 Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, from opening page Introduction.
8 The Nicene Creed
9 Jeremiah 6:16 ESV
10 G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, (New York: Doubleday, 1959), p. 65
11 Ibid., p. 66
12 Ibid., p. 69
13 One who vociferously supports one's country, especially one who supports a belligerent foreign policy; a chauvinistic patriot. – The Online Free Dictionary.
14 Ibid., p. 69

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT AT GENERAL CONVENTION THIS SUMMER?

2009-06-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Referring to Disneyland, Bishop Bruno, one of the leading lights of the New TEC tells us: "We're right next door to a "magic kingdom, but General Convention will be our own magic kingdom." - (Episcopal Life Online). Wow! I’ve got just the thing for the upcoming General Convention: Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses … specially designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. At the first hint of trouble, they turn totally black and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you.

All Times Are War Times

2009-04-23T20:11:00.001-07:00

When have Christian people been without war? The very word “peace,” “shalom” does not mean placidity, but a peace that comes through victory. “I will give peace in the land . . . you shall chase your enemies . . . five of you shall chase a hundred” (Leviticus 25:6-8). It is not for nothing that Paul bids us “put on the whole armour of God’ (Ephesians 6:11). It is not an empty metaphor. For centuries back in my own heritage it has always been so: “Our minds must be stronger, our hearts braver, our courage higher . . . who ever longs to run from this field will always regret it” (The Battle of Maldon, trans Burton Raffel). The flock of the Good Shepherd is a holy warband organized and armed for war.

In a letter to Mary Van Deusen (February 22, 1954) C. S. Lewis remarks, “If only people (including myself: I also have fears) were still brought up with the idea that life is a battle where death and wounds await us at every moment, so that courage is the first and most necessary of virtues, things wd. be easier. As it is, fears are all the harder to combat because they disappoint expectations based on modern poppycock in which unbroken security is regarded as somehow ‘normal’ and the touch of reality is anomalous.”

The author of Hebrews exhorts us, “Consider Him who endured such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted . . . it is for discipline (paideias – training) that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons . . . He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness . . . therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed” (Hebrews 12:3,7,10b,12). Victorious Christianity is not for the faint hearted but for men and women of courage who will not shrink from the battle.

Part of the shock we are discovering in the Anglican Communion today is precisely that. We are in a pitched battle and our fears are magnified by an unbiblical expectation of some abiding ethereal peace. But only cows are placid, which may be why they are so often offered on the sacrificial altar mooing in alarm, “This isn’t fair! I wanted peace, not war.” We are called to join Gideon’s army of three hundred where only the alert, watchful, and brave are truly fit for war (Judges 7).

We have forgotten that “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal (sarkikos – fleshly) but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” The words are carefully chosen. The weapons, word, sacraments, and charisms are not limited by the flesh, but have divine power . . . are powerful through God for the overthrowing of strongholds” (II Corinthians 10:4). We are dealing with strongholds of the strongman who needs to be bound by the authoritative declaration of the Word. “No one can enter the strongman’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strongman, then indeed he may plunder his house” (Mark 3:21). There is here a call for spiritual warfare, for the exercise of charisms, for “binding the strongman” by a verbal exercise of that binding, “in the name of Jesus, be silent and come out!”

We skirt the issue and find polite non-offensive ways to dance around the issue, anything rather than appear gauche. This is not a time for games, but a time for clear authority. The second and primary application of this text is the authoritative proclamation of the Word, the Logos, the Word of Truth in the situations that we face. By the proclamation of the Logos “we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (II Corinthians 10:5). The truth is here absolutely essential. We fasten it around our waist as a belt, a girdle of truth, and it holds the rest of the armour together.

What is hidden we must proclaim from the rooftops. Not dealing openly with the threats to Anglican identity, by attempting to avoid the covenant that could bind us together; keeping secrets about the moral corruption we face is very destructive to the Body of Christ. By allowing ourselves or others to hide behind false courtesy, we aid the work of the strongman by protecting his stronghold. It must not be. Declare the truth. “Speaking the truth in love we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). That is the only way we can deal with “human cunning in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14).

Why Do Faithful Christians Stay in The Episcopal Church?

2009-03-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

That is quite a different question than, “Why do people stay in the Episcopal Church?” The fundamental answer is in the call of God to be here in the first place. Let me state at the outset that no denominational group is pure. Human beings by virtue of the fall are corrupted and much of what we do is acceptable only under the grace and mercy of God. We faithful Christians are and will remain a blood washed band. Any student of history will tell you that there are heresies and problems in every church body; there always has been, there always will be.

When I felt the call of God to join the Episcopal Church in the late nineteen sixties all of the present heresies were already flowering with the Episcopal Church. There is nothing touted in TEC today that wasn’t already being taught and modeled by the seminary that I graduated from; Death of God, Situation Ethics, and Saul Alinsky style social reform, all were part of the ongoing agenda. Where do you think our current crop of Episcopal Church leaders came from? Even then the roots of the Episcopal Church sank down through an immense heap of manure into the deep soil and bedrock of church history.

In the first Epistle of John two fundamental heresies are identified. One is a heresy in the doctrine of Christ; the other is the heresy in praxis, fundamentally the failure of love. TEC notably demonstrates the failure in doctrine, and many of those who have fled from TEC in fear demonstrate a failure of praxis. To read some of their published comments is enough to caution those within TEC, faithful Christians, or blatant apostates, that the critics are both incredibly arrogant and loveless. Those who have fled, and I have know some of them personally, also have some doctrinal flaws that alarm me; notably an inadequate understanding of the nature of humankind, “there are none righteous, no not one, not even in the separatist groups. They also frequently betray a failure to understand the doctrine of the Church itself. What is amazing to me is to see catholic Christians aligned with protestant evangelicals and charismatics although there is no common ground in their view of the nature of the Church and authority.

Salvation and holiness are not assured by jumping ship and uniting with two-thirds world dioceses. I have enough personal experience in Latin America and Africa to know that there are no “pure” churches there either, although I will grant that they are in better doctrinal shape than TEC. Years ago a fundamentalist American college was slammed for their naïve claim that they were “twenty miles from any known form of sin.” Little did they know that like those fleeing from TEC, they carried their sin with them.

Faithful Christians, who have answered the call of God within TEC are grieved and with the psalmist they cry out, “Your servants love her very rubble, and are moved to pity even for her dust (Psalm 102:14 BCP). A reality that we face is that in many places faithful Christians and faithful parishes are being driven out of their dioceses, but that is different than fleeing out of a sense of outraged theoretical holiness. To do so is to betray the fact that you may never have discovered the depths of your own heart. I’m outraged by the apostasy and blatant immorality of many within TEC but I do not see a viable biblical model for flight. “Come out from amongst them an be ye pure” refers principally to sharing in the life and sins of the children of the world. We too may ultimately be driven out of TEC and TEC itself may end up outside of the Anglican Communion and separate itself from the faithful dioceses, parishes, and Christians currently within TEC. To me being driven out is substantially different than fleeing because I think my doctrine and morality is better than what I see within the covenant community of the Church.

I prefer the model of Moses in Exodus 32:10 when God offered him a way out: “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nations of you.” Moses declined the offer and instead prayed and worked for the transformation of the covenant people of God. These are the days of the Golden Calf, but too many of our “faithful” leaders, unlike Moses, have deserted in hope that God will make a great nation of them. Which of the prophets, which of the apostles fled from the sinful churches of New Testament times in order to become a great nation of theoretically pure doctrine and praxis? Tell me. Which one fled? Why should we?

Faith and a Historical Perspective

2008-08-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

“For your servants love her very rubble;*
and are moved to pity even by her dust.”
(Psalm 102:13)

The Wanderer Observes:
“Thus the Maker of men lays waste
this earth, crushing our callow mirth
and the works of old giants stands withered and still.”
(Poems and Prose from the Old English, Burton Raffel & Alexandra Olsen)

Watching the news from Lambeth could be very discouraging without a historical perspective. Taking the long view will help you not to over-rate the importance and influence of Rowan Williams, the present Archbishop of Canterbury. There have been far worse Archbishops of Canterbury than he, Royal appointees all. Many of them were not brilliant with eternal light. Take for instance Reginald Pole who was the Archbishop of Canterbury (1556-1558) during the reign of Bloody Mary. Pole acted as her chief minister and adviser sharing the responsibility for the martyrdom of 220 Protestant men and 60 Protestant women. Now there was an effective Archbishop of Canterbury! The martyrs included Thomas Cranmer who was Pole’s immediate predecessor and also the primary author of The Book of Common Prayer. Pole is still at Canterbury. He is buried at north side of the Thomas á Becket chapel in the Cathedral. We are wrong to fear the ephemeral parade of those who cast dirt on Cathedral Walls.

We ourselves, with our roots in our own eternal history of the Church, are the Temple of the Living God. Those Cathedral walls are our walls.

Rochester Cathedral
viewed from the Castle

In the English city of Rochester when you descend from the crumbling ramparts of Rochester Castle and cross the street to enter the Cathedral, you step into a past reaching back to Norman times. Today its faithful bishop Michael Nazir-Ali is a leader in the Anglican Communion, but have all the bishops of Rochester been faithful? Does it in the long view of history really matter? The ancient stones of the Cathedral reach down into the bones of the earth, its towers reach heavenward in prayer. What matters transient men in such places as these? To those who appreciate history the Psalms are still sung by the mossy stones of the ruins of Tintern Abbey and Glastonbury, as well as by the choristers of Christ Church Cathedral in Canterbury.

We colonists of the new world have barely enough history of our own to give us an understanding of the Faith that echoes down the corridors of time. It is only by surrender of our shallow insolence and humble submission to the past that we will find a place to stand for the future. “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it and find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16).

Taking the long view of on Church History is an essential part of a working faith. History tells us that God is Sovereign, and that His redemptive power is at work in the Church today as it has been in the past. Psalm 78:41-32 brings to our attention God’s point of view when we forget the lessons of our own past, “They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe.” One of God’s evident miracles is that the Church survives. Don’t fear. Trust in the One Who rules history. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Our God has brought the Church through much worse times than these.

A New Reformation

2008-08-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

We who have prayed for a new Reformation in the Anglican Communion should remember that reformations are a messy, untidy business, and reformers themselves are an odd and uncomfortable lot. Their eyes see into the middle distance and be they bold, bright-eyed, or brittle, their range of vision, though not limited to the near horizon, is not yet adapted to the rolling ages glimpsed by God’s prophets who see with kingdom eyes.

Reformers, reform now, seeking redress, justice, mishpat, that Old Testament sense of fair play, that includes honesty, give and take, truthfulness, and keeping promises. Prophets with kingdom eyes seek a kingdom yet to come and when they have the courage they walk their walk on that sea of many peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.

It is the long view of history past and confidence in grace not only present, but future, that keeps me from leaping upon the separatist bandwagon. I know some of our “reformers” personally and I know enough about them to be seriously concerned over the testimony that they bear. I am in fact not at all impressed, but rather quite the opposite. There are some general characteristics that some of them seem to share: often a problem with authority that finds a convenient justification in the misuse of authority within The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Often they are marked by a feeble ecclesiology (doctrine of the Church) informed more by Western entrepreneurial attitudes and congregationalist polity (the local parish in splendid isolation is the basis for understanding the Church), than by either Holy Scripture or tradition. They share a fight or flight mentality that smacks of spiritual and emotional immaturity.

On the other hand affluent western Anglicanism is badly infected by a neo-gnosticism that is most dangerous. This neo-gnosticism believes that any way will do, that there is neither evil nor judgment, that salvation is not necessary, and it treats God as though He were a projection of the human mind. One qualification regarding evil must be made clear. For them evil resides in those who would thwart their egocentric ambitions. TEC is rapidly becoming an apostate church, but the answer is to be found not in flight or fight, nor is it to be found in taking refuge in knee-jerk orthodoxy.

One has to remember that those on both sides of the conflict are most often products of some of our vapid American theological institutions. “Let God be true, and every man a liar!” The time has come, not for taking refuge in evangelical platitudes, but for a genuine reformation of Anglican doctrine that is capable of leading us into the future, not merely seeking redress for the ills of the present time. By the way, seeking redress is a necessary and honourable thing and worthy of our attention and energy. History teaches me that the sycophants of neo-gnosticism are only a vapor, a foul but transitory emission, a footnote in Church history illustrating the willfulness of a self-proclaimed prophetic movement of the spirit. Their claim that through them God is doing a new thing is so preposterous that it is absolutely breathtaking.

Now is the time, not for the tickling of ears, but for a fresh restatement of old majestic themes, ancient doctrines made vibrant in new hearts and lives and given voice in the strong poetry of the emerging post-modern age. Truth is ever ancient, ever new. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. The God-man once dead is fully alive and our humanity is caught up into heaven with Him. He is both transcendent and gloriously immanent through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Now is the time to do business with the One God whom we worship in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance. It is only we who are the orthodox confessing Church, who are anointed by the same Spirit. We are the ones who have the mind of Christ.

Certain fundamentals need to be restated: First and foremost the doctrine of salvation including a new look at the sovereign majesty of our Holy God, and an understanding of the nature and reality of humankind. Who is God? Who is man? What is sin? What is the meaning of redemption? None of these things can be taken for granted.

Alexander Pope in poetic rhyme gave voice to the strong bias of the old Enlightenment. “Presume not God to scan, the proper study of mankind is man.” Neo-gnosticism twists this to the snapping point, “Presume not God to scan, the proper study of God is man.” The fatal misunderstanding of neo-gnosticism is that humankind is the measure of all things both human and divine. The result is not only theological egocentricity, but an egocentricity of praxis that holds firmly, not to “We do what is right,” but “What we do is right because we choose to do it.” This leads to an intolerable arrogance. Both the heresy of doctrine and the heresy of praxis that are the subjects of concern in John’s first epistle are now defiantly embraced. Jesus is no longer God in the flesh, and the love of one’s brothers takes a distant second place to the exercise of power.

Two things should be noticed. First, neo-gnosticism is leaving the landscape littered with wounded individuals, parishes, and dioceses. Do not underestimate either the pain and desolation, or the terrible sense of rejection and alienation among the faithful people of God. Second, this beginning of a new Reformation is not only reactionary, but to some extent is already theological. Nevertheless the initial characteristics of this reformation are of necessity backward looking. We are after all founded upon the prophets and apostles, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief cornerstone. We believe what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. We see also a reaffirmation of the authority and primacy of Holy Scripture. This is as it should be. But what is needed far exceeds these backward looking affirmations.

God grant us grace out of this present maelstrom, the wit, the heart, and the single-minded dedication to so grasp these fundamentals that we can restate the vitality of our faith for several generations yet to come. If we only live in a moribund theological past without re-incorporating our historic faith in our hearts in the midst of the turmoil, we may be able to address the need for justice, mishpat, today, but we will not be able to provide a viable theological affirmation for the future.

Our God in not just a God of the past, nor just a God for the present, but a God who must be meaningfully communicated to our children and our children’s children. The mark of true Reformation is not just that it faithfully recaptures the past, but that it leads into an understanding of God’s self-revelation that will stand firm for the ages yet to come.

Will We Speak Up?

2008-05-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

All of us within the Church wrestle with those who stubbornly refuse to respond to the truth of the Gospel. Often these bred in the bone rebels against God claim the things of the Church as their own, even the very highest offices. Anybody who has been through the long Lent of Church life has slammed up against the concrete wall of “entitlement” that is so often a mark of these claimants to the privileges of the children of God. They often take the high road assuming a righteousness tinged with viciousness. Every church that has tucked some history under its belt has experienced this problem. Too often the vestibule of the church has a closet full of the robes of the Pharisees and Sadducees who still look for ways to crucify the Christ. Of the traitorous, Sir Launcelot du Lake said, “Hard it is to take out of the flesh that which is bred in the bone” (Mallory). What is needed is not just a heart transplant, but a bone replacement. The very structure of their lives needs to be torn up, so that God in his grace can begin again. They are the ruined pot on the wheel, and the Potter seeks to scrape them off the wheel, pound the lumps out of them, and reshape them one more time.

The problem is that when those within the church who perceive the reality of this challenge say, “Bring out the dead. Bring out the dead;” these bred in the bone rebels cry, “I’m not dead yet. I’m not dead yet. I’m feeling better.” The true children of God then surrender to an enabling sin. We won’t risk rejection by confronting the hard impenitence of these fellow travelers. Why? Because these fellow travelers are often relatives and friends, people we love, people in whom we have invested much, and people to whom are beholden, because we ourselves too often seek approval and applause. Making the modern parenting mistake we fail to differentiate between acceptance and approval. Unlike Archie Bunker we are reluctant to call a spade a spade, because that type of attitude seems loveless and judgmental.

In our sweet and companionable righteousness we are more righteous than the Jesus himself, who says, “27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:27-28). If it is not that, it is another thing; the pathological tendency to over-identify with the bred in the bone sinner. Out of false humility we cry, “You! hypocrite lecteur!--mon semblable!--mon frère!”[1] and thus fail ourselves to see that we are the brokenhearted tender children of God. Will they change? Not if we can help it! Not if we have to speak up!

Here is a prayer that reflects true penitence and a love as tough as Christ Jesus himself: “Break their hearts O Lord, that You may enter in!” The time has come to stop kowtowing to the children of the world within the Church and speak up unafraid with our hearts on fire for God.

[1] You! Hypocrite reader! my likeness, my brother! (T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland).

Memories of a Gracious Liberalism

2008-05-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

The following article was written several years ago, but still remains relevant.

I remember a fleeting conversation years ago when I was a young and inexperienced priest in another diocese. I stepped into the elevator at our Diocesan House and discovered myself face to face with our Diocesan Bishop. Our theologies were drastically different and he was given to be abruptly outspoken. Said he, out of that ethereal chamber that he seemed to live in, a sort of ex-cathedra, "Some portions of the Psalms are sub-Christian! That's why we leave them out of the lectionary!" After a moment of stunned silence the door of the elevator opened and shut and I was left standing alone. One thing was certainly clear. He had let me know in his own inimitable way that he disagreed with my view of the authority of Scripture.

I was shortly to learn the gracious side of my bishop. In accord with a long-standing tradition in my parish, three dissident members of the vestry turned up in his office in an attempt to remove me. The Diocesan Bishop and his Suffragan Bishop called me aside for a brief conference. Their godly admonition to me was "Stay in that parish until every last one of them is dead or has gone somewhere else!" The second thing that was also clear was that theological disagreement did not imply alienation or lack of support. Throughout the years that followed my relationship with both bishops deepened. We were after all members of the communio peccatorum, the fellowship of sinners even while we attempted to work out what it meant to be members of the communion sanctorum, the fellowship of saints. One moment stands out in my memory. My wife was in the hospital during the diocesan convention. The Suffragan Bishop left the floor of the convention to kneel on the hospital floor by my wife's bed and pray for her.Then theological differences were just theological differences. It is not that we did not feel the issues deeply, but rather that we shared a common sense of the breadth of Anglicanism. But that time has passed.

In That Hideous Strength C. S. Lewis makes the following observation: "If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family - anything you like - at a given point in its history, you will always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse; the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder."

There has been an unveiling of a new fundamentalism, but the word "fundamentalism" needs to be more accurately defined for the "post-modern era." Fundamentalism is not a theological position but a mindset, what Erik Erikson refers to as a "totalism." A fundamentalism, or totalism, is a mindset that can be most accurately described as a closed box. What fits comfortably within the box is acceptable, what does not fit within the structure is cut off and tossed away.

There are many kinds of fundamentalists. There are Republican Fundamentalists, Democratic Fundamentalists, Scientific Fundamentalists, Atheistic Fundamentalists, Biblical Fundamentalists, Prayer Book Fundamentalists, and clearly in the Episcopal Church we now have Liberal Theological Fundamentalists. You can always tell fundamentalists by their attitudes. If you don't play by their rules they want you to get out of their box!The change came during a General Convention several years ago when the Episcopal Church attempted to legislate that all dioceses must accept the ordination of Women. While I agree with the ordination of Women at the same time I recognized a drastic shift away from mutual tolerance and forbearance. No longer was disagreement to be tolerated. Now the will of the majority must be forced upon the minority. Unless there are some changes in the way our Liberal Fundamentalists approach things I anticipate that the same type of policy will eventually be placed in effect regarding a mandatory acceptance of the ordination of practicing homosexuals and lesbians and in regard to a mandated obligation to perform same-sex marriages. This will happen regardless of what more conservative members of the Church may feel about them. To expect any less would be naïve. Liberal Fundamentalist bishops are already preparing for that eventuality by forcing their will on the conservative parishes in their dioceses and wherever possible displacing their clergy from active ministry. This was most recently reflected by Gene Robinson in his 60 Minutes interview when he made it clear that if the conservatives disagree they may just have to leave his church. While he didn't actually say "his church" that was certainly implicit in his remarks. I would hasten to say that the Church doesn't belong to Robinson's particular brand of fundamentalism. The Church ultimately belongs to the Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ.

Why “Bugger” is a Bad Word

2008-04-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

Warning: If you have no empathy with the biblical view of homosexual activity you will probably not like this particular entry. The theology behind it is essentially the same as that of St. Paul in I Corinthians 6:9 where Paul uses the Greek work for sodomite to describe one of the moral issues he is dealing with. The definition of that word is essentially the same as the definition of “bugger” in the article below.

It was a summery day and I was a little Canadian boy at a Private Day School of the English variety. All little boys in our Private Day School wore short pants. Only big boys were allowed to wear trousers. We all wore school jackets with lovely bold stripes, and white shirts and school ties. In high glee I was chasing another boy around a small circular garden and shouting at him something like, “I’ll get you, you little bugger!”

I’m not sure about the first part because it is the word “bugger” that stands out. Suddenly an adult figure looms out of the receding mists of my memory. It is Mr. Steele who grabs me and calls a halt to my joy by informing me that “bugger” is a very bad word. Why at that age a word like “bugger” should be a very bad word was incomprehensible because there were bugs all around us and the word “bugger” was quite obviously about bugs.

My shameful indiscretion was reported to my parents who also seemed to think it was a bad word, but didn’t seem to be able to explain why. I was remanded to the Teacher’s Study for the lecture on why bugger is a bad word. I received a deeply mystifying and completely incomprehensible lecture on why “bugger” is a bad word. Of course buggery is never actually mentioned, just a lot of vague bosh. I have no idea what the explanation might have been. But I did understand that for some inexplicable reason I shouldn’t say “bugger” because adults didn’t like it. I don’t remember feeling even the slightest shame or guilt for using that unmentionable word.

At this distance two things emerge. One, if you are going to tell someone that something is wrong be as clear as you possibly can. Two, the person you may be trying to instruct might not have the experience to understand what you are actually saying unless you spell it out. Why a teacher like Mr. Steele should make such a big deal about a word that had something to do with bugs at that time remained mystifying. The stupid bugger should have laboured harder to understand where a little boy was coming from. But even that insulting remark avoids the real point.

Language is a funny thing and it doesn’t always tell us what we need to know for words are easily manipulated. There was a time when a bishop of Tennessee could with impunity pray, “Give us gay and grateful hearts, O Lord.” He couldn’t do that today. If we don’t know the meaning of the words we use how are we to address very real problems from the viewpoint of Christian morality? Why is “bugger” a bad word? The following entry from the Online Dictionary will help:

Noun 1.
bugger - someone who engages in anal copulation (especially a male who engages in anal copulation with another male).

In I Corinthians 6:9 the NIV translates the word as “homosexual offenders.” The NKJV is characteristically more blunt and uses the word “sodomites.”

The problem we have in the Church today is that we forget what words actually mean and we would be horrified if we knew. There is nothing gay about Gay, it is all rather sad and St. Paul speaks about it rather clearly: “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Romans 1:24-27). Paul’s clarity is obviously why Holy Scripture has to be explained away by those who don’t want us to know what a “bugger” is.

Bishop Paul Moore and the Clergy Retreat

2008-03-03T17:47:00.001-08:00

There are three things that stand out in my memory of the first Clergy Retreat I attended in the early seventies as a young priest.

The first was this: the day time events of the retreat were held at wealthy estate in the Diocese of Massachusetts. The host had graciously provided an open bar for the clergy for their refreshment. I was stunned to see several clergy obviously drunk very early in the day.

Second, Bishop Paul Moore came down from New York to lead us in several “retreat” sessions. I remember with startling clarity that he told us that “premarital sex”’ was perfectly alright. According to his daughter Honor Moore, in a recent New Yorker interview, his sense of shame and embarrassment over his own bisexual behavior made him look with compassion on others in similar situations. Living a double life and letting others think that he was wonderful, and having that justified by his daughter as heroic, as making him a great visionary, is part of the problem that the Episcopal Church is having today. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20). While on one level Paul Moore was moved by compassion for the poor, his own flagrant immorality made him a leader in the break down of marriages and families in our society and has grievously contributed to the sorrows of the poor, especially the countless fatherless children of the very poor he thought he was serving.

The third was that “Ben” Arnold, our Suffragan Bishop announced his divorce. That was a matter of personal grief to me who knew Ben as a compassionate man with a genuine concern for others.

The Clergy Retreat left me in shock. Even though my seminary experience gave strong indications that alcohol abuse and sexual immorality were problems within the seminary that I attended, it had never occurred to me that the seminaries were a mirror of the church and of my diocese, as I was about to experience it.

Prior to attending seminary my experience of the church as a layperson in that same diocese was of a vital, if somewhat liberal, parish church. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer was formative in my personal spirituality. I remember with delight Sung Morning Prayer and the congregation singing the Benedicite, omnia opera Domini. Some years before, on the “Canterbury Trail”, I had visited Canterbury Cathedral and was overwhelmed by a tremendous sense of coming home, coming home not necessarily to the Episcopal Church, but to the Anglican Communion and its long and sometimes troubled centuries of history. That sense has never quite left me but it stands with sharp and painful contrast with that early Clergy Retreat and the recent divulgences of Paul Moore’s daughter that her father had all the while been living a actively bisexusal double life, that if known and addressed would have had him defrocked in other parts of the country. These revelations make a certain perverse sense out of the nature of that Diocese of Massachusetts Clergy Retreat.

I have to ask the question: at what point do we say that we have had enough; that with the prophets and saints of old that we actually regard a sin as sin, instead of being willing to allow the sinners themselves to sweep it under the edge of the carpet saying, “Now, now, that’s alright”? Does God cast a blind eye to these things? “These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!” (Psalm 50:21-22).

God is tearing the Anglican Communion apart as a direct result of the flagrant immorality of The Episcopal Church which is still sweeping its sins under the edge of the carpet, saying “Now, now, that’s alright.” No, it isn’t alright, God is not at one with the callous immorality of The Episcopal Church. He never has been.

No Quarter!

2008-02-25T06:21:00.000-08:00

"Breathe through the heats of our desire thy coolness and thy balm; Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; speak through the earthquake wind and fire, O still small voice of calm." - John Greenleaf Whittier

One wouldn’t off hand think of a Quaker poet knowing about “the heats of our desire,” but why not? Our image of Quakers is obviously neither historical nor accurate. Where did we think the name “Quaker” came from if not from some similarity with even fleshly earthquakes.

In a letter to Dom Bede Griffiths, OSB, 23/4/51, C. S. Lewis says with apparent amazement “I’ve had enough of it on the opposite flank lately, having fallen among – a new type to me – bigoted and proselyting Quakers!” So much for the image of Quakers.

What Lewis says next is prophetic fifty-five years later, “I really think that in our days it is the ‘undogmatic’ & ‘liberal’ people who call themselves Christians that are most arrogant and intolerant. I expect justice & courtesy from many Atheists and, much more, from your people [Dom Bede was Roman Catholic]: From Modernists, I have come to take bitterness and rancour as a matter of course.”

Why should we have a sense of outrage at our modern liberals just because they continue the same behavior. Our faithless ‘progressives’ behave like they have no faith and we are surprised? One should remember that it was the liberal Sadducean priesthood that pursued the Christ until he was crucified. Merely beholding the man scourged was not enough. If they are true to type we should expect no less from them in the Episcopal Church today. Liberals are no strangers to blood lust, and that surfaces quickly if they are crossed or thwarted. Who, or what, drives such people? Our battle is not against flesh and blood, yet the roaring lion seeking someone to devour always seeks incarnation in those who can do the most damage.

Southern Civil War commanders understood the immediate challenges even if they misunderstood the larger issues. The enemies were “the violators of our hearths and homes” . Today they seek to destroy the very life and meaning of families. Stonewall Jackson was effective because he knew both that he had to fight, and he knew how to fight. “General Lee, if it please God, we will kill them all.” While you may not be comfortable with Jackson’s political conclusions at least recognize that you are in a battle with an enemy that will show you no quarter and act appropriately.