Now the Miter has hit the fan...or the C of E, as it were.

Gloves...er...hats are off!  Let the fight begin!?!? Or not...

These past few weeks, since the feast of Pentecost, the ongoing struggles over inclusion of LGBT persons in the full sacramental and ordained life of Episcopal Church has begun to take a new and more ugly turn. Following the election and consecration of now-bishop Glasspool in the diocese of LA, the Archbishop of Canterbury, ++Rowan Williams, has begun to make good on the prior threats made to us should we do such a thing in spite of his warnings. Letters have been issued to persons in our church asking them to step down from their positions on ecumenical dialogues.  Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council (one of the governing bodies of the Anglican Communion) is meeting with the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church (a primary governing body of our Episcopal Church between General Conventions). It is rumored and reported, but not officially confirmed, that our Presiding Bishop, ++Katherine, has been asked to voluntarily resign from the Anglican Consultative Council. In an incident rather more pitiful and petty, the same ++Katherine, on a visit to the UK at the invitation of the dean of Southwark Cathedral, was told by representatives of Lambeth Palace that she could not wear her miter (the pointy hat that many/most Episcopal and Anglican bishops wear as a sign of their office). Some have spun that as "usual protocol" or "necessary" according to Church of England law, (arguing that the C of E has no women bishops, therefore she could not "preside" meaning celebrate the Eucharist as a bishop but only as a "priest" and thus could not wear a miter, but neither was she told that she could not wear violet clerical, pectoral cross, episcopal ring, rochet and chimere or other episcopal regalia, making that argument sound a bit contrived. Those taking refuge in that argument have branded ++Katherine as "colonial," "petty," "bratty" and worse.) but it attracted the glee of conservatives just the same. Even Jeffrey Shy (foolish me), wading unwisely into a discussion on a conservative website about the above (christened "mitergate" on the web), had his posts changed/edited and received a number of personal attacks and insults for his trouble. : )

In short, the "nastiness" on these matters is far from over for us. From the standpoint of some conservatives in this ongoing struggle, we are simply getting the punishments that we so richly deserve, and the main regret seems to be that we are not excommunicated en mass as the heretics that we most certainly are. Although it might be hoped that calmer voices could prevail, it does appear that strife is to be our lot in the International Anglican Communion for some time to come. One conservative commentator whom I encountered (unknown to me as nearly all on the conservative website do not give a real or full name), professed herself quite happy about it all. From her point of view, there are "two Gospels" fighting for place in the Episcopal Church, the true one and the false one, and it is a fight to the death or exclusion of one over the other. She, at least, seemed ready to fight, down and dirty if need be.

Is it time, then, to bring out the big guns and set to for an even larger battle of Apocalyptic proportions, or is there another way? In honesty, I do not have any really novel or revolutionary suggestions, and perhaps none are needed. We have, fortunately, a good example in the person of Jesus of Nazareth whose advice on how to deal with persecution is as good today as it was 20 centuries ago. How about, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven?" Reading further on, "Blessed are you, when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."  Perhaps most importantly, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven..."

In the church year, the green season after Pentecost is sometimes seen as a more calm and relaxed time in which the Church can reflect and grow, bearing fruit from the seeds planted in Advent, Lent and Easter lessons. It may be our lot this year, and for some years to come, that calm is going to be a harder commodity to come by. I hope, however, that like the shrub after a harsh pruning bursts forth with new growth and flower,  we can rejoice in the opportunity to share more fully with our Lord in his suffering and bear fuller and more abundant fruit because of it.  Let us pray for ourselves, our enemies and the church in sincerity and humility and not lose hope that the Kingdom will one day be made more fully present for us.

In closing, I offer a prayer for your consideration penned a century ago by Baptist Minister and leader of the U.S. Social gospel movement, Walter Rauschenbuch (1861-1918, commemorated in the Episcopal Church calendar on 2 July).

"O God, I pray for Thy church, which is set today amid the perplexities of a changing order and face to face with a great new task. I remember with love the nurture she gave to my spiritual life in its infancy, the tasks she set for my growing strength, the influence of the devoted hearts she gathers, the steadfast power for good she has exerted. When I compare her with all human institutions, there is none like her. But when judged by the mind of her Master, I bow in contrition. O God, baptize her afresh in the life-giving spirit of Jesus! Put upon her lips the ancient gospel of her Lord. Fill her with the prophet's scorn of tyranny, and with a Christ-like tenderness for the heavy-laden and downtrodden. Bid her cease from seeking her own life, lest she lose it. Make her valiant to give up her life to humanity, that like her crucified Lord she may mount by the path of the cross to a higher glory. Amen."

Amen, indeed.

Human Paleoanthropology as the Essential Friend of Religion

The "gift" this week of an unpleasant case of bronchitis allowed me a recent night of little sleep.  Rather more as a distraction from the coughing and chest pain than anything else, I decided to check out the video offerings from the PBS program Nova, a favorite of mine for many years (and, I suspect, a favorite of many others given this program's longevity).  As I had watched all of the most recent episodes, I went back a bit to last year and decided that the three-part series from 2009 on human evolution ( Becoming Human ) would be enough to get me through the night.  As it turned out, I initially dozed off about 3/4 of the way through program one, but I managed to re-watch that along with parts two and three over the past couple of days.  Although it may seem strange programming for Holy Week, it got me thinking again about the difficult intersection of Christianity and science and how we might be enriched in our religious lives by not just a "polite nod" to the "truths of science" but a genuine attempt to incorporate these paleoanthropological insights into our religious world view. Specifically, I was thinking critically against a "lukewarm" modern "liberal" religious viewpoint in which we accept the conclusions of evolutionary anthropology as the "way" the theistic personal God created humans, and then simply go on about the rest of our religious business as if nothing had changed. We continue to espouse such inconsistent ideas as creation in the divine image, the fall, original sin, the incarnation and such with no attempt to reconcile/revise/abandon these "marooned" doctrines (all looking back to the second creation account in Genesis understood as somehow historically or historically-metaphorically true) which are now without historical reference with the real history revealed by the paleoanthropologists. 
We are all familiar, of course, with how modern physicists are "dabbling" in ultimate ideas and producing works of a religious character.  We are also equally well aware of the vehemently anti-religious works of evolutionary biologists such as Richard Dawkins. It seems particularly odd, however, that the very branch of science that should be so close to religion, since it includes the particular studies of humanity, is now at greatest odds with religion. Is a true blending of Christianity and modern evolutionary anthropology possible, or are we doomed to simply shout at each other across the chasm of differences that divides religious and scientific language?
The Nova programs don't bother to argue about the truth of the "theory" of evolution of the human species and give "equal time" to the pseudo-science of "scientific creationism." They simply pick up the evolutionary story with the Australopithecines, focusing first on Australopithecus afarensis,  the most famous example of which is "Lucy," the remarkably complete skeleton from Ethiopia discovered by Johanson in the Great Rift Valley in Eastern Africa, the "cradle" of hominid development.  More than any other program that I have watched before, this three-part series took time to do scientific reconstructions of the faces of our ancestors and also to integrate other findings in the archaeological and geological records that give us some clues as to not just their bodily morphology but also their lives, environment and cultures. This added an aspect of realism to what is often just pictures of fossil skeletons and morphing photos showing images of hominid species melting into the next in an orderly succession. 
One of the most fascinating aspects of the current version of our human origins story is that we do not trace one smooth succession from species to species culminating in a single "end" product of Homo sapiens. We discover rather that, probably from the common ancestor of Homo habilis, the first in our genus and probably the first "tool maker," at least three (perhaps four) species of humanity evolved and eventually coinhabited the ancient world and probably had contact and perhaps even competition.  We know these as Homo erectus (and possibly related "hobbit" Homo floresiensis), our close cousin Homo neanderthalensis along with ourselves, Homo sapiens.  That H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis overlapped and coinhabited ancient Europe cannot be doubted.  It is less clear whether H. sapiens and H. erectus "encountered" one another, although their periods did overlap.  One wonders how our religious view of humanity (conceived of as just our species)  would have been different (e.g. vis-a-vis myths such as the Genesis accounts) if there were not one, but three intelligent hominid species to account for? What "creation myth" might we tell?  How would that influence such "core doctrines" as that of the creation of humanity in the "divine image?" 
Among the images/scenes scenes that I found particularly moving in the series was one of a reenactment of a burial ritual for H. erectus in southern Spain.  In that location, a burial pit has been discovered holding the skeletons of many individuals.  It would seem unlikely that this would have been a "natural" occurrence, so one must conclude that the individuals were placed there intentionally.  Even more moving was the discovery of a pink granite hand axe amongst the remains.  The stone of the axe was not from anywhere nearby but had to have come from a place far distant, suggesting possibly migration or even trade across distances.  More importantly, such an item would have been a valuable possession for an individual and not one that would have been abandoned lightly.  Its inclusion strongly suggests a ritual event that included a grave offering for the deceased.  Here then, clearly preserved, are the remains of "religious" pre-Homo sapiens humans.  If one postulates a divine, personal creator god for whom evolution was the "process" by which he created H. sapiens in "his image," then what of his first human children? Were they merely "means to an end," or did God simply love them less? 
Equally moving were the dramatizations of the "encounters" between H. neanderthalensis and H. Sapiens. We now know that neanderthalensis were the first to arrive in Europe of the two species.  It also appears that the arrival of H. sapiens was associated with the disappearance in short order of the neanderthalensis individuals who were pushed progressively into more and more marginal areas, finally perhaps having a "last stand" on the Gibraltar rock where the latest evidence of their inhabitation can be found.  The reason for the decline of the neanderthalensis species is far from clear, but it appears that these larger/heavier and probably larger-brained individuals (i.e. than H. sapiens) had an enormous caloric "appetite" requiring perhaps as much as 5000kCal per day to hold body and soul together.  They also appear to have practiced hunting at close range with hand-held weapons such that many of the mostly adult males have evidence in their skeletal remains of multiple broken bones.  The lighter, less-calorically-needy H. sapiens who had developed somewhat more complex tools (such as throwing spears) and who were faster and required fewer calories were, perhaps, ultimately more successful in competing for limited resources and simply displaced the less-adaptable H. neanderthalensis individuals. 
Where again, do we find in this very human story the unique creation of humans in the "divine image" or evidence of "the fall" or original sin?  If these central "doctrines" in Christianity really hold very little water when subjected to a comparison with real history, then why do we persist so strongly in trying to hold onto them?  Although I found Robin Meyers book, Saving Jesus from the Church, to be a bit tiresome in its stridency, I did copy a quote that I continue to go back to – "If we continue to believe that we did not come up out of the earth, but were dropped from the sky, then Jesus will continue to be understood likewise as an invader, a harpoon shot from God's bow to reel in the perishing. He will not be a teacher but an elevator operator. He will bring us not wisdom but self-aggrandizement. He will not give us an assignment but a certificate."  And to quote Bishop Spong, "To believe dated concepts with the human brain is not a sign of orthodoxy; it is a sign of being spiritually dead." 
While I respect, in many ways, phenomena such as the "Emergent Church" movement, I feel sometimes that it is really too tied to the old views of Sola Scriptura, possibly because so many are entering the movement from the starting point of Evangelicalism.  It is saddening also that, even in the relatively broad-minded circles of The Episcopal Church, persons are often quickly attacked for so-called "unorthodox" views. Having experienced such attacks myself, I have, I suppose, been reluctant to try to "brainstorm" new ideas for revision of traditional theistic Christianity with its obsession with "the fall," original sin, the incarnation and such.  We may have moved forward with regard to some social issues such as sexuality (much to the dismay of reactionaries in other parts of the Anglican communion), but theological experimentation is still viewed with a great deal of suspicion and one often encounters a fire blast of anger directed at anyone who would question "core doctrine" or try to reinterpret it.  As Bishop Spong puts it, "When their religious authority claims are challenged, their typical response is not to enter a rational discussion, but to engage in revealing anger. Anger never rises out of genuine commitment; it is always a product of threatened security." 
Many more progressive Christians today are finding themselves drawn into mystical practices, and I can say that I too feel this pull.  Mainline protestants in particular have been particularly deprived of many traditions of prayer, meditation and contemplation that are our common Christian heritage, and the re-discovery of practices such as centering prayer and the like are welcome developments. What we need, however, is also a cognitive and rational aspect to serve as a worthy partner and corrective for the less-definable mystical experience. These insights need to be experienced both intellectually/academically as well as liturgically if they are to contribute equally to our religious lives as an integrated whole.  Unfortunately, the experience mystically continues to be in search of a historically and scientifically aware cognitive religious partner.  
Before someone writes to me about the works of Teilhard de Chardin, let me say that, while I respect and honor his legacy, I find that his "grand scheme" approach has rather too much of an element of artificiality.  I share, I think, with many post-moderns a suspicion of grand schemes and narratives. His view of evolution as trending towards an "end" in the "Omega Point" of "God" seems too much of a superimposition of older religious ideas onto scientific fact, rather like trying to bang the puzzle pieces into place by force. We need to recognize the unknowable and uncertain aspects of our "future development" and embrace, I think, the unfolding nature of our biological, cultural and spiritual evolution.  God experienced as "being" or "ground of being" cannot at the same time be the divine architect who "has it all worked out in advance."  God, the ground of being, goes with us on the journey and is both us and the journey.  As such, there is no predetermined destination at which we may someday arrive.  This sort of "open-ended" spirituality is more in keeping with the realities of how creation/evolution have unfolded thus far, I think.  It can look back to the past without a need to "reinvent" or fictionalize where we have been in order to freeze it into an orthodox framework, and it can be open to new change and development about where we are going in the future.  To see all religious knowledge as present, experiential and provisional would rescue us from the "orthodoxy" wars that are consuming Christianity from the inside out as well as the outside in.  We can find God less in our assent to "orthodox  beliefs" than in our openness to the changing winds of "the spirit" in the process of our unfolding cultural and religious awareness.  
To some, this may seem just too much, too frightening, too prone to "error" or "whim." I would counter, however, that, if we persist in trying to "hold progress back" we will likely destroy that very thing that we are trying most to preserve.  Bishop Spong has written that "religious concepts become fragile indeed when education renders them no longer believable."  A release of our religious spirit to allow it to move forward again will inevitably result in change, but it will not necessarily result in the complete abandonment of our past.  Again from Bishop Spong, "To walk the Christ-path will take us beyond theism, but not beyond God; beyond incarnation, but not beyond discovering the divine at the heart of the human, beyond the death of every particular living thing, but not beyond meaning and purpose."  Do we have the courage to go forward, or we will fragment into those who survive as curators of the religious museum and seculars who find religious experience and belief simply too challenging? 

Contra Robertson, Augustine, Calvin and Luther OR "God was not in the earthquake"

As many of us are watching in dismay at the emerging evidence of tremendous and sudden loss of life in Haiti’s recent earthquake, it is inevitable that persons will ask the perennial question, “Why?” Also very predictably, we find a religious fundamentalist like Pat Robertson who offers a theory about this.  His theory: while under French rule, the Haitian people made a pact with the Devil (capital D intended) for deliverance. Since that time, they have been “cursed” (presumably by God) with many disasters and misfortunes.  Also predictably, “softer” interpreters of our religious traditions have cried “foul” and once again, we find ourselves impaled on our own sword by the  intrinsic illogic of the affirmation of a supernatural all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good creator deity and the seemingly paradoxical existence of evil, both natural and human.

To give Pat credit, he would have made a good Jew in the Babylonian exile. As we read the redacted Torah and Judaic national history as it was assembled at that time, we find a particularly clear message that the conquest of Jerusalem and the exile were the result of the behavior of the Judeans and God’s punishment for the same.  Simplified, they disobeyed God’s commands, were not “faithful” to him, “went after” foreign gods and thus deserved the wrath of God and his punishment-hence, the exile. Lesson: disobedience to God brings on disaster, and this is not just particular punishment for individual sins, but also corporate punishment for societal and national sin. If we take this “word” as “authoritative,” then there is no doubt that big national disasters come about because of societal sin.  “Sodom and Gomorrah” is another lesson on the same lines, particularly gleefully sited by those who see this destruction as a punishment for sexual immorality.  Although we get a little relief with the “bargaining” part where Abraham is ultimately unable to find enough “good” people to persuade God to spare the poor Sodomites and Gomorrans, the implicationis that “really” they’re all "guilty" and God’s punishment is, therefore, “just.”  

This idea of inherited and corporate guilt has been heavily incorporated into Western Christianity particularly since the time of St. Augustine.  Just like the Jews in the exile, who lived in bad times, the African Bishop Augustine lived at the end of the Roman Empire and experienced the invasion of Africa by the Vandals, a particularly "bad" time in the west.  Furthermore, Augustine had a personal history as a Manichean, a non-Christian gnostic religion that accepted one of the common teachings of gnosticism about the “evil” nature of the world and creation as a whole. It has been this dual history that some have suggested accounts for the rather pessimistic view of humanity that Augustine seems to have held.  At the time of the reformation, Luther and Calvin, combining and expanding these ideas to embrace a “total depravity” idea of humanity along with their “Pauline” justification “by faith,” made this the centerpiece of Christology and indeed, the entire point of the Christian faith, at least in most of mainline, post-reformation protestantism. As modern biblical scholarship has advanced, however, most of us have come to see the Adamic creation story as not literal but “mythologized” history.  We have, however, retained all of the “conclusions” that were reached about the significance of “THE FALL” and its “effects” on our present situation and world.  We seldom note that the slender thread of making this conclusion (that neither Jews nor Muslims make) rests on the theologizing by persons who did literally believe the story of Adam to be true and historical.  Furthermore, the Pauline “blessing” of this doctrine derives primarily from his teaching on general resurrection such that death entered the world through the man Adam and by the man (I could not resist italicizing that) Jesus, resurrection to life entered the world in a kind of “fitting parallel” of events. This is far, to my eye, from a certain confirmation of “original sin” and the “total depravity” of human nature, let alone a “justification” for an all-powerful deity to wreak havoc on his disobedient creation. The only other dubious scriptural support for the doctrinal formulation of original sin and the “Fallen” world comes from a couple of quotes from the Psalms.  There is, however, absolutely equal argument against this concept of inherited or corporate “guilt” in the prophetic writings  (Ezekiel for example) as well as the “criticism” in Job of the idea that misfortune and natural disaster come as a punishment for human sin, either particular or corporate, and its correlate that obedience brings wealth and prosperity and safety. 

In a derivative blog posting (quoting from yet another blog), The V. Rev, Nicholas Knisely (dean of Trinity Cathedral Phoenix) quotes the modern theologian , David Bentley Hart as writing: 

“...if it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil, and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity: sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers.  And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purposes of God.” 

It is hard to argue with this statement as it is phrased, but in essence, all that it does, in and of itself, is to reaffirm the belief in the “goodness” of the God of traditional theism.  It does not, however, offer a solution to the problem of evil. 

I believe that it is time, quite frankly, for the church to reconsider the entire schema of sin/original sin, and the divine Jesus as the vicarious sacrifice/penal substitution model of redemption.  To quote/paraphrase the Rt. Rev. Spong, the doctrine of the fall and original sin is “pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.” 

For the questions of the issue of “natural” evil, a closer and more nuanced answer needs to be sought.  For geological processes like earthquakes, Tsunamis and the like, it is clear that these are mechanistic processes that derive from our planetary structure.  This structure itself (plate techtonics and the like) is intimately tied up with the emergence and evolution of life on this planet.  They are, in fact, part of the natural processes that gave “birth” to humanity and other entities with which we co-inhabit our planetary biosphere. One might fault the “intelligent design” of a planet in which such processes were “necessary,” but attributing to them a “moral” or “sin” meaning is patently ridiculous.

Beyond even this, however, if we tackle the encompassing position of “faulty design,” then we need to decide if we can live with a God who is “a little less than omniscent/omnipotent/all-good” or affirm the necessary limitation imposed by the idea that this is the “best of all possible worlds” meaning that God is limited to the degree of his ability to create perfection, provided that we wish to persist in supernatural theism as the foundation of our religious belief.  I, however, think that the problem is not the world itself that is the problem, but the whole concept of supernatural theism itself.  If we take, for example, the possibility of God’s “existence” as Tillich's “being” or “ground of being” or possibly something along Marcus Borg’s suggestion of panentheism (I would take it another step, for logical reasons, to panendeism, but that is a whole other and extended discussion), then we can drop the obsessions about natural and particular evil and their "problem" completely.

“How long” will it be for us until we find as Christians a substitute for supernatural theism? God only knows : )

As a postscript, the scope of the humanitarian disaster in Haiti does not diminish as we learn more details.  The best way that we can act now is by a money donation.  If you have not already donated to some allied cause to help, then I strongly recommend that you do so.

Jeffrey.

Christmas Re-membered

Often today, many feel "caught" in an uncomfortable tight space generated by the disparities between traditional religious and modern thought.  For more than 200 years now, "higher" biblical criticism has progressively made untenable many former biblical "sureties."  No figure has suffered more from a historical strip down than has the person of Jesus.  In the search for the historical Jesus, as it has evolved for more than a century now, we have progressively discovered that many "facts" about the life and words of Jesus can no longer be understood to be historically "factual" in the sense that they might have been recordable on a video camera had technology of that sort been available at that time.  This is particularly apparent to us in an historical examination of the birth narratives of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Not only do they appear to belong to a relatively late layer of the Jesus gospel tradition, but also the accounts of these writers are profoundly different, not just in small details but in general outline and internal "message." (I invite you to read this year the Matthew and Luke accounts separately, not conflating them together into one unified story as we usually do, but considering each one individually, if you are in doubt about this.) It is plainly the case, even at the simplest level, that if one of these narratives is accepted as the "true" story in a literal sense, then the other must be plainly false, and vice versa.  An insistence then, on an historically factual birth narrative of Jesus, inevitably "lets us down" unless we are particularly fond of paradox.

What then are we to do with these narratives?

In their recent book, The First Christmas, historical Jesus scholars Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg set aside very quickly any obsessive preoccupation with trying to discover "factual" information in the birth narratives, and quickly pass to questions of "meaning," looking at the stories from the perspective of myth or parables that we understand to be "true" in the same manner that we find "truth" in the many parables spoken in the gospels accounts by the person of Jesus.  Which of us, when considering the parable of the Good Samaritan, for example, would assert that the validity of that particular story depended on a factuality that events "really happened" exactly as described?  We note, on the contrary, that the parable's truth resides at a level that is more than any simple retelling of historical fact, in the message that it conveys in story form. In a similar manner, when we relax our anxieties generated by a futile attempt to view the nativity stories as historical fact, we can open up to the deeper truth of the messages that they contain.

As Episcopalians (along with Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and other Christians retaining strong liturgical traditions) we can enter into a particularly intense experience of these narratives as we participate in the rituals and liturgies of the Advent and Christmas cycle.  Just as with the narratives of Lent and Easter where we ritually walk the "way of the cross," the rites of Advent and Christmas invite us to walk "the road to Bethlehem" and symbolically re-enact  the truths of the nativity stories not as written and received records of a distant past, but as experiences made present to us today.   We can assume, liturgically, mentally and symbolically, the roles of the many characters in these stories– standing in the cold wintery fields with the astonished shepherds, feeling the anguish of Joseph in the presumed infidelity of his engaged spouse and the wonder of a dream that reveals a miraculous and unbelievable alternative, following with the Magi behind the star to Bethlehem, escaping by the warning of a portentous dream the murderous intent of King Herod, and like Mary, pondering the "meaning of these things" "in our hearts.

In the early development of our English Prayerbook tradition, some of those with more Puritan attitudes objected to the inclusion of canticles such as that recorded in today's Gospel reading, which we know as the Magnificat or "Song of Mary," on the grounds that such texts were properly understood as being appropriate only to those historical persons who had "originally" uttered them. Their position was the same as that of many so-called evangelicals and fundamentalists today who insist that the only "true" understanding of these narratives is the literal acceptance of these texts as historical facts and "proofs" that thereby legitimate the proclamation of Jesus as Messiah and Lord.  Fortunately for us, however, traditional practice prevailed, and the texts came down to us not merely in our Bible, but in our Prayerbook rites as well.   When we sing the Magnificat in a ritual setting, we "assume the role" of Mary as she marvels at the "great things" that "the Almighty has done."  We do not sing "Mary's soul proclaimed the greatness of the Lord," but "My soul proclaims (noting the use of the present tense) the greatness of the Lord." Taking on the persona of Mary, we affirm our own hope and trust in the rule of God in which the tyrant is made into a subject and the humble ones exalted to power, the hungry in spirit and flesh are fed and the prideful are brought low. The ritual and liturgical "making present" of the narratives of our faith tradition begins then to reveal levels of deeper understanding and leads us into a more profound form of "belief" ( as trust / confidence / commitment, rather than an intellectual assent to a collection of facts to be affirmed as "true") than any literal reading of these stories as events past could ever accomplish. Our use of these foundational stories and texts in liturgical settings becomes part of the larger "incarnational" character of our religious practice where the narrative is not just stuff from the "elsewhere past" but our narrative in the here and now.  In theological terms, this is akin to the belief that the presence of God in Jesus the Christ is experienced as the presence of God/Christ in us and in the world today. (In the words of the apostle Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.") We thus may engage in a special form of symbolical and liturgical "re - membering" in the Advent and Christmas narratives in a way similar to that in which we celebrate the Eucharist, as an "anamnesis" in Greek, or in approximate English equivalent  a "re - presentation" of the narrative as a present and active reality, not just a fond recollection of things past.

This Christmas, once again then, I invite us to become like "little children" and "re-live" the stories of these birth narratives, and in this re-living, find ourselves transformed by the truths and messages that they incarnate in a symbolic and parabolic way.  To close, I invite you particularly to look as you sing them this year for the many present tense and personal references that we find in even our more modern songs of the Christmas season, starting you off with a few examples here (my emphasis added):

"O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray.

Cast out our sin, and enter in.

Be born in us today...."

"How far is it to Bethlehem? Not very far.

Shall we find the stable room lit by a star?

Can we see the little child, is he within?

If we lift the wooden latch, may we go in?"

"Yea, Lord, We  greet thee, born this happy morning..."

Yes, Lord, we greet you, born this and every other happy morning into our lives by faith. Help us to get beyond the superficiality of misguided literalism, and lead us to truth that begins and ends only in life lived within and filled by you. Amen.

9This post originally was published in the Integrity @ Trinity weekly newsletter, The Sunday Roundup for 20 December 2009. 

The Odes of Solomon

I had posted this week a couple of comments to Nick Knisely’s blog where he and some others are “struggling” with the doctrines of “the fall” and “the incarnation” as they might apply to the future discovery of non-terrestrial intelligent life.  I have twice advanced the opinion that “the fall” is overemphasized in Western Spirituality thanks to Augustine and Anselm of Canterbury.  I have also suggested that the “incarnation” is a doctrine that is not necessarily tied tightly to “the fall” nor ideas of human “sinfulness.” 

I was re-reading this week from a book by Philip Jenkins entitled The Lost History of Christianity.  This is a commentary-loaded history of the Christian East in the areas of Syria, Iran, Iraq, India, Tibet, China, etc.  These so-called “Nestorian” Christians had a vibrant culture and, in their day, far outnumbered the Christians of Europe and the Mediterranean.  

One text that we owe to the earliest days of Syrian Christianity is the so-called “Odes of Solomon.”  Clearly not Solomonic, but Christian in origin, they should not be confused with the similarly named Psalms of Solomon that are a pharasaic Judaic creation.  The Odes have been criticized by some for “gnostic” content (they mention “knowledge” here and there), but classical elements of developed gnostic thought are plainly missing (e.g. the “evil” nature of the physical world/creation for example).  In the translantion by James Charlesworth, they are incredibly beautiful poems/hymns and demonstrate a theology rather more akin to the Johanine tradition than anything else in our current corpus.   These odes were “discovered” in the late 19th/early 20th century and have since been found in multiple manuscript traditions.  Scholars have dated them to about the 2d century (some minority opinions say late 1st century) of the common era making them about contemporary with the Didache.  Had these texts been widely circulated in the Christian West, I think that they would have stood an excellent chance of inclusion in the New Testament canon of scripture. 

Since our canon is long-since “closed,” that is “water under the bridge,” but they are nevertheless beautiful pieces of Christian poetry.  They reveal a gentle and kindly God who, like a divine mother, offers “his breasts” for milk for his children.  They describe a view of the incarnation that is both ancient and fresh, singularly lacking in the dark colorations given that doctrine by Augustine and Anselm and their adherents in the west.  

There is a free online version of the Charlesworth translation that is available at the link: The Odes of Solomon

I’ll also “paste in” a copy of the segment that I quoted in Dean Knisely’s blog, Entangled States

From Ode 7

"For there is a helper for me, the Lord. He has generously shown himself to me in his simplicity, because his kindness has diminished his dreadfulness.

He became like me, that I might receive Him. In form he was considered like me, that I might put him on.

And I trembled not when I saw him, because he was gracious to me.

Like my nature he became, that I might understand him. And like my form, that I might not turn away from him.

The Father of Knowledge is the Word of knowledge.

He who created wisdom is wiser than his works.

And he who created me when yet I was not knew what I would do when I came into being.

On account of this, he was gracious to me in his abundant grace, and allowed me to ask from him and to benefit from his sacrifice.

For he it is who is incorrupt, the perfection of the worlds and their Father.

He has allowed Him to appear to them that are his own; in order that they may recognize him that made them, and not suppose that they came of themselves.

For towards knowledge he has set his way, he has widened it and lengthened it and brought it to complete perfection.

And has set over it the traces of his light, and it proceeded from the beginning until the end.

For by him, he was served, and he was pleased by the Son.

And because of his salvation, he will possess everything. And the Most High will be known by his holy ones:

To announce the coming of the Lord, that they may go forth to meet him and may sing to him, with joy and with the harp of many tones...

Let the singers sing the grace of the Lord Most High, and let them bring their songs.

And let their heart be like the day, and their gentle voices like the majestic beauty of the Lord.

And let there not be anyone who breathes that is without knowledge or voice.

For he gave a mouth to his creation: to open the voice of the mouth towards him, and to praise him."

I found this, frankly, to be stunningly beautiful.  What's more surprising is that all of the Odes are like this.  How did we "miss" this text in the West, and why are they not more popular? 

Christological Confusion.

It is becoming increasingly common to think of faith in the Christian West as going through a time of great change.  In the simile proposed by Phyllis Tickle, we have torn open the covering of the "cable" to the anchor of faith and are examining the cords/threads within.  The source of our modern "predicament" has been variously conceptualized, and I am drawn to the hypothesis proposed by Karen Armstrong that, in the post-reformation period, the Christian West has abandoned too much of the "mythos" in religion, opting for a  more purely "logos" approach, creating a new synthesis out of the interaction of traditional faith with the ideas of the enlightenment and the growth of modern science. This approach asserted the "understandability" of religious faith in rational terms in much the same way that the discovery of the "laws" of physics had rendered the physical world intelligible and understandable.  As the discoveries of science have rapidly rendered a literal understanding of at least the cosmology of the bible untenable, however, the "cracks" in the old religious synthesis have continued to appear in ever greater number and size.

Somewhat less credited, it would seem, in Armstrong's work, has been the influence of the so-called higher biblical criticism.  Shunned by conservative evangelicals who continue to espouse a "literalist" approach, it has become rather standard stuff in a modern seminary education for mainline protestants and also Roman Catholics. Although it is not frequently referred to in explicit ways in most Sunday sermons, it underlies a great deal of the public preaching in the mainline Protestant churches and lurks underneath the surface in more Catholic settings.  Currently, the "debate" between radical atheism and religious faith has focused on questions such as the "existence" of God and the attacks by the atheist activists on the literalist/fundamentalist form of Christianity that has arisen as a response to the tide of the degradation of the old-paradigm, post-reformation Christian synthesis. As in any bitter divorce, there is acrimony aplenty flowing in both directions between the now-atheist scientists and the Christian fundamentalists.  This has become further complicated by the "culture war" causes of civil rights for persons of color, women and GLBT persons.

One more subtle thread, however, often lost in this drama that plays out on the more public stage, has been what I might term the "Crisis of Christology." Traditional histories of Christianity relegate the great Christological debates to a long-past period of the first centuries of Christian development. The "settled question" of Christology, however, has begun  to resurface following assaults on many fronts: questions about the literal/factual nature of the resurrection,  "historical" Jesus research and the rediscovery of ancient "alternative" Christologies such as those found in the Nag Hammadi texts to name a few.  As an Episcopalian in a church where fundamentalist biblical literalism is a decidedly minority opinion, the Christological controversy is likely to prove much more divisive and destructive, and it is something that we would be well-advised to watch very carefully. It has already surfaced in a practical sense in the recent controversy over the consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester in the Diocese of Northern Michigan.  It was implicit in the furor over the sermon of the Most Rev. Schori with her supposedly "universalist" comments at recent General Convention.  For conservative Evangelicals, little of their faith life has been grounded in any conscious/careful understanding of traditional Christology, although it "assumes" some of the basics.  For Episcopalians, however,  traditionally both reformed and catholic, continuing to affirm the Nicean-Constantinopolitan Creed and possessing an historical liturgical tradition, our whole religious life "reeks" with complex Christological underpinnings. In online debates I have seen this surface in what I might call a "mining" or rediscovery of more "eastern" orthodox traditions. We find quotes trotted out from the earliest fathers of the Church: Athanasius, the Gregories, Basil and others as "defenses" in a way that has not been seen in Christian theological debate for more than a millennium.  This reassertion of the complex Christologies to which they contributed has been countered by a contrary school of reaching back to more mystical traditional ideas with elements from Origen, Duns Scotus, Eckhart, pseudo-Dionysius and others revered for their works on religious experience/practice and some of them villified for their "defective" Christologies.  In a more profound way than the debates that have arisen over biblical literalism, this has touched the heart of more "catholic" strains of Christianity such as exist in Anglicanism and TEC and has contributed to the present unhappy marriage of biblical-literalist evangelicals and traditionalist Anglo-catholics. We saw this earlier this year in a debate in The Episcopal Cafe in which I participated in which the "meaning" of the incarnation and its "orthodox" understanding was a topic of lively debate.  It has resurfaced this past week on Dean Nicholas Knisely's Blog, Entangled States, where he was noted to have quipped, "Ugh. Who says the Christological controversies are fully behind us?"

Rather than being "fully behind us," I believe that the question of the place of Jesus in post-modern Christianity is very much an open one at present.  As someone who has moved in a non-theistic and more "mystical" direction in the "understanding" of religious faith and practice but who has also absorbed a great deal of the "higher criticism," I have been trying, so far, to "let the question ride."  Inasmuch as a "mystical" or "experiential" approach to the numinous requires a liturgical and ritual context, I had decided that it would be best to loosen my crossed fingers and just "do" the liturgy rather than placing each prayer, response and action under the analytical microscope.  I have also been drawn, as a response to the dreaded "Anglican Covenant," to the idea advanced by the V. Rev. Knisely of the idea of the BCP as a de facto covenant and one that precludes the need for the one under present consideration.  I have, therefore, been a bit "agnostic" of late in my own Christology.

It is clear, however, that the liturgical life of our branch of the church, so essential to our corporate identity, is strongly rooted in a "high"  traditional Christology.  The centrality of the eucharistic observation is tied up with dogmatic formulations such as the so-called doctrine of penal substitution.  The doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the problematic "God the Son" is so pervasive that one can scarcely find a single paragraph of the prayerbook that does not touch on it- explicitly, implicitly or formulaically.  In general, I think that the church will be better served by anticipating these controversies at this comparatively early stage and starting to deal with them in a conscious and considered manner rather than engaging in our usual practice of waiting for it to become an overwhelming and destructive tidal wave. We need to begin to consider that we may have to re-answer the old question from the Gospels of "Who do you say that I am?" regarding the Christ of Faith, if we are to be able to "save" Jesus for the next synthesis.

I would suggest that this has the potential to be far more divisive than the present hot-button issue of sexuality about which there is currently so much angst.  Admittedly, the "Christological Crisis" has not come fully to the attention of the everyman in the pew, but it is being heard increasingly in more liberal-minded circles in the church.  I find, in addition, that this type of "issue" begins to divide even the so-called "liberals" at a deep level.  There are clearly those who are ready to move forward on issues of morality/sexuality but are deeply suspicious of opening the Pandora's box of re-examining our Christology. Many otherwise "liberal" and intellectual persons in the church have begun to engage  in what I have tended to call "heresy cataloguing" in which the response to a "suspect" Christological statement is to "name the heresy" and slam the door shut on debate.  That a middle-of-the-road clergy person such as Dean Knisely could suggest that Christological controversy is not "fully behind us" suggests that the questions are widespread and deep, even if we do not talk about them.  I would hope that we could continue to exercise our Anglican/Episcopal open-mindedness in debate and discussion and allow some of this to "come out" into the open, particularly after the "sexuality storm" has settled down a bit. So far, much of the "Emergent Church" movement has come from a post-evangelical perspective, and seems little interested in resolving these issues or even discussing them, presumably as high Christology was never a strong "evangelical" concern to start with.  I would hate to see, however, the development/evolution in these new churches continue without the input of those of us from more traditional "mainline" backgrounds who are better equipped to deal with the Christological questions, having historically had a "high" Christology to start with, but we shall see....

Anyone ready to debate the "two natures?"  Don't be chicken!

The Church as a Sponge

I recently posted a reply to a posting on The Episcopal Cafe's Section, "The Daily Episcopalian," in which Adrian Worsfold wrote an essay entitled Anglican No Longer . He describes complicated reasons as to why he no longer feels comfortable calling himself Anglican or Christian for that matter. I oddly felt that I had "been there done that" and that, as one of the few non-theistic Episcopalians that I know, I needed to post some of my own ideas. I suspect that, as I took several days to put my thoughts together for that post, it will not get much notice. I did, however, want to incorporate it into my own blog, as it contains some ideas about what I have recently been thinking about church and the world. I am attracted, I think, to some of the "emergent" Christianity movement's ideas, but I often get the feeling that the persons writing in that area are coming from an Evangelical background and that their foundational assumptions and language "do not go far enough" to move away from that source. Another voice from both a more "catholic" as well as "pluralist" perspective is needed. As I read it over, I think that I "jump" a bit from the metaphor of the sponge to the metaphor of pilgrimage, and I could probably "clean it up," but I think that I will post it as I originally wrote it for now:

As an a-theistic (non-theistic) Christian/Episcopalian, I somehow feel that I should comment. Ultimately, however, paths like that which Adrian has taken cannot be walked by another, no matter how much sympathy I feel for many of his views. I can only wish him well on his journey, and I hope that his pilgrimage will be one of fulfillment and meaning.
I have thought a great deal recently about "what does it mean" to be Episcopalian/Anglican in this time of re-examination of our foundational "truths" and the inevitable anti-explorational reactions that this invokes. Somehow, I feel that, while I applaud our moves for "fuller inclusion" of LGBT persons and women, we are missing the mark. What Christianity and TEC/Anglicanism does not need so much is "inclusivity" (and certainly not more "exclusivity") but more "porosity." We need for the church to be more "porous" in terms of its experience of/with the world and creation, the "numinous" and the stories and perspectives of other religious traditions and how we understand and allow that to meaningfully interact with our own traditions and history. I was thinking recently that, in spite of our attempts to formulate positions/doctrines, Jesus in the Gospels often seemed to resist firm definitions. "What is the Kingdom of heaven like?" was answered mostly in parable and metaphor, not in creed/covenant/doctrine. "Covenant" Anglicans need to appreciate the irony of what they are trying to accomplish.
How about a new parable? "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a sponge. When it is taken out of water, it dries out, hardens, breaks and disintegrates. But when it is put into water, it takes up the water and grows and absorbs it. And when you take it out again, it drenches everything around it. "
The Church, I think, needs to be more sponge-like. It needs to absorb the concerns and needs of those that it encounters. It needs to avoid having firm boundaries and borders. It needs to be drenched in the experience of the world as it is, not as we wish it to be and also the possibility of the numinous that we may find/encounter in ways unlike any that we have known before. Scripture needs to be a springboard for experience/thought, not a wall around our minds and lives to fence them in. We need to break the canon open, not fence it in. The church needs to be immersed in the water of the numinous and the world, not out of the water and drying out on a storage shelf. It needs to "leak" the numinous and its reflections and experience back into the surrounding water and world.
At this point, I am more "optimistic" than Adrian that the churches, Anglican and Episcopal and others, can still possibly do this. It will not be easy, but what real thing is ever easy? In the year 2000, the liturgy for the opening of the Holy Door at St. Peter's in Rome was accompanied by a prayer containing a line that still resonates with me: "The Church is on a pilgrimage through time to eternity." Each of us is journeying in this Pilgrimage for such an infinitesimal time with no end in sight. We walk, yes, but wither none of us really can say nor can we say that there is some "end" at which we will arrive. I hope, though, that while we live and walk together or apart, we may find meaning in the journey itself.