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.