It is our Christian duty not to draw lines around who is in and who is out, who is welcome and who is not. It is a Christian discipline to care, and act in abundance, because all things we have, are not ours, but are from the One who made all things and holds all things in being
It's Margaret http://leaveitlay.blogspot.com/2010/04/extranjeros.html
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
How about a little prophetic leadership please?
(Knocking of the door of the American HOB) Hello... Anybody awake in there?
(Knocking at 815) C’mon folks, doesn’t anyone have something to say on this matter? Katherine? Bonnie? Please?
What I’m trying to muster in the above scenario is an effective response to is the latest bit of flimlammery and blatant misrepresentation from the schismatic voices of the radical right. In this case from David Bena, the retired Suffragan Bishop of Albany N.Y. who has also chosen to leave TEC for his own reasons.
It may not have made national headlines; the only reason I know of Mr. Bena’s recent public misrepresentations up here in Montreal is due to the good services of a treasured friend and living gift to our Church- Grandmère Mimi http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2010/04/is-tec-on-wayward-path.html who posted on a recent opinion piece by the former Amercian suffragan bishop in the Richmond Times Dispatch. An opinion piece which has, far as I can tell, gone unchallenged in the public discourse except for Mimi’s post and the great work of Openly Episcopal in Albany http://drbones.typepad.com/openly_episcopal_in_alban/2010/04/tec-formally-rejected-the-authority-of-scripture-the-painful-irony-is-that-tecs-decision-to-reject-the-authority-of-gods.html
Not that I’d want to do anything to further Mr. Bena’s personal confusion- I mean, he has apparently continued to preach and celebrate at times within venues of the Episcopal Church, inspite of his very public departure and his equally public opinions. But a lie is still a lie, and I can’t help but ask where is the prophetic rebuttal from any quarter within our Church- other than the faithful Grandmère Mimi and the folks at Openly Episcopal in Albany.
I mean brother David did choose to make this public. And in such a situation I think it is more than obvious that his misrepresentation must be engaged in a similar quarter.
The first two sentences from his piece would suffice:
Either former suffragan Bena has been suffering from a serious medical condition which has kept him painfully unaware of the last several decades of events both within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, or he is intentionally, and I would suggest maliciously misrepresenting the current reality.
And surely our Church can do better than yours truly for publicly rebutting these misrepresentations; but for the record:
In addition, I would suggest that your objectification of Holy Scripture as a static, inerrant record not only denies decades of important Scriptural scholarship; it also suggests idolatry to be the standard of faithful Christian practice in your personal opinion.
Contrary to Mr. Bena's recent public misrepresentation of the current reality, I would suggest that of all of the provinces of our beloved Church, it is The Episcopal Church who has most prophetically, faithfully and courageously embodied our vocation to meet and engage the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of our redeemed lives and our vocation to be the living Body of Christ.
One need look no further than the methodology and practice at the recent Anaheim General Convention:
And I might add, it was incarnational when our priests and bishops left their councils to march in solidarity with the exploited workers of the Disney corporation.
Which brings me to my real point- which for lack of a better term I might call the Palin effect- hopefully without giving that poor, misguided individual too much credit.
As patently obvious as Mr. Bena’s misrepresentations might be to many of us, the fact is he has made them in a very public venue. They have been read and resonated with some who may not have taken the time and effort to follow and prayerfully, critically evaluate recent events within our Church. Individuals who, for a variety of other personal reasons, may feel Mr. Bena’s misrepresentations speaks to or confirms their own feelings of powerlessness, isolation or personal frustration.
It is my sense that this is how phenomena like Ms. Palin and her ilk gained traction and momentum, and I would suggest that the time is long passed when our Church can afford to allow public spectacles such as Mr. Bena’s misrepresentation to go unchallenged.
It’s called leadership. It’s called accountability-necessarily public accountability only because of the venue Mr.Bena has chosen.
As long as we as a Church remain silent in the face of such misrepresentations we essentially allow individuals such as Mr. Bena to define the current reality within our Church in the public sector.
We need look no further than Ms. Palin’s public visibility, the ‘inches of ink’ she continues to receive, the crowds who turn out to listen to her divisive, skewed take on reality, to see what I am suggesting.
It is my sense that the Democratic Party and the American public made a serious mistake when they settled for mocking and effectively underestimating the former governor of Alaska. And as a result they effectively allowed her the unchallenged airtime and space to create her own version of ‘truth on the ground.’
In the instance of Mr. Bena, I would suggest what is at stake here is our vocation to act as the living Body of Christ. We might individually recognize his recent piece for the misrepresentation for what it is, but as members of the Body of Christ we do have a responsibility towards our brothers and sisters who for whatever reason are not likewise engaged with the current adventure of engaging with the Holy Spirit in the inescapable sacrament of our lives of faith.
I might also suggest that if the best our Church can do in this current instance is the witness of my personal Queen of the South (Grandmère Mimi) and yours truly, we might indeed be in some degree of real difficulty.
(Knocking at 815) C’mon folks, doesn’t anyone have something to say on this matter? Katherine? Bonnie? Please?
(Knocking at the doors of The Trinity Institute, The Alban Institute, The Consultation)C’mon folks, where’s your voice?
What I’m trying to muster in the above scenario is an effective response to is the latest bit of flimlammery and blatant misrepresentation from the schismatic voices of the radical right. In this case from David Bena, the retired Suffragan Bishop of Albany N.Y. who has also chosen to leave TEC for his own reasons.
It may not have made national headlines; the only reason I know of Mr. Bena’s recent public misrepresentations up here in Montreal is due to the good services of a treasured friend and living gift to our Church- Grandmère Mimi http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2010/04/is-tec-on-wayward-path.html who posted on a recent opinion piece by the former Amercian suffragan bishop in the Richmond Times Dispatch. An opinion piece which has, far as I can tell, gone unchallenged in the public discourse except for Mimi’s post and the great work of Openly Episcopal in Albany http://drbones.typepad.com/openly_episcopal_in_alban/2010/04/tec-formally-rejected-the-authority-of-scripture-the-painful-irony-is-that-tecs-decision-to-reject-the-authority-of-gods.html
Not that I’d want to do anything to further Mr. Bena’s personal confusion- I mean, he has apparently continued to preach and celebrate at times within venues of the Episcopal Church, inspite of his very public departure and his equally public opinions. But a lie is still a lie, and I can’t help but ask where is the prophetic rebuttal from any quarter within our Church- other than the faithful Grandmère Mimi and the folks at Openly Episcopal in Albany.
I mean brother David did choose to make this public. And in such a situation I think it is more than obvious that his misrepresentation must be engaged in a similar quarter.
The first two sentences from his piece would suffice:
The painful irony is that TEC's decision to reject the authority of God's Word has been gravely injurious, and has itself caused the very division that TEC's leaders claimed they sought to avoid. Once someone rejects Scripture, then they reject Jesus Christ and Christianity as a whole.
Either former suffragan Bena has been suffering from a serious medical condition which has kept him painfully unaware of the last several decades of events both within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, or he is intentionally, and I would suggest maliciously misrepresenting the current reality.
And surely our Church can do better than yours truly for publicly rebutting these misrepresentations; but for the record:
Neither the people or the leadership of The Episcopal Church has at any time rejected either the authority of God’s Word, the lordship of our saviour Jesus Christ- or the implications of either articles of our living faith.
It is not the leadership of the Episcopal Church, but rather individuals such as yourself, Mr. Bena, who have chosen this ‘very division’ which has resulted from your personal opinions and actions, and resulted in the gravely injurious damage our Church has undergone. It is you sir who have chosen the path of schism, litigation, and if your most recent public utterance is any example, also chosen the path of wilful misrepresentation.
In addition, I would suggest that your objectification of Holy Scripture as a static, inerrant record not only denies decades of important Scriptural scholarship; it also suggests idolatry to be the standard of faithful Christian practice in your personal opinion.
Contrary to Mr. Bena's recent public misrepresentation of the current reality, I would suggest that of all of the provinces of our beloved Church, it is The Episcopal Church who has most prophetically, faithfully and courageously embodied our vocation to meet and engage the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of our redeemed lives and our vocation to be the living Body of Christ.
One need look no further than the methodology and practice at the recent Anaheim General Convention:
It was prayerfully transparent- one has only to ask any delegate about the weight of documentation provided in advance for their study, prayer and reflection.
It was intentionally structured, in both its public liturgies and collegial reflections to be open to the working of the Holy Spirit in that time and place.
It actively referenced all three principles of Anglican practice- Holy Scripture, Tradition & Intelligence, in its practice, and determinations.
And I might add, it was incarnational when our priests and bishops left their councils to march in solidarity with the exploited workers of the Disney corporation.
Which brings me to my real point- which for lack of a better term I might call the Palin effect- hopefully without giving that poor, misguided individual too much credit.
As patently obvious as Mr. Bena’s misrepresentations might be to many of us, the fact is he has made them in a very public venue. They have been read and resonated with some who may not have taken the time and effort to follow and prayerfully, critically evaluate recent events within our Church. Individuals who, for a variety of other personal reasons, may feel Mr. Bena’s misrepresentations speaks to or confirms their own feelings of powerlessness, isolation or personal frustration.
It is my sense that this is how phenomena like Ms. Palin and her ilk gained traction and momentum, and I would suggest that the time is long passed when our Church can afford to allow public spectacles such as Mr. Bena’s misrepresentation to go unchallenged.
It’s called leadership. It’s called accountability-necessarily public accountability only because of the venue Mr.Bena has chosen.
As long as we as a Church remain silent in the face of such misrepresentations we essentially allow individuals such as Mr. Bena to define the current reality within our Church in the public sector.
We need look no further than Ms. Palin’s public visibility, the ‘inches of ink’ she continues to receive, the crowds who turn out to listen to her divisive, skewed take on reality, to see what I am suggesting.
It is my sense that the Democratic Party and the American public made a serious mistake when they settled for mocking and effectively underestimating the former governor of Alaska. And as a result they effectively allowed her the unchallenged airtime and space to create her own version of ‘truth on the ground.’
In the instance of Mr. Bena, I would suggest what is at stake here is our vocation to act as the living Body of Christ. We might individually recognize his recent piece for the misrepresentation for what it is, but as members of the Body of Christ we do have a responsibility towards our brothers and sisters who for whatever reason are not likewise engaged with the current adventure of engaging with the Holy Spirit in the inescapable sacrament of our lives of faith.
I might also suggest that if the best our Church can do in this current instance is the witness of my personal Queen of the South (Grandmère Mimi) and yours truly, we might indeed be in some degree of real difficulty.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
What are they so afraid of?
An interesting conversation the other evening with someone calling long-distance in the hope I’d be ready to join her in a point-by-point tussle with the House of Bishops report on what they insist on calling ‘Same Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church’.
‘Haven’t you even read it?’ she asked with some incredulity, a frustrated rustling of her thoroughly notated hardcopy version in the background.
‘Skimmed it,’ I admitted. ‘It’s really doesn’t interest me-‘
‘-What.... wait a minute, what’s going on here? When you and I first connected online it was just how much you obviously care and the standard you hold our Church to which had me sending you that first e-mail.’
‘That was before Lambeth,’ I reminded my friend.
‘So how about answering the question then... what’s going on that you’ve only skimmed what just might be the most prophetic challenge to date to the Anglican purity police?’
‘Hardly prophetic, and you’re forgetting ‘Claiming the Blessing’ and a lot of other great work by Integrity USA; to say nothing of the witness of The Chicago Consultation- now that’s living into a new day for our Church.’
‘O.K.... So tell me.’
‘You could start with the title- ‘Same Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church,’ not only is it implicitly hetero-centric in its methodology; our church is once again objectifying my people according to their genital combination. Likewise the title completely overlooks the fact that the vast majority of LGBT people are still outside the Church because of the hurt, discrimination, objectification and rejection they have experienced at the hands of that same Church. Talk about a convenient omission.’
‘Mmmm.’
‘This title is not only an insulting & dishonest representation of the current reality, it suggests the whole exercise really isn’t going anywhere.’
‘Same-old, same old you mean?’
‘Exactly- where’s even the slightest suggestion of something new- of a prophetic possibility?’
‘Well it is meant to be a discussion paper?’
‘Without any real methodology it’s meaningless. If you just throw it out there without either a supported context or the accountability of a timeline nothing really has to happen- no consequences.’
‘Such as?’
‘Where’s the website for people to register their life experience and their insights from reading the report, to share their sense of where our Church is being led? And just exactly where is this paper supposed to be heading? Without an open frank engagement which is able to benefit from the insights and experience of all the faithful it’s essentially an empty exercise. Even worse would be if it were simply voted on by the House of Bishops- talk about curia syndrome.’
‘Curia syndrome?’
‘When certain quarters within our Church forget themselves and start acting like some outpost of the Vatican.’
‘Wow... so how would you have cast the exercise?’
‘How about calling it exactly what it is supposed to be- ‘A New Thing’?’
‘Open-ended enough for.... prophetic possibilities.’
‘And the recognition of the hurtful and exclusionary experiences of the Church by too many LGBT people.’
‘No hetero-centric objectification there... so why d’you think they settled for what they did?’
‘Because maybe, just maybe in some quarters, certain individuals still don’t really get what’s going on in our Church?’
‘Sounds like our old conversation about magisterial or experiential theology- patriarchy or the people of God.’
‘Exactly! Either the Holy Spirit is alive and very much at work in our lives and in our Church-‘
‘ – doing a new thing.’
‘ - or the value and meaning of our lives have to be governed by a bunch of pre-Reformation clerics who believed the world was flat.’
‘You know something; you just might be right about that “curia syndrome.” The moment you mentioned ‘magisterial’ the image of the current pope came to mind.’
‘The hot button issues for me were the conservatives resorting to natural law as a standard of any value in a discussion of faith, that and the repeated use of the word ‘normative.’
‘Comparing us to penguins I call it.’
‘Ironic that they published during Lent too.... As if what happened Good Friday and at Easter didn’t once and for all overthrow natural law as a standard for anything in Christian Life... And normative! The term just doesn’t apply if you truly believe in the Incarnation and the crucifixion of the very Son of God-‘
‘and his resurrection!’
‘Exactly... and even penguin colonies include monogamous gay relationships.’
‘They’re really scrambling, aren’t they?’
‘Scared witless, as a certain friend used to say.’
‘Scripture does tell us it’s a terrible and frightening thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’
‘So... what you’re really saying-‘
‘- is more of the same old-same old. Magisterial patriarchy or experiential faith, that's what's going on here. Recognizing and embracing the implicit sacramental nature of the lives we’ve been given, or trying to filter twenty-first century life through cloistered, patriarchal minds of the magisterium. Listening and engaging with the people of God as partners in the Body of Christ or secret committees handing down pronouncements.’
‘There’s Rowan’s old listening exercise again-‘
‘- and just how much has anyone seen of that?’
‘You know, sometimes you really don’t help... I mean, what am I supposed to do with this?’ An audible thump on the other end of the line as she obviously slams down her hardcopy on her table or desk. ‘I mean, I can’t just ignore it. We’re supposed to be discussing the danged thing, and even then, what is any of that ever going to change?’
‘A couple of hearts perhaps, and that would be a start.’
‘So....’
‘How about asking the congregation what they want to do with it, how they want to handle the report?’
‘At least this time we won’t end up with two of the congregation coming out to everyone.’
‘Not those two at least.’
‘You know... that was really a transformative moment- for most of us at least. I mean one of the men was going through a divorce none of us understood. It reminded me of Gene’s story, when his wife stood there beside him, holding his hand as he shared with us.’
‘Talk about a new thing.’
‘I still tear up talking about it.’
‘I can hear your sniffles.’
The conversation didn’t end there. Among other things my friend shared with me the sheer blessedness of her early morning walk with her two dogs at the beach; her and her husband watching the sunrise and sharing a thermos of coffee. We prayed together, celebrated the blessedness of our connection, and our love for our Church, but even now, days later what keeps coming to mind is my friend’s question- ‘what are they so afraid of- the conservatives?’
Oh, and that’s another thing, the two of us have recast our vocabulary for this current discussion in our Church. It’s not even real conservatism- they’re traditionalists. And ‘liberal’ is a complete misrepresentation of our experience and understanding. For a couple of minutes we toyed with ‘experiential Christians;’ my friend, reminding me she was born below the Mason-Dixon Line even floated ‘real-time Anglicans.’ Nothing quite captured the sheer wonder of trying to mindfully step each day into the inescapable sacrament of our lives.
But it will come, as long as we’re open to it. It always does.
UPDATE:
Before originally posting this, as I always do, I’d passed it by my friend who assured me I’d captured the essence of our sharing.
Since then, we’ve spoken twice:
When she called to share her experience of presenting the report without editorial comment to her congregation, asking for a sense of what they might like to do with the opportunity.
‘What was really incredible was at both services the clear sense was people want to engage with it- to study it and then get together to discuss it. A couple of people really pressed for my take on it, but I told them, I wasn’t going to be saying anything until I’d heard from each and every one of them. So we’re distributing it electronically tomorrow- Monday; and hardcopies will be available at the office.’
The second call was just last evening, when among other things she reminded me of just how little real analysis or editorial comment there’s been online about the report.
‘Maybe you were right- it’s really got little or nothing to do with the real transformational process going on.’
‘It’s the old magisterial way of doing things, and just maybe the people of God have essentially gone beyond that- a long time ago.’
‘By their fruits,’ my friend reminded me, resorting to the shorthand of good friends.
And yes, before we closed off we prayed together- for her particular pastoral concern, for many we both love, and for the Church- hard to live with her, but... well you get my drift.
‘Haven’t you even read it?’ she asked with some incredulity, a frustrated rustling of her thoroughly notated hardcopy version in the background.
‘Skimmed it,’ I admitted. ‘It’s really doesn’t interest me-‘
‘-What.... wait a minute, what’s going on here? When you and I first connected online it was just how much you obviously care and the standard you hold our Church to which had me sending you that first e-mail.’
‘That was before Lambeth,’ I reminded my friend.
‘So how about answering the question then... what’s going on that you’ve only skimmed what just might be the most prophetic challenge to date to the Anglican purity police?’
‘Hardly prophetic, and you’re forgetting ‘Claiming the Blessing’ and a lot of other great work by Integrity USA; to say nothing of the witness of The Chicago Consultation- now that’s living into a new day for our Church.’
‘O.K.... So tell me.’
‘You could start with the title- ‘Same Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church,’ not only is it implicitly hetero-centric in its methodology; our church is once again objectifying my people according to their genital combination. Likewise the title completely overlooks the fact that the vast majority of LGBT people are still outside the Church because of the hurt, discrimination, objectification and rejection they have experienced at the hands of that same Church. Talk about a convenient omission.’
‘Mmmm.’
‘This title is not only an insulting & dishonest representation of the current reality, it suggests the whole exercise really isn’t going anywhere.’
‘Same-old, same old you mean?’
‘Exactly- where’s even the slightest suggestion of something new- of a prophetic possibility?’
‘Well it is meant to be a discussion paper?’
‘Without any real methodology it’s meaningless. If you just throw it out there without either a supported context or the accountability of a timeline nothing really has to happen- no consequences.’
‘Such as?’
‘Where’s the website for people to register their life experience and their insights from reading the report, to share their sense of where our Church is being led? And just exactly where is this paper supposed to be heading? Without an open frank engagement which is able to benefit from the insights and experience of all the faithful it’s essentially an empty exercise. Even worse would be if it were simply voted on by the House of Bishops- talk about curia syndrome.’
‘Curia syndrome?’
‘When certain quarters within our Church forget themselves and start acting like some outpost of the Vatican.’
‘Wow... so how would you have cast the exercise?’
‘How about calling it exactly what it is supposed to be- ‘A New Thing’?’
‘Open-ended enough for.... prophetic possibilities.’
‘And the recognition of the hurtful and exclusionary experiences of the Church by too many LGBT people.’
‘No hetero-centric objectification there... so why d’you think they settled for what they did?’
‘Because maybe, just maybe in some quarters, certain individuals still don’t really get what’s going on in our Church?’
‘Sounds like our old conversation about magisterial or experiential theology- patriarchy or the people of God.’
‘Exactly! Either the Holy Spirit is alive and very much at work in our lives and in our Church-‘
‘ – doing a new thing.’
‘ - or the value and meaning of our lives have to be governed by a bunch of pre-Reformation clerics who believed the world was flat.’
‘You know something; you just might be right about that “curia syndrome.” The moment you mentioned ‘magisterial’ the image of the current pope came to mind.’
‘The hot button issues for me were the conservatives resorting to natural law as a standard of any value in a discussion of faith, that and the repeated use of the word ‘normative.’
‘Comparing us to penguins I call it.’
‘Ironic that they published during Lent too.... As if what happened Good Friday and at Easter didn’t once and for all overthrow natural law as a standard for anything in Christian Life... And normative! The term just doesn’t apply if you truly believe in the Incarnation and the crucifixion of the very Son of God-‘
‘and his resurrection!’
‘Exactly... and even penguin colonies include monogamous gay relationships.’
‘They’re really scrambling, aren’t they?’
‘Scared witless, as a certain friend used to say.’
‘Scripture does tell us it’s a terrible and frightening thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’
‘So... what you’re really saying-‘
‘- is more of the same old-same old. Magisterial patriarchy or experiential faith, that's what's going on here. Recognizing and embracing the implicit sacramental nature of the lives we’ve been given, or trying to filter twenty-first century life through cloistered, patriarchal minds of the magisterium. Listening and engaging with the people of God as partners in the Body of Christ or secret committees handing down pronouncements.’
‘There’s Rowan’s old listening exercise again-‘
‘- and just how much has anyone seen of that?’
‘You know, sometimes you really don’t help... I mean, what am I supposed to do with this?’ An audible thump on the other end of the line as she obviously slams down her hardcopy on her table or desk. ‘I mean, I can’t just ignore it. We’re supposed to be discussing the danged thing, and even then, what is any of that ever going to change?’
‘A couple of hearts perhaps, and that would be a start.’
‘So....’
‘How about asking the congregation what they want to do with it, how they want to handle the report?’
‘At least this time we won’t end up with two of the congregation coming out to everyone.’
‘Not those two at least.’
‘You know... that was really a transformative moment- for most of us at least. I mean one of the men was going through a divorce none of us understood. It reminded me of Gene’s story, when his wife stood there beside him, holding his hand as he shared with us.’
‘Talk about a new thing.’
‘I still tear up talking about it.’
‘I can hear your sniffles.’
The conversation didn’t end there. Among other things my friend shared with me the sheer blessedness of her early morning walk with her two dogs at the beach; her and her husband watching the sunrise and sharing a thermos of coffee. We prayed together, celebrated the blessedness of our connection, and our love for our Church, but even now, days later what keeps coming to mind is my friend’s question- ‘what are they so afraid of- the conservatives?’
Oh, and that’s another thing, the two of us have recast our vocabulary for this current discussion in our Church. It’s not even real conservatism- they’re traditionalists. And ‘liberal’ is a complete misrepresentation of our experience and understanding. For a couple of minutes we toyed with ‘experiential Christians;’ my friend, reminding me she was born below the Mason-Dixon Line even floated ‘real-time Anglicans.’ Nothing quite captured the sheer wonder of trying to mindfully step each day into the inescapable sacrament of our lives.
But it will come, as long as we’re open to it. It always does.
UPDATE:
Before originally posting this, as I always do, I’d passed it by my friend who assured me I’d captured the essence of our sharing.
Since then, we’ve spoken twice:
When she called to share her experience of presenting the report without editorial comment to her congregation, asking for a sense of what they might like to do with the opportunity.
‘What was really incredible was at both services the clear sense was people want to engage with it- to study it and then get together to discuss it. A couple of people really pressed for my take on it, but I told them, I wasn’t going to be saying anything until I’d heard from each and every one of them. So we’re distributing it electronically tomorrow- Monday; and hardcopies will be available at the office.’
The second call was just last evening, when among other things she reminded me of just how little real analysis or editorial comment there’s been online about the report.
‘Maybe you were right- it’s really got little or nothing to do with the real transformational process going on.’
‘It’s the old magisterial way of doing things, and just maybe the people of God have essentially gone beyond that- a long time ago.’
‘By their fruits,’ my friend reminded me, resorting to the shorthand of good friends.
And yes, before we closed off we prayed together- for her particular pastoral concern, for many we both love, and for the Church- hard to live with her, but... well you get my drift.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
There’s been a quote dancing on my spirit for the last many days, and it's not been an easy or comfortable experience. It's from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's 'Letters & Papers from Prison'.
The resonances to this particular quote are several:
And then there’s the on-going scandals and revelations about sexual abuse- both pedophilia and misogyny in the Church of Rome http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/us/12abuse.html?pagewanted=1&hp
The quote is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's 'Letters and Papers from Prison' and for me speaks to all of the above suffering.
My haunting/wrestling/ prayer has been referencing this quote in two separate parts:
I admit, reading what might almost be mistaken as yet another rant about ‘a godless world’ and more particularly ‘God’s suffering at the hands of a godless world’ was almost enough to have me clicking ‘Delete’. But this was Bonhoeffer, an old friend whose personal integrity & suffering humanity go unchallenged in my house, whose ‘suffering at the hands of a godless world’ is part of the historical record. .
The cutting edge for me- once again, too often of late- was to find another ‘official voice’ of organized religion objectifying and vilifying God’s creation for their own ends. Yes, Bonhoeffer does go on to tell us:
Now before anyone rushes unnecessarily to brother Dietrich’s defense, let me assure you I am only too aware of the conditions under which the sainted man was writing- from a nazi prison, there for his heroic resistance to a godless regime if there ever was one. Rather, what I was so deeply shaken by was the implicit duality in the first part of his quote- both in its analysis and its proposed solution and the ramifications of this duality.
My reaction, of course is a reflection of the time in which I live, and so the weeks during which I have returned again and again to this quote have been as much as anything an expression great respect with which I cherish Bonhoeffer’s integrity. That said, however:
A godless world?
A concept I would suggest which is both an insult to the Creator and his/her Creation; possible only if one has reduced God to an idol; revelation to a time-limited offer, and Life itself in all its dazzling diversity to a static reality contained by the limits of first century c.e. understanding.
A godless world?
A dualistic lie implicitly denying not only of the living, active presence of the Holy Spirit herself among us, but of God’s love for her/his Creation- a love embodied most tangibly in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Godless?
And just how much of this ‘godlessness’ is a self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuated by the vested interests of official religon ? A inevitable outcome of the objectification, not only of God’s creation itself, but more specifically of the transactional codification of the life of faith, the objectification & denigration of our sisters and their bodies, the manipulation of Scripture, the objectification and wanton exploitation of our universe, and most recently of the vilification of God’s gay and lesbian sons and daughters- all at the hands of those who claim to speak ‘officially’ for the Living God?
I would be far from the first to suggest that ‘organized religions’ just might bear an inordinate share of responsibilities for the suffering, the sorrow and the grief of God; a possibility which informs my understanding of much of what is going on currently in the Vatican, the halls of Lambeth and certain councils of Islam.
To quote another dear friend ‘the vested interests see it as a breaking apart, the ordinary person of faith sees it as a welcome, long overdue breaking-open.’
Which brings one to Bonhoeffer’s solution: a ‘secular’ life.
More dualism.
More us/them- a paradigm I believe God and creation itself has grown impatient with, a prissy conceit, objectification and inequal sharing of resources which life itself can no longer sustain.
At the risk of stating the obvious I’d suggest there’s but One life, One Creation, One God and one race- the human one, anything less is an obscene lie.
As one of the many hundreds of thousands of alienated Christians in this province very pointedly asked me recently- ‘Where’s the Church following its own example in this disgusting mess: confessing, repenting, doing penance- maybe even making reparation? South Africa had its ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission founded by the very victims of its ‘godless’ past, you telling me they knew better than God’s ‘official mouthpiece’ ? Sounds to me like the Vatican needs your Desmond Tutu to teach them a thing or two.’ If only!
But thankfully, brother Dietrich doesn’t end there.
Which I guess was what I was trying to explain to another ‘alienated Christian’ over Easter- that the real and only question is what we’re doing with ‘the one inescapable sacrament.’
Startled, she started listing off the seven sacraments of the Church. ‘And which one of the seven is inescapable? Baptism perhaps?’ she chuckled.
‘The gift of life, ‘ I suggested, only after a pause for dramatic effect, ‘all the others are detailing.’
This has perhaps been one of the most challenging, most interesting and most engaging Lents of many for me personally, which in some small part might be reflected by what I’ve just written. The errors and any inaccuracies in this post are mine, but the offering, at least in part is made in love and very real gratitude for the ongoing love and prayers – for the priesthood of two much beloved siblings in Christ- P.S. and M.W., whose personal integrity and passionate, prophetic faith are a constant source of blessing for me personally, and a wondrous, if underappreciated gift to our Church
The resonances to this particular quote are several:
The Easter experience of a young friend of mine fighting her second bout of cancer and she’s barely in her twenties. When she showed up with her head swaddled in a turban at Easter Mass, a well-meaning, very pious individual insisted on assuring her that ‘it’s all in God’s hands, but it’s a mystery,’ all my friend had to do was pray. And that’s when my friend lost it- out there in the Church parking lot.
Another would be my deep concern for another very dear friend who has pretty much isolated herself and is living through some pretty rough duhkkha- the hollowness of life right now. This individual too was a child of the Church- a long time ago, and has done rather well for herself- materially. Only her conspicuous consumption is getting pretty close to the limits of its anaesthetic effectiveness, and her ‘management skills’ are keeping us all at what I’ve been calling a dangerous distance in my practice.
And then there’s the on-going scandals and revelations about sexual abuse- both pedophilia and misogyny in the Church of Rome http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/us/12abuse.html?pagewanted=1&hp
The quote is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's 'Letters and Papers from Prison' and for me speaks to all of the above suffering.
My haunting/wrestling/ prayer has been referencing this quote in two separate parts:
Jesus asked in Gethsemane, 'Could you not watch with me one hour?' That is a reversal of what the religious person expects from God. Humans are summoned to share in God's sufferings at the hands of a godless world. We must therefore really live in the godless world, without attempting to gloss over or explain its ungodliness in some religious way or other. We must live a 'secular' life, and thereby share in God's sufferings.
I admit, reading what might almost be mistaken as yet another rant about ‘a godless world’ and more particularly ‘God’s suffering at the hands of a godless world’ was almost enough to have me clicking ‘Delete’. But this was Bonhoeffer, an old friend whose personal integrity & suffering humanity go unchallenged in my house, whose ‘suffering at the hands of a godless world’ is part of the historical record. .
The cutting edge for me- once again, too often of late- was to find another ‘official voice’ of organized religion objectifying and vilifying God’s creation for their own ends. Yes, Bonhoeffer does go on to tell us:
‘We must therefore really live in the godless world, without attempting to gloss over or explain its ungodliness in some religious way or other.’But once again, there’s that distant objectification of God’s creation, and if that weren’t enough, he goes on to tell us we must live’ a 'secular' life, and thereby share in God's sufferings.’
Now before anyone rushes unnecessarily to brother Dietrich’s defense, let me assure you I am only too aware of the conditions under which the sainted man was writing- from a nazi prison, there for his heroic resistance to a godless regime if there ever was one. Rather, what I was so deeply shaken by was the implicit duality in the first part of his quote- both in its analysis and its proposed solution and the ramifications of this duality.
My reaction, of course is a reflection of the time in which I live, and so the weeks during which I have returned again and again to this quote have been as much as anything an expression great respect with which I cherish Bonhoeffer’s integrity. That said, however:
A godless world?
A concept I would suggest which is both an insult to the Creator and his/her Creation; possible only if one has reduced God to an idol; revelation to a time-limited offer, and Life itself in all its dazzling diversity to a static reality contained by the limits of first century c.e. understanding.
A godless world?
A dualistic lie implicitly denying not only of the living, active presence of the Holy Spirit herself among us, but of God’s love for her/his Creation- a love embodied most tangibly in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Godless?
And just how much of this ‘godlessness’ is a self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuated by the vested interests of official religon ? A inevitable outcome of the objectification, not only of God’s creation itself, but more specifically of the transactional codification of the life of faith, the objectification & denigration of our sisters and their bodies, the manipulation of Scripture, the objectification and wanton exploitation of our universe, and most recently of the vilification of God’s gay and lesbian sons and daughters- all at the hands of those who claim to speak ‘officially’ for the Living God?
I would be far from the first to suggest that ‘organized religions’ just might bear an inordinate share of responsibilities for the suffering, the sorrow and the grief of God; a possibility which informs my understanding of much of what is going on currently in the Vatican, the halls of Lambeth and certain councils of Islam.
To quote another dear friend ‘the vested interests see it as a breaking apart, the ordinary person of faith sees it as a welcome, long overdue breaking-open.’
Which brings one to Bonhoeffer’s solution: a ‘secular’ life.
More dualism.
More us/them- a paradigm I believe God and creation itself has grown impatient with, a prissy conceit, objectification and inequal sharing of resources which life itself can no longer sustain.
At the risk of stating the obvious I’d suggest there’s but One life, One Creation, One God and one race- the human one, anything less is an obscene lie.
As one of the many hundreds of thousands of alienated Christians in this province very pointedly asked me recently- ‘Where’s the Church following its own example in this disgusting mess: confessing, repenting, doing penance- maybe even making reparation? South Africa had its ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission founded by the very victims of its ‘godless’ past, you telling me they knew better than God’s ‘official mouthpiece’ ? Sounds to me like the Vatican needs your Desmond Tutu to teach them a thing or two.’ If only!
But thankfully, brother Dietrich doesn’t end there.
To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent, or a saint) on the basis of some method or other, but to be human--not a type of human, but the human that Christ creates in us. It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life.
Which I guess was what I was trying to explain to another ‘alienated Christian’ over Easter- that the real and only question is what we’re doing with ‘the one inescapable sacrament.’
Startled, she started listing off the seven sacraments of the Church. ‘And which one of the seven is inescapable? Baptism perhaps?’ she chuckled.
‘The gift of life, ‘ I suggested, only after a pause for dramatic effect, ‘all the others are detailing.’
This has perhaps been one of the most challenging, most interesting and most engaging Lents of many for me personally, which in some small part might be reflected by what I’ve just written. The errors and any inaccuracies in this post are mine, but the offering, at least in part is made in love and very real gratitude for the ongoing love and prayers – for the priesthood of two much beloved siblings in Christ- P.S. and M.W., whose personal integrity and passionate, prophetic faith are a constant source of blessing for me personally, and a wondrous, if underappreciated gift to our Church
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Teasing apart the knot
Quite the Lent again this year; for a lot more reasons than I can go into here this morning.
Strange thing is that even in the years when my life & faith were most frequently and immediately realized through the non-dualism of my mindfulness practice and dharma study, Lent, and most particularly Good Friday have been times of particular observance.
This Lent, like many others has been rich with unexpected detours in the reading and practice and more than a few unexpected conversations. A case in point, a story I came across when I’d gone looking for a particular quote for something else I’m writing, only to come across a collection of sermons by a Canadian, United Church minister and a story he quotes from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
(quoted in: ’Summoning the Whirlwind’ by Bruce Sanguin)
Though I may not remember its effect the first time I read this, today it literally stopped me in my tracks- had me reaching for my mug of tea and settling into the rocking chair.
I didn’t have to look far for the reasons this story resonates so powerfully for me this time around.
Yet more stories of generations of child abuse, denial, lies and cover-up in the Roman Catholic Church in the media on a daily basis this Lent. And then of course there had been the powerful online witness of both our Grandmère Mimi and a powerful post by Elizabeth Kaeton on the topic. Living here in Québec, and more specifically Montréal, a city which once boasted more churches per capita than any other city in North America, the Roman Catholic Church has been a truly oppressive presence historically.
Personally I have to go no further than the memories of my two decades on front-line AIDS care and counselling for a sadly too-rich store of lives marked by self-loathing, fear, emotional & corporal alienation and abuse inculcated by the teachings of Church of Rome for this story to become very personal for me.
Not that our own denomination is exempt- one has only to look at the toxic bilge which has been spewed in the wake of the prayerful election of Mary Glasspool, an exceptional priest by all accounts who as we all know was recently, prayerfully elected as one of two new suffragan bishops in one of the most prophetically courageous diocese of the American church. Between the misogynist simperings of suffragan Paul Lambert (Dallas) and the ugliness of too many exchanges I am told on the HoB listserve of that same Church it is only too obvious how much we have yet to learn about our vocation to be the living Body of Christ and the embodiment of the Good News in the world.
But then there’s also one of my online connections which has been the source of some incredible conversations during this penitential season. An individual I wrote about more than a year ago who came from what he now recognizes as a seriously dysfunctional family where his mother’s primary means for her denial of her husband’s drinking was a toxic, sex-obsessed form of religious hysteria. That same hysteria was used to neutralize what the poor woman feared was her eldest son’s homosexuality and to keep him at home until her death from cancer in his very late thirties.
No this individual is not a victim of sexual interference- one of the few things he was spared- but in his mid-forties he’s still working hard to make a life for himself and discover just who he is, in a city far from his upbringing and the remaining members of his family. Some of the stories he has to tell about getting to where he is now are heart-breakingly funny: like who would have ever thought deciding the colour of your bathroom towels or which toaster you were going to buy could be near-paralyzing decisions, requiring literally weeks of comparison shopping?
Yes, my friend is receiving professional help, but from a therapist who is not really able to fully engage with either his wrestling with effects of his Roman Catholic upbringing or with his current spiritual search, which is where I and a number of other on-line friends come in. Incredibly in my case, contact was made through the therapist’s gay son who had been in contact with me via an online shanga. Another of this man’s online friends is ‘E’ who is part of my own online community of faith, and about whose friendship I have written elsewhere. Both of us received copies of Bart Ehrmans ‘Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them) in the mail from ‘E’ early in Lent. I’ve written of my experience with this important book elsewhere, and will undoubtedly do so again. The specific conversation this man and I had, sparked by Erhman, on the franchisization of ‘sin’ is what perhaps resonated most powerfully with me this morning reading this Annie Dillard story.
Not that either of us are denying the existence of sin- either in our individual lives or in human history. Rather it is the ‘doctrine of sin,’ more specifically the Christian doctrine(s) of sin which has caught our attention. ‘Sin’ as a self-fulfilling prophesy most specifically, perhaps even ‘sin’ as a method of crowd control.
In a much earlier post, reaching for the beginnings of a transformative model for us to become the Church I believe God is calling us to be, I suggested that for the Church to even open itself up to the process to which the Holy Spirit is calling us certain things would be necessary.
No, I’m not talking about questioning the divinity of Jesus Christ- in this space and in this particular life Jesus Christ is and will always be Lord. I’m talking about unchallenged doctrines hobbled together in radically different historical realities than ours.
As a theologian friend reminded me very recently, for any of this to happen, ‘it’s going to have to come from the priesthood of the laity- it always does’. Ironically it may because they’re always the one’s most available to the invitation and prompting of the Holy Spirit in the elemental sacrament of their lives.” (more on this later.)
As someone reportedly challenged not too long ago; just how long would any of us hang around if our doctor came into the examining room with a handful of leeches, chanting semi-articulate incantations? And yet in so many aspects of ‘official’ Christian faith actually takes pride in mimicking the rites and worldview of the distant past rather than being brought into the complexity, confusion and rawness of our day.
As I said, the Christian doctrine of original sin is the case in point which started a conversation now involving more than the original two parties, and which several of us now sense might be yet another example of the deconstruction and renewal I believe to be implicit in our vocation to be the living Body of Christ in these times.
Essentially a second century C.E. reaction to a popular doctrine Gnosticism, the central role ‘original sin’ has played in the power of the religious establishment, and the length of time it has gone unquestioned raises a whole rank of questions, perhaps for another time.
A reaction! So much for original, inspired insight!
And just how many other second century ideas or artefacts go unchallenged and play key or defining roles in our sense of self, in our careers or emotional and physical health in everyday life?
Not too many I’d bet.
Scripture tells us by their fruits you shall know them, well let’s look at the fruits of the current models of the Christian institution:
Empty pews, churches and convents being sold off for condo conversion or demolition might suggest that current modeling for the delivery of the Good News and embodying the Living Body of Christ aren’t quite doing it.
The great cloud of ‘raised ’ witness outside our Churches, the prophetic witness and lessons of their lives might suggest that even with all the papal tours, the big blue tents and carbon-heavy councils might suggest that ‘the Church’ has somehow missed the Holy Spirit waiting for us in the primary sacrament of our lives, as confusing, imperfect and small as they might be at times.
The too readily identifiable violence, acrimony, psycho-emotional damage, and injustice which can be directly linked to the practices, pronouncements and structures of ‘official Christianity’ should be a more than convincing proof of the Church’s need for radical renewal and a reconfiguration of our role in the world. Let those with eyes see- inspite of themselves the Holy Spirit is breaking the current models of being Church wide open and sadly those who do nothing more than defensively cling to their self-interests in the existing structures will fare little better than those who might have clung to the pillars of the Hotel Montana in the recent Haitian earthquake.
Of course central to the old model is the need for the official Church to always be ‘right’ and everyone else to be wrong- power which is always essentially the embodiment of fear. And in the process how many untold generations of human suffering have propped up an institution which in too many cases- both large and small, has essentially been anti-life, a frightened damning condemnation of the wondrous, sacred gift of Life itself and of God’s creation. The damning objectification of ‘the world’ just doesn’t work anymore, a first century paradigm reflective of life under Roman domination, it has itself only become the medium for too many other empires, too often in the name of God.
By their fruits you shall know them? How about the objectification, exploitation &, degradation of more than one half of creation, the denial of full their personhood as beings created ‘in the image and likeness of the true and living God?’ Where the Churches have too often become the embodiment of idolatry, prejudice and violence based on first and second century fears, ignorance and domination where is the Holy Spirit going to speak most clearly and most powerfully but outside its marbled, gilded walls and big blue tents; in the inequality, struggles, suffering and violence of contemporary life.
It is my sense, that if the Church is not going to miss out on this invitation writ large by the Holy Spirit the paradigm shift can be as simple as a slight shift of a camera lens- bringing into focus what’s really going on, seeing, listening and hearing the world and its cries as the embodiment of our vocation and not as an objectified ‘other’ to be walled out, condemned, exploited and objectified in a lingo few even understand any longer.
Two other stories to illustrate the wonderful, challenging, at times painful resonances this current discussion has had for me personally.
Early on, the friend I mentioned earlier asked in our forum ‘but what if Erhman’s book is heretical? And if it is, how come his work goes unchallenged?’
Responses ranged from the suggestion that heresy has essentially become a meaningless term, and might even be considered a compliment which one considers the context in which it was coined; to a question in return ‘Do you really think God is afraid of the limitations of Scripture?’
The other are the treasured memories of some of the wonderful fellowship I recently shared with an academic priest currently on sabbatical- his ‘pilgrim year’ as he calls it. A personal pilgrimage which is taking him, not to the seats of ecclesiastical power (Canterbury & Rome) or to the sites of the artificats of the early centuries of Church history, but ‘out there’ in the raw mix of our vocation to be the living Body of Christ. In the short time he stayed with me we rarely slept; prayed, studied and shared late into the night and he left the members of our household mightily blessed, powerfully nourished and delightfully challenged.
In addition to his teaching responsibilities, this treasured friend and brother has campus chaplaincy responsibilities, and prior to his departure for his sabbatical year made a truly courageous proposition to the congregation which numbers more than a hundred twenty, currently with four weekly Eucharists.
The invitation?
Essentially to imagine themselves into being the Church the Holy Spirit is calling them to be; one which will limit itself less to the official rites, but one which will also search out opportunities for shared study, discussion and challenge and which will find more opportunities to encounter each other as people of faith and individuals created in the image and likeness of God.
On the last night he was here, my friend surprised himself with the realization that most of the time together, more than anything else we had been prayerfully sitting with ‘the questions’ rather than referencing ‘official answers’ and perhaps it was the openness of those questions which had permitted the Holy Spirit to make it such a blessed time.
How could we possibly wish for anything less for our beloved Church with its exciting inheritance of Scripture, Tradition and Reason?
Strange thing is that even in the years when my life & faith were most frequently and immediately realized through the non-dualism of my mindfulness practice and dharma study, Lent, and most particularly Good Friday have been times of particular observance.
This Lent, like many others has been rich with unexpected detours in the reading and practice and more than a few unexpected conversations. A case in point, a story I came across when I’d gone looking for a particular quote for something else I’m writing, only to come across a collection of sermons by a Canadian, United Church minister and a story he quotes from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
Once upon a time, an Inuit hunter went to see the local missionary who had been preaching in his village.’
‘I want to ask you something,’ the hunter said.
‘What’s that?’ the missionary inquired.4’If I do not know about God and sin,’ the hunter said,’ would I go to hell?’
‘No,’ the missionary said, ‘not if you did not know.’
‘Then why,’ asked the hunter, ‘did you tell me?
(quoted in: ’Summoning the Whirlwind’ by Bruce Sanguin)
Though I may not remember its effect the first time I read this, today it literally stopped me in my tracks- had me reaching for my mug of tea and settling into the rocking chair.
I didn’t have to look far for the reasons this story resonates so powerfully for me this time around.
Yet more stories of generations of child abuse, denial, lies and cover-up in the Roman Catholic Church in the media on a daily basis this Lent. And then of course there had been the powerful online witness of both our Grandmère Mimi and a powerful post by Elizabeth Kaeton on the topic. Living here in Québec, and more specifically Montréal, a city which once boasted more churches per capita than any other city in North America, the Roman Catholic Church has been a truly oppressive presence historically.
Personally I have to go no further than the memories of my two decades on front-line AIDS care and counselling for a sadly too-rich store of lives marked by self-loathing, fear, emotional & corporal alienation and abuse inculcated by the teachings of Church of Rome for this story to become very personal for me.
Not that our own denomination is exempt- one has only to look at the toxic bilge which has been spewed in the wake of the prayerful election of Mary Glasspool, an exceptional priest by all accounts who as we all know was recently, prayerfully elected as one of two new suffragan bishops in one of the most prophetically courageous diocese of the American church. Between the misogynist simperings of suffragan Paul Lambert (Dallas) and the ugliness of too many exchanges I am told on the HoB listserve of that same Church it is only too obvious how much we have yet to learn about our vocation to be the living Body of Christ and the embodiment of the Good News in the world.
But then there’s also one of my online connections which has been the source of some incredible conversations during this penitential season. An individual I wrote about more than a year ago who came from what he now recognizes as a seriously dysfunctional family where his mother’s primary means for her denial of her husband’s drinking was a toxic, sex-obsessed form of religious hysteria. That same hysteria was used to neutralize what the poor woman feared was her eldest son’s homosexuality and to keep him at home until her death from cancer in his very late thirties.
No this individual is not a victim of sexual interference- one of the few things he was spared- but in his mid-forties he’s still working hard to make a life for himself and discover just who he is, in a city far from his upbringing and the remaining members of his family. Some of the stories he has to tell about getting to where he is now are heart-breakingly funny: like who would have ever thought deciding the colour of your bathroom towels or which toaster you were going to buy could be near-paralyzing decisions, requiring literally weeks of comparison shopping?
Yes, my friend is receiving professional help, but from a therapist who is not really able to fully engage with either his wrestling with effects of his Roman Catholic upbringing or with his current spiritual search, which is where I and a number of other on-line friends come in. Incredibly in my case, contact was made through the therapist’s gay son who had been in contact with me via an online shanga. Another of this man’s online friends is ‘E’ who is part of my own online community of faith, and about whose friendship I have written elsewhere. Both of us received copies of Bart Ehrmans ‘Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them) in the mail from ‘E’ early in Lent. I’ve written of my experience with this important book elsewhere, and will undoubtedly do so again. The specific conversation this man and I had, sparked by Erhman, on the franchisization of ‘sin’ is what perhaps resonated most powerfully with me this morning reading this Annie Dillard story.
Not that either of us are denying the existence of sin- either in our individual lives or in human history. Rather it is the ‘doctrine of sin,’ more specifically the Christian doctrine(s) of sin which has caught our attention. ‘Sin’ as a self-fulfilling prophesy most specifically, perhaps even ‘sin’ as a method of crowd control.
In a much earlier post, reaching for the beginnings of a transformative model for us to become the Church I believe God is calling us to be, I suggested that for the Church to even open itself up to the process to which the Holy Spirit is calling us certain things would be necessary.
1) That the Church has to own its history and recognize and embrace the call of the Holy Spirit embedded in those lies, and excesses. Not just its self-published, lavishly illustrated versions of the past, but more importantly the secular version, most readily available in the lives of those who have left or fled the Church
2) That the Church has to come clean on the findings of contemporary historical/critical Scriptural study and thereby open itself to the raw vulnerability of the ambiguity of faith- of dancing with the Holy Spirit in the raw sacrament of our lives. In a similar manner the Church has to stop hiding behind a reactive shamanism which essentially ignores the contradictions and limitation of first and second century ‘doctrines’ constructed on perceptions and prejudices which are no longer credible (slavery, misogyny, being two which most readily come to mind.)
3) That the ‘professionals’ of the Church must essentially become midwives of the living Body of Christ rather than guardians of a propertied fortress of medieval secrets with more holes in them than a Montreal street in spring. Key to this will be the sharing of ministry, the active pursuit shared with the laity of the latest Scriptural study and the critical re-examination of the assumptions of so much of Christian faith and practice.
No, I’m not talking about questioning the divinity of Jesus Christ- in this space and in this particular life Jesus Christ is and will always be Lord. I’m talking about unchallenged doctrines hobbled together in radically different historical realities than ours.
As a theologian friend reminded me very recently, for any of this to happen, ‘it’s going to have to come from the priesthood of the laity- it always does’. Ironically it may because they’re always the one’s most available to the invitation and prompting of the Holy Spirit in the elemental sacrament of their lives.” (more on this later.)
As someone reportedly challenged not too long ago; just how long would any of us hang around if our doctor came into the examining room with a handful of leeches, chanting semi-articulate incantations? And yet in so many aspects of ‘official’ Christian faith actually takes pride in mimicking the rites and worldview of the distant past rather than being brought into the complexity, confusion and rawness of our day.
As I said, the Christian doctrine of original sin is the case in point which started a conversation now involving more than the original two parties, and which several of us now sense might be yet another example of the deconstruction and renewal I believe to be implicit in our vocation to be the living Body of Christ in these times.
Essentially a second century C.E. reaction to a popular doctrine Gnosticism, the central role ‘original sin’ has played in the power of the religious establishment, and the length of time it has gone unquestioned raises a whole rank of questions, perhaps for another time.
A reaction! So much for original, inspired insight!
And just how many other second century ideas or artefacts go unchallenged and play key or defining roles in our sense of self, in our careers or emotional and physical health in everyday life?
Not too many I’d bet.
Scripture tells us by their fruits you shall know them, well let’s look at the fruits of the current models of the Christian institution:
Empty pews, churches and convents being sold off for condo conversion or demolition might suggest that current modeling for the delivery of the Good News and embodying the Living Body of Christ aren’t quite doing it.
The great cloud of ‘raised ’ witness outside our Churches, the prophetic witness and lessons of their lives might suggest that even with all the papal tours, the big blue tents and carbon-heavy councils might suggest that ‘the Church’ has somehow missed the Holy Spirit waiting for us in the primary sacrament of our lives, as confusing, imperfect and small as they might be at times.
The too readily identifiable violence, acrimony, psycho-emotional damage, and injustice which can be directly linked to the practices, pronouncements and structures of ‘official Christianity’ should be a more than convincing proof of the Church’s need for radical renewal and a reconfiguration of our role in the world. Let those with eyes see- inspite of themselves the Holy Spirit is breaking the current models of being Church wide open and sadly those who do nothing more than defensively cling to their self-interests in the existing structures will fare little better than those who might have clung to the pillars of the Hotel Montana in the recent Haitian earthquake.
Of course central to the old model is the need for the official Church to always be ‘right’ and everyone else to be wrong- power which is always essentially the embodiment of fear. And in the process how many untold generations of human suffering have propped up an institution which in too many cases- both large and small, has essentially been anti-life, a frightened damning condemnation of the wondrous, sacred gift of Life itself and of God’s creation. The damning objectification of ‘the world’ just doesn’t work anymore, a first century paradigm reflective of life under Roman domination, it has itself only become the medium for too many other empires, too often in the name of God.
By their fruits you shall know them? How about the objectification, exploitation &, degradation of more than one half of creation, the denial of full their personhood as beings created ‘in the image and likeness of the true and living God?’ Where the Churches have too often become the embodiment of idolatry, prejudice and violence based on first and second century fears, ignorance and domination where is the Holy Spirit going to speak most clearly and most powerfully but outside its marbled, gilded walls and big blue tents; in the inequality, struggles, suffering and violence of contemporary life.
It is my sense, that if the Church is not going to miss out on this invitation writ large by the Holy Spirit the paradigm shift can be as simple as a slight shift of a camera lens- bringing into focus what’s really going on, seeing, listening and hearing the world and its cries as the embodiment of our vocation and not as an objectified ‘other’ to be walled out, condemned, exploited and objectified in a lingo few even understand any longer.
Two other stories to illustrate the wonderful, challenging, at times painful resonances this current discussion has had for me personally.
Early on, the friend I mentioned earlier asked in our forum ‘but what if Erhman’s book is heretical? And if it is, how come his work goes unchallenged?’
Responses ranged from the suggestion that heresy has essentially become a meaningless term, and might even be considered a compliment which one considers the context in which it was coined; to a question in return ‘Do you really think God is afraid of the limitations of Scripture?’
The other are the treasured memories of some of the wonderful fellowship I recently shared with an academic priest currently on sabbatical- his ‘pilgrim year’ as he calls it. A personal pilgrimage which is taking him, not to the seats of ecclesiastical power (Canterbury & Rome) or to the sites of the artificats of the early centuries of Church history, but ‘out there’ in the raw mix of our vocation to be the living Body of Christ. In the short time he stayed with me we rarely slept; prayed, studied and shared late into the night and he left the members of our household mightily blessed, powerfully nourished and delightfully challenged.
In addition to his teaching responsibilities, this treasured friend and brother has campus chaplaincy responsibilities, and prior to his departure for his sabbatical year made a truly courageous proposition to the congregation which numbers more than a hundred twenty, currently with four weekly Eucharists.
The invitation?
Essentially to imagine themselves into being the Church the Holy Spirit is calling them to be; one which will limit itself less to the official rites, but one which will also search out opportunities for shared study, discussion and challenge and which will find more opportunities to encounter each other as people of faith and individuals created in the image and likeness of God.
On the last night he was here, my friend surprised himself with the realization that most of the time together, more than anything else we had been prayerfully sitting with ‘the questions’ rather than referencing ‘official answers’ and perhaps it was the openness of those questions which had permitted the Holy Spirit to make it such a blessed time.
How could we possibly wish for anything less for our beloved Church with its exciting inheritance of Scripture, Tradition and Reason?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
From one of the two books I've included in my Lenten practice this year is 'Taking a Chance on God' by John J. McNeill; a passage which immeadiately brought to mind two treasured siblings in Christ- M.W. & P.S., both of them living blessings and extra-oridinary Episcopal priests:
For Jesus, all human suffering was contrary to God’s plan. God and suffering are diametrically opposed, and God always seeks to remove it. The only redemptive suffering is that which is voluntarily undertake or accepted in the effort to liberate others. Any suffering that we impose on each other is anathema. Evidently, Jesus was little interested whether the suffering was the consequence of sin or was innocent. Neither piety nor its lack set any limits to his concern. In his ministry, Jesus saw the suffering of others as his task, his mission in life was to do all he could to bring relief.
This understanding gives us a norm, a litmus test, to judge whether aspects of Christian practice are in conformity with the spirit of Christ. Whatever aspects of Christian practice contradict the demands of of a personal and collective human liberation must be rejected in the name of Christian faith itself. As followers of Jesus, we are obliged by our faith to be active in shaping justice and peace in our society.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Our Tribe and some notable allies- voices from the past
Slowly....make that very slowly working my way through all that is involved with transitioning from one main computer to another, I came across a collection of quotes I'd transcribed from The Advocate 25th Anniversary edition back in 1992.
Some incredible folks- many of them gone too soon and too long. Some of them amusing quite, others so voiced with the truth of our journey, at least one of them poignantly tragic for the implicit internalized homophobia; I'll probably save the original file, but these are just too good not to be shared.
Some incredible folks- many of them gone too soon and too long. Some of them amusing quite, others so voiced with the truth of our journey, at least one of them poignantly tragic for the implicit internalized homophobia; I'll probably save the original file, but these are just too good not to be shared.
"We ask that the government stop its blatant support of sheer, naked prejudice."
James Bradford, a gay rights activist at a San Francisco protest rally, 1968
"They used to say if men had sex together `What will happen to the baby population?' Well, take a look There's plenty of come to go around, thank you very much."
Gore Vidal, 1970
"I've seen too many men who are unfulfilled human beings because they have a distorted sense of what it means to be a man. True fulfillment as a human being comes when each of us is able to recognize the masculine and feminine within ourselves... That's one of the enormous contributions the strong gay movement can make."
Jane Fonda, 1976
"I think macho is the core of the American problem, which is why the gay movement is so important. America must accept that macho is not healthy."
60's radical Jerry Rubin, 1976
"I met a man in a bar in Detroit, Mich. He was in his 70's and he didn't know who I was. And then somebody came up to him and said, "Hey do you know who you were talking to? Matlovich." And this very old man just started crying right in front of me. And it really humbled me to see this old man, possibly old enough to be my grandfather, cry just because he had met me."
Sgt. Leonard P Matlovitch, discharged from the Air Force after disclosing his homosexuality, 1978
"The gay movement is the avant garde of the new quest for self-awareness, and if it should perish, we, the heterosexual `inner émigrés' won't have flanks anymore.
Jersy Kosinski 1978
"It's appalling that there have to be movements organized to give human beings the right to be human beings in the eyes of other human beings."
Glenda Jackson 1979
"You can't start talking to people about Leonardo da Vinci. Most of today's people don't know who he is."
Lena Horne on the challenge of educating the public about gays, 1979
"I pounded on my car and screamed, They misspelled it! They misspelled it! For some reason that offended me more than anything else."
Openly lesbian Massachusetts representative Elaine Noble after finding LESBEAN scrawled on her vehicle, 1984
I think we should be tying up whole cities. We should cripple this country. We should throw bombs. We should set fires. We should stop traffic. We should surround the white house."
Activist and playwright Larry Kramer, responding to the AIDS crisis, 1987
"My entire life has been one long effeminate gesture. Without it, I must admit I would have survived my adolescence in comparative safety, but it is also true that without it I would have lived my declining years in total obscurity."
Quentin Crisp, 1989
"A lot of people in England still find it difficult to believe lesbians do anything. Except perhaps knit together."
Dame Maggie Smith, 1990
"I don't take a stand on anything."
Rock Hudson, when asked what he thought about Anita Bryant, 1977
"There hasn't been a studio head I've worked for who hasn't come out and asked me if I'm a lesbian. I say "Normally this would be none of your business. However I will answer you... It's possible. I'm not practicing at the moment, but I will not say it will never happen or hasn't happened in my past."
Whoopi Goldberg
"By all reasonable accounts, we're going to lose a third of the entire Third World [to AIDS], and that's unacceptable. How could this not be the most important thing in the world right now?"
Folksinger Arlo Guthrie, 1992
"Until being a lesbian is as honorable an alternative as any other, any of us can be stopped by [ lesbian baiting]. It hurts hertro women as well. As long as you can be stopped by this accusation, it's paralyzing."
Gloria Steinman, 1992
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)