Monthly Archives: March 2012

This week’s Anglican Covenant round-up

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The dioceses of Manchester and London have rejected it bringing the total no votes to 25 (out of 44 total dioceses, with several to vote after Easter).

Post-mortems on the covenant abound.

In the end, Anglicans have discovered what another ecclesial body might have told them from the start: in the present age, a text cannot hold Churches together in the way that a person can. Given that no text will be perfect, a degree of affection is needed to persuade people to subscribe. An individual can earn that affection; a text (poetry excepted), never — especially a text monitored by a standing committee that few understand and none recognise. Time and again in the General Synod, affection for Dr Williams carried members along; but he was absent in the diocesan synods, and the link was broken. So, what now? One of the paradoxes of our age is that, just as communication around the Communion becomes easier, attention has become more local. In the UK, as elsewhere, the perception has grown that an engagement with the surrounding culture demands more energy than before, as economic and cultural forces drive a wedge between, if not Christianity, then at least church culture as it is generally perceived. Messy Church, Fresh Expressions, etc. are some of the more obvious attempts to meet this challenge. People instinctively wish to avoid church ties that look to be time-consuming and restricting. The dangers are obvious. The quiet agenda behind the Covenant was that it would reassure ecumenical partners, Rome in particular, that Anglicans had a mechanism to stop the sorts of surprises that have scuppered unity in the past. As for the benefits, the Communion might wish to embark on a little theological investigation into whether the Holy Spirit works through restraint or surprise, and how it ought to respond to either. But the command to see Christ in each other has not gone away. The rejection of the Covenant must not signal any loss of the affection that binds Anglicans, they have always claimed, together.

All we are left with, as a diverse family of churches, is to talk with people directly rather than about them. This could be a great opportunity to think through the implications. The Anglican communion works wonderfully well as a network of people, but makes a lousy vatican-on-sea. If top-down doesn’t work, what does? It may be time to take stock, some would say grow up. But how?

In a not-quite postmortem, the Archbishop of Capetown (South Africa) wrote a letter to the Archbishop of York (voting will take place in York on April 28):

We need to know that we are not alone, that we are part of a wider belonging, when life is hard. But we need it too when life is easy – requiring interaction with perspectives and preoccupations beyond our own, recognising God speaks in many ways, one of which is through other members of the body of Christ. We cannot grow into becoming the people we are called to be without also growing into the relationship to which God calls us within Christ’s body.

Now, some will say, all this can happen without the Anglican Covenant. And there is of course considerable truth in this. But it seems to me that the Covenant has the potential to help us do it far better – provided we commit ourselves to making the Covenant work.

Mark Harris provides commentary on the Archbishop’s letter.

Communion without (or before) Baptism–Oh, No! Not Again!

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News came out this week that the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon will present the following resolution to General Convention:

The Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon is forwarding an Open Table resolution to General Convention that would change the rubrics and practice of The Book of Common Prayer to invite all to Holy Communion, “regardless of age, denomination or baptism.”

The Lead has a story, and 208 comments (as of today).

Obviously it’s something that arouses passion on all sides.

For newcomers to the issue, some parishes (including Grace in past years) practiced some form of “open communion,” allowing anyone to partake in communion, whether or not they were baptized. The arguments in favor of such practice usually focus on concepts like “radical hospitality,” and the example of Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners.

It’s an issue that’s been around the church for some time. I remember eight or ten years ago when  student in one of my classes of people preparing for the diaconate asked me about it. She was conservative theologically and outspoken in her disapproval of the ordination of LGBT persons or same-sex blessings. She posed the question as if implying that “see what happens when you admit progressive theology?” Just as the sexuality debate had pushed all of her buttons, so too did this issue.

I was taken aback by the question at the time. I am a historian after all, and I know well the historical practice. In the early church, unbaptized people were not allowed to witness the Eucharist, let alone partake in it, and it’s obvious from I Corinthians 11 and other NT passages that early Christian practice of the Eucharist was exclusive.

But it wasn’t just the Early Church. Throughout the history of Christianity, there has been a practice of excluding people from the Eucharist–notorious sinners, for example. The exhortation to communion in the BCP reads:

Examine your lives and conduct by the rule of God’s commandments, that you may perceive wherein you have offended in what you have done or left undone, whether in thought, word, or deed. And acknowledge your sins before Almighty God, with full purpose of amendment of life, being ready to make restitution for all injuries and wrongs done by you to others; and also being ready to forgive those who have offended you, in order that you yourselves may be forgiven. And then, being reconciled with one another, come to the banquet of that most heavenly Food.

The concern here is not just about sins we have committed against God, but ways in which we have harmed our neighbors, and also, whether or not we have been reconciled to them. And the advice is, don’t take communion if you haven’t been reconciled.

Communion is not a right. It’s not even a privilege. It’s a gift we are given and in which we are invited to share. Many of us like to say something like “It is not our table; it is the Lord’s, when inviting visitors to share in our Eucharistic fellowship. And so it is. But if it’s the Lord’s table we should approach it in humility and awe and recognize that the body that shares the bread and wine is a body made up of people who have died with Christ in baptism and have been raised to newness of life.

Tobias Haller has this to say:

The church is radically inclusive and baptism is the means by which people are included. Communion is the celebration of that inclusion, not its means.

Crusty Old Dean also weighs in:

One is that while something may be lawful, does it build up? Yeah, theoretically, we could change the canons and permit this. But will it really build up the church? Without broader commitment to formation, mission, and ministry, I don’t see how it would. If we give someone communion and then never talk to them at coffee hour and don’t empower them in their baptismal ministry, we will have accomplished nothing.

I’d like to make two observations, both of them made by others more eloquently. First, this is an example of “we haven’t done the theology yet.” That has been the cry of those opposed to full inclusion of LGBTs and same-sex blessings, and whether or not it’s true in that case, it’s certainly true in this one. The desire for offering communion to the unbaptized comes from a desire to be open and welcoming and hospitable, but at what cost? What is the underlying theology of the Eucharist or ecclesiology that would admit such a practice, especially when it contradicts 2000 years of doctrine and practice? There have to be sound and convincing arguments in order to make the case, not just to the Episcopal Church, but to the wider Anglican Communion and to our ecumenical partners.

Second, it always seems to me when something like this comes up that it reflects certain underlying attitudes in those proposing it. Is there something like progressive “oneupmanship” at work–an attempt to demonstrate one’s progressive theological bona fides to other Episcopalians and to other religious groups? And coming as it does in the midst of conflict within the Anglican Communion, and a promised debate over liturgies for same sex blessings, I’m tempted to think that the sponsors and supporters of the resolution are looking for one more battle to separate the sheep from the goats, the “real” progressives from the rest of us.

What’s in a name? Or, what is a “Christian”?

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I remember a conversation I overheard twenty-five years ago, after a presentation I gave to a congregation concerning some aspect of the history of Christianity. I had used the term “Christian” repeatedly to refer to the tradition to which I was referring as well as to the doctrines, practices, and practitioners. One matron said to another, “I don’t like that term, ‘Christian’.”

Tim Noah and Ed Kilgore had a conversation this week about how, in the twenty-five years since that conversation, “Christian” has been totally coopted by some Christians, and used in the secular media to refer to Christians of a particular religious and political bent.

Noah writes:

“Christian” has become a euphemism for “acceptable to the type of Christian (in most instances Protestant) who frowns on homosexuality and wishes Saul Alinsky had minded his own business.”

According to Pew, only about one-third of Christians call themselves “evangelicals.” That’s about 26 percent of all Americans. The other two-thirds  self-identify as Catholics (23 percent) and with either mainline (18 percent) or historically black (7 percent) Protestantism. (A smattering of Mormons, Orthodox Christians, and other tiny subgroups make up the remaining 4 percent.) To suggest that conservative Christians are the only Christians is like saying Hasidic Jews are the only Jews. It’s a cartoonish misconception that the Christian right has managed to sell to a largely secular news media that’s too sensitive to accusations of anti-religious bias.

And:

Broadly speaking, of course, nearly all of contemporary western culture is rooted in Christianity and the Bible one way or the other, if you trace it back far enough. So the idea that Hollywood needs to create small subsidiaries to attend to some niche it calls “Christian” seems absurd. What Hollywood is really doing is creating small subsidiaries to attend to Christian conservatives. And why not? Conservatives like movies, too, and maybe some of these will be good. But let’s call them Christian conservative films, because everyone knows that’s what they are. Evangelicals shouldn’t get to claim one of the world’s great religions as their exclusive property.

Kevin Drum points out the changing demographics in American religion. According to his statistics:

  • Membership in religious organizations had gone steadily up over the past century, from roughly 40% of the population in 1900 to 70% today. Lack of belief was more common and more public in 1900 than it is today, even if it was called “freethinking” or “skepticism” or some related term.
  • Conservative Protestant denominations have also been growing very steadily over the past century. It wasn’t a sudden boom that burst onto the public scene when Jerry Falwell became famous. The Pentecostal movement started up in 1906 and it’s been growing ever since. Ditto for evangelical sects, which have grown steadily from perhaps a third of all Protestant denominations in 1900 to something like 60% of them today.

His takeaway: That conservative religious groups have become large enough and powerful enough to constitute an important voting bloc (and marketing demographic for film and music, et al) at the same time that America is becoming more secularized.

He’s writing in response to a piece by Julian Sanchez. Sanchez wonders why so few people in Washington self-identify as atheist or agnostic.

Reflecting on earlier essays to which I’ve linked, Andrew Sullivan asked whether conservative Christianity was “breeding Atheists.” His answer? Yes.

So Christianity in America, as Ross Douthat’s excellent forthcoming book explains, is undermined by both the political temptation and degeneracy on the evangelical right and the failure of mainline Protestantism to advance a Christianity that is both at ease with modernity but also determined to transcend its false gods of money, celebrity, and power, and to require more from its adherents.

We need a via media that lies not in between these models, but transcends both.

He also reported on readers’ responses to his question.

Does a definition of religion necessarily involve belief? Ritual and Religious Experience

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When I used to teach Intro to Religion, and even when I taught Intro to Bible, one of the exercises I would give my students on the first day was to ask them to define religion in a sentence or two. Invariably, the overwhelming majority would include “belief” in their definition. I would then give them a collection of definitions from scholars over the last century and a half, showing the wide range of thinking about the nature of religion, including many that made no reference to belief or faith.

I bring this up because the British philosopher John Gray has reviewed Alain de Botton’s recent book, Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion. Gray capsulates de Botton’s argument in this way:

Most people think that atheists are bound to reject religion because religion and atheism consist of incompatible beliefs. De Botton accepts this assumption throughout his argument, which amounts to the claim that religion is humanly valuable even if religious beliefs are untrue. He shows how much in our way of life comes from and still depends on religion – communities, education, art and architecture and certain kinds of kindness, among other things. I would add the practice of toleration, the origins of which lie in dissenting religion, and sceptical doubt, which

very often coexists with faith.

But in the course of his essay, Gray points out that most of the world’s religions have had at their core the practice of a way of life, rather than assent to a sent of doctrinal beliefs, and that there are strands within Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Christianity, “that deny that spiritual realities can be expressed in terms of beliefs at all.”

Gary Gutting attempts to offer a philosophical challenge to Gray’s argument about religion. But his argument is dependent upon a slightly different definition than Gray’s. Gutting begins with a different starting point, not a definition that attempts to encompass a wide variety of religions, but a narrower one that focuses on salvation. He cites Islam and “mainline” Christianity as prime examples.

Then he tests Gray’s argument with the problem of evil.  The only plausible answer for a theist is that God is beyond our capacity to understand; but if that’s the case, we can’t be certain that God will act to save us:

Once we appeal to the gap between our limited knowledge and God’s omniscience, we cannot move from what we think God will do to what he will in fact do.

I was reminded of this debate thanks to something a lunch companion said this week. We were talking about the Book of Common Prayer’s power to shape us as Christians, as its language and liturgy becomes ours over time, and comes to shape our experience and understanding of God.

We are approaching Holy Week when we will enter into the drama of the last days of Jesus’ life, participating as individuals and as communities in those ritual re-enactments. We enter into the stories, become the stories. We participate as well as observe. For many of us, the drama of Holy Week, experienced over a period of years or decades, have shaped us in ways we can’t even articulate.

Am I able to articulate a theologically-sound doctrine of the atonement? Hardly. Do I experience the saving love of Jesus’ death on the cross? Of course! And never more powerfully than while participating in the liturgy of Good Friday.

More commentary on Rowan Williams

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George Pitcher, former secretary for public affairs to the ABC, provides an inside look at the “court” of Lambeth Palace. It’s a must read:

But the trouble with not squaring up to the apparatus of the Archbishop’s government machine is that it breeds, and is encouraged to develop, an internal, self-serving authority, like an overweening civil service. You should never underestimate a palace’s tendency to attract courtiers. The one at Lambeth is no exception. They preen and jostle for favour (somewhat pointless, as Rowan treats everyone the same). They build professional silos and guard their sometimes limited responsibilities jealously. They meet weekly around the table in the Pink Drawing Room and there is no higher endeavour than filling the Archbishop’s diary over a year in advance.

Jane Kramer of the New Yorker offers a different perspective:

The choices he had were simple: he could lead the Church of England, which was eager for his attention; or he could continue to reach out to the churches that ignored him; or he could resign. He was tired, and, being a good man and a Christian in evident anguish, he resigned. I think that he missed the old Rowan Williams, too.

Malcolm Boyd remembers a dinner he had with Williams and Williams’ memory of it as well.
Ben Myers’ perspective is especially insightful:

Rowan Williams’ belief in the Church and his view of academic life are closely related. His decision to leave Canterbury and take up the position of master of Magdalene College at Cambridge should not be seen as a retreat from the difficulties of Church life. Instead, for Williams, this will be a transition from one kind of priestly ministry to another.

It is often said that Williams is an unusual churchman – too scholarly, too ponderous, too sensitive to complexity – but it should equally be said that he is an unusual scholar. Although he has made important contributions to several academic disciplines – not only theology but also history, political philosophy and literary criticism – his deepest commitment has always been to the cultivation of community rather than to any particular intellectual project. If his critics complained that he was an unusually academic archbishop, Cambridge will also find him to be an unusually priestly scholar.

And this:

Simply put, Williams believes in the Church more than he believes in his own opinions. All his troubles as Archbishop of Canterbury have stemmed from this fact. He believes in processes of communal negotiation more than he believes in the enforcement of any fixed viewpoint. It is this mindset, this belief in the Church, that has drawn so much criticism, even from within the Church of England. Giles Fraser, the former canon chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, reports hearing a bishop say: “The problem with Rowan Williams is that he is too bloody Christian.”

Myers warns the academics of Cambridge that they will be as unhappy with Williams as many Anglicans have been:

But his belief in the Church shapes the way he understands academic life: it is the community, not the autonomous individual, that has access to truth. If this belief is the heart of Williams’ distinctive style of Church leadership, it is equally the whole basis of his approach to higher education. What he will really bring to Cambridge, in other words, is the same thing he brought to Canterbury: a belief in the Church.

What is unique about Rowan Williams is simply the fact that he is a priest. If anything will come to define his new position at Cambridge, it will be that he approaches academic life just as he approaches Church leadership: as a Christian and as a priest.

 

Nick Lao on Williams’ “persistence patience.”
Opposite the Clint Eastwood school of leadership, Williams’ self-understanding as a leader has been that of a servant or gracious host, making sure everyone has a seat at the table, no matter how unpresentable or unruly. He prefers keeping the ball in play, mainly because it’s what he presumes Jesus would do.In these fractious times, this is the kind of hospitable patience our churches and institutions may need for their own good, even if they don’t know it. As President Obama is now well aware, our culture celebrates or crucifies leaders by tallying up foes vanquished, reforms instituted, swift decisions not second-guessed.

Contrast this with a leader of 80 million who would rather be known for simply encouraging adversaries to stay engaged with one another. It may not show up in the stat box, but it counts for the fragile bonds of unity that keep Christians in communion, at least for the foreseeable future. If the church is the household of God, Williams’ peculiar style of leadership can remind us that the habits most proper to our common life are perhaps not acts of bravado, but better table manners.

 

A heartbreaking study of Catholics who have left the Church

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The Bishop of the Diocese of Trenton had the courage to invite scholars to survey those who have left Catholicism. It was a self-selected group (people who responded to published invitations, rather than scientific samplings), but still, the responses to the survey break my heart, and should break the heart of anyone with a passion for the Good News of Jesus Christ. Access to the scholars’ work is still not available, but America has posted an article they’ve written. Among the findings:

It should be noted that most respondents said no to our question about any “bad experiences” they may have had with any person officially associated with the church. Mention was made, however, of bad experiences in the confessional; refusals by parish staff to permit eulogies at funerals; denial of the privilege of being a godparent at a relative’s baptism; verbal, emotional and physical abuse in Catholic elementary school; denial of permission for a religiously mixed marriage in the parish church. In one case the parish priest “refused to go to the cemetery to bury my 9-year-old son  because it was not a Catholic cemetery.” Several respondents noted that they were victims of sexual abuse by clergy.

In the context of his reply to this question about “bad experiences,” a 78-year-old male said something that could serve as a guideline for the bishop in reacting to this survey. This man wrote, “Ask a question of any priest and you get a rule; you don’t get a ‘let’s-sit-down-and- talk-about-it’ response.”  It is our hope that there will be more sitting down and talking things over in  the Diocese of Trenton, and perhaps in other dioceses, as a result of this  survey experience.

The authors’ conclusions:

Considering that these responses come, by definition, from a disaffected group, it is noteworthy that their tone is overwhelmingly positive and that the respondents appreciated the opportunity to express themselves. Some of their recommendations will surely have a positive impact on diocesan life. Not surprisingly, the church’s refusal to ordain women, to allow priests to marry, to recognize same-sex marriage and to admit divorced and remarried persons to reception of the Eucharist surfaced, as did contraception and a host of questions associated with the clergy sex-abuse scandal.

The survey invited respondents to provide their name and contact information if they wanted direct connection with the bishop. Of the almost 300 who responded to the survey, 25 offered their information to the Bishop. I would love to be the fly on the wall in those conversations.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we as Episcopalians might respond pastorally to the crisis in Roman Catholicism. Short of putting direct ads in newspapers and other media, how do we communicate that our liturgy is quite similar, that we welcome divorced and remarried people, gays and lesbians, and those uncomfortable with the authoritarian hierarchy. The increasing rigidity of our Roman Catholic neighbors makes our openness all the more important, and our message all the more crucial.

Bishop O’Connell deserves praise for undertaking the study, and for his invitation to meet with respondents.

An earlier discussion of the issue is here.

More on “Leaving Church:” the “nones,” young adults and the future of Christianity

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Skye Jethani weighs in, building on Berger’s essay.

So, we are left with a narrow path. Veer too far to the cultural right and the young will dismiss the church as a puppet of Republican politics. Veer too far to the theological left and the power of the Gospel is lost amid cultural accommodation.

The younger generations, and our culture as a whole, needs evidence of a third way to be Christian. It will require more than individual voices, but an organized and identifiable community of believers that reject Christianism and stands for Christ’s Good News, manifested in good lives, and evident in good works.

So does Jonathan Fitzgerald:

Now, after spending much of my adulthood trying to find a place to belong, I’ve turned into the opposite of a None — I’ve become a proud Joiner. Since college, my own search has found me desperate to join. I have considered Roman Catholic confirmation, Presbyterian church membership and, most recently, Episcopalian identification. To that end, I have been attending confirmation classes at my local Episcopal parish since last month.

As I look around at my fellow Joiners, I see that it is specifically those who have lived the life of the unaffiliated who have decided, Sunday after Sunday, for several hours following Mass, to gather and discuss the rhythm of the liturgical calendar, the purpose of baptism, the history of the church and the beauty of the Book of Common Prayer. I’m not sure whether I’ll be confirmed when the class ends in eight weeks, but there is certainly something attractive about the prospect.

It would be foolish to think God requires affiliation as a means of access. We humans however tend to corral into formal groupings, whether it’s organized religion or political parties. In the absence of tried-and-true tradition, we begin to create our own. My guess is that, as the numbers of Nones continue to increase, they will begin to develop traditions, create rules and define their orthodoxy until, ultimately, something like a new denomination will arise. Perhaps in 2022 someone will declare “The Rise of the Joiners” as one of the life-changing ideas of the moment.

He wasn’t really ever a none. He was a Christian, grew up a Christian, but outside of Christian community.

Yesterday was one of those days of grace at Grace, surrounded by the ministry and faith of young (and older) adults. A fine sermon by Lauren Cochran (young adult herself); a presentation on our companion diocese relationship with the Diocese of Newala, in Tanzania.

The first session of a spontaneous confirmation class which bears out some of the discussion I’ve been linking to here. Four of the five who attended are young adults who have come from more conservative religious backgrounds; the fifth an older adult who was baptized and confirmed Roman Catholic. During our conversation, I pointed out that these demographics were pretty typical for Episcopal gatherings in that a majority (in our case all, including the two clergy in attendance) were not “cradle” Episcopalian.

Later in the day, I celebrated the Eucharist and shared dinner with the Episcopal Campus Ministry. We had planned on getting home by 7, but lively conversation and fellowship kept us lingering until almost 8. As we chatted, I noted to myself the rather different dynamics: of the six or eight who stayed till the end to help with cleanup, it was half and half–half had grown up Episcopalian, the other half not. The importance of that community to those who were there was palpable. Gathered together around the altar, gathered together to share a meal and working together to clean up; all the while talking to one another, asking questions about matters Episcopalian and theological, and checking in on how each other was doing.

That’s the work of Christian community, important work, and evangelistic work, as among those in attendance were people who had been coming every week, and some who had come for the first time; experiencing hospitality, welcome, and the love of Christ. When we do that, and do it well, we don’t have to worry about the future–and our work this semester is building a solid foundation for the chaplain we will call to that ministry.

Understanding Religious Experience: Tanya Luhrmann on Evangelicals

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Joan Acocella’s review of Tanya M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. Luhrmann is an anthropologist who has written extensively and insightfully on religion in the contemporary world. In this book, she writes about her experiences in two evangelical churches associated with the Vineyard Fellowship. It’s on my reading list.

Acocella’s review highlights the religious experiences stressed in these communities and their members’ understanding and experience of God:

This casualness carries over to conversations with God. The Vineyarders asked him “for admission to specific colleges, for the healing of specific illness—even, it is true, for specific red convertible cars.” Some Vineyard women had a regular “date night” with Jesus. They would serve a special dinner, set a place for him at the table, chat with him. He guided the Vineyarders every minute of the day. Sarah told Luhrmann how, one day, after a lunch at a restaurant with fellow-parishioners, she was feeling good about herself, whereupon, as she was crossing the parking lot, a bird shat on her blouse. God, she explained to Luhrmann, was giving her a little slap on the wrist for her self-satisfaction.

We may find the religion described here odd; but the appeal is obvious and apparently Luhrmann also entered into the experience more than as a researcher:

Indeed, she tells us at the end of the book that she cannot call herself a Christian, and that she doesn’t believe in “a God who sits out there, as real as a door post.” At the same time, she repeatedly says, with no qualification, that she prayed with the Vineyarders and by herself under the guidance of a “spiritual director.” Like them, she kept a prayer journal, recording “what I said to God followed by what he said to me.” If she didn’t believe in a God who sat out there, whom did she think she was saying things to? And who was saying things back to her?

A deeper look at Luhrmann’s perspective. She is interested in the social construction of sensory experience, in particular, how people make sense of their experiences. She assumes of course that hallucinations begin with sensory experience in the brain, and that we make sense of that experience through culture and training:

It is also true that spiritual training may make sensory overrides more likely. Inner sense cultivation — and mental imagery cultivation, in particular — is at the heart of shamanism and is central to many spiritual traditions….[T]wo dominant forms of mental techniques in effect train the human mind to experience the supernatural: techniques that focus attention on the inner senses and those that train attention away from thought and sensation. Examples of the former include shamanism, Tibetan vision meditation, and the Ignatian spiritual exercises; examples of the latter are Zen meditation and Centering Prayer.

Both train the attention, and they probably train the capacity for absorption. Although the psychological literature is largely silent about whether these training techniques generate sensory overrides, the ethnographic and historical literature strongly suggest that inner sense cultivation produces sensory experiences that are interpreted as signs of the supernatural.

The full “primer” to Luhrmann’s perspective is here.

We wish to see Jesus–notes toward a homily for Lent 5, year B

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I didn’t write a sermon this week, but I did celebrate the 5:00 St. Francis House Eucharist this evening, so I had to come up with something to say. As I thought about today’s gospel, I was intrigued by the question of encountering Jesus in the text. Greeks come to Philip and say, “We wish to see Jesus.” Philip goes to Andrew, and together, the two of them go to Jesus. There’s no word whether the Greeks accompanied them, and if Jesus’ words offer any clue, it would seem that they are not among those whom Jesus addresses. They leave the scene, or the drama leaves them behind. They do not “see Jesus.”

A little later, a voice comes from heaven and says, “I have glorified you and I will glorify you again.” It’s not clear who understands these words. For some in the crowd, it sounds like thunder. Others think an angel is speaking to Jesus. Presumably Jesus (and the gospel writer?) hear and understand the voice.

Think about it. The Greeks don’t see Jesus; onlookers don’t hear or comprehend the voice from heaven. Efforts to make sense of Jesus fail. Efforts to see, hear, even know Jesus, fail.

The passage concludes on a different note. It’s the verse I quoted in my sermon last week: “And when I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.” Even if our efforts fail, Jesus beckons us, pulls us toward him, draws us to him. Whatever our efforts, it’s Jesus’ power, drawing us, drawing all of humanity to him, that makes the difference.

I doubt that’s anything close to what the gospel writer had in mind with this passage, but the contrast is quite dramatic.

I suspect there’s a pretty powerful sermon in here. Too bad it will have to wait until 2015.

Whither Communion?

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In the wake of a majority of dioceses of the Church of England voting against the proposed Anglican Covenant, it’s appropriate to ask what this portends for the future of the Anglican Communion. In fact, it’s not clear what the fallout from diocesan voting will be. At the very least, it means that the Anglican Covenant cannot come before this particular General Synod. In other words, a best-case scenario would put enactment of the Covenant down the road at least five years. In the meantime, how would an approved Covenant work if the Archbishop of Canterbury were head of a national church in which it isn’t valid?

But these matters are for others to ponder. There’s a bigger question on the table, one the Anglican Covenant was meant to answer: “What sort of thing is the Anglican Communion?” Or to put it in slightly stronger theological terms: “What is the nature of our communion or unity?” The AC’s answer was to strengthen the centralizing tendencies in communion and to create institutions and means for creating boundaries and discipline. It is in the nature of human communities that there is a strong tendency toward centralization. There is also an almost impossible to avoid temptation to strengthen community by defining the limits of that community (both in terms of drawing clear boundaries and excluding dissidents or nonconformists). The Anglican Covenant, no matter how much some might argue the contrary, was an attempt to draw such boundaries and exclude dissent.

Are there other models for unity available? Tobias Haller cites one such possibility, located in the High Priestly prayer of John 17 “so that they may be one as we are one.”

As Haller points out, unity here is posited not in terms of some sort of agreement or covenant, but in the nature of God: the Church is one because God the Father and God the Son are one. Haller sees this as an ontological reality. God is by nature communal and relational–that’s what the Trinity is all about.

The fact of the matter, however, is that relationships of this sort are relatively easy to support theologically; they are rather more difficult to incarnate. Christianity has struggled from the very beginning with unity and difference. Indeed, the Gospel of John itself bears eloquent witness to early Christian difference and conflict.

Many of those rejoicing over the Covenant’s apparent defeat produce slogans like: “Communion, yes; covenant, no,” or express sentiments like “Now, let’s get back to deepening Anglican unity through bonds of affection and missional zeal” (as Bishop Chris Epting tweeted this morning). It’s not clear to me what the Anglican Communion will look like in the future, if the centralizing structures lose power and influence. How will such lateral relationships be created and nurtured? I suppose the companion diocese program is one such possibility, but one wonders whether dioceses divided by culture, language, and geography, can truly build strong bonds of affection, especially given the economic realities facing the church here and worldwide.
One other comment–perhaps it’s time to get rid of the notion of instruments (symbols?) of communion as well. Such things often lead to lazy thinking and help to avoid the hard work of building relationships. When people appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, I’m reminded of lessons I learned studying North African Christianity in the third and fourth centuries. We appeal to universal notions of unity when the reality we experience is far from unified and when we need outside assistance to press our point. Perhaps we would do well to focus our attention on the local, strengthening those relationships and bonds of affection, and let the global take care of itself, at least for a time.