The Dioceses of Lincoln and Oxford voted no.
More details at Thinking Anglicans and No Anglican Covenant. Modern Church has complete results from all dioceses.
Anglican covenant has gone down
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Monthly Archives: March 2012
Millennials and GM: What can we learn?
There’s an article in the NYT about GM’s outreach to young adults. They’ve got a problem almost as big as Christianity:
In 2008, 46.3 percent of potential drivers 19 years old and younger had drivers’ licenses, compared with 64.4 percent in 1998, according to the Federal Highway Administration, and drivers ages 21 to 30 drove 12 percent fewer miles in 2009 than they did in 1995.
That’s a 25% decline in a decade, even worse than the decline in the Episcopal Church. The article presents some of the problems with adapting to contemporary culture: the proposed colors (techno-pink, lemonade, denim) will take at least a year before they’re in production, and cars themselves take three years from design to production. So the problems with dashboards will be around for awhile:
“They think of a car as a giant bummer,” said Mr. Martin. “Think about your dashboard. It’s filled with nothing but bad news.”
Kevin Drum comments: “I dunno. I’m 53 years old, and even I’m not feeling the hipness. More like the stink of fear.”
There have been earlier comparisons between corporations like GM and Kodak and the church, but perhaps this comparison is even more instructive. To put it in marketing terms, the “nones” just don’t want our product, and changing liturgical colors (or style, or music) won’t make any difference.
On the other hand, the Episcopal Church never had GM’s market share. We’re something of a niche product, and perhaps, by doing better at communicating what we are about might bring positive results.
Young adults, older adults, and leaving church
Roman Catholics are asking the question, too.
We may acknowledge some of their criticisms, but we are quicker to point out that they don’t understand. “Kids these days!” we exclaim in so many ways, throwing up our hands—while millennials walk out the door. “Will we continue to preach to the (aging) choir?” Fullam asked.
Answering that question may mean the difference between a vibrant religious community 20 or 30 years from now and a truly post-religious society like that of Western Europe. Every sociological measure is showing that the youngest members of the church aren’t staying, and it would be foolish to hope that they will return when they get married or have kids.
We can either keep repeating the same lines or we can zip it for a while and listen to what they are really saying. Maybe if we are quiet long enough, they might ask us why we stay. If they do, we better have a good answer.
Rachel Held Evans gives fifteen reasons why she left the church, and fifteen why she returned. Both posts should be read by everyone interested in young adults and the good news of Jesus Christ. There’s a story behind each of those thirty reasons, stories that play themselves out in the lives of young people every day.
The great American sociologist of religion Peter Berger reflects on the article by Putnam and Campbell to which I’ve previously alluded. He points out that many of the “nones” may be believers without belonging (certainly Held Evans, to the extent that she left church, belonged to that group). About the “nones,” he posits two groups, one consisting of those who have been convinced by the “new atheists;” the other made up of descendants of the counter culture of the 60s. I doubt there are very many in this latter group. Berger is intrigued by the socio-economic status of the nones cited in the Pew survey. They are not, mostly, members of the elite, but of the lower class, often lacking high school education. This suggests something else, that they are profoundly alienated from institutional religion, and probably profoundly alienated from other institutions of American life. I wonder whether we are not reverting to the state of affairs that existed in the nineteenth century.
To see the alienation from institutional religion in action, from someone who is perhaps moving away, unlike Rachel Held Evans who has made her way back, apparently; read the piece by Michael O’Loughlin: a flickering light:
I’m no longer surprised when a close female friend, successful and well educated, looks askew at a male-dominated church and cringes before she walks away. When those charged with teaching the faith tell their flock to believe or act a certain way because their authority gives them the right to do so, it becomes easier to see why many chuckle as they interpret this as a parent scolding a toddler: do this because I said so. Gay men and women rightly refuse to succumb to bullying in their professional and familial lives, so it’s not a surprise when they leave a church that calls them disordered. And though we are over a decade removed from the revelation of clergy sex abuse of minors, many in my generation will never again give the benefit of the doubt to the Catholic hierarchy on matters of faith, morals, or much else.
The question is, given the profound distrust of institutions among millennials, a distrust much deeper than anything we’ve seen before, how can those of us who are clergy, representatives of the institution, speak authentic good news?
What is death?
A fascinating essay on the changing definition of death and its relationship to notions of the self, soul, and personhood: The evolution of death – Salon.com.
Here’s the crucial question: But are doctors the people we want to be in charge of determining “personhood”?
The last paragraphs are among the funniest I’ve read in a long time.
Books, book graveyards, and top ten lists
I just read a blog post that I’d left unread for some time in google reader about a novelist’s ruminations after visiting a used bookstore: “The Beautiful Afterlife of Dead Books:”
Cue: Stephen Fowler, owner of The Monkey’s Paw. It was while chatting with Fowler in his beautiful shop that I had an epiphany. At any given time, his bookshop is packed with over 6,000 dead titles on everything ranging from terrestrial slugs to false hair. Rows of books rest in peaceful repose on tables: gorgeous idiosyncratic corpses that would excite any literary necrophile.
Then I came on Susan Russell’s blog entry Books, Books, and More Books. She begins by mentioning an encounter in a newcomer’s class with someone who had just encountered Urban T. (Terry) Holmes’ What is Anglicanism. She goes on to list her top ten list. Coincidentally, on Sunday, I was looking through my bookshelves for a copy of that very book, to share with two young people who have recently come to the Episcopal Church. My search was fruitless. I remembered then that I had lent a copy several years ago, at a former parish, and probably hadn’t got it back. I’ve got no qualms with her list of ten favorites. Mine would, of course, be much more heavily weighted to the theological and literary classics. No doubt Dante would make my list, even if an NGO wants it banned.
One of the books on her list is by Anne Lamott, who has a new book coming out soon: Some Assembly Required. An excerpt is available at Salon.
And speaking of lists, a Catholic church historian’s take on the ten top books in Church History.
This week’s Anglican Covenant Round-up: It’s looking grim for the home team
There was more voting in Church of England dioceses. The tally now stands at 20 against, 12 in favor. Twelve more dioceses need to vote. A total of 23 yes votes is required for the Covenant to come before General Synod.
The Bishop of Liverpool gave an address at his diocesan synod outlining his concerns with the covenant. He concludes:
The Church of England and the Anglican Communion have over the centuries developed a generous embrace allowing seekers to taste and see the goodness of God. Within our borders, within the borders of what Cranmer described as that “blessed company of faithful people”, there is a generous orthodoxy. There is space for the seeker to breathe, to enquire, to ask questions, to doubt and to grope towards faith and to find God. That I believe is a space within the Body of Christ worth preserving. The
Covenant will change the character of the Communion and, I fear, the Church of England.
Five of the seven dioceses in the Scottish Episcopal Church have rejected the covenant, meaning that it won’t be participating in any structures created if the Covenant succeeds, although the provincial synod could still move towards approval.
More covenant commentary here.
More reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s resignation
N.T. Wright (former Bishop of Durham, currently Professor of New Testament at the University of St. Andrew’s, Scotland) on Rowan Williams:
‘Here to introduce Bach’s St Matthew Passion,’ said the radio announcer, ‘is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.’ My companion and I listened eagerly to a lucid account of St Matthew’s theology, and of how Bach’s music involves every hearer in the events of Jesus’ death. But at one moment the speaker paused, as though searching for a word. Didn’t he have a script? Next time I saw the Archbishop, I asked him. The BBC, he explained, sat him in a studio and asked him to talk about his favourite music. How many Archbishops could have done that, I wondered – at the same time as writing a book on Dostoevsky, debating with Philip Pullman, and plotting a visit to Robert Mugabe? Not to mention the thousand shocks that episcopal flesh is heir to.
Shocks there have been. Nobody in 2002 saw what was coming. That’s why many of us, courteously disagreeing on some issues, have remained convinced that Rowan was the right man for the job. Shallow, polarizing analyses remain irresistible for commentators; many in the church go along for the ride. But Dr Williams is a thinker’s thinker. He burrows down into an issue, reads it up, mulls it over, prays it through, and then speaks his mind. We have needed that. He is a classic Anglican theologian: not one for big, clunky systems, but solid, deep and rich in his study of the Bible and the Fathers. To hear Rowan expounding St John or St Augustine is to encounter Anglican theology at its best. Watch him translate that theology into pastoral mode: with children, say, or praying quietly with someone in the wings of a conference. Like all loveable people, he can be infuriating. But loveable none the less.
His mind has been, above all, for unity, always central to a bishop’s vocation. Not a shoulder-shrugging, lowest-common-denominator unity, but the hard-won, costly unity that makes demands on charity and patience rather than on conscience. He has worked hard for that unity within his own Anglican Communion and across denominational lines. He is one of a tiny handful of Anglican theologians to be a household name in Roman and Eastern Orthodox circles; and he has won friends in the free churches, too. When he was an official observer at an international Methodist conference twenty years ago, he complained in his closing remarks that they hadn’t sung his favourite Wesley hymn, ‘And Can it Be’, with its solid gospel affirmation, ‘No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in him, is mine!’ They obediently stood up and sang it.
It’s worth reading in its entirety, in part because Wright comes from the Evangelical wing of the Church of England, and in part because the concluding paragraph lays out a vision of what Wright, and no doubt many other bishops, think the church should be:
Who, after all, is running the Church of England? We have Lambeth Palace, the House of Bishops, General Synod, the Archbishops’ Council, the Anglican Communion Office, and (don’t get me started) the Church Commissioners. How does it all work? In an episcopal church, the bishops should be the leaders.
Giles Fraser offers his very different perspective on the qualifications for the next Archbishop of Canterbury here. Money quote:
His much more pressing task is to speak clearly out of the Christian tradition in a way that will resonate with those who no longer think that religious belief has anything left to offer.
While Fraser and Wright come from very different wings of the Church of England, both express appreciation for the difficulty of Williams’ job, as well as for his faith, theology, and spirituality. Not so the Archbishop of Nigeria, who puts all blame for the shattering of communion on the Archbishop.
“I will draw all people to myself:” Lectionary Reflections for the Fifth Sunday in Lent,Year B
This week’s gospel is John 12:20-33. It is fascinating both for the role it plays in John’s overall gospel and for its relationship to the synoptic (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) tradition. 12:25 “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” is one of the very few times in the Gospel of John where Jesus says something that is almost identical to a saying recorded in the synoptics (Mark 8:34).
Curiously, a few verses later, Jesus seems to contradict directly the synoptic tradition. In v. 27, he says, “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—’Father, save me from this hour?’ No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” In Gethsemane, Jesus prays that God will spare him what is coming (“Remove this cup from me” Mk 14:36). There is no scene set in Gethsemane in the Gospel of John. In John’s understanding of Jesus, he knows exactly what is happening to him, why it is happening, and has no fears or uncertainties about that. John’s Jesus is in charge of events, not a victim; Mark’s Jesus is very human, as we will see in the next week.
We often want to choose between one or the other portrayal. Some of us prefer a very human Jesus with whom we can connect, whose human suffering is not so different from our own pain and struggles. Others of us prefer the notion of a Jesus who stands above it all, powerful, divine. In fact, we needn’t choose. Our faith proclaims that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine.
John’s portrayal of Jesus offers us a great deal to ponder. I quoted 12: 32 in my sermon yesterday, and a portion of it appears in the title of this post. This idea, that Jesus welcomes and embraces all humanity on the cross is an evocative image of inclusive salvation. In a time when Christianity seems to be a profoundly divisive force in society and culture, the idea that Jesus Christ appeals to all, welcomes all, whatever their race, ethnicity (this is said in the presence of Greeks), and religion, is very appealing.
Random web finds related to spirituality
Is Pope Benedict XVI going to canonize Hildegard of Bingen?
From his own experience, Ignatius deduced a series of methodological and pedagogical principles that will be characteristic in the way he acted when trying to assist men and women to find their way, in other words, helping them to achieve freedom and be responsible for their own lives. A major event was particularly important to the newly converted Ignatius, an enlightenment that transformed him during a stroll along the banks of the Cardoner, a river that flows in the neighborhood of Manresa. “The eyes of insight started to open. He didn’t have a vision, but he understood and learnt several things, spiritual as well as others concerning faith and words, and with such a huge enlightenment that all these things seemed to be new.”
A “one-nun show” on the life of Catherine of Siena, written and performed by Bill Murray’s sister (yes,that Bill Murray).
I suppose for all those despairing of the future of Christianity, and of Roman Catholicism, these three are witnesses to the rich streams of Christian spirituality that can’t be controlled or destroyed by hierarchies or institutions.
Snake Stories: A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B
I’ve been married to a southerner for almost twenty-five years, and I lived in the South for fifteen. I don’t claim to be an expert on Southern culture, but I’ve been around it long enough to know a thing or two, certainly I know I great deal more about the south than I did when I made my first visit to my future in-laws in 1986. Continue reading
Preaching Grace on the Square 