Monthly Archives: May 2012

A Season of Civility

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The Wisconsin Council of Churches has issued this statement:

Wisconsin Council of Churches Calls For a
Season of Civility

Thirty six religious leaders from throughout Wisconsin called upon our state to enter into a “Season of Civility” amidst the partisan rancor of the current recall campaigns and the anticipated divisiveness of the fall election cycle.
Read the statement here
The “Call for a Season of Civility” statement draws a parallel between the religious values embodied in “the Golden Rule,” to treat others as we would like to be treated, with the idea of democracy, which is based on regard for the value of each and every individual.
In the statement, our religious leaders commit to model and support respectful and honest conversations on public issues within our congregations, assemblies and forums.
We also call upon candidates to adhere to high standards of civility, integrity and truthfulness in their advertising, including those of “third parties.” We invite all of our citizens to be critical consumers of media and advertising.

We now invite pastors and other local religious leaders to sign the “Call To a Season of Civility” statement.  If you would like to add your name to the list of signatories, send an email with complete contact information to wcoc@wichurches.org.  We will post the list to our web site with weekly updates as signatures are added.

Anglicanism for Millennials–Any recommendations?

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Over the past few months, I’ve had conversations with several millennials about the Episcopal Church. They found their way to our red doors through various means, find our liturgy attractive, and what to engage the tradition more deeply. I do regular newcomers’ classes, meet with them individually to answer questions and learn about their spiritual journeys, and inevitably the question comes, “Is there something I can read?”

I can answer their questions about scripture, tradition, and reason; I can talk about liturgy, the Elizabethan Settlement. If they’re really interested we talk about General Convention, diocesan and parish structure, well you get the picture. What I can’t do is answer that question, “Is there something I can read?”

My first thought is always Urban Holmes, What is Anglicanism? Unfortunately, I lent several copies over the years, and they seem not to have returned to my bookshelves. And frankly, I wonder whether after 30 years, Holmes speaks to the concerns and lives of young adult seekers. So…

For thoughtful, well-educated, young adults coming from Christian traditions left or right, what would you recommend? They want meat, not fluff, and very often they are dealing with significant baggage from their pasts.

Crash Helmets and Snake Handling

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In my sermon for Pentecost, I quoted Annie Dillard on mainline worship. At Pentecostal churches, people still expect amazing things to happen. On the fringes of Pentecostalism, there is snake handling. Reports came out yesterday of the death of Mack Wolford, a leader among snake-handling Christian groups in Appalachia. He died after being bitten by a rattlesnake. His father had also died of a rattler bite. More here and here. A profile of Wolford, written by Julia Duin, that appeared last year in the Washington Post, is available here.

I had thought about using snake-handling as an example in my sermon, but then thought better of it, because I had preached about snake stories only a couple of months ago, during Lent.

A worthy read about the practice, and about the subculture in which it survives is Salvation on Sand Mountain, by Dennis Covington. Covington got interested in it while reporting on an attempted manslaughter trial in which a snake-handling pastor was accused of forcing his wife, whom he thought was having an affair, to put her hand into a cage of rattlers. Covington followed various snake handlers around for quite some time, and finally handled himself during a service before extricating himself from the movement.

His experience, and his writing about it, became the focus of an interesting debate between Stephen Prothero and Robert Orsi over the scholar’s role in studying religion, especially to what extent the scholar should engage his or her own beliefs and practices while studying another’s. Orsi applauded Covington’s engagement with snake-handling;  Prothero was critical. The exchange appeared in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, but seems no longer available online, although the original essay by Orsi to which Prothero was responding appeared as a chapter in Orsi’s Between Heaven and Earth.
When I taught Theory and Method in the Study of Religion, I used Orsi’s book, and Prothero’s critique of his position as a central element in helping students understand how to negotiate the complexities of the discipline of Religious Studies.

Ralph W. Hood, professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, has also studied the phenomenon quite intensely for decades. He has collected a marvelous archive of videos detailing the practice

Trinity Sunday, Year B–lectionary reflections

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This week’s readings are here.

As I was listening to the reading from I John 5 (9-13) on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, it struck me that the lectionary had passed over I John 5:7-8 which is included only in a footnote in the NRSV). In so doing, the lectionary editors passed over one of the most controversial texts in the History of Christianity: the so-called Johannine Comma. They read:

There are three that testify in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. 8And there are three that testify on earth:

The great Humanist Erasmus ignited the controversy when he published his new Greek New Testament in 1516 with his Latin translation on the opposite page. It was based on a comparison of the best available manuscripts and concluded that these verses were a relatively late addition to the text. He was attacked by many who thought that he was altering the Word of God. In response, Erasmus said that if anyone could find a Greek manuscript that included the verses, he would restore them in his next edition of the text. One such manuscript was miraculously discovered and in 1522, Erasmus’ third edition of the text restored the verses (although he continued to doubt their authenticity).

I bring this up because this coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday, when we focus on the doctrine of the Trinity. We do this even though the Trinity is not attested in Holy Scripture (the word “Trinity” nowhere appears) and the doctrine is a development from scripture and from early Christian reflection on the nature of God.

Our texts this week offer several insights into the divine nature. In the familiar and awe-inspiring passage from Isaiah 6:1-8, we read of Isaiah’s vision of God, an image so immense that the hem of God’s robe fills the temple. Surrounded by seraphim who sing the Sanctus, Isaiah is confronted with God’s majesty and his own frailty and humanity.

In the lesson from Romans 8, a passage earlier in the chapter from which we read on Pentecost, Paul affirms the Holy Spirit’s connection with us. As God’s children, we are adopted, and through the Spirit our cry of Abba, Father, is the cry of a child for a parent. But adoption doesn’t mean any less of a relationship–we are children of God, just as Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We are heirs with Christ. This profound relationship that is ours through Christ is similar to the relationship that inheres in the Trinity, which is why it is included in our readings today.

The Trinity is a difficult concept to understand, and difficult to discuss. In these two readings we see two aspects of the Divine nature–the divine transcendence and otherness of Isaiah’s vision of God in the temple, and God’s immanence, God’s presence in us through the Spirit.

The Trinity is central to the Christian understanding and experience of God, perhaps most importantly in the idea that at the heart of God’s nature is relationship, relationship among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that because we are created in God’s image, we are created in relationship with God, and created for relationship with others.

The Great Disappointment

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Remember how we all laughed at Harold Camping and his followers, who believed the world was going to end on May 21, 2011? What happened to the true believers? Where are they now? Most are disillusioned.

Tom Bartlett follows up with some of them, wondering where they are now:

I was struck by how some believers edited the past in order to avoid acknowledging that they had been mistaken. The engineer in his mid-twenties, the one who told me this was a prophecy rather than a prediction, maintained that he had never claimed to be certain about May 21. When I read him the transcript of our previous interview, he seemed genuinely surprised that those words had come out of his mouth. It was as if we were discussing a dream he couldn’t quite remember.

And:

Among those I came to know and like was a gifted young musician. Because he was convinced the world was ending, he had abandoned music, quit his job, and essentially put his life on hold for four years. It had cost him friends and created a rift between some members of his family. He couldn’t have been more committed.

In a recent email, he wrote that he had “definitely lost an incredible amount of faith” and hadn’t touched his Bible in months. These days he’s not sure what or whether to believe. “It makes me wonder just how malleable our minds can be. It all seemed so real, like it made so much sense, but it wasn’t right,” he wrote. “It leaves a lot to think about.”

Groaning with the Spirit: A Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost, Year B

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May 27, 2012

I’ve been thinking a lot about worship and the sacraments this week. I’ve been wondering about our worship—whether it’s exciting, or powerful, or meaningful enough. But I’ve also been thinking about the sacraments; the latter because of the discussion going on in our church across the country about open communion—or communion of the unbaptized. Now, if you want to know what I think about that, it’s pretty easy to find out; just ask me, or read some of what I’ve written. Continue reading →

Nurturing Community in the City

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Here’s an essay on Fresno, CA, that describes the pattern of development and sprawl that characterizes many American cities. Fresno’s history is set against the backdrop of the collapse of relationship in the author’s family even as they became successful economically.

One effort, by clergy in Las Vegas, to create community across the divide of religion (well, at least Christianity (h/t Episcopal Cafe).

Nick Knisely, pointing to an article in The Atlantic, ponders the change to cities, and to churches, by demographic shifts and the increased reliance on bicycles for transportation:

The reason this is worth mentioning is that it’s the first direct consequence of the massive demographic shift underway as young and old adults are returning the city center again. Salon has a piece on how even places like Cleveland and Pittsburg are starting to burst with new young residents around the city centers again. (H/T to bls). High fuel prices, dense urban living and a desire to something differently are all contributing. And now churches are going to have to respond.

What a great problem to have! As the neighborhoods around our historic buildings are being revitalized, we have got to think of ways to make our buildings more accessible for the people in our neighborhoods. (Which is why most of them were built in the first place after all.)

Nurturing community in a city–what is the church’s role? What is Grace’s role? Do we have enough bike racks?

But I’ll bet they won’t be celebrating joint communion anytime soon

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Lutherans and “Anglicans” have joint theological discussions. Sorry, not the ELCA and TEC, it’s the Missouri Synod and the Anglican Church in North America. I’m sure they agree on all of the hot button political issues; even perhaps, on the creeds.

But how did their comparison of the Augsburg Confession, the Book of Concord, and the 39 Articles go?

The Future of America? The Future of the Church? George Scialabba on Morris Berman

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George Scialabba writes a moving essay detailing Morris Berman’s view on the decline of American civilization:

As a former medievalist, Berman finds contemporary parallels to the fall of Rome compelling. By the end of the empire, he points out, economic inequality was drastic and increasing, the legitimacy and efficacy of the state was waning, popular culture was debased, civic virtue among elites was practically nonexistent, and imperial military commitments were hopelessly unsustainable. As these volumes abundantly illustrate, this is 21st century America in a nutshell.

But is there hope? Yes:

Berman offers little comfort, but he does note a possible role for those who perceive the inevitability of our civilization’s decline. He calls it the “monastic option.” Our eclipse may, after all, not be permanent; and meanwhile individuals and small groups may preserve the best of our culture by living against the grain, within the interstices, by “creating ‘zones of intelligence’ in a private, local way, and then deliberately keeping them out of the public eye.” Even if one’s ideals ultimately perish, this may be the best way to live while they are dying.

Sounds like the Early (now “Late”) Church to me. More food for thought as we think about mission and restructuring.