Author Archives: djgrieser

Unknown's avatar

About djgrieser

I have been Rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, WI since 2009. I'm passionate about Jesus Christ and about connecting our faith and tradition with 21st century culture. I'm also very active in advocating for our homeless neighbors.

Religious Intolerance and Bigotry in contemporary America

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been following with horror the media and right-wing frenzy over the so-called “Ground-Zero Mosque.” It’s not at Ground Zero, it’s almost a half-mile away and all those people, from Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin to the Anti-Defamation League who are opposed to its construction seem also to be opposed to the First Amendment of the Constitution, that protects freedom of religion.

We’ve seen this sort of thing before. In the California town where opponents of a mosque were urged to bring their dogs to the rally (“because Muslims hate dogs”) this year, ten years ago, there was opposition to construction by the Latter Day Saints. They’ve run into difficulty over plans to build temples in many communities over the last couple of decades. Other religious groups struggle even more.

When we lived in South Carolina, Corrie and I were involved in Harvard’s Pluralism Project, which seeks to document the presence of religious communities in the US. As part of that work, we got to know Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, and learned about their difficulties in Spartanburg and Greenville in establishing places of worship. We also, very occasionally, tried to help some of these groups negotiate with their neighbors when tensions arose.

Besides the Capitol itself, Grace Church is probably the most recognizable landmark in Capitol Square, and its presence there bespeaks an earlier time when Christian churches were at the heart of American culture and power. That’s not the case any longer. It’s often tempting for Christians to view themselves as a persecuted minority, but I rather doubt that anywhere in the US the sort of outrage that has arisen over the construction of an Islamic community center and mosque would be generated by any church’s building project. And whatever slights we might receive in the press or wider culture, are nothing like the vitriol that Muslims have received from wide swaths of American culture in the past couple of months, actually since 9-11.

There are a number of sites that are following the various controversies that include news of a Florida church that plans a Quran burning on September 11. Among the best is Religion Dispatches. There are also several essays worth reading. One is by Jeff Goldberg of The Atlantic. It’s available here. Mayor Bloomberg’s remarks are here.

The Pluralism Project has tracked incidents of religious intolerance and intimidation for a number of years. They also archive examples of inter-religious cooperation. That website is here.

Another update

Posted on by
Reply

I received an apology from the Isthmus this afternoon. It turns out that the illustrator did use an image of Grace downloaded from the web as inspiration. Here is an excerpt from my reply:

Thank you. I appreciate your willingness to follow up with this matter. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression, given my reaction now to this second cover of Isthmus that references Grace. I’m quite willing to absorb the shots, when they are fair …. I am also well aware that religious institutions deserve much of the criticism they receive in our culture and that it is up to those of us in leadership positions and in the pews to work hard to gain the larger culture’s trust.

We are a long distance from the times when churches and religious institutions were at the heart of our culture and highly respected. The article behind the cover illustration is evidence of that. Still, it’s easy to take cheap shots at churches and religious institutions from the outside and for insiders who have a beef with their leadership to turn to the media for ammunition in their internal struggles. Outside criticism often has a negative effect, circling the wagons if you will.

Grace has experienced all of that over the years. Just as it’s important to defend our image, it is also important to admit to our failures publicly and to accept apologies when offered.

Madison, like all of American culture, needs a robust and watchful press to serve the public interest. Here’s hoping for a productive and challenging relationship with the Isthmus and with all of Madison’s media.

Money Changes Everything: A Sermon for Proper 13, Year C

Posted on by
Reply

Proper 13_YrC

Grace Church

August 1, 2010

One of the things I love about being back home in the Midwest is driving through the countryside. I grew up in a small town in northwestern Ohio; the church of my childhood was set in the middle of cornfields. Only after I moved away did I realize the spiritual power for me of those endless rows of corn and soybean fields, punctuated by big red barns and tall silos.

Corrie and I were driving through Wisconsin’s countryside this week and those same thoughts came back to me. Something has changed in the nearly thirty years since I left the Midwest, however. Back then, it was still the case that most barns had recent paint jobs, there were few that were in disrepair or crumbling. Now, it’s different. One can easily tell the active, successful farms from those barns and silos that are no longer in use. Many of the latter are decrepit; they look like just one strong wind might blow them over. Often these barns that are falling apart are relatively small, ill-suited to contemporary agribusiness, and crumbling for that reason. But there are others, that were clearly once the pride and joy of wealthy, successful families who had large acreage and herds.

We can see something of the history of rural America in that landscape. We see the prosperous and not so prosperous farms of a few generations ago. We also see the prosperous and not so prosperous farms of today. It’s easy to speculate about the families who lived and worked there, about their hopes and dreams. We can also see something of the widening gulf between rich and poor in rural America, for dotted among those prosperous farms are the house trailers and tumbledown houses of the poor. Continue reading →

Grace in the press

Posted on by
Reply

If you follow this blog, you know that Grace got some negative press in February over conditions in the shelter that is housed in the basement of our education wing. A couple of weeks ago, there was an article in the Capital Times that mentioned there is no air conditioning in the shelter. I am more than willing to accept criticism when it’s valid and appropriate. Conditions in the shelter are not ideal, and it’s true there’s no A/C in it, but then there’s no A/C in our sanctuary either. What I don’t appreciate is criticism, even implicit, that focuses on Grace.

So in tomorrow’s Isthmus, the cover article concerns the Roman Catholic Bishop of Madison, and growing criticism from progressive Catholics about his leadership. For some reason, the Isthmus thought it appropriate to include in the cover photo Grace’s steeple. The image is here. Now, I suppose one might argue that the steeple of Grace Church is an iconic image of Madison, indeed of Christianity in Madison. But so far as I know, Bishop Molino has never crossed the threshold of Grace, although he’s welcome any time he would like to visit.

More importantly, Grace is not a Catholic church. Far from it. We are Episcopal and we represent much of what Bishop Molino and traditional Catholics oppose. We ordain women. We welcome any baptized Christian to our services and to receive communion, including those who have been divorced and those who might have remarried. We welcome gays and lesbians. We welcome all who seek a closer relationship to God through Jesus Christ.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not criticizing Bishop Molino. He and I may have very different views, but we are both seeking to live out our faith in Jesus Christ and to share that faith with others. My criticism is with the Isthmus.

I suppose I wouldn’t be so annoyed by Grace’s steeple appearing on the front cover of the Isthmus if we hadn’t bought an ad, welcoming people to Madison area Episcopal churches, that includes in it the image of Grace’s steeple.

Lord, Teach us to Pray: A Sermon for Proper 12, Year C

Posted on by
Reply

July 25, 2010

Clergy have a complex relationship with clerical collars. We can all tell stories of times when we harassed or harangued by people who had a grudge against the church. Some priests resist wearing a collar except on the most liturgical of occasions. One reason I wear one as often as I do is because wearing the collar opens up all kinds of possibilities and leads to encounters that might otherwise not happen. Continue reading →

The ABC on Anabaptists and Mennonites

Posted on by
Reply

Inhabitatio Dei points to a passage in Rowan Williams’ address to the Lutheran World Federation. The LWF is officially repenting for the persecution of Anabaptists by Lutherans in the sixteenth century. Williams said:

One other crucial focus today is, of course, the act of reconciliation with Christians of the Mennonite/Anabaptist tradition.  It is in relation to this tradition that all the ‘historic’ confessional churches have perhaps most to repent, given the commitment of the Mennonite communities to non-violence.  For these churches to receive the penitence of our communities is a particularly grace-filled acknowledgement that they still believe in the Body of Christ that they have need of us; and we have good reason to see how much need we have of them, as we look at a world in which centuries of Christian collusion with violence has left so much unchallenged in the practices of power.  Neither family of believers will be simply capitulating to the other; no-one is saying we should forget our history or abandon our confession.  But in the global Christian community in which we are called to feed one another, to make one another human by the exchange of Christ’s good news, we can still be grateful for each other’s difference and pray to be fed by it.

As a former Mennonite, and as a former scholar of Anabaptism (in particular their treatment by other confessions in the sixteenth century), I have been thankful that it is no longer required of ordinands that we swear our commitment to the 39 Articles, which include in them a strong repudiation of adult baptism and other practices associated with sixteenth-century Anabaptists.

I’m unaware of any similar movement, either within the Episcopal Church or in wider Anglicanism, to address the historical condemnations by our tradition of Anabaptists.

The full text of Williams’ address is here.

Often, the disagreements among Christians that occasionally culminated in violence are now viewed by most contemporary Christians as quaint and misguided. But dismissing them masks the real theological differences that underlay those conflicts, as well as the long-term effects on both sides. As Williams states, the Anabaptist tradition confronts us “as we look at a world in which centuries of Christian collusion with violence has left so much unchallenged in the practices of power.”

The ABC on Religion and Secularism

Posted on by
Reply

There’s an interview with Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in The New Statesman. It shows him at his best: thinking hard about Christianity and contemporary culture and about the overall role of religion in society. He seems a bit to ready to me to argue for the importance of religion in shaping moral arguments but I do think there is something in his statement that religious language and imagery deepens our human reflection. He is also asked about the declining importance of religion in England, and the declining role played by the Church of England. Money quote:

There are bits of human experience and ­suffering that have to go somewhere, and ­secular society simply doesn’t have the
spaces, the words or the rituals. This does not translate into conventional church attendance and orthodox belief – and perhaps it seldom has in history, if the truth be told; but it still takes for granted a body/community/place where a person can feel related to something more than the sum of their own anxieties and their society’s normal patterns of talk and behaviour.

He’s on to something there but of course he’s not the first to say it. One could argue he is echoing Mircea Eliade’s notion of the sacred. He is also describing something I’ve detected when talking and observing people who come into Grace Church on Saturday mornings.

Beating the Heat

Posted on by
Reply

There was an article in today’s paper about the challenges facing homeless people during heat waves. Of course, one of the issues raised was the fact that there is no air conditioning in the shelter at Grace. While I’ve never been homeless, I have lived in cities without AC. I know how hot it can get in third floor apartments. When I lived in Boston in the 80s, I quickly learned where to go to beat the heat. It wasn’t easy back then, because most of Harvard’s buildings lacked AC. Sure bets were movie theaters and super markets. For $2.50, you could get a double feature in the somewhat effective air-conditioned space at the Harvard Square theater. I saw lots of movies in the summer.

Yes, it would be expensive to put AC in the shelter at Grace. Even more expensive would be the bill from MGE. What people don’t know, even most members of Grace, is that while Porchlight does pay us rent for the space, we pay for utilities. We don’t know how much of our utility usage comes from the shelter, but it’s likely to be substantial. Our annual budget for utilities is a little less than 10% of our total operating budget. That’s a chunk of change.

There’s no AC in the shelter. We do have it in the offices, but we don’t have it in the church itself, the guild hall, and the kitchen. It gets hot in all of those places, too, unbearably so in the kitchen.