Category Archives: Anglican

Curioser and Curioser (about that fishy smell in the Episcopal Church)

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I’ve got no particular insight or perspective into this story, except as a loyal Episcopal priest who has overseen UTO ingatherings in two parishes, and has been proud to be able to say that almost every penny goes to mission. But when my wife read my post, she pointed out the historical perspective. The UTO is one of those institutions that developed because women were locked out of power and mission in American Protestant Christianity in the 19th century and that its independence was fiercely guarded in part because of that history. She also pointed out that one of the first targets when the fundamentalists took over the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s was the Women’s Missionary Union, which like the UTO was largely independent of other Baptist structures.

The Presiding Bishop is attempting to calm the waters. 

But some folks are not having any of it. Elizabeth Kaeton and Ann Fontaine have both provided personal stories related to the UTO and their concerns about these recent events.

From Ann Fontaine:

Overall it moves total control to the Chief Operating Officer of the Episcopal Church with a small advisory role for the “Board,” where is the participation by UTO in the granting process? in communications? in any oversight of monies given to UTO?

It removes references to the main goal of heightening awareness of gratitude in our lives, it no longer has any relationship to the Episcopal Church Women (primary supporters of this ministry),

It removes the UTO role in development of materials and training local UTO coordinators, though the report to General Convention encouraged a continuing autonomy for UTO with interdependence – this removes all autonomy.

 

From Elizabeth Kaeton:

Many questions remain, these two among them:

1. How does the Memorandum of Understanding between DFMS and EWC/UTO embody the “creative tension” between the “increasing regulatory” function of DFMS and the “visionary, autonomous grassroots” function of UTO/ECW and be both/and: “autonomous but interdependent”? (INC-055 Ad-Hoc Committee on the Study of the United Thank Offering, GC 2012. If you haven’t read it, please do.)

2. What is contained in that Memorandum which caused 4 women – intelligent, educated women who are passionate about and dedicated to the mission of the Gospel – to resign because they believed that they needed to follow the high calling of being “whistle blowers”?

I agree that speculation holds with it the potential to be non-productive and dangerous. The primary danger, of course, is to those who benefit by not providing evidence.

I am still chilled by the knowledge that the conversations concerning the historic, autonomous, missionary leadership of women (UTO/ECW) becoming more a part of the “increasingly regulatory” body of DFMS had to be had with a group of 4 representatives from DFMS (3 of whom were men) under a signed agreement of confidentiality. And yet, the words “accountability” and “transparency” are being bandied about as somehow meaningful.

I understand. That may be “business as usual,” but when you are talking about the historic autonomy of women (which came about because women were excluded from leadership in existing church structures), and removing direct decision making and control over the money they raise, well, it just doesn’t bode well – especially in the church.

On this one, I’m with Ann and Elizabeth.

Robert Farrar Capon, 1925-2013

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One of the great theologians of the Episcopal Church has died. Robert Farrar Capon was the author of one of my favorite books, The Supper of the Lamb, in addition to many others. His vision of grace and of the heavenly banquet continues to inspire and influence me, more than thirty years after I first read it.
“Grace is the celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all the non-celebrants in the world. It is a floating, cosmic bash shouting its way through the streets of the universe, flinging the sweetness of its cassations to every window, pounding at every door in a hilarity beyond all liking and happening, until the prodigals come out at last and dance, and the elder brothers finally take their fingers out of their ears.” ― Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace

“The bread and the pastry, the cheeses and wine, and the sugar go into the Supper of the lamb because we do. It is our love that brings the city home. It is I grant you, an incautious and extravagant hope. But only outlandish hopes can make themselves at home.” ― Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection

“My life is a witness to vulgar grace–a grace that amazes as it offends. A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wages as the grinning drunk who shows up a ten till five. A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party no ifs, ands or buts. A grace that raises bloodshot eyes to a dying theif’s request–”Please, remember me”–and assures him, “You bet!” A grace that is the pleasure of the Father, fleshed out in the carpenter Messiah, Jesus the Christ, who left His Father’s side not for heaven’s sake but for our sakes, yours and mind.  This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion. It works without asking anything of us. It’s not cheap. It’s free, and as such will always be a banana peel for the orthodox foot and a fairy tale for the grown-up sensibility. Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try to find something or someone it cannot cover. Grace is enough. He is enough. Jesus is enough.” (Source: http://rockedbygrace.blogspot.com/2012/07/robert-farrar-capon-vulgar-grace.html

An interview with him from Mockingbird (Sept. 2, 2011)

Rowan Williams on Spirituality

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In an interview that included comments about some Christians’ persecution complex and his response to the question whether gays and lesbians might feel “let down” by him, Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury had some interesting things to say about “spirituality:”

Sharing a platform at the Edinburgh international book festival with Julia Neuberger, president of the Liberal Judaism movement, Williams launched a withering critique of popular ideas about spirituality. “The last thing it is about is the placid hum of a well-conducted meditation,” he said.

He said the word “spiritual” in today’s society was frequently misused in two ways: either to mean “unworldly and useless, which is probably the sense in which it has been used about me”, or “meaning ‘I’m serious about my inner life, I want to cultivate my sensibility'”.

He added: “Speaking from the Christian tradition, the idea that being spiritual is just about having nice experiences is rather laughable. Most people who have written seriously about the life of the spirit in Christianity and Judaism spend a lot of their time telling you how absolutely bloody awful it is.” Neuberger said she found some uses of the word self-indulgent and offensive. Williams argued that true spirituality was not simply about fostering the inner life but was about the individual’s interaction with others.

“I’d like to think, at the very least, that spiritual care meant tending to every possible dimension of sense of the self and each other, that it was about filling out as fully as possible human experience,” he said.

Asked by Neuberger whether he felt organised religion encouraged the life of the spirit, he replied: “The answer is of course a good Anglican yes and no”. While it can pass on the shared values of tradition, it can also operate as simply “the most satisfying leisure activity possible. It can also be something that you use to bolster your individual corporate ego.”

The entire report is here.

Another Episcopal Bishop responds to the Supreme Court decision

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A very different perspectives than those I linked to earlier (here and here) comes from Bishop Little of the Diocese of Northern Indiana:

While people who share my perspective are in a minority within the Episcopal Church, and while many have simply become silent in the face of such overwhelming numbers on the other side of these difficult issues, the Episcopal Church is far from monochrome.  And so it is essential that church leaders – and the church’s own news service – honestly recognize this diversity when they respond to an event such as the Supreme Court’s ruling.  To fail to do so is, effectively, to “un-church” a theological minority and to treat them as though they do not exist.

In other words:  Go gently in victory – and in defeat.

Here is my own commitment:

  • I will recognize and honor the presence of brothers and sisters within my own diocese who conscientiously disagree with me.
  • I will do all that I can to be in relationship with them, and to seek honest and open conversation.  That includes creating diocesan policies that honor their consciences as well as my own.
  • I will recognize that I might be wrong, and will continue to search the Scriptures.

And I urge my fellow leaders in the Episcopal Church – and the Episcopal News Service – to make a similar undertaking:

  • Recognize that there are faithful brothers and sisters in your diocese, in your parish, and in your ecclesisial institutions, who do not agree with you – even if they are silent.  Recognize and celebrate their presence.  Never speak or act as though they do not exist.
  • Do all that you can to be in relationship with them.  Talk with them.  Make sure that their consciences are honored.
  • Recognize that you might be wrong.  Continue to search the Scriptures.

The ENS article of July 1 and many statements issued immediately after the Supreme Court’s ruling profoundly disturbed me.  They felt at best dismissive and at worst triumphalist.

I’m grateful to Bishop Little for speaking out.

More Episcopal Bishops speak out on Marriage Equality

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Bishop Marc Andrus (Diocese of California):

Far as we have come, the gap between the poor and the rich has become greater, not less.

Far as we have come, the Earth groans, the particular light of beautiful species goes out day after day, drought and desert spread, and violent storms increase.

So what are we going to do?

Keep on proclaiming, keep on shining, for we are people of hope and faith.

And here at Grace Cathedral and in the Diocese of California we will be joyfully uniting, again, couples in marriage whose only qualification is love of each other and the desire to be married before God and in the face of our communities of faith.

Today we have seen hope fulfilled, and we have faith in a living God to keep on shining, keep on proclaiming until the Earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of Lord, as the waters, those shining, clear waters, cover the sea.

Bishop Gibbs, Diocese of Michigan

Bishop Robert Wright, Diocese of Atlanta

Bishop Andrew Dietsche, Diocese of New York:

I am proud that in various ways this diocese has made its witness that such equality is truly of God, and speak for our whole community in offering our thanks today to the United States Supreme Court, and to those who have tirelessly pressed the case before that court, and we offer our congratulations and best wishes to all those whose lives will be enlarged and blessed by the events of this day.

Bishop Thomas Shaw, Diocese of Massachusetts:

We here in Massachusetts, the first state to allow same-sex marriage, have long experienced the contributions that gay and lesbian married couples and their families make to our society and to our church, and so the day that makes it possible for all married couples to be eligible for federal benefits, with equal status and without stigma, is a day for which to be grateful.  With the court’s disappointing decision yesterday to invalidate part of the Voting Rights Act, which seems a real setback for civil rights, it is also a day to recommit ourselves to the struggle for full equality for all God’s people.

Bishop Todd Ousley (Diocese of Eastern Michigan):

Episcopal Leaders speak out on today’s Supreme Court rulings

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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefforts Schori:

The Episcopal Church is presently engaged in a period of study and dialogue about the nature of Christian marriage.  This work is moving forward, with faithful people of many different perspectives seeking together to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit.  However, our Church has taken the position that neither federal nor state governments should create constitutional prohibitions that deny full civil rights and protections to gay and lesbian persons, including those available to different-sex couples through the civic institution of marriage.

Accordingly, I welcome today’s decision of the United States Supreme Court that strikes down the 17-year-old law prohibiting federal recognition of same-sex civil marriages granted by the states.

Bishop Lee of the Diocese of Chicago:

“These Supreme Court rulings concern civil marriage, not the Christian sacrament. But I invite Christians who may struggle with the decision to consider that the union of two people in heart, body and mind is capable of signifying the never failing love of God in Christ for the church and the world. These faithful unions, no matter the sex of the partners, can be sources and signs of grace, both for the couple and for the wider community. When we see and celebrate those signs, we testify to the love and mercy of God that overcomes all our divisions and differences.”

Bishop Bruno of the Diocese of Los Angeles

Gay Clark Jennings, President of the House of Deputies

Bishop Kirk Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona:

Our country has come closer to a truth which has been ours as Christians from the beginning, that God loves everything and everyone God has made, and that we are called to reflect God’s love for us in how we love each other. Our country is now one step closer to making that possible for everyone. Today Love won.

More on decline in the Southern Baptist Convention: A mirror image of the Episcopal Church?

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Jonathan Merritt offers advice to the SBC. Some of it might be of interest to Episcopalians.

Of note:

If you review the resolutions, reports, and microphone grandstands of the SBC’s annual meeting during recent years, you’ll find a lot of energy expended on secondary things. The Associated Pressreported this week on how debates over Calvinism is dividing the Convention. Add to this recent squabbles over the “sinner’s prayer” and other lesser issues, and you have a denomination that spends major energy over minor issues.

The SBC’s resolution history also seems to bear this out. There was the ineffective 1997 boycott on Disney, a resolution to retain the traditional method of calendar dating (B.C. / A.D.) in 2000, and a 2011 resolution disapproving of the revision to the world’s most popular Bible translation (NIV), which requested that LifeWay Christian Stores stop carrying it. (One year later, LifeWay still sells the translation.)

If the Southern Baptist Convention wants to regain the credibility, interest, and relevance it has lost, the denomination must learn to put first things first. Namely, sharing the gospel through missions and showing the gospel through acts of service, compassion, and justice.

And this:

Of the 117 resolutions passed by the denomination at their annual meeting since 2000, a breathtaking 70 of them have been political. This includes a 2003 resolution endorsing President Bush’s war in Iraq, a 2008 resolution taking a position in the so-called “War on Christmas,” and a 2009 resolution titled “On President Barack Hussein Obama.”
He concludes:
The denomination must now decide whether to chart a new path for the sake of its future or maintain its current course. But one thing is certain. When the convention gathers for its annual meeting in another decade, people will still be talking. The question is now, “Will anyone be listening?”

My message to members and friends of Grace Church in response to Bishop Miller’s letter

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My previous post extracts several paragraphs from Bishop Miller’s letter and links to the full document.

For whatever reasons, there has not been a great deal of energy around the full inclusion of LGBT persons in the life of the church at Grace. I have not been approached by couples seeking the church’s blessing. I received very few questions and had few conversations last year during the run-up to and after General Convention. I do know that parishioners have a variety of views on these issues. Our disagreements to some degree mirror the disagreements in the wider church and in our society. I also know that men and women of good will can and do disagree on these issues as on many others and that the positions we take are in response to our desire and efforts to live out our calls to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

I am your pastor. I seek to be the pastor of everyone who enters our doors in search of God’s grace and love. I know both the power and fragility of the love of two people and I know how important it is that a couple can find support for their relationship in the body of Christ. That there are couples among us whose relationships cannot be acknowledged and blessed publicly saddens me to the core. It goes against my theology, my experience of the Gospel, and my model of our life together in Christ. I will continue to try to welcome, affirm, and be pastor to everyone—singles, couples, widowed, divorced—who seek to find and live out the love of Christ in their relationships as best and creatively as I can while keeping my vow of obedience to the bishop. And I will continue to pray and work for a deeper and fuller realizing of Christ’s love in all that we as a Church are and do.

Please contact me if you would like to talk about this or any other issue in the life of our congregation or in your personal life. As we continue to strive to discern God’s call for us individually and as the body of Christ on Madison’s Capitol Square, my prayer is the prayer of Jesus that we “may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).

Bishop Miller’s letter on the Blessing of Same Sex Unions

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On Thursday, Bishop Miller met with diocesan clergy to discuss General Convention Resolution A49 that provides for the blessing of same sex unions. He published a letter yesterday outlining his position. Here are some key paragraphs:
Therefore, I am not authorizing the rite from A049 for use in the Diocese of Milwaukee at this time. However, I have arranged with Bishop Jeffrey Lee of the Diocese of Chicago, for clergy and couples from congregations within the Diocese of Milwaukee to go to the Diocese of Chicago to celebrate the rite, as long as they obtain Bishop Lee’s consent to such an action to take place within the bounds of that diocese. Doing so will result in no punitive or negative response whatsoever from me.
Furthermore, I stated my belief that the right to a civil marriage should be available to all people, regardless of sexual orientation and that I would support those seeking to overturn the ban on same-gender marriage in Wisconsin. I also shared that I have begun to permit partnered gay clergy to preside with the diocese, and that I am open to the potential call of any Episcopal cleric in good standing to a position here.
I am also aware that many of our clergy feel the need to offer a generous pastoral liturgical response to gay and lesbian couples. I have agreed to the formation of a task force within this diocese, comprised of people from across the spectrum on this issue, including openly gay and lesbian people living in monogamous relationships, to consider, and propose the same. At the end of the process, however, as the one given canonical authority to order the liturgical life of the diocese, the decision about the authorization of such a rite rests with me. In our polity, there can be no other way.
The entire document is available: Bishop Miller’s letter
I will have more to say about this anon.

Julian of Norwich, May 8

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Today we commemorate one of the great mystics and visionaries of the Christian tradition. Julian has become enormously popular in recent decades because her theology is well-suited to twentieth and twenty-first century sensibilities. Some quotations from her Revelations of Divine are widely disseminated, like these:

All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

 

What, do you wish to know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. Remain in this, and you will know more of the same. But you will never know different, without end.

My Good Friday homily this year concluded with these words.

She is beloved for her deep devotion to Jesus Christ, the infusion of the love of God throughout her works, and for using maternal imagery for God.

For all her appeal to contemporary people, she remains elusive to modern scholarship and elusive to all attempts to appropriate her for contemporary spirituality. We know very little about her that doesn’t come from her own writings. While there’s evidence that she was popular in her lifetime (Margery Kempe describes a visit to her, and several wills mention her), we are certain of neither the date of her birth or her death. Her works survived only in several manuscript copies–suggesting that there was relatively little interest in her writing after her death. It was only in the twentieth century that scholars and then the wider public began to take an interest in her writings.

Contemporary readers of her Revelations may be inclined to overlook her vivid descriptions of the sufferings of Christ as well as her own stated desire to suffer. For example, here she describes the moment of death:

“After this Christ showed me part of his Passion, close to his death. I saw his sweet face as it were dry and bloodless with the pallor of dying, and then deadly pale, languishing, and then the pallor turning blue and then the blue turning brown, as death took more hold upon his flesh. For his Passion appeared to me most vividly in his blessed face, and especially in the lips. I saw there what had become of these four colors, which had appeared to me before as fresh and ruddy, vital and beautiful. This was a painful change to watch, this deep dying, and his nose shriveled and dried up as I saw; and the sweet body turned brown and black, completely changed and transformed from his naturally beautiful, fresh and vivid complexion into a shriveled image of death.

Her writings are rich in detail and in theological insight that bear close study and meditation. But ideas, images, or themes that may seem appealing in the twenty-first century should not be extracted from the context that inspired her–a deep devotion to the passion of Christ and a spirituality that began in the attempt to enter into the passion as fully as possible. Her visions of Christ’s suffering helped her to experience his pain, profound grief at his suffering and death, and as she reflected on those experiences, she began to understand the depth and power of Christ’s love.

(all texts from Julian of Norwich: Showings. Classics of Western Spirituality. 1978)