Category Archives: Uncategorized

A powerful essay about racism in Madison

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It’s written by Rev. Alex Gee, Pastor of Fountain of Life Church. He reminds us of often-ignored facts: that Wisconsin leads the nation in the incarceration of African-American men; that there are immense racial disparities in Madison Schools, vast racial disparities in employment and income in Madison and Dane County. He calls on all of us to make these issues priorities:

I challenge the entire community to become concerned and involved. I challenge African-American pastors to make their voices and concerns known and hold community forums with politicians to demand action.

I challenge white clergy to address racial disparity and discrimination from their pulpits, challenge parishioners to think and act differently and help sound the alarm of the injustice and inequity in our community. I need those pastors to explain how these systems are perpetuated by the silence of “nice” people.

The Pope’s challenge to us (in the Episcopal Church and other mainline churches)

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I’ve had a chance to read the pope’s apostolic exhortation Gaudium Evangelii, and I’ve also been following much of the media and blogoverse response. Much of that has focused on his statements about capitalism or his affirmation of traditional church teaching on the ordination of women, abortion, etc.

I had a conversation last night with a first-time volunteer at our First Monday meals for the homeless community. He’s an active and committed Catholic and he said to me in the course of our conversation, “What you’re doing here, that’s what the Pope is talking about.” Then I read about the unconfirmed and officially denied rumors that Pope Francis is going out at night dressed as a priest to be among the homeless of Rome. Whether or not the rumors are true,  a church that is active in the community, active among the poorest, the outcast, the suffering, that is what Pope Francis is talking about, and it’s what Jesus talked about.

But that’s not all that Pope Francis is talking about. What so much of the media, secular and religious, seems to have overlooked is the title and overall theme of the document, “The Joy of the Gospel.” His discussion of the economy comes in the context of his discussion of what hinders evangelization. The document is about sharing the Gospel, but more deeply, it is about the joy of the gospel, the joy of life in Christ. Some of the most profound and challenging sections of the document come early on.

22. God’s word is unpredictable in its power. The Gospel speaks of a seed which, once sown, grows by itself, even as the farmer sleeps (Mk 4:26-29). The Church has to accept this unruly freedom of the word, which accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our calculations and ways of thinking.

[24] An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives; it bridges distances, it is willing to abase itself if necessary, and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others. Evangelizers thus take on the “smell of the sheep” and the sheep are willing to hear their voice. An evangelizing community is also supportive, standing by people at every step of the way, no matter how difficult or lengthy this may prove to be.

27. I dream of a “missionary option”, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation. The renewal of structures demanded by pastoral conversion can only be understood in this light: as part of an effort to make them more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open, to inspire in pastoral workers a constant desire to go forth and in this way to elicit a positive response from all those whom Jesus summons to friendship with him.

This document is not only a challenge to Roman Catholics; it is also a challenge to all Christians, and especially to clergy. It is a challenge to us to examine our priorities, to remember and embrace the joy of the gospel, and to proclaim the gospel’s joy in a world full of suffering, and to people who are struggling to find meaning and hope. It is a challenge to all of us to keep our eyes focused on the gospel, on the joy of life in Christ, and on the importance of sharing that joy, and the redemptive love of God in Christ with the world around us.

From James Martin, SJ:

And what is Pope Francis’s vision for the church?

It is to be a joyful community of believers completely unafraid of the modern world, completely unafraid of change and completely unafraid of challenges.  Not everyone will like this document.  Some may find it frightening. For it poses a fierce challenge to the status quo–explicitly: “Pastoral ministry in a missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent attitude that says: ‘We have always done it this way,’” he writes in a section entitled “Ecclesial Renewal.”

From John J. Allen, Jr:

Dreams can be powerful things, especially when articulated by leaders with the realistic capacity to translate them into action. That was the case 50 years ago with Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and it also seems to be the ambition of Pope Francis’ bold new apostolic exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel.”

From Michael Sean Winters:

I think Pope Francis is encouraging us to view service to the poor differently. It is not, first and foremost, about securing our own salvation, a case of our moral status. It is about something deeper. It is about a genuine “culture of encounter” in which the faithful encounter the poor not only because we are commanded to, but with the awareness that the poor hold a privileged place in God’s love. We will meet Christ when we “go out” to meet the poor. The privileged place the poor are accorded in the Gospels, must translate into their receiving a privileged place in the heart and mind and work of the Church if we are to remain faithful to the Gospels, if we are to be continually be nourished by the Lord, if our Eucharist is to be a worship in truth, not isolation. That vision permeates the text.

From a free-market Catholic (Pascal-Emanuel Gobry):

We as economic thinkers and commentators must take seriously Pope Francis’ calls for a more humane, more equal, more inclusive economy. When hard money types hold to a moralizing vision of the economy whereby recessions are punishment for excesses and lead to a worldview that says to the poor “suck it up,” and “stay marginalized,” we should heed Pope Francis’ call for more equality and more inclusion. The answer of economic policy to unemployment must not just be “Move to North Dakota to get an oil shale job.” We should in fact be very mindful of promoting economic policies that target full employment and are inclusive.

And from Andrew Sullivan:

The Pope and the American Right

Rush Limbaugh knows nothing about Christianity

Read Gaudium Evangelii for yourself here:

A Prayer of Giving Thanks

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by Mark Sandlin

Good and gracious God,

There is a tension that comes
with giving thanks.

Even as we recognize
and are grateful for
the blessings in our lives,
we are confronted with
enjoying our abundance
as we recognize the reality
that there are those
who have far too little.

Even as we celebrate a holiday
with roots which reach back
to the beginnings of our nation,
we are confronted with
the reality of
the genocide and slavery
upon which it was found.

We do not forget these things.
We do not celebrate them.
We do not give thanks for them.

In this our tale of Thanksgiving,
they are the terrible storyline
which we must not forget.

Our pride,
our arrogance
and our pursuit of possessions
have constantly stood
alongside of our blessings
as a reminder.

They remind us why we give thanks.

They remind us that life
is sacred and fragile
and that we
are its biggest threats.
They remind us that we do not want
to be those people again,
people who lord over others
and are self-adsorbed and self-important.

They remind us to appreciate
what we do have.

So, we give thanks.

We give thanks for this moment.
We give thanks for the things
that are right about the world
right now,
in this moment.
We give thanks for family and friends.
We give thanks for love and laughter.
We give thanks for grace and good company.

We give thanks for the tension
we find in a day like today
because it provides us the insight
and the motivation
to create better tomorrows.
Not just for ourselves,
not just for our families,
not just for our friends
but for the world.

So, today and everyday,
we give thanks
and we work to create a world
that gives more reasons
for which to be thankful.

Amen.

Responding to Typhoon Haiyan

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Sean McConnell of Episcopal Relief and Development has this to say:

When Typhoon Haiyan struck, a colleague and I were packing our bags for a visit with our partners in the Philippines. Initially, it wasn’t clear if the typhoon would set things back since the Philippines experience around 20 typhoons a year, and as a result have built a capacity for responding resiliently in their wake. So, we were cautiously on stand-by until it became clear yesterday that our visit might be more hindrance than help. By the time the typhoon hit, I had already posted to Facebook that I was departing for the Philippines, so friends and colleagues naturally reached out to find out how Episcopal Relief & Development would respond. I explained that Episcopal Relief & Development takes the long view on disasters response and recovery.

 

Press releases from ERD are available here.

You can donate to ERD on their website (to designate funds for Typhoon Haiyan, click on the Disaster Response button).

Celebrating the Reformation

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My twitter and RSS feed gave me links to reflections on the significance of “Reformation Sunday.” One was from Crusty Old Dean; the other from Stanley Hauerwas (a sermon preached on Reformation Sunday, 1995). Both offer insights into this odd event. It’s not commemorated in the Episcopal Church—we’ve pretty much done away with the “Protestant” in our traditional name “The Protestant Episcopal Church.” But our communion partners the Lutherans observe it and rightly so.

Of course, Stanley is right. Reformation Day (or Sunday) celebrates the disunity of the Church. It commemorates Martin Luther’s break with Rome. Over the last almost 500 years, Reformation Day has meant many things—German Nationalism, the triumph of Martin Luther, the victory of the individual over the institution. Like almost every other historical event, it has been invested with all sort of meaning, world-historical significance. But that’s more than a single day, a single event, can bear.

When Luther posted his 95 Theses, he sought debate on matters that he thought were of eternal significance—the significance of the rite of penance. That his theses ended in a major schism within Western Christianity was unimaginable to him in 1517. That he might be excommunicated for his questions and for the ideas that he developed in response to his questions was also inconceivable.

Yes, it’s a tragedy that Luther’s courageous witness ended in schism. It’s a tragedy that the Roman Catholic Church couldn’t find a way to embrace the profound theological insights that Luther developed (as has been documented recently, Luther’s ideas were hardly unique in the early 16th century and there was significant support for much of what he wrote as late as the 1540s). It’s a tragedy that after 500 years we remain divided in so many ways.

On the other hand, Luther’s insistence on the correctness of his theological insight in the face of Papal and Imperial opposition did something else. It provided inspiration to all those who in the last 500 years have sought to follow their vision of God and of Jesus Christ even when the authorities of Church and State have claimed their vision was wrong. It has given voice and power to the voiceless and powerless. It has provided a stance of prophetic opposition to the complacency and power of church and state. It reminds us daily that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not confined to the trappings of papal or imperial power, of state or church, or of institutional self-satisfaction.

For us Anglicans, by the way, who try to avoid the label of “Protestant” whenever possible, Luther and Reformation Day remind us of an uncomfortable historical reality. Without Luther, without his brazen defiance of papal authority, without his appeal to and protection by Frederick the Wise of Saxony, there might not have been an English Reformation. Had he not gone before, had he not shown a way, Henry VIII might not have had the courage to resist Clement VII.

Luther, the Protestant Reformation, remind us of the important role of critique. They remind us that it’s too easy to let the gospel be coopted by power; it’s too easy to compromise to make sure the institution survives. When we remember Reformation Day, when we sing “Ein feste Burg” we are not celebrating the victory of the Protestant Reformation over the forces of evil, we are calling for reformation of ourselves and of our churches; we are calling for transformation: ecclesia semper reformanda!

 Oh, and by the way, 2017 is the 500th anniversary of Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses. Start planning your party now!

 

Jill Lepore and Jane Franklin

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Jill Lepore gave a talk tonight at UW on her most recent book, Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin. It’s largely based on the correspondence between Jane and her famous brother, Benjamin.

Her work juxtaposes the fame of the brother with the obscurity of the sister and raises questions about gender and opportunity. Benjamin was given the opportunity to go to school, but his family’s poverty prevented him from getting a formal education. He was apprenticed to his brother who had a printshop and fled to Philadelphia, where he became famous. Jane married her next door neighbor at age fifteen and lived the typical life of a poor woman of the day. What set her apart was literacy and her famous brother.

Lepore talked mostly about their relationship and Jane’s life, relatively little about the topic implied by the subtitle of her book: Jane Franklin’s opinions. A few things came out at least. Jane was interested in politics and concerned about the plight of the poor. She was also opposed to war and violence. In her last letter to Benjamin before the beginning of the Constitutional Convention, she urged that the men gathered there would “beat swords into plowshares.”

Lepore is a fine historian, a beautiful writer, and an engaging speaker. It was a delightful evening.

a review from The New York Times.

A lengthy piece on homelessness in New York City

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Written by Ian Frazier, it provides some interesting comparisons to our own situation here in Madison:

In fact, during the twelve years of the Bloomberg administration, the number of homeless people has gone through the roof they do not have. There are now two hundred and thirty-six homeless shelters in the city. Imagine Yankee Stadium almost four-fifths full of homeless families; about eighteen thousand adults in families in New York City were homeless as of January, 2013, and more than twenty-one thousand children. The C.F.H. says that during Bloomberg’s twelve years the number of homeless families went up by seventy-three per cent. One child out of every hundred children in the city is homeless.

Mark Oppenheimer on John Howard Yoder

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There’s an article in the New York Times about the controversy in Mennonite circles about John Howard Yoder. In a way, it seems like airing dirty laundry but if that’s the case the laundry has been dirty for a very long time. I mention it here for several reasons. First, because it’s another example of the difficulty Christian churches have in dealing with sexual abuse and sexual violence. Second, Yoder is a significant influence in my own theology. He has shaped my understanding of Jesus’ message, nonviolence, and the nature of the church. Yoder is an important witness and his thought has much to offer us as we enter a future where Christianity no longer has power and privilege in the west. Third, the relationship between the life and thought of a theologian raises significant issues. If Yoder acted abominably to women of his acquaintance, what does that say about his theology?

Like most Mennonites of my generation, John Howard Yoder was larger than life. He brought Anabaptist and Mennonite theology and ethics into the mainstream of Protestantism. I read The Politics of Jesus when I was a teenager in the mid-70s. It shaped my understanding of Jesus, my ethical stance, and my theology.

I spent one semester at what was then Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries and made sure that I took the only course Yoder offered that term. His theological brilliance did not extend to the classroom, nor to interpersonal relations and looking back, the course was less than successful. It was on ecumenical reform movements within Christianity and tried to bring together a number of very different movements that emerged in Western Christianity after the Protestant Reformation.

But at AMBS, Yoder was a presence in the classroom even when he wasn’t the instructor. In our Theology class, his “Preface to Theology” was a basic text though it existed only in photocopy. It, too, was an insightful and important work on my journey.

I left Elkhart for Boston after that semester and eventually entered Harvard Divinity School. It was there where I began to discern some of the structural problems in Yoder’s work. Reading Politics of Jesus again in the context of a strong Feminist community opened my eyes to the persistent power dynamics in the work. It’s easy for people (men) of power and privilege to speak of revolutionary subordination, but when people are oppressed and disenfranchised such a call may not be transformative. When people are victims of violence, following “revolutionary subordination” might be fatal.

With strong ties to the Mennonite community and to AMBS, I learned a little a bit at the time about why Yoder suddenly left the seminary in the mid 80s. I continued to engage his contemporary theological work over the years and his historical work on early Anabaptism played a significant role in my own dissertation. I write about the last time I saw him here.

All of these memories came back to me this summer when I learned of the latest, posthumous controversy concerning Yoder’s behavior. There’s been considerable coverage in the Mennonite press and among Mennonite theologians. For those of us who have paid attention to the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and have observed similar problems in other denominations including the Episcopal Church, Mennonites’ response to Yoder’s behavior is troubling. That they are finally coming to terms with it and re-evaluating how they responded in the 1980s and 1990s is important both to that church and to Yoder’s continuing theological legacy.

 

This essay by Barbara Graber re-started the conversation.

If you’re interested I would recommend Ted Grimsrud’s reflections.

Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary has responded. Its President Sara Wenger Shenk has this to say.

Mark Thiessen Nation has written extensively about Yoder’s theology and offers a thoughtful and in-depth essay here.

The Mennonite World Review devoted an entire issue to sexual violence among Mennonites.

 

The Devil and Justice Scalia

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There was a good bit of incredulity in my twitter feed this morning in reaction to the interview with Antonin Scalia in which he confessed to belief in the devil. His response to the interviewer should have silenced the twitterverse:

You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.

He’s absolutely right about the persistence of belief in the devil among American Christians, although it’s inaccurate to claim that “most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history.”

Among those concerned with Scalia’s statement is Huffington Post’s voice of liberal Protestantism, Paul Raushenbush, who’s worried about how Scalia’s belief in the Devil might affect his legal rulings. I think there’s plenty of evidence to support the idea that Scalia’s legal opinions are shaped by his underlying legal philosophy and leave the Devil out of it.

I’m actually more intrigued by other aspects of what Scalia said. First off, he volunteered the information in such a way as to suggest that he might have been trying to provoke the reporter. Second, he’s obviously thought about the Devil’s techniques–why people don’t seem to see the Devil in appearance, for example, or why the Devil doesn’t possess a herd of pigs (he got that story wrong, by the way). Scalia says, “The Devil used to be all over the place.” Scalia can only conclude from his relative absence that “he’s gotten wilier.”

What might be even more interesting is that Scalia isn’t sure whether Judias Iscariot (Jesus’ betrayer is in hell):

I don’t even know whether Judas Iscariot is in hell. I mean, that’s what the pope meant when he said, “Who am I to judge?” He may have recanted and had severe penance just before he died. Who knows?

Now, I don’t think that belief in the reality of the Devil as depicted in much of western Art is necessary to salvation (you know, horns, forked tongue, cloven hoofs, tail, all of that). The image of the Devil as it has developed over the last 2500 years in Judaism and Christianity is an attempt to understand and personify evil. It may not be necessary to personify evil in order to begin to make sense of it and some of us may find such personification childish.

It’s easy to laugh at stories of Martin Luther throwing ink pots at the Devil. But Luther, like so many Christians before and since, sensed the power of evil in the world around them and fought mightily against it. To laugh at someone’s belief in the devil is to risk laughing at evil, dismissing evil as a figment of one’s imagination. One can’t fight evil unless one is able to name it.

Scalia points to something else: even when we perceive someone as evil incarnate, it shouldn’t be impossible to imagine them redeemed by the love of Christ. There’s a simple reason for that: as powerful as evil might be God is yet more powerful.

 

Living with a dying pet on the Feast of St. Francis

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We celebrated Blessing of the Animals at Grace on September 29, for logistical reasons. It was especially poignant for me because for the first time, we didn’t bring any of our living cats with us. Instead, I brought the ashes of Maggie Pie, who died in 2003, and Margery Kempe, who died on New Year’s Day this year. My heart was heavy because back home Thomas Merton is sharing his last days with us. He was diagnosed with cancer two months ago.

We actually thought that Merton would probably be dead by now.  He’s lost weight; the tumor in his jaw has grown; but for the most part, he seems to be enjoying life. He’s become very affectionate and since he’s lost weight, he’s taken to lying between my legs which was a favorite spot of his predecessors.

Coincidentally, at night he has begun sleeping where both Maggie and Margery slept the last months of their lives, up at the top of the bed between our pillows. Maggie slept there because it was a place of safety away from Merton, who tended to beat up on her. Merton sleeps there because it’s where he seems to want to be.

This morning, he seemed to be in a very good mood and feeling well. He played with his ball, even carried it in his mouth, and ran around the house.

So we are facing that difficult decision so many people face. With the deep love we share for our animal companions, it is extremely difficult to watch them suffer, and as difficult to imagine life without them. But when we open our homes and our hearts to them, we also accept the responsibility of caring for them in life and in death. We accept the responsibility to release them from the pain they suffer and don’t understand.

Here he is this morning, resting after his bout of play:

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