How should we commemorate Reformation Day?

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Well, we’re Anglican, so it’s “politically incorrect” to do so (“Protestant” was removed from the official name of the Episcopal Church some time ago). But there was a time when I was a scholar of the History of Christianity in Early Modern Europe, so I have a soft spot in my heart for it still. Franklin Wilson from Luther Memorial Church will be preaching at Grace tomorrow and we’ll sing “Ein feste Burg.”

I’ve come across several pieces on the web probing the commemorations. Lutherans have mixed feelings. Craig Schnekloth wants to bury it; Scott Allan disagrees.

Diana Butler Bass urges Protestants to recover the heart of Protestantism, which she defines as:

The heart of Protestantism is the courage to challenge injustice and to give voice to those who have no voice.  Protestantism opened access for all people to experience God’s grace and God’s bounty, not only spiritually but actually.  The early Protestants believed that they were not only creating a new church, but they were creating a new world, one that would resemble more fully God’s desire for humanity.  The original Protestant impulse was to resist powers of worldly dominion and domination in favor of the power of God’s spirit to transform human hearts and society.

That’s a bit too rosy a picture of the Protestant legacy. Whatever protest was at the heart of the early Reformation movements (and remember, they weren’t called Protestants until 1529, twelve years after Luther posted the theses) was theological, not political. Protestants cozied up to power very quickly everywhere; the only exceptions were the Anabaptists, but most scholars agree that their conversion to pacifism was a survival strategy, not inherent in the movement from the beginning. The historical examples of Protestants actually leading protest movements, movements for justice and peace, are relatively rare in the 500-year history of Protestantism–abolition, temperance, civil rights. Much more common has been and continues to be Protestantism supporting the political and economic status quo, sometimes with horrific consequences (the Peasants’ War of 1524-1525; Southern American Christians’ defense of slavery, apartheid, the Nazi rise to power).

It’s fashionable for Anglicans to discount our Protestant heritage, but we should acknowledge the crucial Protestantism had; both in the early years of the English Reformation and in shaping the Anglican ethos in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

If all that is too confusing as you plan your Reformation Day party, Killing the Buddha offers creative tips on how to commemorate the day.

Developments on the library closure

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Pat Schneider blogs about the possibility of using a vacant business as a day shelter for the homeless this winter with the closure of the Central Library and the Capitol.

I’ve been participating in these meetings and it’s clear that there are no good options (although there might be some other things in the works).

What fascinates me is the way this conversation emerged and is developing. It’s a response to a crisis, but there’s been no mention of the fact that in the best of times, neither the library or the capitol is adequate to provide for the needs of homeless people during the day, no matter what the weather. Perhaps we will be able to have that conversation as well.

How could it get any worse? The latest on St. Paul’s Cathedral

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1) Fifteen minutes before the scheduled begin of the re-opening service, the Cathedral announces it will participate in efforts to evict the protestors.

2) Former Archbishop of Canterbury sounds note of reason in op-ed (He’s actually in Wisconsin today for the installation of the new Dean and President of Nashotah House):

One moment the church was reclaiming a valuable role in hosting public protest and scrutiny, the next it was looking in turns like the temple which Jesus cleansed, or the officious risk-averse ’elf ’n safety bureaucracy of urban legend. How could the dean and chapter at St Paul’s have let themselves get into such a position?

3) A cartoon from The Guardian

A guide to the staff of a cathedral (for those non-Anglicans out there:

Dean: someone called Dean. Or failing that, Graham. Anyway, it’s a mans name, which explains why there are so few female Deans. The last known sightings were in the 1980s, (Hazell Dean, Brenda Dean)

Sub Dean: Someone else called Dean whose job it is to go out to the sandwich shop to get lunch for everyone else.

Chancellor: Runs the economy, sets the levels of taxation for visitors to the Cathedral, appears regularly on TV.

There’s more.

A canon fires a volley–the resignation of Giles Fraser and the St. Paul’s fiasco

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Giles Fraser, until yesterday, was Canon Chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. Learned, eloquent, and occasionally a little bit shocking, he resigned when it became clear that the Occupy London protestors would be removed from Cathedral grounds.

A profile of Fraser.

Andrew Brown’s take on the story.

Another piece from The Guardian on the ham-fisted actions of Dean and Chapter.

I’ve been following the story in part because of the parallels with our own experiences at Grace over the last eight months. As I repeatedly said in the early days of the Madison protests, because of our location, anything we did or didn’t do could be construed as a political act. Keeping our doors closed during the protests on those cold winter days would have sent as a powerful a message as did our decision to open the doors and invite people in to rest their feet and warm up.

Still, I also have some sympathy with those on the Cathedral staff who would like the protestors to leave. A day or two, even three, is somewhat tolerable; but the longer the stay, the greater the toll on the life of the congregation, staff, and other ministries. Just to give one example from Grace’s experience. The number of visits to our food pantry decreased by about fifty percent last February.

The question becomes, how do you make the best of such a situation? How does it become an opportunity for ministry and mission, for reaching out to people. One entrepreneurial cleric got the idea of having Flash Evensong at St. Paul’s. That’s marvelous!

Even more important, how can the Cathedral, the Church, voice the gospel in and through the protests? That’s where the Cathedral Chapter should be focusing its energy and attention. It should also be ensuring both that access to the cathedral is kept open, to visitors and to protestors alike.

Last week there was a piece going around the web from George Pitcher on how the church should approach the media. It boggles the mind to contemplate how badly St. Paul’s has handled this situation.

Lectionary reflections on Proper 26, Year A: Entering the Promised Land

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This week’s readings are here.

We’ve been using the semi-continuous readings from the RCL this summer, which have taken us from God’s promise to Abraham that he would possess the promised land, up to now, Joshua 3, when the Israelites finally cross the Jordan and enter the land. I’ve not had the opportunity to do much more than allude to the readings from the Hebrew Bible in my sermons over the past few months. I won’t be preaching on Sunday, and if I were, I probably wouldn’t say much about Joshua, but this dramatic scene, and the one which precedes it, deserve attention.

In last week’s reading from the last verses of Deuteronomy, we heard of Moses’ ascent of Mt. Nebo, his first and only sight of the Promised Land, and his death. It’s impossible for me to read this text and not think about the speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr., on the night before his assassination.

The book of Joshua carries the story forward. In this week’s reading, the Israelites cross the Jordan River. At the same time, it resonates deeply with earlier stories, especially the crossing of the Red Sea. There are thematic and linguistic parallels–the rare Hebrew word used in v. 13 describing the waters as standing “in a single heap” is also used in the Exodus account of the Red Sea, to give just one example.

Joshua is a problematic text on many levels. It tells the story of the Israelite conquest of Canaan, and of God’s ruthless demands that the Israelites utterly destroy their enemies (and God’s punishment when they don’t). It has been used over the centuries to rationalize other conquests, such as the American conquest of Native Americans (witness the number of place names from Joshua used by settlers for towns in the US). The story, however, is more complex than that, for in fact the Israelites did not utterly destroy and displace all of the land’s inhabitants. Many survived and thrived, and the book of Judges offers evidence of the continuing presence of non-Israelites in the land. Still, it is worth pondering the influence of Joshua’s portrayal of the Promised Land and Holy War on the American psyche.

There are other important theological themes present in Joshua, among them the succession of authority from Moses to Joshua, that provide food for thought for contemporary Christians.

Article on Nashotah House in the Milwaukee State Journal

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For all my friends who are students at, alumni of, professors or deans at Episcopal Seminaries other than Nashotah House. Here’s the article.

Money quote:

Nashotah House is one of two orthodox Episcopal seminaries in the country, and the only one of 11 that shapes students in the Anglo-Catholic tradition that emphasizes the church’s Catholic, rather than Protestant, history and culture.

Comments welcome.

Barbara Ehrenreich on Homelessness and #OWS

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Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue | The Nation.

What occupiers from all walks of life are discovering, at least every time they contemplate taking a leak, is that to be homeless in America is to live like a fugitive. The destitute are our own native-born “illegals,” facing prohibitions on the most basic activities of survival. They are not supposed to soil public space with their urine, their feces, or their exhausted bodies. Nor are they supposed to spoil the landscape with their unusual wardrobe choices or body odors. They are, in fact, supposed to die, and preferably to do so without leaving a corpse for the dwindling public sector to transport, process, and burn.

Vatican Issues Major Document on Global Financial Reform

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America Magazine Vatican Issues Major Document on Global Financial Reform.

A Vatican document called for the gradual creation of a “world political authority” with broad powers to regulate financial markets and rein in the “inequalities and distortions of capitalist development.” The document said the current global financial crisis has revealed “selfishness, collective greed and the hoarding of goods on a great scale.” A supranational authority, it said, is needed to place the common good at the center of international economic activity.

The full document is here.