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Michelangelo Painting Discovered?
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More on Religion and Politics
Nick Knisely ponders the issue of the role of clergy in politics by means of two essays written by Episcopal priests. Both of them are struggling with their public role as priest (or canon, or bishop), partisan politics, and hot-button issues. Dan Webster writes:
But matters of justice, matters that have an impact on the poor, hungry, the imprisoned and the stranger need to be addressed by church leaders in the pulpit, online, in the media and wherever else we can proclaim Gospel values.
For an alternative perspective, read Ed Kilgore’s piece on the connections between the Religious Right and the Tea Party. He writes of televangelist James Robison:
In other words, to Christian Right leaders like Robison, it appears that both Keynsian economics and tax increases have become “as wrong and immoral as stealing.” As with his attacks on judges that let bureaucrats help people who have failed to live up to God’s eternal standards, he sounds like an incongruous Christian Ayn Rand.
The St. Francis house brouhaha
I’ve had several inquiries from parishioners about what’s happening with St. Francis House, the Episcopal Chaplaincy at UW Madison, and decided it was time to offer my perspective. I’ve been a member of the board since early 2010. When I joined, discussions about the future of the chaplaincy were well underway. The chaplaincy had been funded by an endowment that over the last decade or more has been depleted in order to meet expenses. The building itself is in need of several hundred thousand dollars of deferred maintenance. Clearly, we were approaching a crisis.
At the end of its visioning process, the board concluded that the chaplaincy’s physical presence on UW’s campus was of vital importance and that we should do whatever we could to ensure that presence. We are also convinced of the importance of college chaplaincy to the future of the Episcopal Church. Such programs have served as the incubator for the church’s future leadership, and St. Francis House is no exception. We believe Anglicanism is a unique and powerful witness to the Christian faith that resonates with young people in an academic setting.
The chaplaincy’s greatest asset is its property, located on the heart of UW Madison’s campus. A number of options for moving forward were considered, including some sort of joint-venture development with our Lutheran neighbors. After exploring the possibility of an outright sale of the property, the board decided to move forward with a public/private partnership with a private developer. The plan is to demolish the 1964 chapel, move the historic building to the corner of the lot, and build an L-shaped student apartment complex on the remainder of the property. This portion of the property would return to the property tax rolls, and income from the project would place the Episcopal Chaplaincy on firm financial ground.
There has been lively debate on the board about the importance of having a physical presence on campus; in the end, the option to sell the property seemed shortsighted. It is also the case that an outright sale would not generate enough income to pay for the sort of chaplaincy envisioned by the board.
Bishop Miller wrote a letter on May 15 that captures the board’s reasoning and also speaks eloquently to the importance of campus ministry. He wrote:
Strengthening Campus ministry and the funding for it has been one of my priorities as bishop because it was through the Episcopal Ministry at Michigan State University I discovered The Episcopal Church and found a spiritual home. Over the last few years I have worked with our chaplains, the St. Francis House Board, and our diocesan convention to strengthen and restore this ministry. Each week a faithful community gathers for prayer, fellowship, and study at our home at 1001 University Avenue. Over the past eight years the ministry at St. Francis House has produced some great future leaders of our church including one candidate for ordination, and two others who are now exploring the possibility of ordained ministry while serving as missioner of the Episcopal Service Corps.
The full letter is here: bishopsletter.
The City Planning Commission rejected the proposal at its meeting this week. There has been vocal opposition from our neighbors at Luther Memorial Church. It is unfortunate that this conflict has arisen. Bishop Miller, the board, and the developers have worked hard to assuage any concerns our neighbors might have. In the end, however, our primary obligation is to strengthen the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Chaplaincy at UW.
Who knows what will happen next but the board remains committed to this project and the promise it holds for empowering Episcopal campus ministry in the coming decades.
For background reading here are relevant articles from the Madison State Journal
- from May 11, an initial description of the project
- from June 21, reporting on the first hearing at the Plan Commission
- from July 12, reporting on the Plan Commission’s rejection of the proposal
- Video of this week’s planning commission meeting, at which our proposal was rejected; the discussion begins about 1/3 of the way into the session
Politics and Religion, Nutty edition
In this case, I’m not sure who’s nuttier, the politician or the author of the article.
Exihibit A. An article entitled “Michele Bachmann’s Church says the Pope is the Antichrist,” citing this from the Wisconsin Synod Lutheran doctrinal statement:
Since Scripture teaches that the Antichrist would be revealed and gives the marks by which the Antichrist is to be recognized, and since this prophecy has been clearly fulfilled in the history and development of the Roman Papacy, it is Scripture which reveals that the Papacy is the Antichrist.
Somewhat less inflammatory, the article points out that Martin Luther was convinced the Pope was the Antichrist, and that such statements are enshrined in sixteenth-century doctrinal formulations.
Perhaps the headline writer didn’t read far enough into the article to notice that:
Hochmuth also revealed that Bachmann is no longer a member of the WELS congregation. “I do know that she has requested a release of her membership,” he said, adding that she took the unusual step of formally requesting that release in writing. “She has not been an active member of our fellowship during the last year.”
Exhibit B. An article describing the links between the Religion of the Lost Cause, Christian Reconstructionism, and neo-Confederate groups like the League of the South. Texas Governor Rick Perry is implicated because his candidacy for Lieutenant Governor was endorsed by the League of the South, he once advocated Texas’ secession from the Union, and this:
Perry is hosting a prayer rally because “a historic crisis facing our nation and threatening our future demands a historic response from the church.” Does he see himself as a general of sorts in the neo-Confederate theological war?
More on the links between Perry and neo-confederates here. I don’t think a photo op of a Southern governor with members of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans constitutes a smoking gun.
Two essays about death
Dudley Cledenin, former national correspondent for the NY Times, writes about his impending death due to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and his desire to die well.
In the Guardian, Sabine Durrant writes about Nell Dunn’s play Home Death, which was written after the death of Dunn’s partner Dan Oestreicher, who wanted to die in dignity at home. However:
Oestreicher was visited by five national health professionals – four district nurses, one doctor – in his last 24 hours, but none of them seemed trained to deal with a home death. When Nell woke in the early hours, she realised Dan was dying. His lungs were bubbling; he was panicking – he felt he was drowning – and in pain. She couldn’t ring for an ambulance because they would take him to hospital and he didn’t want that. She had four phone numbers, including one for a hospice, but when she rang she was told to ring back after 8.30am; when she called again it went straight to answerphone. Her doctor’s surgery was closed. There was no morphine. A district nurse came, gabbled into her mobile phone inches away from Dan’s ear, a doctor, another nurse. No one knew where to find an open chemist. “I know it was a Sunday, but people die on a Sunday for God’s sake.” There was irritation from the doctor who visited, tactlessness: “I’m being paid well for this.” Finally, late morning, everyone dispersed and Nell and Dan were left alone. She lay next to him on their bed. He came in and out of consciousness and at 1.30pm, their dog Primrose beside him, he died.
The nurse returned with the morphine at 4pm. She had been gone for five hours. Was she embarrassed? “I don’t know. I didn’t let her in.”
Dying well–the notion reminds me of the ars moriendi of the medieval period, a genre of devotional literature that encouraged Christians to prepare for death, making a proper final confession, so they could be certain of a successful passage into purgatory. But there’s something else here, too–the desire to have control over how one ends one’s life. That’s certainly the case in Clendenin’s piece. It also seems to be some of the motive behind the assisted suicide movement. Those who are opposed to such things often criticize people like Clendenin for aspiring to self-sufficiency. He points out how he ministered at the end of life to his mother and other relatives, and that he wishes to spare his beloved daughter that experience. But has he asked her?
I don’t have answers to the questions raised by these essays, to the question of assisted suicide, or even to the question of human dignity, whether it be in the sickbed or at end of life. Posing the questions is hard enough.
America’s Joyous Future
By Erika Rothenberg. H/t Andrew Sullivan.
Tree of Strife: A Jewish Take on Tree of Life
A thoughtful and engaging essay on “Tree of Life” from a Jewish perspective. Liel Liebowitz explores the conflict between nature and grace, going all the way back to Augustine and Pelagius. More interestingly, he observes that cinema is a “profoundly Jewish art form. On celluloid film and in Jewish spirituality, there’s no room for grace: One is always the hero of one’s own story, and one must always redeem oneself.”
More:
Herein lies Malick’s true genius: As The Tree of Life ends and we file out of the theater, we are left—if our legs and our minds aren’t too numb from all those gasses and Cretaceous creatures milling about—contemplating not only creation but also creators. On the former front, Malick is a committed Catholic, and he bravely surrenders his characters to higher powers. On the latter front, he is far more radical. His quote from Job isn’t accidental. Read it before you’ve seen the movie, and it’s a Catholic exhortation on man’s eternal dependence on God’s good grace. Read if after, and it’s almost a Jewish teaching, shedding light not on man’s wretchedness but on God’s: Just as man cannot know the creator, the creator can never really share man’s earthly delights and is condemned to eternity in a lonely celestial prison cell.
The Parable of the Sower–Proper 10, Year A, July 10, 2011
Proper 10, Yr A
July 10, 2011
Well, it’s summer in Madison. Life has slowed down just a bit, except on the square where summer means a never-ending succession of events that disrupt parking and help to keep attendance down at Grace. Though, truth be told, we use it as a convenient excuse, that and the heat. Chances are, even if there were plenty of parking for anyone who wanted a spot, our attendance would still be lower in the summer than in the rest of the year. That’s the way it works in pretty much every other church.
It’s summer, and we have entered, at last, the long months of what in the Catholic liturgical calendar, is called ordinary time. From now until the beginning of Advent, we will be paying close attention to Jesus’ ministry as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. We will also be hearing, week by week, stories from the Hebrew Bible, where this week, we hear of the birth of Jacob.
Summer, Ordinary Time, also means that we will hear a number of Jesus’ parables, beginning with the familiar one we heard today. Because we will be reading a number of the parables over the course of the next months, it might be helpful to remind ourselves of what the parables are and why they are important. Parables are stories that Jesus used to explain the nature of the Kingdom or Reign of God. In fact, he introduces several of them by saying the “Reign of God is like… and then goes on to tell the story. So the first thing to note is that the parables are meant to teach Jesus’ listeners, what the reign of God is like.
The second thing to note is that the parables are meant to be surprising; they are meant to challenge the listener to look at the world from a completely different perspective. This may be difficult for us, because many of us have heard these stories countless times, we could probably tell some of them by heart. But it’s important for us to try to recapture the strangeness of the parables in order to make them live again, and in order to discover what Jesus meant by preaching the Reign of God.
To do this, I am going to tell you the story of the sower again; this time without the editorial context in which Matthew put it, and without the second half of the story, the interpretation that Jesus offered his disciples when they asked him what it meant. It’s likely that these words of interpretation were not said by Jesus himself, but were the attempt of Christians a generation or two later, to understand the story and to put it in a meaningful context for this new community of faith.
So here is probably what the parable sounded like in its original form:
“Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!”
Now, hearing the story in this way should raise numerous questions, but in case you think its meaning is obvious, let me ask you two questions. The first is, are any of you vegetable gardeners? If so, would any of you behave the way the sower does in this parable?
I could ask it another way. Are any of you farmers; well unless we have visitors, I know the answer to that question; but since we’re in Wisconsin, I assume most of you have some familiarity with modern agricultural practices, and you know that no farmer even in this day and age would act quite like the sower does in this parable. But do you know how farmers in the days before modern agribusiness did their work? I’ve heard stories about how my grandfather carefully selected his seed corn from the biggest ears, so I know how important that seed was to him and farmers before WW II. I’m also a historian, so I’ve read about how European peasants, and yes, Palestinian peasants in the Roman period operated. Of course the seed for next year’s planting came out of this year’s harvest, and even when harvests were relatively good, there was a difficult choice to make between having enough grain to make flour to feed one’s family, or saving enough seed to make sure you would be able to plant a crop in the next season.
In other words, this sower is behaving in completely non-sensical ways. Given the value of the seeds, he would not be so careless as to allow seed to go to waste by flinging it on rocks, or on a compacted path, or among weeds.
The sheer profligacy of the sower’s actions only become clear when we interpret it against this backdrop of subsistence farming and the annual reality that there might not be enough grain to feed one’s family or to sow the next year’s crop. Seen this way, the sower’s actions are so out of character, so unpredictable and unnatural that we can begin to tease out the parable’s meaning from those very actions.
For it is the case, that seen in this light, there is often, perhaps almost always, unexpected and unpredicted behavior in the parables. Yet, this reality may not bring us any closer to their meaning. Jesus often introduces his parables by saying, “the kingdom of God is like…” So how is the kingdom of God like a sower who acts irrationally and unexpectedly, with such extravagance and profligacy? Or, to put it another way, what does this parable tell us about God, God’s vision for the world and for human community?
Asked in this way, the parable invites us to imagine, to believe in a God who acts in ways completely counter to our values and expectations. We live in a world in which religion, especially Christianity, seems to be consumed with establishing barriers between those who are in and those who are out, between true and false belief, moral and immoral action. Many of us may be repulsed by such forms of Christianity, but that is the public face of our faith. Yet the God of Jesus Christ is not a God who puts barriers between us and them. Far from it. Jesus Christ preached a gospel of inclusion and welcome; the kingdom of God he proclaimed imagines a world in which all creation is embraced by God’s love.
As hard as that is for us to conceive as we look out at a broken and hurting world, it is often even more difficult to imagine when we look inside ourselves. We are often apt to hear words of judgment on our selves, our actions, know our own broken and hurting selves, and assume that God rejects us. But that’s not the case either. Whatever we have done in the past, all of the hurt and brokenness we have caused, indeed all of the hurt and brokenness that we experience in our own lives, all of that we can bring to God, and find love and acceptance.
To experience that love is what God’s reign is all about; to know, and love a God whose love towards us is as profligate and expansive as the seed thrown by the sower on good and bad soil, to love that God is what our faith proclaims. That message, God’s expansive love and accepting love, is also our duty to proclaim and share in this broken and hurting world.
The International House of Prayer?
There’s a profile in The New York Times of Mike Bickle and the International House of Prayer. New to me, apparently it is a ministry he began in 1999 that emphasizes around-the-clock prayer and worship. Those who come from across the country (and world?) find here the sort of direct experience of God, “visceral communion,” that they might not achieve elsewhere. Bickle claims to be non-political, but there are links between his group and Texas Governor Rick Perry’s planned day of prayer in Houston. Bickle believes that fervent prayer can accelerate the Second Coming, which he believes will occur within the next fifty years.
The International House of Pancakes has filed a trademark infringement suit.
It’s somewhat reassuring to know that America continues to be an incubator for new and unexpected forms of Christianity.
Predictably, the article also cites detractors and claims of “cult-like” behavior among participants and allusions to brainwashing (though that word is never used). The author also refers to past controversies in which Bickle was involved.
The google-fication of life
I read this post on Patheos about the effects of Google’s complex algorithms on our world. It turns out that our search results are constantly being recalibrated to conform more closely to our interests. In other words, if you and I put in the same search term into Google, we might get completely different results. It’s not just the Internet, of course. We do the same with other media, including the news. Commenters have lamented for some time that some people only watch Fox News, while others restrict themselves to CNN or MSNBC.
This reality came home to me this week, when numerous Facebook friends suddenly expressed their outrage over the not-guilty verdict in the Casey Anthony trial. I had no idea what they were talking about. Who’s she, I wondered. Apparently it was the trial of the century. I missed it, and more surprisingly, I missed the entire event, from its beginning.
The Internet has allowed me to become much more selective in what I read and follow. Google Reader keeps me up to date with all of the blogs and other sites I follow, and I don’t have to go fishing for information. I read what looks interesting to me and ignore the rest. I suppose on one level that’s not so different now than it was twenty-five years ago, when I got my news from NPR, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and watched CNN only when there was some major event taking place. Still, even then I would have been aware of stories that caught the nation’s attention, even if I had little interest in it–like, say, the OJ Simpson trial.
Preaching Grace on the Square 