St. Columba, June 9

Posted on by
Reply

Columba’s Affirmation

Alone with none but Thee, my God,
I journey on my way;
What need I fear, when Thou art near,
O king of night and day?
More safe I am within Thy hand,
than if a host did round me stand.

My destined time is fixed by Thee,
and death doth know his hour.
Did warriors strong around me throng,
they could not stay his power;
no walls of stone can man defend
when Thou Thy messenger dost send

My life I yield to Thy decree,
and bow to Thy control
in peaceful calm, for from Thine arm
no power can wrest my soul.
Could earthly omens e’er appal
A man that heeds the heavenly call!

The child of God can fear no ill,
His chosen dread no foe;
we leave our fate with Thee and wait
Thy bidding when we go.
Tis not from chance our comfort springs,
Thou art our trust, O king of kings.

St Columba (trans. unknown)

(From Brendan O’Malley, A Celtic Primer)

The Templeton Foundation

Posted on by
Reply

In The Nation, there’s a lengthy profile of the Templeton Foundation, its founder, financier John Templeton, and son Jack who is now running it. After making his billions, John Templeton established a foundation to explore the relationships of religion and science. Back in the 90s, when the Foundation was actively recruiting grant proposals from theologians and scholars of religion, its mantra was something like: “There have been so many advances in science and technology, why has there been no progress in spirituality?”

I attended at least one of their information sessions at a national conference. It seemed to me that the organizers (marketers?) lacked any theological sophistication or understanding of the academic study of religion. On the other hand, I suspected that many of the religion scholars in attendance were looking for any way to get grant funding.

I do find some of the Foundation’s efforts worthwhile. To ask the big questions and to put money behind that is a noble thing. Nathan Schneider writes:

Templeton money supports other causes, like promoting virtue, encouraging gifted youth and fostering free enterprise, but its core concerns are more cosmic: “Does the universe have a purpose?” “Does science make belief in God obsolete?” “Does evolution explain human nature?” As the advance of knowledge becomes ever more specialized and remote, these questions seem as refreshing as they are intractable; the foundation wants them to be our culture’s uniting, overriding focus.

Of course, anything this big (they funded a $9.8 million dollar grant to Duke University’s Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health) is bound to come under criticism. And of course, the usual suspects rose up in unrighteous indignation:

The zoologist and author Richard Dawkins quipped in his 2006 book The God Delusion that the Templeton Prize goes “usually to a scientist who is prepared to say something nice about religion.”

And:

Now Dawkins and Kroto, with eight other advisory board members of Project Reason, founded by New Atheist author Sam Harris in 2007 to promote secularism, are at work on another offensive. Project Reason hired British science journalist Sunny Bains to investigate Templeton and build a case against it. Her unpublished findings include evidence of pervasive cronyism: more than half of the past dozen Templeton Prize winners were connected to the foundation before their win, and board members do well obtaining grant money and speaking gigs. Bains also argues that the true atheistic tendencies of leading scientists were misrepresented in the foundation’s Big Questions advertisements. Templeton’s mission, Bains concludes, is to promote religion, and its overtures to science are an insidious trick with the purpose of sneaking in God.

Schneider tries to uncover evidence of the Templeton Foundation’s nefarious involvement with a vast right-wing conspiracy and does provide  number of clues, but at the same time, it’s clear that the Foundation doesn’t silence research that downplays the importance of the spiritual (as in the findings concerning the value of intercessory prayer).

The relationship between Science and Religion was hardly at the center of my intellectual interests although I am fascinated by the relationship between the brain and religious experience.

Grace in Ordinary Time: A Sermon for Proper 5, 2010

Posted on by
Reply

Finally, things are beginning to settle down. We have entered that period of the church year known as Ordinary Time, the weeks after the Feast of Pentecost. We will be in Ordinary Time all the way through November, right up to the beginning of the next church year, which begins on the First Sunday of Advent. Since last December, we have been following, more or less, the life of Jesus from his birth, through his baptism, on to his death and resurrection. With our celebration of his Ascension and Pentecost, when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit, we turn our attention away from Jesus’ nature, his life and death, and turn toward his teachings and his ministry among the people of the Roman territory of Palestine in the first century.

Continue reading →

More turmoil in Anglican-land

Posted on by
2

The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote a Pentecost Letter to the Anglican Communion in which he responded to the consecration in May of Bishop Glasspool in the Diocese of Los Angeles. In the course of that letter he wrote:

I am therefore proposing that, while these tensions remain unresolved, members of such provinces – provinces that have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion and recently reaffirmed by the Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) – should not be participants in the ecumenical dialogues in which the Communion is formally engaged.

This seems to imply that the Episcopal Church (and the Anglican Church of Canada) should absent themselves from inter-Anglican activities. One might debate whether the Episcopal Church has “formally” breached any of the moratoria (on blessings of same-sex relationships, ordinations of gay and lesbian clergy, and border-crossing).

Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefforts Schori responded powerfully this week to Williams’ letter. She argued that Williams was seeking to centralize authority in Anglicanism in ways that had been resisted throughout its history. She also pointed out that whatever “formal” decisions had been made by particular provinces, there were many places, the Church of England chief among them, where both ordinations and same-sex blessings occurred regularly and that any move in the Episcopal Church was nothing more than recognizing the reality on the ground.

This exchange has received considerable exposure both in the press and on the internet. Diana Butler Bass, an Episcopalian herself and one of the leading commentators on religion in contemporary America commented that the conflict between Jefforts Schori and Williams is not a clash between liberal and conservative. Both are theologically liberal. Rather, it is a clash between competing visions of Anglicanism—one hierarchical and centralized, the other more democratic.

Jefforts Schori (and Bass) point out the origins of the Episcopal Church in the US in the American Revolution and in the desire to develop independently of the Church of England. Jefforts Schori cites as well the origins of the Church of England in the desire to be independent of the papacy. She goes too far when she tries to connect that with Celtic Christianity and the conflict in the early Middle Ages between Celtic Christianity and the missionaries sent from Rome.

The rise of individualism and of democracy are two long-term trends that have changed all institutions and the ways in which individuals come together to form institutions and relate to institutions. Once centralization and authoritarianism give way to localization and autonomy, it is impossible to recapture them. The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion are becoming new things because of those developments. The internet has changed how we communicate and how we connect. It has helped us create like-minded communities that span the globe, but it cannot create closer ties or strengthen central authority.

What Jefforts Schori is saying in her response is that the sort of Anglican Communion Williams is imagining is not something the Episcopal Church wants to be a part of. Rather, we want to work together with those who are willing to work with us, whatever our theological views. We will also build networks with people and churches across the world who share our views. Yes, this may mean loss, but it has been happening de facto for over a decade. In fact, this was begun not by the Episcopal Church but by those disaffected with the Episcopal Church who made alliances with (and were consecrated Bishop by) conservative African and Asian archbishops.

As I reflect on recent events and on the controversy that has been going since 2003 (well, in fact, much longer than that), it seems to me that the dust has largely settled. Those who were going to leave the Episcopal Church have left. New structures have been created but how they will develop remains to be seen. I’m sure there are places and people where the controversy rages, but my sense is that in those places and people, controversy will always rage. I will never forget what David Anderson said in response to a question about why he didn’t just leave the Episcopal Church. “I love a good fight,” he said.

I don’t. I love God, Jesus Christ, and the body of Christ in the world. I want to be about the ministry and mission of Jesus Christ in this world. Frankly, I don’t care any more what the Archbishop of Canterbury has to say about the Anglican Communion and about the Episcopal Church’s place in it. Frankly, I don’t care about the Anglican Communion. I care about the Church of Jesus Christ, but of course, the Church of Jesus Christ will take care of itself. It has for two thousand years. It has survived, in spite of the members, laity and clergy, who have done whatever was in their power to destroy it.

A sermon on Proper 5 I preached in 2007

Posted on by
Reply

I reread this sermon as I began work this week and thought it deserved posting, largely because in it I share some of my earlier experiences of ministry with the homeless, from the vantage point of a suburban parish.

Proper 5_YrC

St. James

June 10, 2007

When I was growing up, our rural Mennonite Church had as one of its outreach projects, providing a monthly service at the Cherry Street Mission in downtown Toledo, Ohio. I don’t remember now how many times our family went, but to the best of my recollections it must have been several times a year when I was a preteen. It was an old style mission, where those who wanted something to eat and a bed for the night, first had to sit through whatever kind of worship service we put on. It was of course a cultural conflict of enormous proportions. We were well-off, white, Mennonite, small town and rural folk; the people at the mission were urban, overwhelmingly African-American, predominantly alcoholic and homeless. We didn’t provide the meal, we didn’t help out with the soup kitchen; we simply gave our hour-long worship service, and got back in our cars and drove the forty-five miles home.

Continue reading →

Madison Marathon

Posted on by
Reply

Today was the Madison Marathon. Other than a great deal of confusion leading up to the day concerning access on W. Washington (turns out, there wasn’t any), the Marathon had relatively little impact on Grace. Oh, numbers were down, of course, because people couldn’t get to church. And people were late because of the struggle with parking, traffic pattern, and crowds. And there was the noise, of course. But it was a good day. We blessed the new coolers and freezers in the Food Pantry. There were visitors, as well as a few St. Andrew’s folk who couldn’t get there from downtown.

And the epistle reading was appropriate for the occasion:

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5).

A Sermon for Trinity Sunday, 2010

Posted on by
Reply

Trinity Sunday

May 30, 2010

Today is Trinity Sunday. It’s the one day in the church year when our focus is not on the ministry or teaching of Jesus Christ. Instead, our attention is drawn to one of the central doctrines of our faith—the belief that God is Three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is that doctrine which separates us most clearly from our fellow monotheists, Jews and Muslims. The Trinity deserves at least one sermon a year, because of its importance and its complexity.

Continue reading →

Totally random post

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve only lived in Madison for ten months, but I don’t know where Greyhound stops to drop off and pick up passengers. It turns out, almost nobody else does, either. Just before I arrived, the old Badger Bus station was demolished to make way for a new development. At first, Greyhound moved their drop-off to somewhere on Stoughton Road. Fine, but there was no Madison Metro bus access. People either had to walk, or take a cab.

At some point, they moved.

Today, a guy stopped by, looking for bus fare. He had been able to get from Milwaukee here, but needed more to reach his final destination. He told me that the bus driver–the bus driver mind you–didn’t know where he was supposed to drop off Madison passengers. He tried one place which obviously wasn’t correct, so he finally had to call the dispatcher in Milwaukee.

If the bus driver doesn’t know where he’s supposed to go, how is anyone else?

Does anyone in Madison care about this?

Rebels and Traitors

Posted on by
Reply

I just finished reading Lindsey Davis’s Rebels and Traitors. It’s a historical novel set during the English Civil War of the 1640s and 1650s.

I’m a huge fan of her Marcus Didio Falco mystery series, set in the Roman Empire during Vespasian’s reign. They are wonderful reads, funny, engaging and full of historical detail.

Unfortunately, Rebels and Traitors misses on the first two of those. It is full of historical detail, overly full, reading much of the time as academic history, though without the footnotes. Sometimes it seems as though she felt compelled to provide much more detail than was necessary to propel the plot forward. Or perhaps it was that the civil war and the protectorate was the story she wanted to tell, and could think of doing it in no other way than through historical fiction.

Only rarely does the comedic genius she shows in the Falco novels come to light and the characters are almost all wooden, their dialogue stilted.

Still, there are some interesting bits. She attempts to provide as broad a view of the historical canvas as possible, telling the story through the eyes of participants who fought on both sides, and including characters who were Levellers and Ranters as well as the more likely Cavaliers.

Here’s an example, though, where history may be more interesting than fiction.

“What did Jesus do?” by Adam Gopnik

Posted on by
1

Gopnik writes a solid summary of the current scholarly consensus (such that there is one) concerning the gospels and the historical Jesus. It’s well worth a read. It’s also quite dense so it bears close attention.The article is here.

I find his assessment of Bart Ehrman especially amusing:

The American scholar Bart Ehrman has been explaining the scholars’ truths for more than a decade now, in a series of sincere, quiet, and successful books. Ehrman is one of those best-selling authors like Richard Dawkins and Robert Ludlum and Peter Mayle, who write the same book over and over—but the basic template is so good that the new version is always worth reading.

If one thing seems clear from all the scholarship, though, it’s that Paul’s divine Christ came first, and Jesus the wise rabbi came later. This fixed, steady twoness at the heart of the Christian story can’t be wished away by liberal hope any more than it could be resolved by theological hair-splitting. Its intractability is part of the intoxication of belief. It can be amputated, mystically married, revealed as a fraud, or worshipped as the greatest of mysteries. The two go on, and their twoness is what distinguishes the faith and gives it its discursive dynamism.