tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103266752024-03-19T04:47:18.382-04:00Preludium, Anglican and Episcopal futuresExploring the future of Anglican community.Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.comBlogger2273125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-89942627962659992862023-10-09T13:36:00.000-04:002023-10-09T13:36:10.684-04:00A Challenge to the Church: How to be Church in a post-democratic America.<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-219a65e6-157e-c135-9310-e4c88fdfd240" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This is a challenge to the leadership of The Episcopal Church, concerning how to be Church when the assumptions about the State prove inadequate or untrue.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The preface to the Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer states, “…wh</span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">en in the course of Divine Providence, these American States became independent with respect to civil government, their ecclesiastical independence was necessarily included; and the different religious denominations of Christians in these States were left at full and equal liberty to model and organize their respective Churches, and forms of worship, and discipline, in such manner as they might judge most convenient for their future prosperity; consistently with the constitution and laws of their country.” </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Episcopal Church ordered its liturgy and its structures on the assumption that the “constitution and laws” of a representative democracy were established as an enduring order. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">While the Church has been often willing, and indeed obliged by the Gospel, to be critical of the ways that the constitution and laws were observed in practice, the Church has prayed and worked for the success of the general welfare of the United States of America and the institutions that are at the heart of the Republic. Ours is an “establishment” if not an established religion. We pray for the Nation and for the leadership of its government. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">We are now in a time of considerable flux, where it is not at all clear that this experiment in representative democracy will continue to thrive. A combination of forces that lean towards oligarchy, corporate control, information management, and personality politics have all combined to place strains on any semblance of representative democracy. Some would argue that political power has already become completely reset, and that only the semblance of democratic processes remains, giving the appearance of a government of, by and for the people. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It is time for the Episcopal Church to turn its attention to how it ought to understand itself in relation to the State when the State becomes something other than a government of constitution and laws in which representative democracy can flourish.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What is our ministry in relation to the state, for example, if the form of the State is no longer representative, but autocratic, oligarchical, and based in power not delegated by the people, but held by other means? </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is considerable weight given in our polity to praying for those in authority, no matter how that authority is obtained or exercised. Caesar needs as much prayer for the exercise of good judgment and justice as does the President. The Dictator may be repulsive to our political sensibilities, but we might well pray that he exercises his power with mercy and justice. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But there is also weight given to resistance. A number of our colonial era parishes have a Parish owned Book of Common Prayer with the prayer for the monarch scratched through with a prayer for all in authority. That correction may be only to acknowledge that authority may change in its form. But sometimes the correction was in the hope that such authority would indeed change. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I believe that the American experiment with representative democracy is unraveling. If that is true, or even if it is only a strong possibility that such unraveling might take place, we as Episcopalians would do well to begin to think through how to be Church when the State, by way of its institutions, becomes less responsive and responsible to the general citizenry.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Episcopal Church, through its General Convention and the Office of the Presiding Bishop, ought consider and hopefully inaugurate a series of conversations at every level of the Church’s life, to consider the Church’s relation to the government of the United States of America should that government turn further away from the hope of representative democracy. Issues to be considered by such conversations might well include:</span></span></p><ul style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> At what point does the church determine that the State is now antithetical to its own vision and that therefore the church ought to be resistant to authority as it is present in the political system?</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">How are we to pray for those in authority, which such authority is anti-democratic, that is impervious to the just demands of the people?</span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">How does the Church, in its own life, witness to the possibility of a common life formed and informed by compassion rather than power? </span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">How do we prepare our people for life beyond the edges of representative democracy, where the quest for justice and respect for human dignity might require a level of resistance or resilience not part of our current way of being church? At what point do our baptismal promises diverge from our national allegences? </span></span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; list-style-type: disc; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">How do we prepare ourselves to be a church no longer establishment oriented?</span></span></p></li></ul><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I call on those who can do so to make resolution to the General Convention for the establishment of a General Convention Standing Committee on the Church and State, to assist the church at all levels to consider its mission in a post democratic society. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Mark Harris, 2023</span></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p> </p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-7191838342233196632023-04-29T14:23:00.001-04:002023-04-29T14:26:56.824-04:00GAFCON HAS BEEN LED ASTRAY<p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; white-space: pre-wrap;">GAFCON HAS BEEN LED ASTRAY</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">GAFCON IV, a conference of “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1,302 delegates from 52 countries, including 315 bishops, 456 other clergy and 531 laity” adopted a “Commitment” statement supported byu the GSFA (the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches). This “Committment” proposes to </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">renounce the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury as “an instrument of unity,” and to “reset” the Anglican Communion. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The writers</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: The drafting committee for the Kilgali Statement consists of ten people, six of whom are from the west/ north (Australian, UK, Irish or US) and white. Three are African (Nigeria and Uganda) and one from South America. One was a woman. For an organization touting itself to be speaking the majority of the world’s anglicans, this seems an odd way to show it. We are assured by the press release about the Kilgali Statement (</span><a href="https://anglican.ink/2023/04/21/kigali-gafcon-closing-press-statement/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://anglican.ink/2023/04/21/kigali-gafcon-closing-press-statement/</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ) that everyone at the conference was asked for feedback. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I doubt it. It smacks of the same leadership and agendas of the discontented west and north that has driven much of the effort to halt the move to inclusion of women and gay people in the sacramental ministries of the church. GAFCON has been hustled once again by discontent in the west and north.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Statement:</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Here is what the “Kigali Commitment” says:</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“We were delighted to be joined in Kigali by leaders of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) and to host a combined Gafcon-GSFA Primates meeting. Together, these Primates represent the overwhelming majority (estimated at 85%) of Anglicans worldwide.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The leadership of both groups affirmed and celebrated their complementary roles in the Anglican Communion. Gafcon is a movement focused on evangelism and mission, church planting and providing support and a home for faithful Anglicans who are pressured by or alienated from revisionist dioceses and provinces. GSFA, on the other hand, is focused on establishing doctrinally based structures within the Communion. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">We rejoice in the united commitment of both groups on three fundamentals: the lordship of Jesus Christ; the authority and clarity of the Word of God; and the priority of the church’s mission to the world. We acknowledge their agreement that ‘communion’ between churches and Christians must be based on doctrine (Jerusalem Declaration #13; GSFA Covenant 2.1.6). Anglican identity is defined by this and not by recognition from the See of Canterbury.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Both GSFA and Gafcon Primates share the view that, due to the departures from orthodoxy articulated above, they can no longer recognise the Archbishop of Canterbury as an Instrument of Communion, the ‘first among equals’ of the Primates. The Church of England has chosen to impair her relationship with the orthodox provinces in the Communion. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">We welcome the GSFA’s Ash Wednesday Statement of 20 February 2023, calling for a resetting and reordering of the Communion. We applaud the invitation of the GSFA Primates to collaborate with Gafcon and other orthodox Anglican groupings to work out the shape and nature of our common life together and how we are to maintain the priority of proclaiming the gospel and making disciples of all nations.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Resetting the Communion is an urgent matter. It needs an adequate and robust foundation that addresses the legal and constitutional complexities in various Provinces. The goal is that orthodox Anglicans worldwide will have a clear identity, a global ‘spiritual home’ of which they can be proud, and a strong leadership structure that gives them stability and direction as Global Anglicans. We therefore commit to pray that God will guide this process of resetting, and that Gafcon and GSFA will keep in step with the Spirit.”</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">THE FACT OF THE MATTER: </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">So there it is. Gafcon and GSFA are no longer in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and therefore the Church of England.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The intemperate, angry and devious letter from the GAFCON/ GSFA meeting seems to seal the deal. A number of churches formerly in the Anglican Communion are not playing nicely any more. They have formally stated that “they can no longer recognise the Archbishop of Canterbury as an Instrument of Communion, the ‘first among equals’ of the Primates.” </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Given that several of these churches have also refused to attend the Lambeth Conference and meetings of the Primates, and a number of these churches are not recognized as churches in the communion anyway, and are therefore not part of the Anglican Consultative Council, it would appear that these churches are backing away from any of the instruments of communion.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is no possibility for them, if they have so distanced themselves from the “instruments of Communion” to change the structures of the Anglican Communion from within. The “resetting” that they propose is not a resetting at all. That would be an interior matter for the councils of the Communion. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rather, it is an attempt to take the brand “Anglican”, divorce it from anything English, and reapply it to something other than the Anglican Communion. The GAFCON/ GSFA proposal is really an attempt to dismantle or disregard the Anglican Communion as a communion of churches and replace it with a new thing: A World Wide Anglican Church.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Reformers would have been appalled. For that matter I suspect many in the various Provinces who have leaders who have joined in this “Commitment” will also be appalled. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Polite Response:</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There has been a response from Lambeth Palace. It states in part, ““We note that The Kigali Commitment issued by GAFCON IV today makes many of the same points that have previously been made about the structures of the Anglican Communion. As the Archbishop of Canterbury has previously said, those structures are always able to change with the times – and have done so in the past. </span><a href="https://www.anglicannews.org/news/2023/02/archbishop-of-canterbury-addresses-concern-over-global-anglican-structures.aspx" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Archbishop said</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> at the recent Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Ghana (ACC-18) that no changes to the formal structures of the Anglican Communion can be made unless they are agreed upon by the Instruments of Communion.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 15pt; margin-right: 15pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“At the ACC-18 meeting – which was attended by primates, bishops, clergy and laity from 39 of the 42 Anglican provinces – there was </span><a href="https://www.anglicannews.org/news/2023/02/acc-18-welcomes-exploration-of-structure-and-decision-making-in-the-anglican-communion.aspx" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">widespread support</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for working together patiently and constructively to review the Instruments of Communion, so that our differences and disagreements can be held together in unity and fellowship. Archbishop Justin Welby has welcomed this decision – just as he also welcomed last year’s decision by the Church of England’s General Synod to </span><a href="https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/news-and-statements/global-anglican-communion-given-voice-choice-future-archbishops-canterbury" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">give the Anglican Communion a greater voice</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on the body that nominates future Archbishops of Canterbury.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“The Archbishop continues to be in regular contact with his fellow Primates and looks forward to discussing this and many other matters with them over the coming period. Meanwhile the Archbishop continues to pray especially for Anglicans who face poverty, conflict, famine, discrimination and persecution around the world, and Anglican churches who live and minister in these contexts. Continuing to walk together as Anglicans is not just the best way to share Christ’s love with a world in great need: it is also how the world will know that Jesus Christ is sent from the Father who calls us to love one another, even as we disagree.”</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 15pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Lambeth response suggests there is nothing new here. But there is. It is just not polite to say so. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A NOT SO POLITE RESPONSE:</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’ve been wondering why there has not been any sort of statement of regret, befuddlement, acknowledgement or even outrage about this letter from any of the usual authorities in the Anglican Communion. A statement from Lambeth Palace” is pretty tame. It doesn’t come out under the Archbishop of Canterbury’s signature. And I see no whisper of any response from any other church leaders. GAFCON may have spoken, but it doesn’t seem to kick up much dust.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I think GAFCON / GSFA need to be at least told, politely, that various powers understand quite well what they are up to. They are trying to capture the flag… to take “Anglican” and make it about some world wide church thing, and not a communion of churches. What they will have if they do this is yet another church pretending to be THE TRUE CHURCH. It will be, as all such churches, defective at the core. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am not at all worried that the Anglican Communion is or is not alive or dead. I wrote long ago that my sense is that the Anglican Communion will not endure. In “The Challenge of Change” I wrote,</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“There will be no enduring Anglican Communion, not if we can help it. But that is not the point. Being Anglican is simply the way some Christians have tried to work out the implications of baptism in specific times and locations. What we have been will be of value to those who come after, and they will count us as among their ancestors. In doing so we have been greatly blessed by God. Often we have been under judgment by God, and yet most often led by God to what it is we are called to next. The vocation of the Anglican Communion is to be a force for greater koinonia, for overcoming the fragmentation of life in a vision of the whole people of God, in a time when fragmentation is what seems to be the rule of the day. It remains only for us to take heart in our “looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Heb. 12: 1b–2a).” ( The Challenge of Change: The Anglican Communion in the Post-Modern Era by Mark Harris)</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Anglican Communion will not endure. But I believe it still has work to do and that there is no reason in the world to have it taken over, “reset” by those who have no sense at all of what it means to have “The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.” (That being part of the Lambeth Quadrilateral.) </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The notion that the Anglican Communion should be reset on the basis of a “doctrine” pushed through Lambeth 1998 by western/ northern malcontents playing on and using the energy of anti-colonialist feelings (often justified) in the Global South, is absurd. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is yet another example of the need to be clear about division. Any member church of the Anglican Communion is free to leave the table of this communion at any point, and we should wish those who leave well. But they cannot take the table, or the silver, with them. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And, not to put too fine a point on it: those who are post colonialist (and I hope many are) must find it odd to be battling for the future use of the word “Anglican.” Why, if there is a desire to have a Global Church, would any post colonial church based on English occupation want to be called “Anglican”? </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: large; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This whole thing reeks of western/ northern needs by the discontented who left the Episcopal Church, The Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of England, the Anglican Church of Australia, etc., to “capture the flag.” My hope is that the Global South Primates will see this, and see that they are being misled by the West into an ecclesiastical mess of pottage.</span></p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-14267247173523150032023-02-20T18:06:00.005-05:002023-02-20T18:06:37.626-05:00GAFCON and Global South Fellowship want to take over: NUTS.<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the Lambeth Conference in 2022 I wrote an article titled, <a href="http://anglicanfuture.blogspot.com/2022/08/gafcon-and-global-south-fellowship.html" target="_blank">“</a></span><a href="http://anglicanfuture.blogspot.com/2022/08/gafcon-and-global-south-fellowship.html" target="_blank"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship wants to capture the flag. Let’s not play the game.</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” </span></a></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is a long and Anglican nerd sort of title, but the point was clear. GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship wanted then to take leadership of the Anglican Communion out of the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Anglican Primates (four very different elements of what was thought of as “unity” within the Anglican Communion) and instead have a different sort of leadership determined by the litmus test provided by GAFCON and Global South Primates. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The idea was straightforwardly to “capture” the Anglican Communion flag. I believed we need not play that game.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This past week the Church of England in its synod passed on a proposal to allow the blessing of same sex civil marriages. This has ignited a firestorm out in GAFCON and Global South Fellowship land. <a href="https://www.gafcon.org/news/gafcon-response-to-cofe-general-synod" target="_blank">They wrote a scathing denunciation of the CofE’s actions and distanced themselves from the Archbishop of Canterbury.</a> Now they make the claim - the capture the flag claim - to be the rightful owners of the Anglican Communion. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is time to put the matter straight. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The leadership of the Global Anglican Futures Conference and the Global South Fellowship can indeed withdraw from connection or communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. They can indeed form a different sort of world wide church body. They can indeed call themselves Anglican.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">But they have no business, no right, and certainly no legal standing to take over the “The Anglican Communion” name, holdings, or structures. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">There will continue to be national and regional churches throughout the world who are in communion with the Church of England, and more particularly, in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and these churches will constitute the Anglican Communion. Churches can decide to be in communion with one another in a wide variety of configurations, and GAFCON and Global South Fellowship churches already have such arrangements. But the “Anglican” in “Anglican Communion” refers to communion with the CofE, and more particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Primates meetings are called by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference is called by the ABC. The most interesting group, the Anglican Consultative Council, exists under British law, and its constitution clearly states, “ (7.1) The Archbishop of Canterbury shall always be the President of the Council ex officio, and shall not be subject to retirement under the provisions of Articles 8 and 15 of these Articles. When present he shall inaugurate each meeting of the Council. He shall be ex officio a member of all its committees.”</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">So the upshot is that all the instruments of unity derive from the Archbishop inviting, calling and charing. To be in the Anglican Communion is to be in communion with the See of Canterbury.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Not to be in communion with Canterbury is perfectly alright. But it is not the Anglican Communion.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">There has been some report that the Archbishop of Canterbury might step back from some or all of his role as chair , thereby allowing leadership of the Communion to pass on to the supposed majority who do not favor any sort of blessing of same sex marriages, and prior to that, no ordination of women. We can only hope that the Archbishop is not about to do that. This is no time for him to surrender the flag. I’m not even sure he can do that.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Better the GAFCON and Global South Fellowship organize as they will and withdraw from the Anglican Communion. Better the Archbishop fo Canterbury continue to invite, organize and chair gatherings of church in communion with the CofE as a worldwide fellowship of churches. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">We don’t have to play capture the flag for one more minute.</span></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-92193884616742857982023-02-18T23:10:00.000-05:002023-02-18T23:10:05.449-05:00HeGetsUs…bait for what?<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“He gets us” is a campaign of ads, stories, aphorisms, etc., all related to the proposition that Jesus (the ‘he” of “he gets us”) knows us in all the confusions and difficulties of these times. It is an evangelical campaign, in that it challenges the listener to relate to Jesus as the campaign presents him. (</span><a href="http://www.hegetsus.com/" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">www.hegetsus.com</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) One of their ads was shown during the Super Bowl.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To some extent it is a rebranding effort. Elizabeth Kaeton has an important take on all this on her blog, here; </span><a href="http://telling-secrets.blogspot.com/2023/02/he-gets-us.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://telling-secrets.blogspot.com/2023/02/he-gets-us.html</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The “He gets us” branding of Jesus is one of several efforts now going on to bring us a fresh sense of who Jesus is and why he is important for all people. “The Chosen,” attempts to tell the story of Jesus “through the eyes of those who knew him. </span><a href="https://new.thechosen.tv/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://new.thechosen.tv/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A new film, “The Jesus Revolution” tries to tell the story of the encounter with Jesus in the 1960-70’s in a way that speaks to young people now. </span><a href="https://jesusrevolution.movie/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://jesusrevolution.movie/</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> So whether you are binging on a streamed video series, a stand alone movie, or a series of quick take ad like video pieces, you can get your Jesus right here, right now. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And let us not forget the Episcopal Church’s very own rebranding of the Episcopal Church as “The Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement.” </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is put forward in the rebranding “HeGetsUs” is most easily seen in the gear (hats and t-shirts) that one can get from the HeGetsUs website.</span><a href="https://hegetsusfans.com/gear" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://hegetsusfans.com/gear</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">These proclaim that Jesus didn’t want us to act like adults, that Hate is loud (and/but) Jesus loved louder, that Jesus was wrongly judged, Jesus was an immigrant, Jesus was a refugee. The people wearing them on the website page are not in any way identified as refugees, immigrants, wrongly judged, loudly loving (however defined) or non-adults. The target group, at least as the visuals present it, are all young adults who get “gear” - t-shirts and caps - that connect them with this Jesus who was an immigrant, homeless, a refugee, persecuted, loving loudly, etc. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">So the campaign is inviting young adults to an attractive, almost seductive, place of identification with Jesus and all those who suffer injustice without actually having to do anything at all. The gear is free for the asking. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The earliest missionary and evangelical motif was to fish for people. And casting nets and setting bait is essential to catching fish.. And people. So the gear is bait. The videos and ads are bait. The invitation to look at the “biography” of Jesus that is presented by the HeGetsUS folk is bait. Or maybe all parts of the same net. But the idea is these are all to catch people…young people apparently.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Rebranding is setting bait. And the agenda is not the bait - not the invitation to nibble or to put on the t-shirt and cap. The agenda is bigger than that.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The HeGetsUs campaign presents itself as an attractive way to invite people to take another look at Jesus. But the purpose is to make a catch.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">And at that point it becomes important to understand just what the second level agenda is. And that is hidden from view. To be fair this criticism can be made of many campaigns, crusades, revivals, rebrandings. And I quite understand that the bait used by institutional religion is every bit as suspect as these ads are. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">But that does not mean we should stop asking the question about the hidden agenda. After all, from the standpoint of the fish, it is not catching the fish that is the final agenda. The final agenda is lunch. So if the bait of the ad or the t-shirt is to catch the interest of some young adults, what’s next?</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Who sets the agenda for those pulled into the boat? When do the actual immigrants, homeless, persecuted, and generally beat upon show up? When does the “Us” who get the hats and t-shirts begin to look old, beat up, smacked down? </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">HeGetsUs is apparently directed to media adept young adults. They know a lot about being hooked into schemes whose real agendas are hidden. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Hopefully they get the next level of the catch… the bait changes. The viewer is invited to check out the next level of engagement with this supposedly open exploration of just who Jesus is, and the links take you to Life.Church, and suddenly there is a community of faith that is glad to take you in. And, lo and behold, the whole thing is there - a full blown evangelical church experience. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Fair enough. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">But the original bait was “let’s look further into who this Jesus was.” Now the bait is, “there is a community that loves you and will help you get further into life in Christ.” Remember all those t-shirts and hats? Keep them. But now the fish is being hooked on a full meal of evangelical Christian belief.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">The HeGetsUs campaign is just that… the first bait to draw people into a conversation. And then the bait changes… to catch them up in church that pretends not to be one of those institutional churches, but somehow open to loving them just as they are. But the story is not finished. The new community becomes also the “way” of Jesus as interpreted by those doing the fishing. Never mind that the first bait was that small tasty morsel…a hat, a t-shirt, a simple invite to see an ad. And how could one possibly object to that? </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, here is the objection: this campaign is fishing for us, and when we are caught, what next? Only those doing the fishing know. And they aren’t at all up front about their agenda.</span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">This HeGetsUs thingy is deceptive and dangerous. Don’t take the bait. Jesus draws all to himself not by a good ad campaign and great gear, but by being so present as God’s justice and mercy that WeGetHim. </span></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-36685858244053370482022-08-12T15:05:00.002-04:002022-08-14T09:34:24.970-04:00GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship wants to capture the flag. Let’s not play the game.<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-4f703e4e-7fff-6986-f9e8-8c95dbb8ce72" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSSkRIvcMUdcn3YSeWnDBPpZC7OX9Wxh8MxjsoglMVjO-8g0Ue8X9l0OHRBm2bJkmk7YoB9mz795Rx7V4Qx2i_4jIEuD9xTmm8t2uIgldU1kN948xftLKkDxOw29flRMMcGoG50cKEkk7Qoq6rdNIWNeB1tDzc9c83SE0xP0S5OjbHi_caznE" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1325" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSSkRIvcMUdcn3YSeWnDBPpZC7OX9Wxh8MxjsoglMVjO-8g0Ue8X9l0OHRBm2bJkmk7YoB9mz795Rx7V4Qx2i_4jIEuD9xTmm8t2uIgldU1kN948xftLKkDxOw29flRMMcGoG50cKEkk7Qoq6rdNIWNeB1tDzc9c83SE0xP0S5OjbHi_caznE" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: left;">The Lambeth Conference is over with all its occasions to dance the two-step, each bishop moving laterally with alternate wringing hands of guilt and waving hands of praise, and thankfully having plenty of time to simply be with one another. In 10 years they can get together and do it again. I sense that the Lambeth Conference is a really good thing for a community of churches that come together because they want to, not because they have to. </span></span></span></div><p></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But now begins the Anglican version of Capture the Flag, in which contending parties vie for ownership of the Anglican Communion flag. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The one party, the Lambeth Conference of Bishops in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and mostly OK with one another, will continue to think that flying the flag of the Anglican Communion is about finding reasons to talk to one another, work together when possible, and give thanks for the treasure they have received from Anglican spiritual and liturgical life - gifts first received from the Church’s experience in England. These are churches that work to find ways to be a community of mutuality.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The other party desiring to capture the Flag consists of self proclaimed orthodox bishops who believe they should only get together with other bishops who share either the ancient faith, “once delivered of the Saints” or the faith as expressed as “biblical” faith, conforming to the Word of God given in the bible, plainly written. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This second party is made up primarily of bishops from two organizations: The GAFCON bishops and the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches. In two separate statements, the Global South Fellowship and GAFCON have made it clear that they are out to capture the flag..to own the “real” rights to be the Anglican Communion. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This crowd believes that Anglican Identity (for which they are glad to provide determining definition) is central to the question about what the Anglican Communion is and who is part of it. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In this they are wrong. “Anglican identity” is about who thinks of themselves as Anglicans. “The Anglican Communion” is about particular churches who are in communion with the See of Canterbury and who gather from time to time for mutual support and encouragement and have an institutional structure for the sharing of this encouragement and support.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The second party wants capturing the flag to be about joining their proclamation about Anglican Identity to the rights to use the phrase “Anglican Communion.” </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">To this end the GAFCON part of this party has begun speaking of the current (and they believe false) Anglican Communion as the “Canterbury Communion” rather than the Anglican Communion. They believe “The Anglican Establishment” has failed. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">GAFCON proposes that “Through the Global Anglian Future Conference (Gafcon) and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans, led by the power of the Holy Spirit, new courageous leaders are filling this gap (in true leadership) with authentic community and communion, seeking to make up for the Gospel deficit and the Ecclesial deficit (Windsor Report).” (Archbishop Beach, August 9, Chairman’s Letter). </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What this second crowd contends is that the Lambeth Conference has no claim on being an “instrument” of communion and flying the “Anglican Communion” flag. Rather it is the gatherings growing out of the combination of energies from GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans, that should get the flag. Their end is to replace an Anglican Communion, as a community of churches linked by way of communion with Canterbury, with a community of churches linked by shared doctrinal commitments to a peculiar way of engaging scripture and doctrinal purity.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">They have the numbers… a number of the largest national/ regional churches (Nigeria and Uganda) in the Anglican Communion are part of this group. But that doesn’t keep them from stacking the deck. Archbishop Beach includes in the list of primates not attending Lambeth because of conscience, the primates of North America and Brazil - by which he means the Archbishops of the Anglican Church of North America and the breakaway Anglican Church of Brazil. Neither of which is a part of the Anglican Communion - that is, they are not in communion with Canterbury or recognized by the Anglican Consultative Council. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">All of this is about this second group making the case that it is IT that really represents the Anglican Churches in the world, and not the Anglican Communion as currently constituted. All of this is part of its effort to capture the flag.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I find myself thinking of Rhett Butler, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” Apparently some provinces of the Anglican Communion and some other churches want to be a “real” multinational church, with its own peculiar doctrines. That is, a church like the Roman Catholic Church, or even perhaps the Orthodox Churches with a well formed hierarchy. Go for it. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But I don’t believe there is any need for another world-wide church. The ones that exist are full of promise but are profoundly disappointing. If this gang wants to go for that, go for it.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I’m for the Anglican Communion that is Incarnational, lives as a provisional conciliar body, is a fellowship (koinonia) and not a power, is concerned for mutuality and is willing to die to itself, and united in prayer and action for the health of the world. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I don’t give a damn about starting another worldwide church with a peculiar and unchanging doctrine. But let’s be clear:</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">They have no right to the name “Anglican Communion” and we are under no obligation to play this Capture the Flag game. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Let’s tell them to go, do what they want, but they don’t get to take the family silver, or claim the family name</span></span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">For some reason, owning that flag, and the rights to speak of your particular party as the “real” Anglican Communion has become an important objective. </span> </p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-546259277000410832022-08-06T10:50:00.001-04:002022-08-07T15:23:18.583-04:00The Sound of Silence: Haiti and the Episcopal Church.<p> </p><p><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">THE SOUND OF SILENCE: HAITI AND THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Episcopal Church of Haiti, the Episcopal Church diocese in Haiti, has, by some counting, the largest number of baptized members of any diocese in the Episcopal Church. Often this is mentioned in the same paragraph that observes that the Episcopal Church is present in 16 countries. There is considerable pride by some in the fact that the Diocese of Haiti is both a sign of mission action that worked, and a sign of the international character of The Episcopal Church.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">With all that pride, it is damning that the budget for support of the Diocese of Haiti has not changed for at least 20 years, that interest in funding for rebuilding the Church in Haiti following the earthquake of 2010 has dwindled, that the Cathedral project has stalled, and that not a peep is heard about the governance of the Church in Haiti. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is no Diocesan bishop in Haiti as the process for moving forward to the election of a bishop seems to have ground to a halt. A convention in Haiti elected a bishop, but the US dioceses did not consent to the election. So now the diocese is beginning again to do the work towards election, guided by its Standing Committee with pastoral oversight from other Bishops in The Episcopal Church. But we hear nothing of any concern of, or interest by,The Episcopal Church.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The 2022 General Convention of The Episcopal Church made almost no mention of Haiti at all. At the Lambeth Conference there is no Diocesan bishop from Haiti. And, as far as I can tell, no recognition of any sort of that absence. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But more importantly, there is nothing being heard from Church leaders in either The Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion about the chaos in Haitian political and social life, nothing about prayer for Haiti, for the church of Haiti, nothing about prayer for the people and country.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Nothing.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But maybe I missed it.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Here is the thing: Haiti as a country is on the verge of major collapse. Some of the leaders of the movement to restart elections and reestablish a fully functioning government are beginning to speak of the need for revolution. They recognize that it is increasingly impossible for a corrupt system to rein in the gangs, the kidnappings, and the brutal violence in the streets. But what will happens if Haiti as a state simply implodes? By who and how will there be any movement beyond the chaos of gang rule? </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">And in that context, what will is the work and ministry of the Episocpal Church of Haiti and of the Episcopal Church as a whole?</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Regularly on Sunday morning I check in on FaceBook with Epiphany parish in Port-au-Prince. The video stream of the Eucharist is a reminder to me that the Church in Haiti is alive and functioning and that the essential work is continuing. That service reminds me that brave and tenacious faithful people gather, even in increasingly difficult circumstances. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Episcopal Church ought to have a real interest in, and support of, the Church in Haiti so that it can choose and validate Haitian leadership of the Church. But it seems silent and inattentive.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Episcopal Church ought to have a real interest in, and support of changes in Haiti’s civil society that would foster a more just, less chaotic, community. But there seems to be silence there as well.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">As it stands The Episcopal Church seems in a reactive mode rather than a reflective or proactive mode. Are there any conversations with Haitian church leaders about how TEC can be supportive either of the Church of Haiti or the people of Haiti? If there are, why do we hear little. If there are not, why not?</span></span></p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-81109135481044971912022-08-02T15:10:00.005-04:002022-08-02T15:16:03.017-04:00The Lambeth Conference thread 2022<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><i>(The Lambeth Conference 2022 thread from Facebook. These days commentary seems to happen more on Facebook, but here is a compilation of the postings on Lambeth 2022. It turns out a blog is a better place to collect them as a group.)</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">(7/25) Dancing the Lambeth Two Step:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This is a post for those interested in the Anglican Communion. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Lambeth Conference apparently will replace resolution making with a more congenial dance where no one says NO, but politely accepts the call to dance to a given proposition or simply sits out the dance by suggesting further conversation over tea. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The 2022 Lambeth Conference program to consider several “Calls” - statements for consideration by the bishops gathered is profoundly flawed: in the generation of statements, in the process being manipulative, and the the questionable proposals about how they might be voted on. It raises questions about the value of the whole event. This thing is engineered to promote a myth, that the Anglican Communion is a “church” as opposed to a gathering of Churches, and that therefore it has a “mind” such that you could talk about the “mind” of the communion. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The discernment of “calls” is a supposed alternative to more contentious resolution making. Resolutions are replaced by calls to commitment and action, Give that bishops will discuss and vote (with only a yes commitment or a commitment to further discussion possible) it’s hard to see the difference between this and resolutions. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But there is one. In a meeting with resolutions one can vote against as well as for. Here the bishops can only commit to action or to continued discernment. There is no NO there. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This revision smacks of the kind of autocracy where you can vote yes now or yest to being convinced later, but you can’t vote no. So at the front end the Lambeth Conference is clouding the issue of its role as a deliberative body. Robust minority opinion against any of the “calls” is simply not allowed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The most difficult of these “calls” is the one on Human Dignity, which includes a proposal to reaffirm Lambeth 1998:1.10. This needs to be explicitly rejected rather than either approved or kicked down the road for further consideration (the only two choices offered.) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But I believe it is not only this “call” that needs to be rejected, as if the constrained process for considering the others was somehow OK. It is not the content of these statements alone that is the problem. It is the process itself. The design of the Conference is at its core the problem.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The bishops are asked to take one of two positions. The Lambeth Call document states it this way:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">“For each decision there will be two choices for each bishop to make:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">• This Call speaks for me. I add my voice to it and commit myself to take the action I can to implement it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">• This Call requires further discernment. I commit my voice to the ongoing process.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But the Lambeth process even confuses this choicemaking:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The second of these: “This Call requires further discernment. I commit my voice to the ongoing process.” is stated in a significantly different way later, “There will be opportunities during the conference to share your answers to these questions before the conference decides on whether to adopt or adapt the Call.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Is the Conference affirming a Call, which “speaks to me” or is it “adopting” the statement? Is the alternative to decide that “it requires further discernment” or is it “to adapt (that is to change) the statement? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Of the two, I believe it is the first that is the guiding notion: The choices are between affirming the call, or kicking it down the road for further discernment.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">What would happen if sufficient bishops were to refuse to vote so that a majority could not be reached either to adopt or further consider a call? If less that, say, fifty percent of the bishops were to step back and refuse to consider a call as it is written at all, what would happen to that call?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Is boycotting a vote the only way to say NO?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">II.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> (7/25) The Lambeth Dance just got a bit more civil. This announcement came clarifying that there would be a revision of the Call concerning Human Dignity and a third possibility of voting. Now, the question remains, where did that Lambeth 1998, 1.10 re-affirmation thing come from?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">III. (7/27) The second revision of the working document for the Lambeth Conference, the “Lambeth Calls” document, contains the striking and immediately useful correction to the Section on Human Dignity, in which Lambeth Conference 1998 1.10 is no longer part of the call, but rather is a reference point for positions held by some, but not all, of the churches in the Communion. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There are other small corrections to be made</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The one I noticed: In “Mission and Evangelism,” 1.1 removed a reference to the Anglican church, and made it Anglican churches. This is important because the Anglican Communion is not a church, but a fellowship of churches.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is at least one other tweak that needs to happen. Perhaps just an editorial footnote. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In “Interfaith Relations,” 2.4 mentions the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer, but not whose BCP. It is not in the CofE official 1662 BCP. Whose churches have this in their service for baptism? It would be instructive to know.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I’m sure there are more. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I would hope that without getting into the weeds of “perfecting” the calls, there might be a simple process of making small tweaks as necessary to clean up the edges.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">With a bumpy start it still would appear that the Bishops are ready to settle in to real time together to pray and work. I hope it goes well.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">There is still the concern that these documents, good, bad or indifferent, made their way to the table either by design or by accident from material woven together by a small group responsible to the Archbishop directly, or perhaps the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion. So who got Lambeth 1998, 1.10 into the document in the first place?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">IV (7/29)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">A read on what ever is going on re resolutions at the Lambeth Conference. Obviously a read from outside the circle and therefore no doubt limited in value.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Lambeth Conference is a wonderful gift to most of the bishops, a time to reflect, pray, discuss, and yes, even resolve, all in a context where it is hard to forget that odd reality of being part of a Church informed by Catholic, national, and reformed perspectives. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But because it does try to parse out what counts as an Anglican perspective on issues, concerns and theological groundings, it is sometimes a place of contention leading to potential fist-fights. So it is this time. But there is a difference, one due to a now 25 year old rupture. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In 1997 a meeting of Global South bishops, at a conference underwritten in part by the Anglican Communion Office, published a report that critiqued the movement in the West towards inclusion of gay and lesbian persons in ordained ministry and considerably widened the role of women in the ordained ministry. But it was more. It was a first flexing of the muscles of those who were colonized into the Christian Faith against the double standards of their colonizers. The West brought what seemed to be the sure truth, it was adopted by the receivers, and they were appalled when the West began to change its tune. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">More, they were aided in being appalled by some in the West who were glad to fuel the suspicion that the West was walking away from the very truths they had brought. Bishops in the Global South could then voice their resentment of the colonialism of the past by both rejecting that, and what they now saw as revisionist thinking by the West.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Within a year that gave ríse to the takeover of the agenda on the report on Human Sexuality at Lambeth 1998. The report of the committee was scrapped and instead Lambeth resolutio 1.10, a substitute, was put forward and passed. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">That was then, and now is now. And a group of Global South bishops will again try to push a substitute for the “Call” on Human Dignity, in which Lambeth 1998 1.10 will be reaffirmed and the call will be for punitive actions to be taken against churches who don’t conform to the proposition that marriage is only between “one man and one woman.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Good luck with that. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Still, depending on how these days play out, the possibilities seem to be:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">1. The possibility of a resolution will be squelched. Some bishops may walk out not to return. The Global South / GAFCON crowd will have all the more reasons to initiate an entirely separate world-wide church structure. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">2. The resolution will go forward only to be voted down. This is less a reason for bishops to leave, but still gives ammunition to the GAFCON crowd to be encouraged by, and helpful to those sympathetic to them in the West (Including particularly ACNA - the Anglican Church in North America). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">3. The resolution will go forward, be approved, and more or less ignored by everybody except the Global South gang, and life of the Anglican Communion will stumble alone. Progressives will move to cease funding anything involving the Global South bishops and , or the Anglican Communion offices.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">4. The resolution will be approved and the Archbishop of Canterbury will with caution none the less affirm that this is the “mind of the Church” and remove or sanction those churches who have ordained gay or lesbian persons to the episcopate. Those churches who do ordain gay and lesbian persons will feel betrayed. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But in any of these cases, NO ONE will really address the skunk on the table, namely that the moral distinctions drawn in every culture regarding right action are to a large extent culturally determined and that Christian evangelists have always brought those sensibilities with the message of salvation and confused the two: proper moral behavior and salvatioin.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The skunk is that the receiver always resents being dragged into the moral universe determined by the messengers own culture, and that the communities of the messengers seldom deal with that resentment.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Sadly, bishops are not making that resentment clear. Instead, they have allowed their resentment to be used by those in the West whose agenda is about cultural infighting in the West and gaining allies for those battles. ACNA has everyting to gain by the growth of an alternative to the Anglican Communion as it now stands, where they have no standing. And, in the good ol’ Church of England, where all the bishops revel in the beauty of really old and very English cathedrals, the evangelical party will find themselves aligned with the “Majority of the Anglican Communion.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It would be nice to think that if it was simply passed it would be done with. (option 3) but my strong sense is that that is not going to happen. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Meanwhile, I hope most bishops have a restful time and that none of all this takes place. This is because I respect and honor what we do when we make people bishops. It’s a hard job and deserving of some supportive networking. And I believe the Anglican Communion is a real gift to us all, for we need friends in Christ throughout the world. Lambeth can be a context for supporting both deserved time together and building friendships.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">This resolution mess is less helpful, filled with unintended consequences, and serves forces outside the community of bishops and their churches.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">V. (8/1) Lambeth two-step dance revisited.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">In an earlier post I spoke of the “skunk on the table,” - the resentments about colonialism in the mission work of the West. Having sold 19th Century western moral and civil structures along with the Gospel, as a single package, with the approval of the colonial powers, the receivers took it all in stride. Now they see the West changing its moral and civil stance, separate from the Gospel, and resent that they had to give up their own cultures and civil society in order to take on the Gospel, only to be further jerked around by Western churches who claim the moral high ground and who want to change the rules once again. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Some readers may think this a stretch, but read this from the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches- from their “resolution” they are putting forward to the Lambeth Conference: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">“For too long the Anglican Communion has been driven by the views of the West. We often feel that our voice is not listened to, or respected. We invite each primate and bishop to sign up to our resolution, and then with the majority of the Communion in favour, for the Instruments of the Anglican Communion to find ways to put faith and order back at the heart of what the Archbishop of Canterbury describes as ‘walking together’”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">They are going to get a lot of bishops to sign a document saying that “our voices are not listened to or respected.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">At the end of all this, the Lambeth Conference may be considerably changed, and no longer an instrument of unity - a stretch these last three Lambeth Conferences. But it can be a place for honest discussion and cooperation. In order to be that there needs to be respect and friendship among the bishops. I believe there is lots of room for that. When the angers and resentments subside, there is often lots to talk about, share, pray for, contemplate, give thanks for. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">It will mean eating at the table and at the altar without using invitation or exclusion as a tool. It will in fact mean respect and listening. It will not mean agreeing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I hope the Conference can move on from this difficult day.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">VI (8/2)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The Global South Anglican Churches has reintroduced the text of Lambeth 1998, 1.10 and sent around copies to be signed and agreed to by as many bishops as they could muster. However the text is different from the original. That text ended with these two points:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">“Notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality and the concerns expressed in resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23 and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality and asks the Primates and the ACC to include them in their monitoring process.” </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">The text given to the bishops ends differently: </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">“e. notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality and</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"> the concerns expressed in resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23 and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">ii. Urges that renewed steps be taken to ensure that all Provinces abide by this doctrine in their faith, order & practice.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">(from the Global South Anglican Churches page.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">That last bit, “urgent that renewed steps be taken to ensure that all provinces abide by this doctrine in their faith, order & practice,” is given the heading (ii). There is no indication about what this means in the document. It is under section 5 of the press release, and is presented as part of the resolution Lambeth 1998 1.10. It is not.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">But it is telling: What was wanted then was indeed punitive action against those who did not abide by this doctrine. First they gave this resolution “doctrinal” status. Then they were, and remain, committed to punitive action until such time as there is repentence. It was not part of the original Lambeth resolution, but never mind. Just a little photoshopping or editorial work and, voila! The doctrine you always wanted for the next great round of punishments.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Shame on GSAC messing with the text of the past resolution and encouraging bishops to sign on to this bit of subterfuge. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">I think the Archbishop of Canterbury did a ]good job threading the needle and stitching things together so that conversations can continue. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">Sometime it might be good for the bishops assembled in some sort of gathering, to talk about times when they were recipients of oppression or were oppressors. The conversation then might turn to what would count as repair, rather than what would count as retribution. But we will not know at Lambeth, except one hopes, on the sidelines when bishop to bishop the walls start falling.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-69227434772183086162022-06-06T09:23:00.003-04:002022-06-06T09:23:20.187-04:00My Take on “The Statement on Baptism and Eucharist in the Episcopal Church.”.<span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><br /><br /><br />(I’ve been writing mostly on Facebook, but am beginning to want to return to the Blog to put “on record” some of my writing.)<br /><br />My take on the “Statement on Baptism and Eucharist in the Episcopal Church.”<br /><br />A group of 22 theologians have written “A Statement on Baptism and Eucharist in The Episcopal Church.” It urges the Episcopal Church General Convention to make it clear that “Holy Eucharist is not intended for “all people” without exception, but is rather for “God’s people.” <br /><br />I believe It is profoundly misguided on many levels:<br /><br />The notion that Baptism “is the sacramental foundation of our common life with God and one another” and “is the fountain from which all other sacraments flow” may make for good theological fluid mechanics, but it is terrible sacramental theology. <br /><br />Sacraments are, as we remember, outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. There is no suggestion in that simple definition of any sort of hierarchy of sacraments. The sense in which Baptism and Eucharist were “instituted by Christ” does not tell us anything about having to be baptized first, and only then being able to participate in the Eucharist. All of that is part of the discipline of the Church, not the result of limitations on the workings of Grace. <br /><br />The writers say, “Baptism is what makes the Church the Church and therefore what enables us to participate in all the other Christian sacraments or sacramental rites, such as the Eucharist.” This is the “ticket to ride” theory, and it does not bear up very well under biblical scrutiny. Participation in Christ, taking the body and being the body, can be initiated by any means the Spirit determines. <br /><br />After a small bow to the Book of Common Prayer (and only the most recent version of that), the writers refer to the “Commentary on Eucharistic Sharing,” that has as its authority that as a commentary it was approved by General Convention and is part of the Handbook for Ecumenism. Commentaries are just that - commentaries. Not canon or common prayer or direct extensions of biblical materials. Commentaries. The description given says nothing about exclusion from Eucharist if not baptized, but rather that being baptized, Eucharist is the “special offering of thanksgiving” and “serves to bind into a common body those whose differences He has reconciled.” That is, those baptized are enjoined to celebrate Eucharist. Nothing is said about those not baptized.<br /><br />The writers then conclude, “Unlike Baptism, Holy Eucharist is therefore not intended for “all people” without exception, but is rather for “God’s people” understood above as a common body united by a common faith.” The “therefore” just does not follow. <br /><br />And, who, pray tell, are “God’s people.” Best we not reject someone because we defined just who God’s people are, and it didn’t include that person, only to find it was a messenger of God disguised.<br /><br />Furthermore “all people, without exception” is a lead into the issue of “moral and theological commitments” that the writers assume are part of restrictions. The objection seems to be that open invitation means that “just anybody” could come and receive, but that “just anybody” already includes me, “I am unworthy to come to thy table…” and includes me I suppose because I don’t share in the theological subtleties that seem to drive the writers.<br /><br />The writers contend that, “There are thus specific moral and theological commitments both expected in and expressed by the act of reception.” Indeed that is true. But it is mostly true for those of us who receive as committed Christians. We are expected to bring our understandings and faith commitments to the table. But that does not necessarily exclude those whose faith has not been formed. <br /><br />The writers introduce a quite amazing close: “Finally, in liturgical terms, the Eucharist is understood to be the repeatable culmination of the baptismal rite of initiation, in which those who receive the elements publicly reaffirm their baptism, as the post-communion prayers clearly indicate.” <br /><br />OK. Take a look at the first post-communion prayer for Rite II. It reads, “Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord. Amen.” This is a prayer said by the whole congregation. Not every member of which gets it, that we are “members” of the body of Christ by baptism (not mentioned by name in this prayer), and certainly not every member will get the notion that this is “a repeatable culmination of the baptismal rite of initiation.” <br /><br />Baptism can, and often is, and was apparently at the very beginning, a rite of its own, a sacrament sufficient in itself as a carrier of the Grace with which it was endowed. Its culmination is in the pentecostal fire. The notion that the Eucharist is a ‘repeatable culmination of the baptismal rite of initiation’ is a long stretch and smacks of invention.<br /><br />The writers then sign off with a really fantastic bit of theological bludgeoning: “These are the basic sacramental convictions of The Episcopal Church, and however the canons express them they need to be acknowledged as such.” I suggest they are not the “basic sacramental convictions of The Episcopal Church,” but rather the convictions of some theologians about the way The Episcopal Church ought to view the sacraments.<br /><br />All of which is to say, these writers have some really interesting things to say about Baptism and Eucharist, but about the linking of the two and therefore the forbidding of persons to receive communion, they fall short of decent argument. <br /><br />On a practical level, my sense is the invitation to the table (and not compelling but inviting) is mostly an issue for those occasions when a good number of people who are not baptized Christians are likely to be in attendance - namely weddings, funerals and large Church occasions. Some sort of guidance seems in order, maybe something like, “We gather at this Altar Table as Our Lord Jesus Christ desired, becoming one with Himself, and of his Body in the world. Those who are prepared to be and become one with The Lord Jesus in his death and resurrection are encouraged to receive Communion. Those who wish to bless and be blessed in their presence with us, please come forward to be blessed at the altar, and to bless us by being with us.” (This is a rough cut…but you get the idea.)<br /><br />These writers will carry a lot of wight, with their titles and degrees. That’s the way it goes. But this piece will do the church no good. It is a mess. </span>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-58179235823548463132021-05-25T09:55:00.003-04:002021-05-25T09:55:36.194-04:00Touching the Dead, a way of Remembering.<p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the Days of Covid I have been trying to call to mind the reality of the deaths we as a country have absorbed. How can we envision what half a million looks like, or 600 thousand? The numbers keep rising. When the New York Times listed 1000 of the first 100,000 deaths it termed the losses “incalculable.” That number seemed so large back in May of 2020. Since then we have multiplied that number by six. And with the passing of time we have reimaged and recalculated again and again. When we reach 670,000, as we surely will, one out of every 500 people in the US will have died from Covid. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The exercise of numbering is important, but in the end these are just numbers. It is the senses, the empirical senses, that bring the reality of so many deaths home. The medical personnel dealing one on one with the dying know this.The numbers are grounded in experienced death. Families desperate for help and not finding it know this and they become companions in the death watch with hundreds of thousands around the world similarly ground down by the harsh realities of health systems ground down by the flood of cases. They have been touched by close encounters with Covid. For them extrapolation to the big numbers is experiential. For the rest of us it is an exercise mostly of the mind - using signs and symbols to represent people who have died.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For all my efforts to engaged the immensity of these numbers, I have been very conscious of the distance between the art objects made to hint to the numbers and the visceral reality of immense numbers of dead. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My first effort - a bound book containing 230,000 “1’s” - made it possible to hold in my hands an object that contained this big number, the number of US dead by November 1, 2020. I called this “Book of Numbers.” I could hold the book and turn the pages and reflect on the same dreadful news… one on one on one. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xl_M4k__rBk/YK0A7t3P8hI/AAAAAAAAwWQ/MwKFHH9d6Aog_h6wJIY7XHV65tY0ndMrACPcBGAsYHg/s3380/IMG_5988.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2290" data-original-width="3380" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xl_M4k__rBk/YK0A7t3P8hI/AAAAAAAAwWQ/MwKFHH9d6Aog_h6wJIY7XHV65tY0ndMrACPcBGAsYHg/s320/IMG_5988.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My second effort was a larger visual experience- a large set of panels with half a million dots, which themselves formed a picture of shapes, spirits, hovering over the background of many thousands and thousands of dots. I believe the viewer can take in the whole field and know in some sense what that number “looks like.” And still it was too easy to take the numbers and weave them into a story…dots that meant something to the perceiving mind.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YE2V0Q1Qvm0/YK0BIKJUlEI/AAAAAAAAwWU/J_LUfDkRgMkP0IU2WBIHXSMzKfqRUp06wCPcBGAsYHg/s3467/IMG_6134.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1399" data-original-width="3467" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YE2V0Q1Qvm0/YK0BIKJUlEI/AAAAAAAAwWU/J_LUfDkRgMkP0IU2WBIHXSMzKfqRUp06wCPcBGAsYHg/s320/IMG_6134.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The New York Times also tried to envision half a million in a wonderful front page graphic in which a column of dots were arranged on a time line with a density determined by the daily death tolls. This was published a few days after I had completed the panels. Like the panels it was a graphic representation of an even more incalculable number. </span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These efforts mostly involved visual art, in which persons are represented by marks, and the marks located temporally and spatially to give us a sense of the whole. The book attempted to place the numbers in a capturing device, a net, made up of bound book pages, so that there could be a tactile experience. It worked, but the effect was still primarily visual, because or most immediate reaction to a book is to see it as a visual tool for information exchange. Book lovers may love holding a book, but book users read. Some who opened the Book of Numbers saw only pages filled with 1’s, they never got the sense that they were holding in their hands these lives. The tactile sense was lost in the habits of book use.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This past week I created a very different way of marking the now almost 600,000 U.S. deaths from Covid-19. In a large wooden bowl, carved by my wood sculpture friend Roy Fitzgerald, I put roughly 600,000 brown and black mustard seeds. In our exhibit, “Remembering and Naming,” the bowl is on a stand with a votive candle behind it. Visitors are invited to run their hands through the seeds, to let the seeds flow through their fingers, to smell the light pungency of the mustard, and to feel the presence of the souls represented by the seeds. This is not an artful use of vision, but of touch and smell, and the evocation is not of a visual story, but a sensual one. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OgmopIxLeE4/YK0BfyHA3OI/AAAAAAAAwWk/HCdLOP1052MOEaS1F-FImGlEVCDU9MqsACPcBGAsYHg/s4032/IMG_6378.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OgmopIxLeE4/YK0BfyHA3OI/AAAAAAAAwWk/HCdLOP1052MOEaS1F-FImGlEVCDU9MqsACPcBGAsYHg/s320/IMG_6378.JPG" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because we are so un-used to this sort of presentation, I wrote a poem / meditation to accompany the tactile engagement. It was posted on the wall beside the bowl. It reads:</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EVERY SOUL HAS WORTH</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So small, my soul,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">so wide the gulf of death.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Standing on this shore</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I gaze across to where </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the waters meet the sky</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and wonder</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why some are taken</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">others stay.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why, if my faith is that</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">even of a mustard seed,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does my heart grow cold</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and my mind shut down?</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why is it so hard for me </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to comprehend that death</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is all around, and near,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and has no shame?</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Six</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hundred</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thousand.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The mustard seeds</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">slip through my fingers</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in this lavabo bowl.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wash my hands in the souls</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of all who have died,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And at last I see and feel:</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every soul has worth,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">small fragrant markers</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the spirit that permeates</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the whole and makes</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the spirit of the one,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and the spirit of the many,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and the Spirit of the all together,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ONE.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whatever else these effort mean, they tell me this: Our hands are closer to the truth of things than we sometimes realize. Our senses are immensely more powerful than we give them credit for. In an information age we sometimes limit information to the signs and symbols that our visual field can encompass. But the world of experience is filled with empirical realities, things touched, tasted, smelled, and heard, as well as seen. And perhaps a sense of what the incalculable deaths from Covid will come to us by touch as well as sight. Perhaps we can feel the deaths slipping through our fingers, smooth small seed stones held for a moment in our hands before gravity pulls them down. Perhaps we can smell the pungent earth from which they came and to which they go. And as we do these things we will remember, with all our senses.</span></p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aCMPpwR8BCc/YK0BQPokPxI/AAAAAAAAwWg/R23890880144UtsrfXUO192DikoDDsGJQCPcBGAsYHg/s4032/IMG_6378.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aCMPpwR8BCc/YK0BQPokPxI/AAAAAAAAwWg/R23890880144UtsrfXUO192DikoDDsGJQCPcBGAsYHg/s320/IMG_6378.JPG" /></a></div><br />Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-10110424276286674932021-02-15T09:42:00.003-05:002021-02-20T08:14:01.437-05:00The Silence about the Church of Haiti<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-f30ddf52-7fff-3d20-41d3-aaf42829b360" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Haiti, among the largest of Episcopal Church Dioceses, ought to be a source of news and interest in the whole church. Instead there seems to be very little interest in either the Church of Haiti or the social context in which it finds itself. It comes into focus only when it is a proof-text for the inclusiveness and international character of The Episcopal Church (see, we are an international church, and our largest diocese is Haiti) or when we inadvertently (or perhaps on purpose) support the trope that Haiti, “the poorest country in the western hemisphere,” is incapable of self governance.That is, Haiti (the church in and the state of) arises by name in Church news only when bragging rights or prejudicial judgement is wanted.</span></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">This may sound harsh, but I can come to no other conclusion.</span></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Some matters seem small:</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The committees and commissions of The Episcopal Church have very few members from Haiti. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Translation at church-wide gatherings are much less often translated into French than into Spanish.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Almost nothing in the Canons of the Church make allowances for the differences in political and legal structures in which a number of our dioceses are situated.</span></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Some matters are great:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is little call for prayer for the people of Haiti when there is civil, economic or heath crises in Haiti, or when the church itself is in need of spiritual support.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is almost no church-wide call to remember the needs of the Haitian Church and peoples in their days of extreme need.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Following the earthquake eleven years ago the initial rush to assist the Diocese and people of Haiti was followed by reserve, resistance and reluctance because of perceived internal problems of governance in the Diocese. As those problems have dragged on, there has been little effort to reengage. Haiti has become a pariah.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is almost nothing we seem to learn FROM Haiti or the Church in Haiti.</span></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">We have, on matters great and small, averted our gaze.</span></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">There have been great efforts by the Presiding Bishop and his staff to support the Diocese in its working through issues of governance and leadership. And the Church has continued to support the basic functioning of the Diocese. A number of diocese and parishes have continued to support mission in Haiti and specific programs and institutions. But the overwhelming reaction to Haiti and its work, concerns, issues and troubles, is … silence.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">The form that averting our gaze takes is troublesome. It parallels and in some ways mimics our attention to issues of systemic racism. We will take the glory for the great heroes of faith in Haiti… Bishop James Theodore Holly. We will tout our international character by celebrating that Haiti is among our largest dioceses. But we do not learn from them, because they are black. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No one seriously suggests that we might reimagined our sense of the episcopate along the self-giving ministry of Holly. Celebrate him, yes. Emulate him, no. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No one asks why the church in Haiti grows, even in adverse circumstances, even as the Church in the US is shrinking. Apparently the Episcopal Church in the United States of America feels it has little to learn from the Episcopal Church of Haiti.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">•</span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No one seems to wonder if our attitude towards the Church in Haiti is prejudiced against that church such that every problem that happens there is seen as a problem of basic inadequacy of Haitians. We never seem to want to explore the possibility that we are echoing the trope long held against Haiti, which is that black people are incapable of self-government. That trope was a means of discounting the Haitian Revolution, a revolt against slavery and slave owners. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">At this time there are remarkable parallels in the unfolding of events in Haiti and the US. And that is true for the church as well. And yet there seems to be no interest in learning from one another. There is little dialogue about shared concerns for faithful response to national calamities and internal divisions in the church. Worse, there is almost complete silence about church division happening in Haiti, except to hint that perhaps nothing better could be expected. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">If we do not work harder and better concerning our engagement with the Church in Haiti we will loose that church not because it established its own life as a national church, but because we stood by and watched it burn. We need not only to continue supporting the work of the Episcopal Church of Haiti, we need to do so with great resolve… the resolve to engage with the people and church of Haiti so that we might learn with them how to survive and thrive in adverse circumstances with hope in God’s grace working among us. Otherwise, in our hard days to come we will have learned nothing and we will continue to shrink, and the Church in Haiti will know the abandonment that the whole of Haiti has known at the hands of those who always begin articles on Haiti by saying, “Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.” </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">We can do better than this. Prayer and accompaniment is the place to begin. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-92075600712911974652020-12-07T09:59:00.001-05:002020-12-07T09:59:35.910-05:00A BURNING PATIENCE...SERMON, 2 ADVENT 2020<p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A BURNING PATIENCE</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Sermon 2 Advent, 2002, St. Peter’s Church, Lewes, Delaware. Mark Harris<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Dear Ones: Consider this a letter to you, fellow travelers in this strange world. I’m reading this aloud, of course because we are together on internet streaming, but it’s a letter none the less. I haven’t preached to and in an in person congregation for some months. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I write knowing that many of you are doing so much to help in these times. I sense sometimes that you must be exhausted. I know that some close to me are really tired, tired from having to work in new ways, with new challenges, tired of having to wait for things to get better, tired of having to put up a good front in the face of prolonged anxiety. We are absolutely ready for something else, something that will quickly release us from pandemic and other social distress. But it seems it is not to be, not yet. For now we cannot avert our gaze, our attention to the realities of the moment.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">It seems to me this is a time to practice a kind of holy patience, but by holy I don’t mean detached, far from it!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Arthur Rimbaud, a quite challenging french poet, wrote, “Still, now with the coming of night, let us muster all the strength and true tenderness we can. And at dawn, armed with a burning patience, we will enter into the splendid cities.” That phrase, “a burning patience” was picked up by Pablo Neruda as a call to persevere at times of great calamity and anxiety.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">It is a “burning patience” that I believe is needed just now. It is that patience that lives in the readings today. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The prophet Isaiah cries out that the burning patience of the people will be met by the harold who cries, “Here is your God,” and he prophesied that God leads, comforts and restores the people at the last. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Peter admonishes us to a patience like God’s, and and to “regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.” Burning patience for the Lord’s presence IS salvation. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">And then there is the thundering witness of John, who baptizes: “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” John call us to have patience, with hearts burning for the one who is to come, who will wash us in the Holy Spirit. Be patient, he says,I am not the One, but the One is coming. He calls out “Hold On” the One is coming who will make us New.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">None of these were called to be passively, listlessly, quietly patient- not Isaiah, not Peter, not John. Their burning patience is full of anticipation, full of expectation, and quite often full of noise, and sound and fury. All of theses are signs, of how burning the hope is. And yet, patience is part of that hope. Patience is the willingness to wait upon God, upon the revealing of what is to come. Armed with a burning patience we prepare for the day that makes us whole.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I can only echo in these times the same: we ought to seek the splendid city, the reign of God, the new Jerusalem, with all our hearts, and seeking that we ought to look for the light to come. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">We ought have no peace with oppression, no patience for those who would bend away from justice and mercy. But because freedom from oppression and freedom from fear has not happened yet, it is tempting to lose heart, to become impatient to the point of giving up. In doing that we become instruments of our own oppression. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The fact that the pandemic continues, that our country is not clearly on its way to being a more perfect union… these are realities. But it is not the end of the matter. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">A different sort patience is needed, the patience of the faithful. For us, separated as we are by the pandemic, divided as we are by so many differences, it is hard to be patient. Still, that is what I believe we need to be: patient with that special burning patience that rests in our anticipation God’s new creation in us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">One read of John’s message is just that: Be patient, but be prepared. Now is the time for repentance. Now is a time for vigilance in matters of heath and governance. All so that when the One who is coming is here you will be ready to be washed in the Holy Spirit and made fit for the splendid city of God. So we say, with that other John, the writer of the Revelation, “Come Lord Jesus!”and yet in confidence and hope we also wait for that Coming with patience.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The lighting of Advent candles is a little sign of that preparation. As the winter gets darker we light more candles, and then when it is darkest, we light the light of Christ. It may be the winter of our souls, and yet, with burning patience we light the way to new life in Christ. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">So I write this to encourage you to a burning patience. And I send you this song, a gospel song was written by Rev. Cleophus Robinson Jr.in 1980. It’s titled “Hold On, Just a little while longer.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Hold on just a little while longer (3x)<br />Everything will be all right<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Fight on just a little while longer (3x)<br />Everything will be all right<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Walk on just a little while longer (3x)<br />Everything will be all right (2 x)</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><br />Dear Ones: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">May the peace of God which is no peace, but a burning patience, guide you in these days. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Hold on just a little while longer. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Do not become instruments of your own oppression. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Keep the Faith.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">With love and admiration, Mark.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-80828189196104022782020-11-24T10:05:00.002-05:002020-11-24T10:05:26.376-05:00Can there Be Union after this Wreck of a Year? article first published in Delaware State News.<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-188421ce-7fff-6e98-aa40-7973737d7f85" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: white; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">how we go forward and work through the wreckage and become mo</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">CAN THERE BE UNION AFTER THIS WRECK OF A YEAR? </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">By all accounts 2020 has been a wreck of a year. It has been a year of extended battles in the body politic with very little to show for it, save cuts and bruises. The Pandemic, the economic crisis, social injustices responded to by the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements, the constant barrage of voices shouting about greatness, the gaining or loss thereof, and a campaign season that heightened vitriol, all have flooded through this year like a tsunami. There has been the sense that a kind of national madness has possessed us in which we are so divided by death and destruction that a sense of wreckage pervades and a national gloom has settled in.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Now we hear a lot about our need to become more united. I too long for the end of division, if only to end the sense of despair. Still, I wonder, does being united require that we end our divisions first, or is there another path forward? I think there is. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">America is hard work, because the idea of forming a unity from the rag-tag mix of peoples, and from the communities and states that formed the United States, is an ongoing and not yet completed task. We hammer out ways to deal with our differences, not necessarily to erase them. There is no agreement that our divisions should cease, but we keep trying to either dissolve or live with those differences. America is a work in progress. We work to keep the wide range of differences in enough union to be The United States of America.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">It is said these days that our divisions are now too deep for there to be a sense of being an United States. The lines of division are many and while we may think of the Republican and Democratic parties as representing these division, that is only the surface of the problem. Disunion and division grows from many sources, and are expressed in a variety of organizations. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Most political parties and organizations have proclaimed that their opponents are going to destroy their freedoms, their rights, or their livelihood. Opposition is viewed as an existential threat, and at the same time is a rallying cry for group cohesion. As a result we have a politics of opposition in which our identity is justified and grounded in fear.</span></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Opposition politics uses fear as a motivation. The key to change to a more perfect union is to move beyond the motivation of fear. Fear has to be deflected, turned aside, by some greater force, some larger motivation. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Sages and prophets through the ages have said that what deflects, casts out, or overcomes fear is love. They are right. But love is not easy. The problem is that we find it almost impossible to love those who we see as a threat. Our opponents, those who hold to social, economic or justice principals different from our own, are viewed as the enemy. While loving our enemies may be the goal, in the moment that seems impossible. So how do we begin?</span></span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where we might better begin is to deflect fear, and therefore begin the process of overcoming division, by falling in love with the world. If at first we cannot love our enemies, perhaps we can begin by loving the world in which we all live. By falling in love with the world, I mean experiencing a love for the overarching, expansive canopy of experiences that are available to all of us and are a source of thanksgiving. They are mostly simple, or certainly simpler than the complexities of our fears. </span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">The love that is found the experience of a crisp fall day, a quiet moment by the bay or a lake, food shared with friends, a moment of intimacy with one we love, all these and many thousand more, are all experiences of that love that deflects fear. And, unlike the fears that divide, these experiences are common across the widest of divides. </span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we want to heal the nation, the place we need to begin is to replace being afraid to being in love with the world. And having fallen in love with the world I think we will find avenues to unity that will surprise us. Across the red and blue divide, across the divide of those who demand justice and those who want freedom from control, across the divides of faith and political position, it turns out there is common ground in the ground itself, common cause in being in love with the world. </span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps if we turn from what we fear the most about our current condition to what we love the most about living there can be avenues to greater unity. Conversation and engagement about our being in love with the world is the beginning of acting not out fear, but out of thanksgiving, not being reactive but being active in our love of life. If our politicians want to stress coming together and unity, the place to begin is with a new sense of thanksgiving for the simple blessings of daily life. </span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">This coming Thanksgiving is an opportune moment to begin. </span></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p><p dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /></p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-48173824436941439452020-11-24T09:57:00.003-05:002020-11-24T09:57:35.579-05:00After the Pandemic: article from Delaware Communion.<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> <span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">A</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">fter the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Pandemic</span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The Church is open</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, even </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">when</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the church is closed.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">” </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> in </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the Episcopal Church in </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Delaware have </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">found that </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">nothing, not even </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a pandemic, can keep the love of God in Jesus Christ from being present and real</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> That’s a</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> powerful </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">learning</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">!</span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Plans for how we </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">re-emerge</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> from </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">stay-at-home rules</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> are already </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">in place.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">W</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e will </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">come back </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">with new skills, new appreciation of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">how we </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">are</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> “body”</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and new challenges</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. What will our return </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as church</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> look like? What </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">challenges will it bring? What even newer skills will be needed</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">?</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Our experiences during this time of pandemic, with all its </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">anxieties, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">pain, sadness, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and death</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> are the</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> source material for new witness, new stories of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">faithfulness.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Perhaps out of this</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> we</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">here in the Episcopal Church of Delaware</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">will </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">find new ways to practice resurrection</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Here are some</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> notes on possibilities, hopes and predictions</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> for the future of the Episcopal Church in Delaware</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, “The new Episcopal Church”</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">T</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">hey </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">may </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">apply also to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the whole church.</span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="s3" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: -18px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">1. </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">n</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ew Episcopal Church will</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">see cyberspace as a place of mission engagement</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">: </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">re will be much wider use of various</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> conferencing and meet-up </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">portals on the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">internet</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and wider use of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">mail services</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and that in turn will help us see cyberspace as a place were we can be </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">present as we are in </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“normal” space</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">There will be growing conversation about </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">whether or not </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">cyberspace can be incarnate space, space where God’s presence can be experienced</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and known.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span></span></div><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“F</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ollowing,” and that interesting new verb, “friending” are</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">secular</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ideas</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">close to the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ideas. guiding</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the “Invite, welcome, connect” </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">evangelism program that was under way all those months ago before </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the pandemic. What might “invite, welcome, connect” </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">look </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">like as </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">we </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">engage</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“friending” and “following”?</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> And what will happen when we see cyberspace as </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">yet a another place to which we are called to proclaim new life?</span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="s3" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: -18px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">2. </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">n</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ew Episcopal Church will</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> be more nimbl</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The laboratories for new ways of being church in</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the post pandemic world will</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> primarily</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> be our parishes. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">There has been amazingly creative work done </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">by</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Delaware</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> parishes during </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the shut-down of public gatherings</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, both in providing alternative worship and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">continued social and pastoral care</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> There are many online services</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">online meetings </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">new food cu</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">pboards. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">More will come.</span></span></div><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Because we are an episcopal church</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> with bishops who connect us </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">to</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the apostolic traditions, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">those laboratories (the parishes) will </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">need to work with supervision so that we keep the core of our faith on a steady footing</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. At the same time those laboratory experiments </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">will be vital to our becoming new</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The trick is to be nimble without breaking the china. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We will need to nurture </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">nimbleness </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">in our clergy and lay leaders</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and in our</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> bishops in particular</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="s3" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: -18px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">3. </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">n</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ew Episcopal Church will be a church of small groups</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">T</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">he whole parish</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> may les</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> often</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> gather</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> as a whole</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">for worship, ministry, study, or even for annual meetings</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. S</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">poradic </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">need for social distancing</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">aversion to large groups will make large gatherings less attractive or even possible.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">T</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">he Episcopal Church </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">must promote small groups </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> a</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> more intimate</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and more </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">focused</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> way to connect</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span></span></div><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">They are also</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">most like the communities </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">that first gathered </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">who</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">”. (Acts2:42)</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Eucharist in small group settings will </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">present </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">many</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> theological and pastoral</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> challenges</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, but such </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">eucharistic gatherings will be essential, for these</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">mall contained communities </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">are the core of our own “virus” </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">whose spread contin</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ue</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Christian witness</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> in the world</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="s3" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: -18px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">4. </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">n</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ew Episcopal Church </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">wil</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">l have less baggage, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">it will be leaner</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Financially the post pandemic world will be </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">very difficult for smaller</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and even some larger</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> churches. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Some buildings and a programs will </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">close and end</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">But just as we </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">now know that closing a building does not mean the church is closed, maybe we can also know that selling a building does not </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">necessarily mean the end of community</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> life</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">How then do we </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">keep community alive even as church structures </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">close</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">?</span></span></div><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">S</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">maller churches already know </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a lot about how to be a faith community without large services, multi</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">-person staff, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">full music programs,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> and the like.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Clergy and lay leaders in these churches</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> in Delaware have found</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> ways to bring the gifts of The Episcopal Church to </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">their communities</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. Their experience can help us be present</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">in ways that don’t require edifices</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, large staffs, and extensive programming.</span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">We will have to raise up a new clergy, who</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">will </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">help small communities be the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">place of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">incarnation of</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Word and Sacrament</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and who will </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">understand ministry to be the work of all the people</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and themselves as servants of that work. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">To a much greater extent than now </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">th</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> ordained</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ministers of the Gospel will be </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">itinerant and have other means of livelihood. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">If the church becomes leaner it will be possible for the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">closing of church buildings to be separate from and unrelated to the health of a local eucharistic community. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Instead of our “roster”of churches becoming smaller as church buildings are closed and sold, we will count our presence </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as Eucharistic communities, many of which will consist of small “cell” communities joined </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">as possible </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">by occasional </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">larger gatherings.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> That roster might grow!</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The bishop and clergy will be essential “glue” that keeps these communities </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">together as part of the greater body of Christ.</span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><div class="s3" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: -18px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">5. </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">n</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ew Episcopal Church wil</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">l</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">foste</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">r</span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span class="s2" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the beloved community</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> now more than ever</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">notion of the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">beloved community, the church seen </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">gathering of people and groups</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> set on showing the love of God in Jesus Christ</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">is a vision whose time has come</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span></span></div><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Small a groups </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">of all sorts already exist in our churches</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> -</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">bible study group, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ECW</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">sing</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ing groups</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> (a choir), </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">contemplative prayer group</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">s</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">pastoral care committees, etc</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. If they are also nurtured as </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">beloved communities, in which there is </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">“the apostles teaching and fellowship, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">the breaking of bread and the prayers</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">”</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> they each </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">a</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">re a</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> manifestation of church. Together with </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">small gatherings of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">people in the cities and towns </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">concerned with basic human rights and needs the church small groups will make alliances for the social good and thus the beloved community will always be larger than</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> the church itself, broader in reach than The Episcopal Church, and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">more resilient than any of the groups by themselves might be.</span></span></p><p class="s4" style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 36px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">W</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">e will know</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Church </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">is n</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ot a product of the powers</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> of this world alone, where size, wealth, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">territory and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">possessions </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">matter most</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The Church is the manifestation of the beloved community, for which there are no limits</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, save </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Love.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> And that is our future.</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"></span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> </span></span></p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-61159615724931388712020-09-06T15:41:00.001-04:002020-09-06T15:42:06.242-04:00Ministry in Higher Education in Pandemic times<p> <span style="font-size: large;"><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Every year come Labor Day I hear the school bells ringing and like the fabled horse in the fire station, I get all excited. I suppose ten years in campus ministry and five as Coordinator of Ministry in Higher Education at the Church Center is there to haunt or taunt me forever.</span><span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">Those years were an exercise in being Church without church. In those years, about a third of my ministry, I had no established altar, no sanctuary, no parish family. More importantly my work was with people who were not a congregation. Ministry in higher education requires attention to institutions and people who are organized around agendas that are decidedly not like those of the institution we call church. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ministry in higher education is distinctly missionary, in that it involves being stranger in a strange land. Even church related colleges and universities know this missionary tension, for the language of intellectual and faith discourse are as different as the languages of different nations. I loved being present as a translator, a practitioner of the art of being present with and for people of another nation. And I believe campus ministry is to the whole of the institution, not only to students. So over the years I practiced and encouraged engagement with all sorts of groups on campus as they tried to do justice and practice loving kindness and walking humbly in their faith. I loved it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">This year when I hear the school bells ring, I think of those doing ministry in higher education and wonder what that work will look like now.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">All across the United States colleges and universities are beginning a new academic year. Of course this year, in the midst of an out of control pandemic, renewed confrontation with systemic racism, sexism, privilege, and with the crisis in government, it’s hard to know what that will entail, except to say that most of the trappings of higher education that make up campus life will be missing. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">With many classes being held on-line, with social distancing, health monitoring, strange mixes of virtual and in-person classes, staggered realtime presence on campus, and no large gatherings, the campus experience will be radically reconfigured, as will any semblance to “brand loyalty” among students. With renewed critique of institutional blindness to racial prejudice, privileged access, patriarchy, and even internal economic and social justice, colleges and universities are under attack even as the need for intellectually competent people is greater than ever.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">In past years campus ministers came to their work in very incarnational ways – by being present with the people affiliated with institutions of higher education. As students were checking in to campus, the chaplain could be seen checking in with returning students, with teachers, administrators and staff, inviting them to join in the campus ministry activities – religious services, study groups, activities in service to others. Some also would be checking in with administrators about policy issues, or with employees about economic concerns. All of this grew easily from being a person-about-campus. In my years on campus the daily “walk about” was a central part of my work life.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">But how will that be done when the campus is virtual as much as visceral? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">I don’t know the answer to that one, and given that I am no longer a practicing campus minister I suppose I have very little to say that is helpful concerning practice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">But I am very concerned for the future of ministry in higher education. The same forces that make the pandemic and social dis-ease so deadly to common life make it easier to practice a kind of economic triage, dropping ministries that seem external to the primarily task of keeping parishes alive. When dioceses have to cut budgets because parishes are not thriving it becomes easy to discontinue missionary activities like campus ministry. And that is all the more the case when pandemic hits and criticism of privileged institutions rises. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">So now is the time to signal the importance of ministry in higher education, aka campus ministry. Here are some beginning thoughts:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span>(i)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Campus ministry concerns community, and universities and colleges in a time of pandemic are suffering a disconnect between campus community and classroom experience. Hopefully campus ministries can assist in reforming what it means to be community.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span>(ii)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Campus ministry can, and often does, encourage the search for meaning, justice, and loving kindness. When teachers, administrators and staff are faced with massive changes in how they make education work, chaplains can contribute prophetic and pastoral concern for the life of the institution and the lives of all within it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span>(iii)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Campus ministry is already a practice of “virtual” church, in which networking replaces settled congregational life. In a time when internet networking has replaced face-to-face connections some of the networking skills of the campus minister can be useful not only to new campus life, but also to new parish life. Having a vocation that is not bound to physical space can be helpful when physical space is not available or practical. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span>(iv)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Campus ministry concerns finding values in a world where knowledge is power, and in which what the powerful know prevails. Privilege, white male power, racism, and social injustice are being confronted by people in higher education institutions all the time. Those in campus ministry know it is not enough to be intellectually brilliant, it is important to bend that intelligence towards the common good, towards justice, towards the celebration of beauty and a life of self-giving. Campus ministry can be an ally to those addressing social injustice in all its forms.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span>(v)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->Campus ministry in a time when there is no campus but rather a virtual campus is about finding a body where there is no body. It is very much a practice of resurrection, as if the old has died and the new has come. Campus ministry of all sorts, not just Christian, are filled with experiences of the rebirth of wonder. Most congregations lose and gain members over time and over an extended period the whole congregation will be new, but the congregation as institution continues. There is wonder in that, that there is a continuing witness to faith, even as there is turnover of membership. In campus ministry we are fortunate if even half our network lasts more than a year. Campus ministry is practiced at the art of death and resurrection. Something of the arts and skills of continuing presence, even as the old dies away, may be of great value to the institutions of Church and Higher Education as they face into the end of campus and sanctuary and the emergence of more tenuous, but perhaps more supple network based communities.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, at least there are some thoughts. But this I am quite sure of: We need to support campus ministry in this time because Universities and Colleges are undergoing a transformation to a more network based community, and campus ministers can be allies and contributors to a network that encourages value as well as knowledge, justice as well as power, love for others as well as love of self. Not to be there is a huge missionary mistake, for the Gospel has its greatest presence where death gives way to new creation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-4899622832031320752020-08-08T11:16:00.002-04:002020-08-08T16:47:35.188-04:00Make the Destination Clear: “The Episcopal Branch.of the Jesus Movement”, what does it mean?<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> <span face="" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Make the Destination Clear: “The Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement” – what does that mean?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #404040;">The promo on the Episcopal Church web page for the Beloved Community” begins, “As the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement, we dream and work to foster Beloved Communities..” </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I’ve written about the notion of the Jesus Movement here” <a href="http://anglicanfuture.blogspot.com/2017/06/why-jesus-movement-movement-does-not.html" style="color: #954f72;">http://anglicanfuture.blogspot.com/2017/06/why-jesus-movement-movement-does-not.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">My concerns about the phrase “Jesus Movement” was that it has been used in very sloppy ways by a variety of people and groups that would have found The Episcopal Church to have been decidedly NOT part of its work. Any movement must be defined not just by what it moves away from (say stagnation and cooption) but by what it moves towards. That something towards which it moves is not spelled out, except by reference to fostering Beloved Communities. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Beloved Communities are communities loved by someone, in this case one assumes by God. And the assumption is that by being communities of love ourselves we are reflecting God’s love and are in turn loved by God. Beloved is a community activity, engaging both God’s actions and ours. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">This stuff of doing what the Lord requires - It’s a fine notion, one that I readily affirm. Micah got it, Jesus got it, the Apostles and Prophets got it, and even I’ve got it. If that is what the Jesus Movement is – a movement fostering beloved communities – great.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">But about the Episcopal Church being a “branch” of the Jesus Movement, I am unclear and unmoved.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The phrase “The Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement” is an amazing conflation of two very different images of life in Christ – one quite institutional and the other quite individual.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” It is a stretch to say “branches” had anything to do with churches. And yet there are amazing numbers of charts that show the church branches that have grown out from the tree of life (i.e. Jesus). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">As a teenager in New Orleans, a strongly Catholic town at the time, my priest showed me this chart with Anglican churches clearly labeled as being in continuity with the main trunk of faithful people. With some pride he talked about how we Anglicans were the third largest branch of the Church. So in spite of what those Roman Catholics would say, we are a branch of the true church. And, just as icing on the cake, he then would reference the “I am the vine, you are the branches” statement, as if that settled the matter. But of course it didn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It was a useful image for me as a teenager, in love (as much as I could expresse it) at that time with Roman Catholic young woman. It gave me talking points in conversations about our religious beliefs. IT kind of gave me a pedigree.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The reference, “The Episcopal branch” is a hint back to the assurance that what we are about is both part of the core activity of being followers of Jesus, and being part of the “true” church. May it be so.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">But the problem is that the Jesus Movement, which is not apparently an edifice or tree or vine or any other definable organized entity, is that it is not something that has branches. It is not an organization (like say a bank) that has branch offices. It is not a tree or vine organized as a living organism that has tendrils or new growth extensions.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I believe the Jesus Movement is an aspirational and spiritual declaration, and as a result, it is part of the personal side of the baptismal covenant. The individual (I) joins this movement towards belonging to and engaging with the beloved community. But the beloved community is itself “not of this world.” It is not an organized entity of any sort. Rather beloved community is found as we gather in a whole variety of ways to live out what Moses, Micah, other prophets, and Jesus (and a whole host of others) point us towards. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The notion that The Episcopal Church is a “branch” of some ongoing historical organization called “the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” is an institutional claim. But what is it to say we are a branch of the Jesus Movement? I think it means almost nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Fostering beloved communities is not the same as establishing new communities that will somehow BE beloved communities. We can foster beloved communities in every parish in the church, but the funds for such efforts tend to go to “new” work, not to support of already existing parishes so that they become agents of new community. The new work being funded looks increasingly parallel to, but not included in, the ongoing effort to foster beloved community IN parishes. Giles Fraser in an article posted this week <a href="https://unherd.com/2020/08/the-neoliberal-revolution-within-the-church/" style="color: #954f72;">https://unherd.com/2020/08/the-neoliberal-revolution-within-the-church/</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">points to a similar dynamic in the Church of England.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Episcopalians can be, and I hope are, part of the Jesus Movement. I hope I am. I hope we take our baptismal vows seriously. And I believe I am not the vine, but a really small tendril from that vine, one of the followers of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">But the Episcopal Church is not such a branch. People are.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">So when there is this rush to do “new work” we in the church may be told that this is all about being the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement, but don’t believe it. It may indeed be about doing or supporting very important and good work “fostering beloved community.” Those ongoing communities of faithful people gathered in congregations across the land will be mostly left out of the conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Existing parishes will mostly be left to their own devices, the bigger and better off will make it. The smaller and less financially capable will mostly die off. And new work will be mostly unrelated to the institutional Church at all. The branch of the tree may whither even as new shoots are planted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">All of this may be part of moving on, and if so let it be. But don’t mutter about the Episcopal part of the Jesus Movement. I am not at all sure that there will be any need for bishops in the Jesus Movement at all, much less The Episcopal Church. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Time to clean up the language, or else, to use Fr. Fraser’s insight) face into the new-liberal deconstruction of the church as we now know it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I believe we need to make the destination clear. If the call to be the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement is a post-denominational claim or an extra-institutional claim, then be clear that what we are asked to join and support is not new work of The Episcopal Church but rather the work of Jesus people moving on towards the realization of the beloved community. This is the new wine, new wine skin crowd. . If we are The Episcopal Church AS an organization fostering Beloved Community in our own corporate life, perhaps we might better start by helping existing communities to be more like the communities we are called to be. This is the crowd that seeks to be born again, even when old. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Me, I’d like to see the church that perpetually seeks a rebirth of wonder. (To cop a phrase from Lawrence Ferlinghetti). But if it must be, get a new wine skin for new wine.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Either way: Make the path clear.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraph" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.75in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-87661052460716479322020-07-27T08:55:00.000-04:002020-07-27T08:55:16.559-04:00Ambiguous loss and the increase and multiplication of mercy<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sermon, Sunday July 26, 2020. St Peter’s Lewes. Mark Harris<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">This is from the Collect, a prayer at the beginning of the Eucharist that sets a direction for our meditation on the readings. And today this collect rings true. We could do with a multiplication of God’s mercy in these days. As Mary Gauther says in her song, “We all could use a little mercy now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Last week, in the middle of the night on Tuesday, I tried to cry. There was this deep sense of grief within me, and I wanted to let tears wash that grief out. But the tears did not come. I could not cry. I retuned slowly to sleep, without the consolation of tears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I realized that there was a grieving in my heart that was beyond words, and even beyond my ability to summon up the tears to cry. Since I spend lots of time in my studio doing printmaking art, I’ve tried to find picture words to use. Nothing! My prayer to let the tears come was not met, for the words or even the pictures were not there. I wonder if you have been there too in these strange days? Grief without tears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">There is great comfort in Paul’s comment, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">“That very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” Sleep returned that Tuesday night, not as consolation but as space for the Spirit to intercede with sighs too deep for words, or images, or even tears. I believe I went to sleep with the Spirit sighing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">It got me to wondering, in all the pandemic concerns, in the economic uncertainties and in our time of political and social uncertainty I have not taken time to grieve, and it has all caught up with me. And maybe you too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">We are grieving for ambiguous losses. Unambiguous losses are by comparison clear. We lose a loved one, we deal with debilitating illness, we suffer disappointment, we lose a job. Concrete losses. But here there is an uncertain, ambiguous loss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Krista Tippitt recently interviewed Pauline Boss who coined the phrase “ambiguous loss” to refer to loss that just does not seem to have any resolution. Someone who has disappeared and now must be declared dead, the loss of someone to dementia without losing their body presence, and in these days for us Episcopalians, the loss of the comfort of the Sacrament without any resolution of the problems that make it impossible to actually receive. And for all of us, a loss of innocence and trust in others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">With ambiguous loss we quickly turn to “what’s next” in part because our losses are not clearly defined, and our grieving, like the losses themselves, seem unending.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I grieve for the ambiguous losses in my life, and I suspect maybe you do too:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I grieve for social engagements that have died. The world of pressing the flesh is gone. But it is not a concrete death, but rather death by a thousand slights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I grieve for the church I was used to. It has died. St. Peter’s was known as a parish where people sang together, where we jostled our way to the line to receive communion, to go for prayers of healing, and later to robustly gather at the table for eats at coffee-hour. We came together with abandon for meetings of all sizes, like a family of puppies gathered at the food dish. And all of that is gone. Yes, we do come together via the internet, but as we all know, “it’s not the same.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Even what we experience as family is affected. I grieve the awkward and hesitant meeting with those I love. Dare we embrace? Can we laugh together? Distance seems so artificial, even as it is necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">We have experienced a thousand little deaths. And yet we have not set a time for grieving or even allowed for grieving, and no time for tears. We don’t know even know how to name our losses. Instead we essentially admonish ourselves, and are admonished by others, to suck it up, to get on with it, to find a new normal. No time for grieving, move on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">To some extent this is necessary. We are admonished that we need to let the dead bury the dead. We do need to face into the new. That is true, but still the grief is there to be named. And until named that grief hangs on as a ghost, a specter. Until then we cannot hear the Spirit that both sighs and calls us forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Spirit remembers, and “intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” And in the sighing, perhaps those griefs are named, whispered, by the one who comforts us, like a parent comforting us when we hear sounds under the bed, and holding us close, whispering, “It’s OK, it’s OK. Don’t be afraid. Just go to sleep.” Our wordless grief is met by the Spirit of God, who connects with us, sighing on our behalf. And having interceded, what now? What does the Spirit call us to after the sighs too deep for words?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">And it is here, in the acknowledgment of our grief, that we hear the words of the collect echo, “Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The grief is indeed for things temporal…our small ways of life, our normalities, even our ways of being community. We miss them, but we also remember that they were pretty dusty, pretty tattered. Perhaps it was more than time for them to finally be put to rest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Maybe it is alright to have our old normalities die… do we really want to miss our misogynistic ways, or our racist past, or our reliance on economic inequities as a matter of course? Perhaps we grieve and then finally let go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Jesus, in his parables often presents us with the promise of the age to come, the Kingdom of God. He calls us beyond our normality and all its impediments. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">He does not teach a reinstitution of old ways whose loss we grieve. He does not offer a program for remedy for the failings of the old. Instead he proposes a radically different new age, one which is a response of the Spirit, who having interceded with sighs too deep for words, now calls us forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The mustard seed, like our hopes, made dormant in grief, will grow amazingly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">--------That’s what to expect from God’s reign.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">God’s new world will be yeasty, wild in its expansion. There’s a new heaven and new earth for you!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">In the Kingdom of God you will find immeasurable joy, like a pearl of great price, and for this you will give everything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Bury your hopes in grief, then buy the plot so you can have those hopes when you are finished grieving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Cast your hopes out wide in great expectation and hawl in many things, only to keep what fulfills those hopes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Spirit, who sighs with and for us, will also return not to console, but to dance with us a new dance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">God willing we not find a new normal at all, we will not get back to business as usual, we will not overcome our grief by repetition of who we have been, but by becoming new.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">“Behold,” says the Spirit, “I make all things New.” First, we grieve, then we rise from our grief, made new. Death and Resurrection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Paul is right, “It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”….” I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">I believe our practice in this hour is to make the destination clear: To do this we must make unambiguous the losses we now grieve for. We need to name those losses, grieve our lost former selves, and rise to new life. That new life will be unambiguously expansive, as generous as the net that draws all in, the tree that gives shade to the birds, the treasure and the yeast that grows explosively. Jesus offers a multitude of mercies, just as we prayed for in the Collect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">And then we can say in High Expectation, as did the Prophet in the Revelation of John the Divine, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">And so, I say, at long last weep dear friends, and then Arise in great expectation! Amen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-69367192040986531272020-05-08T10:54:00.002-04:002020-05-08T10:59:16.430-04:00Why War imagery for the Pandemic is dangerous, and why I am a draft resister.<div><font size="4">Well, fellow travelers on this strange journey through Pandemic Land, all this war imagery about Covid-19 is coming home to roost.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">It started getting thrown about as an image about those medical and service workers who can not shelter in place and sometimes are put in harm’s way. It was pretty straightforward to say that their service is extraordinary and that we recognize that what they are doing is essential, dangerous, and much like “front-line” warriors. I think, pray and do what this miserable carcass can do to support these workers. Mostly, I try to do what I was asked to do, namely get out of the. way, stay home, try not to receive or give the virus a right of passage. </font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">All this war talk had a cost: we came to think of those doing essential service as devoted, not to the care of others (which they are) but devoted to winning this “war.” It is however different to die for others and to die for a cause, particularly when that cause is seen in national terms. Between service to some humans (near at hand) and service to all humankind there lies the broad range of service to various groups of humans, including nations. When we think of working to end the Pandemic or working to save the lives of those who have the disease, or those who might have the disease, our goal is healing humans and communities. When we think of the people doing this work as warriors we are not thinking of them as healers, putting themselves in harm’s way, we are thinking of them as necessary but regrettable “sacrifice” for a cause. The trouble with the war imagery is that warriors die for a cause wrapped in a flag, or sometimes for no good reason at all, except the country. We ask our health and essential service people to possibly die so that others might live. There is no flag big enough to represent that service.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Here is what is most bothering, however: When the “front line” is broken open (as happened almost immediately, virus having no need for a pass) everywhere becomes the front line. Then the war propaganda makes all of us “warriors,” which means, dear friends, that the President has drafted us all into some sort of army that is going to win, making us (USA) victorious and great again and he will be the wartime president who won the war against Covid-19. This is propaganda tail-wagging-the-dog drivel. Except it is dangerous. </font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Now that the war is universal, and we are the universal soldier, and it is assumed that for reasons of national security and cause we must be willing to suffer casualties so that national economic interests (couched as return to normal) can be. maintained. We must be willing to see some of us die because the country needs to get back to business. So the draft has begun, and the draftees will include the elderly (that’s me) and the health compromised, the unemployed and the illegal, people of color and the usual gang of people first conscripted to be canon fodder, namely the poor. </font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">The health of people has been replaced by the heath of the nation, and the warriors are no longer in service to the people, but the nation. So all of us, first responders, health workers, essential services personnel, together with everyone else of rank less than general, will engaged the “enemy” and many of us will die. And when it is over those who remain will be declared “winners” in the war,and the leaders will lead the victory parade. And all we “warriors”will put stars in our windows, and after awhile we will take them down. When the war is over, the draftees will be briefly remembered as vaguely patriotic, but the leaders will claim victory in their name, but for themselves. </font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">The “war” theme is as bad now as it was for the “war” on drugs. The imagery is tempting, but wrong headed, at its core.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">My sense is we would be better off to think of what it is that the virus is doing, hitching a ride with humans, and how we might go about rejecting the virus using us as hosts. Much as some martial arts make use of the notion of deflection, where the advance of the other is meet with deflection, rather than attack, perhaps we need to think of our denying the virus access to our bodies as a matter not of attack for attack, but rejection by deflection. This not war, this is about personal security. If everyone could be a warrior, how much more could everyone be trained to deflect the advance of the virus, not only from our bodies, but the bodies of others. The virus is not the enemy, but a rude and. disruptive visitor, to be tamed or deflected (treated or vaccined against.). The “war” imagery does not serve the needs of public or personal health. In a national context, it serves national interests, and by extension the political machinations of its leaders.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">So here is what I know:</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">(i) I didn’t volunteer for this warrior service, and I an unwilling volunteer, and will become a draft resister.</font></div><div><font size="4">(ii) War language serves leaders, not those who will must. readily be “sacrificed”. I don’t trust that language, not one bit.</font></div><div><font size="4">(iii) “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges.” Calling people heroes, warriors, front-line soldiers, and the like, is fine in a loose sort of way, but those who are working in harms way are, we hope, purposeful. They are there on purpose, doing hard jobs, and doing them even when dangerous. They are focused. If we were as purposeful in shutting the door on the virus we too would be focused. And focused people do what needs to be done, even if scared or perplexed or alone. </font></div><div><font size="4">(iv) Focus and purposeful action is what is needed, not reactive and fearful “fight or flight” response.</font></div><div><font size="4">(v) I will not give anyone praise for having won the war. I will give thanks and gratitude to those who did not loose their focus, were peurposeful in finding way to reduce the effect of the virus on our bodies and in our society. </font></div><div><font size="4">(vi) Heath and wealth are two very different matters. Confusing the two is disaster in the making.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">But then, what the hell do I know? I’m just a draftee.</font></div>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-54294423099532558782020-04-29T08:07:00.002-04:002020-04-29T08:11:41.361-04:00Being Anglican in the time of Covid-19<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">For many of us the “stay in place” rules of the past few weeks are as novel as is the novel Covid-19 virus. New for us as we face a new virus. But stay-in-place is not new, nor is the presence of deadly pestilence. Those in prisons and other institutions, those in war and situations of high civil unrest, people in high infection areas or for that matter high crime areas, and even those whose immune systems are compromised, all deal with stay-in-place rules and orders. For once the privilege of free movement is withdrawn from us as it has been for so many others less fortunate than we.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is here, in the isolation of even modest imprisonment, that we begin to take stock of our spiritual resources, our toolbox for home brew religious life. It is here that personal prayer, small family group worship, listening for God’s presence, meditation on the Word, all return to us as lifelines to a sense of healing. And it is here that we can take comfort in Anglican worship and spirituality, if not in Anglican (or anyone else’s) ecclesiology.</span></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I come from a long line of do it-yourself Anglicans. My Grandmother and her mother started evening prayer in DeFuniak Springs, Florida, and from that St. Agatha’s Church arose. They could not say the offices there, however, because they were not men. My grandfather Harris was a lay reader at the University of Alabama, and my father swore that Grandpa celebrated the Eucharist as a lay person, although I suspect he said Anti-Communion. I remember my father reading to me from the big family bible in Maracaibo, Venezuela, as a way of connecting not only with the stories there, but with family so far away from us. For a period of ten years I regularly celebrated the Eucharist in exile from the “regular” church. The table was a coffe-house table, the participants were alien to parish life, the music mostly home-made and seemingly secular, and bread was broken and shared and wine liberally poured out. I have often in my later years found myself worshiping in communities that do not speak English, are not English, and whose other gods are not nordic or even Roman. One way or another little of this looked Anglican, but at its core it was VERY Anglican. It was about Anglican worship in exile.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is little instructive help from ecclesiastical leaders about how to develop a prayer life in isolation. There are plenty of examples of ecclesiastical leaders doing morning or evening prayer, anti-communion and communion services that can be virtually attended by the rest of us. But there is very little coaching about how we might “do it ourselves.” And I have heard not a whisper in recent days about baptism in a time of isolation, or worse yet, confinement in medical isolation. The sacraments apparently are thought of primarily as signs done by codified and sanitized rituals, and by ordered leaders, that is, primarily by clergy. The church, in its careful way, has surrounded the sacramental life with the guides provided by the religious leadership of the various faith communities.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is useful to recall that this was in no way the manner of engagement with sacraments by either Jesus or his immediate circle. Baptism into Christ seems in the earliest church to be a sacrament by Christians not yet divided into “orders” of ministry. Baptism was apparently a sacrament by which the body grew, some members reaching out and drawing others into the community. And, of course, it is still possible “in emergency” for lay persons to do the reaching and drawing in. But no one talks about it. Likewise, in the early church, coming together, saying the prayers and breaking the bread were done as a community, with the role of presiding decidedly unregulated by ordination. But you can’t tell that from here, with the oven of time having cooked the books.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That first pattern did not last for very long. My sense is that the hook by which leadership in worship and Sacrament was connected to leaders “ordered” for that task by the community itself was the hook of witness or testimony. As the community grew certain of its members were singled out to make the case or remind the community of the basis of their being this new community. That “remembering” included remembering the baptism in the spirit that marked the pentecost experience and remembering the New Commandment, and the words at the meal that prefigured the Eucharist. The people who did this remembering where the ones who experienced the ministry of Jesus or received the visitation of the risen One, or the experience of the indwelling of the Spirit, or some combination of the three. As they died out their disciples (students) took their place. The central desire to remember then got attached to the sacramental and worship life, and those who were the rememberers also became the officers of the sacraments and of worship life. But it remains unclear how much we are bound sacramentally to the pattern that makes the officers of the sacrament and the carriers of the core theological and religious witness and message the same.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And here we are, two thousand years later, doing every thing we can to continue the unbroken contention that sacramental action and ordered worship are properly the work of ordained (or sometimes locally appointed) leaders. It seems very clear that there is little interest in teaching regular people how to pray the daily office, and absolutely no interest in instructing people in the possibility of sacramental worship. Of course we admonish people to say their daily prayers. But there not much to guide us in saying the daily office. And of course we admonish people not to stay away from the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, but no hint as to what to do when there is no ordained person to preside.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We do this In the time of pandemic isolation and assume that we can fast for a season, or partake on some level with a priest with whom we share non-physical space. But we almost never engage the instructional possibilities whereby Eucharist and the daily office might be conducted by people in the most local of communities – those we live with, or if alone as solitaries. We act as if we believed this moment of isolation is not the future, but only a passing thing.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is a mistake. Of course we will get beyond this moment and church will return. But we will continue our failure to address the possibilities that we are AS A PEOPLE, a priesthood of all believers, to whom the commands to go out and baptize and to remember Jesus whenever we do this offering of bread and wine, were given. And in our failure we will miss great opportunities for witness and invitation to faith.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have recently been reminded again of a novel I read some years ago, The Clowns of God, by Morris West. In it a pope has an apocalyptic vision which both leads him to quit the papacy and to begin an effort to seek some other way forward for humanity. It was written against the backdrop of the end of the 20th Century, but 20 years off is not too far off. The now resigned Pope wrote an encyclical in which he envisions the collapse of social systems around the world in war and economic chaos. He wrote</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“How then must Christians comport themselves in these days of trial and terror?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">… Since they will no longer be able to maintain themselves as large groups, they must divide themselves into small communities, each capable of sustaining itself by the exercise of a common faith and a true mutual charity. Their Christian witness must be given by spreading that charity outwards to those who are not of the faith, by aiding the distressed, by sharing even their most meager means with those who are most deprived. When the priestly hierarchy can no longer function, they will elect to themselves ministers and teachers who will maintain the Word in its integrity, and continue to conduct the Eucharist.…”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second is a story sent to me by an old Seminary classmate, Dick Ulman, who wrote,</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Let me share a story ... I heard this in the mid-1970s. China had just “re-opened” to the world. A senior colleague, Charles Long, had been a missionary in China, and relayed a Chinese friend’s report on a business trip to Shanghai. Here’s the version of the story I found in my sermon file (year, 1977):</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After nearly a generation of ruthless suppression of all religion, the Christian Church, never very significant or visible in China, seems to have disappeared. Long’s friend went to a restaurant. In the usual Chinese style, he was seated at a round table with eleven other guests. Each diner introduced himself and small talk round the table began. Long’s friend noticed, however, that one man at one moment lifted a piece of bread in a strange manner, broke it and asked “Does anyone remember?” One other man at the table interrupted his chatter, lifted his bread slightly and said “I remember”.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The meal continued in the normal manner, and Long’s friend forgot the incident until after the final course. At that time the first man lifted his tea cup and again asked, “Does anyone remember?” Again the second stranger spoke: “I remember.” Finally Long’s friend recognized what was happening. He hastened to lift his own cup. “Yes,” he stuttered. “And so do I: I remember!”</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These two stories have provoked me once again to raise the question of household based eucharist, against the backdrop of the peculiar and hopefully short term forced closure of large group meetings. We all hope that we can once again worship in large household again – as gatherings of many in relatively close space. There is no reason to think we can not do so. None, except the recurrence of what will undoubtedly happen, namely the emergence of new hazards, biological, environmental or political, that might make social distancing, lock down, shelter in place, necessary. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The two stories speak of alternate scenarios in which there is the ending of social gathering, including religious gathering: endings because of havoc and chaos, and endings because of social attempts at control. And now we see a third: as the world becomes more and more connected – in all ways- the possibility of virus-like dangers grow.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In an earlier blog I wrote of the possibility of rethinking the eucharistic community in a form that does not require the combination of priest / temple / and community. Where there is no gathering of the whole congregation possible, where there is no gathering at the temple, because of extreme social distancing, where we essentially become household communities, can we rethink the celebration of the eucharist such that a priest is not a requirement for the celebration of the sacrament? I believe so.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think the church can and ought to teach and instruct on the matter of eucharistic and daily worship so that communities without a priest, including domicile communities (groups of people living together), might be the persons who both remember and act in accord with the encouragements of Jesus. It can be done decently and in order. It can be done in ways that do not degrade the need for or desire for trained clergy. That the church is ready to do this is another matter entirely. But the day will come when we will not be able to meet in large groups, for one reason or another, and when there will be a serious shortage of clergy. Not to prepare for this involves a failure of nerve, not unlike the Episcopal Church’s failure of nerve to be genuinely missionary.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Anglican Communion website has marked this pandemic, which has affected so many of us, all over the world, by good words of encouragement, and by the offering of virtual worship services, but not by any (as far as I can find) practical encouragement, by training and instruction, as to how to continue in prayer, worship and sacramental engagement, in a time of forced separation There is no communion wide record of just how Anglican communities are finding new ways of being incarnational, sacramental and faithful in a time of social distancing. And more generally, I find very little that suggests an alternative to virtual reality involvement. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But I think that is blasphemy: to suggest that the solution to separation is un-incarnate worship and vicarious inclusion in the process (but not the reality) of sacrament, is to consign those separated to a kind of spiritual starvation. At the very least the church needs better to make those particularly Anglican worship events of daily prayer and Eucharist tangible in days of separation.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For many years I have put my more or less ineffectual shoulder to the wheel, working for the health and vitality of the Anglican Communion as a religious community rather an an ecclesiastical hierarchy and body, seeing the Communion as a way of being Christian, not the “true Church.” But I have to say that the combination of age, disinterest in radical reformation by the governance of my own or any other Anglican province, and the general failure of nerve and lack of vision by the governing bodies of the Communion, has led me to have to acknowledge a disappointment in the way the churches play out what it is to be Anglican. I mostly do not care any more much what The Episcopal Church, the Church of England, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or any other agent of Anglican churches has to say. And, to be clear, I care even less what the various “orthodox Anglican” alternative have to say.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In this pandemic, and in the general disintegration of nation states, general churches, and other attempts to organize our civic and religious sensibilities, I find precious little from the various offices of Anglican bodies about how to BE Christian in community, when communities become fragmented and we become more and more witnesses in a world that has lost faith in what we represent. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I don’t hold my breath that the various powers that be in the Anglican Communion, or for that matter, the Episcopal Church, will care to look beyond themselves to the small, tender, and fragile communities of believers that will carry the witness forward in hard times.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And yet, at table with others, I will lift bread and say, “I remember. Does anyone else?” and lift the wine in toast and say, “I remember. Does anyone else?” And there will be, God willing, a response. And there will have been the most Holy of Eucharist at the lowest of tables and the lest of us will be the greatest.</span></span><br />
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The remembering, like the struggle, will continue.</span><br />
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Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-19297702107833011002020-03-26T15:58:00.000-04:002020-03-26T15:58:35.723-04:00Christian Eucharist in Community without Temple or Priest<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Christian Eucharist in Community without Temple or Priest.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">For a while most Christians in the US will not be gathering for worship. For eucharistically centered Christians this has presented a problem. The Eucharist seems to require (i) the sacramental elements of bread and wine, (ii) a community of at least two or three, (iii) a priest or bishop as celebrant. It thus involves the notion of priest-in-community. When in lock-down and quarantine these things are separated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">There are a variety of solutions being offered: Suspension of the celebration of the Eucharist, spiritual communion with on line broadcast, broadcasts offering formal morning or evening prayers, and even “drive by” communion or services where everyone is separated by the personal space of their own cars. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have less often heard of clear instruction to our congregations about how to conduct formal Sunday or daily worship at home, where a smaller congregation without a priest can exist, even in times of quarantine. While the daily offices and the simpler forms of daily prayer can be conducted by an individual or small group, there has been very little instruction on how to do so. That is odd, given that those services do not require some artificial community with a worship leader present by web broadcast. The Daily Office does not require priestly presence, and arguably does not require community. It certainly does not require the Church/ Temple. I think we need to have a teaching webinar on conducting the daily offices.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But about the Eucharist the problem of priest and common space making a temple or “tent of meeting” remain. Many of us live in households of two or more people, many of us can find bread and wine to offer up, but not many of us live with priests and thus are able to form a temple or tent of meeting. All the solutions to this problem in a time of quarantine are “work-arounds.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have been thinking of another way to engage the issue. It has the problem of unraveling some of the basic norms of church life, but here it is:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I propose that we revisit the spiritual connection between the Eucharist, the Passover Seder, and the Shabbat Seder, perhaps drawing something from those sensibilities for a reach back into a family community and for a new grasp of common prayer and thanksgiving. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Might it be possible to instruct communities even as small as two or three, gathered together, to share a meal that celebrates the union of that small cosmos to the great cosmos of all people, in which the holy texts are recited, thanksgiving and prayers offered, forgiveness sought, and peace shared. Of course. WE can do that even now under the rubrics. But then could those present to offer all those things, with bread and wine, to be a reflection of the Great Thanksgiving, which is the offering of God in Jesus Christ. Could this small community lift that offering and then breaking the bread, pouring out the wine, and sharing it together share a Holy Eucharist? That is, might we instruct people in how to be a Eucharistic Community within their own family or small community structures? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If we break down the requirement to have all four – elements, community, priest and temple (common space that includes both priest and lay people as well as bread and wine) – we can work a way to share communion even while we are quarantined. And in modified quarantine, where we are limited in the numbers who can gather and while we need to practice social distancing, we might still gather for communion even while there is no priest in the same space with us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Is the Church willing to forgo all things of its own – including its requirement that the priest and people together in once place are necessary if the eucharist is to be celebrated? This is not about instituting “lay-presidency” of the eucharist. It is about instituting a localized presidency in times of need.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I don’t recall the reference, but I do remember that during the Second World War someone from England who was in a prisoner of war camp wrote the Archbishop of Canterbury and asked if they might celebrate Holy Communion in the camp without a priest. I believe the Archbishop said yes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We may not be separated from the blessing of priest-in-community Iife for long, but as time goes on if we might think of the Eucharist not as the grand ritual of even our smallest parish eucharist, but rather as an extension of our gathering at our own tables for possibly the high point of our life together as community. Could a household Holy Eucharist be our Shabbat Seder? I believe we could.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And, we could still retain the priest-in-community as a reflection of family or small community. When we come together (as we I believe we would want to do) for community larger than the small separated out community of family or quarantined group, the priest would serve as the “parson,” as the master or mistress of the house, and preside. More, the priest would offer (hopefully orthodox) teaching and preaching to accompany the larger gathering. I don’t see family or small group eucharist without the priest as in any way an abdication of the priestly ministry in the church. Rather I see family or small group eucharist as a natural extension of the Shabbat Seder / Last Supper/ Communion origins for the larger gatherings we call church assembly.</span><br />
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Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-85705179928323664852020-03-24T11:39:00.001-04:002020-03-24T11:41:01.050-04:00 I will not willingly die for the economy<div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS">A little personal clarity. I’m 80 years old this year, provided I make it to May 21st. </font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS"><br></font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS">1. If I am in hospital and the medical folk make a decision that others, younger than I, need to be treated first, or me not at all, I get it. Triage is a sometimes miserable ethical fact. Got it.Perhaps in some way my death could be a noble or valuable or even holy contribution to the life of the world. </font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS"><br></font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS">2. If I am out there in the world (but of course social distancing) and the bumbling system of supply and manufacture of needed medical gear fail, and I end up in the hospital and am triaged out of care, I get it. But I won’t forget that the “greatest country in the world” screwed up. There is no reason for these shortages except poor planning and bad use of resources. I will die of systemic governmental and business failure. There it is. But it will not be noble, or valuable or holy that I died. It will be stupid.</font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS"><br></font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS">3. If I am out there in the world and the President or the government, or whatever the powers that be, decide that social distancing and its value to the health and safety of the world is less important than the economic safety of corporations and business enterprises, I will die because someone decided that the triage decision is really about whether my life was worth attending to rather than the life of money making entities. So when I get the virus, end up in hospital, find myself triaged there and die, I will die because Boing and some damn cruse ship company would otherwise loose money, place, or even go under. Not because of too many people in hospital. Not because of lack of equipment. Because of the economy. I got it. I will die for the almighty dollar. They will say, no no, you will die because the wellbeing of so many relies on our keeping the economy going. You die so that others may live. But I know. I will have died for reasons of greed, not reasons of need. It will be evil.</font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS"><br></font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS">If this third possibility takes place, I will hold those who made the decision to go for the economy and not for the health of the society accountable. If alive I will scream in your faces unmercifully. If dead, I will plea to return to haunt you, ruining your sleep, your digestion, and your health. I will be pissed beyond imagination. </font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS"><br></font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS">Be warned. Old may be just a thing to you. Old is what I have. I use old creatively, and to mostly good ends. The years I have left promise to be some of my best, in terms of action for justice, truth and beauty. But if it ends for the “economic good” I say, screw it. I know about this reasoning. It is the reasoning that was used to weed out the gypsies, the Jews, the queer, the gay, and anyone else who stood in way of the State’s grasp for economic power. </font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS"><br></font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS">I accuse: The proposition that death as necessary to the well being of the economy is a lie. More, it is evil. </font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS"><br></font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS">Ask what I will give for the country, but don’t assume you can ask what I will give for the economy. That’s mine to give, not yours to take.</font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS"><br></font></div><div><font size="6" face="Trebuchet MS">Mark Harris, who understands the difference between the cross and the dollar.</font></div> Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-54797235496971172672020-03-21T08:17:00.001-04:002020-03-21T08:17:30.837-04:00Spiritual Communion for Incarnational People<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Spiritual Communion for Incarnational People:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A meditation by Mark Harris.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For at least 67 years I have been a regular communicant and participant in the Eucharist. It would have been longer but remember that we were all late bloomers then, the sacrament not being available until confirmation. I was taught then, and people are taught now, that a sacrament is “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” (BCP, p.857). As such sacraments are, like Jesus Christ, incarnational. That is, they are the presence in the here-and-now of a grace that is not bound by time and space. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thus baptism IS washing, even if it is with a small dash of water, and the Holy Communion IS eating, even if the bread and wine was insufficient even to feed a bird. And both the major sacraments are meant to be communal, involving as they do the “great cloud of witnesses” that include the church present in its congregations, as well as all those who will gather from all times and places at the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So what do we do when, as now, we are separated from one another, and where sharing common bread and wine is impossible? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some have chosen to move to disciplined prayer which can be done without incarnational tools (bread and wine), and therefore quite easily can be a shared action of worship across distances where connection is by way of telephone, radio, television, or streaming on the internet on a computer or smart phone. Others have suggested that the Eucharist be celebrated and broadcast in the same way and that viewers or listeners participate in the prayers, knowing that they cannot receive because not present to do so. Most of the local options in this time of social distancing have been one or the other of these two choices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some, however (me among them) believe that the “outward and visible sign” need not be determinate for either baptism or Eucharistic communion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In times of great social stress we know the church has held that there are those who are baptized by the spirit, but have not been physically baptized. We know that some of the unbaptized (and perhaps all of them, God being a God of justice and mercy both) possess the “inward and spiritual grace” to suffer a death like Christ so that they might also share in Christ’s glory. Baptism by fire, baptism by the Spirit, is the sacrament without the outward and visible sign associated with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I believe the same is true of communion. “Mystic sweet communion” is possible not only “with those whose rest is won” (The Hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation”) but with those who are separated from us. Communion is an inward and spiritual grace, for which the bread and wind are the outward and visible signs. But Communion is not a product of sharing consecrated elements, but rather of sharing a mystical, spiritual communion with God, the people of God, past present and future, and indeed with all creation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We are simple creatures, we incarnational people: We seem to work best at matters of faith when there are concrete connections between matters of fact and matters of grace. That is why I am so committed to incarnational living – to the expression in THIS world of matters that pertain to the life of inward and spiritual grace. When at all possible I want the Water to flow, the Bread to be broken, the Wine poured out. Those actions and the act of thanksgiving out of which they arise are central to my life as a Christian. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But when they are absent, I still believe (and maybe with greater faith) that the inward and spiritual grace is there, is real, and continues. For me my faith in the incarnation in Christ and the real presence of Christ in the sacramental elements are both a product of a spiritual reality. My faith is in the inward and spiritual grace of relationship with the One who both anoints and makes substantial the Divine presence in human form and in bread and wine. The outward signs are wonderful gifts of grace, but the grace prevails and is there always and everywhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So I believe that it is possible to participate fully in the Great Thanksgiving, in which we lift up, break, pour out and share the Gift of God’s presence in Christ, without being physically present in the community (ie. In the church) and even when not receiving the bread and wine as physical elements. I believe we need to practice such participation, hoping always that soon we will have it ‘easy’ again, by being together and holding the bread and cup. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At a time of separation we need to practice participation in the inward and spiritual grace without the gift of the outward and visible signs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But how?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some suggestions:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When we join the Eucharist broadcast on the web, rather than passively watching, we might enter into the prayers, imagining the presence of others with us – parish friends, loved ones who are absent or who have died, or even total strangers. In our imagination we might call forward the community of saints. It’s surprising who might show up! (Oddly, my father did last week, just for a short time.) We might make our prayers an occasion to invite others into our spiritual presence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We are all, with the preacher, carriers of the Word.We are the sacramental (outward visible) sign of the inward spiritual grace that makes the sermon complete. So during the sermon we ought to invite the preacher into our hearts, and the preacher’s words into our prayerful presence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the prayer of the people, the silences if purposely held open (in spite of the norm not to have “dead” air space), and in the silence we can pray, being particularly conscious of that which links us to others from whom we are separated and isolated. The Prayers of the People gives us a real opportunity to be joined with people throughout the world in a profoundly spiritual unity. In the current situation, the prayers of the people are essential. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Consecration Prayer, the Great Thanksgiving, gives us a unique opportunity to enter into an inward and spiritual grace even as the bread and wine are consecrated in the context of a very small community gathered around the outward and visible sign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I believe the place of contact between the “real” and the spiritual lies in our sense that the Sacrament of Holy Communion focuses on the bread and wine, as signs of the Body and Blood of Jesus, and that it is Jesus who offered himself as a means of uniting all humankind and creation. If we are encouraged to unite ourselves to all others in an inward and spiritual way to that offering, taking into ourselves the self-giving of Jesus, we will indeed be participants in the Eucharist no matter our physical presence. During the offering of the consecration prayer, the Great Thanksgiving, we might encourage people to join in reciting the full prayer, absorbing the full force of the meaning,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">During the time for reception of communion, we might recall the reality of being one with the world of believers, with them taking in the gift of Christ’s sacrifice and making it our own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My sense is full participation in the Eucharist is possible no matter being present physically or not. To believe otherwise would destroy my faith that Jesus is present with us in the Thanksgiving, and in the consecrated elements, even while he is also returned to the Creator. Christ is present in the Sacrament, but more, Christ is present in our hearts, in our inward spiritual lives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I know something of this, having been unable to attend services or even swallow enough to take the bread or wine for several months, but nothing separated me from the Sacrament. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So it seems to me we need not find ourselves quarantined from the Sacrament by our quarantine from one another in a time of medical emergency. Indeed, our current situation can help us know even better that “nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”(Romans 8:39)</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-1439255444280388292019-09-14T14:14:00.000-04:002019-09-14T20:28:58.683-04:00The Episcopal Church in Haiti: Stretching towards a new future. <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The <a href="https://www.generalconvention.org/research-and-statistics/#PR-Results">2018 statistical reports for the Episcopal Church</a> are
out. There is considerable wringing of hands and some very enlightening
commentary around. Among the most challenging is the commentary by <a href="http://crustyoldean.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-collapse-is-here.html">Crusty OldDean, Tom Furgerson</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His conclusions present
one sort of challenge for TEC, namely to get off the high horse of acting like
a corporation. I hope the General Convention will listen to him. Unfortunately,
the track record on critical rethinking by TEC is not good. The last round of
efforts to deal with the structural problems of TEC fell decidedly flat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hidden in the weeds of the Statistical Reports are
interesting bits of information regarding the resilience of at least one
diocese in TEC. On the basis of the records received from the dioceses, it
would appear that the Episcopal Church in Haiti, with 89,717 baptized members,
is the largest diocese in TEC. And, looking at ASA (Average Sunday Attendance)
figures, it ranks among the top 10 dioceses. It is among only 8 dioceses that
have recorded an increase over the last 10 years, and this in spite of the
terrible earthquake of 2010. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has more
members than Province 6 or 9. About one in 20 baptized members of TEC is
Haitian.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Episcopal Church in Haiti is remarkably resilient. Even
with the horrendous earthquake, governmental and economic uncertainty and accusations
and counter-accusations within the leadership of the church, the church has continued
in its ministry and is growing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It is within this context that The Venerable Fritz Bazin has
challenged the Episcopal Diocese in Haiti and The Episcopal Church to a conversation about the future for a more autonomous Church in Haiti. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Archdeacon
Bazin is an honorary canon of the Episcopal Church in Haiti and in the Diocese of
South East Florida he is Archdeacon for Immigration and Social Justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">On July 30, 2019, Archdeacon Bazin wrote the following to
church leaders in Haiti and officers of The Episcopal Church:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“On July 19th the Anglican Communion News Service posted a
photo of Archbishop Fred Hiltz of Canada, anointing the leader of Canada’s
National Indigenous Anglican Church. This gesture clearly points to
a courageous action of the Canadian Church to grant a certain autonomy to this
indigenous Anglican expression.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Bishop Mark McDonald, now Archbishop of this Indigenous
church said “people often misinterpret what we’re doing as an attempt at
independence away from the church. We really wish to become an
indigenous expression of the church and we are only asking for freedom and
dignity that other Anglicans already enjoy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Although there are various reasons that often cause
misunderstanding between the mother church and her former “missions” now
Dioceses, what took place in Canada invites us all to look at the need for
greater autonomy of the churches in countries of marked cultural differences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In 2001, the late Canon Jacques Bossiere published a study
in French entitled “L’ame de Anglicanisme” in which he points to the need to
“deanglicise” the Anglican communion, meaning that Anglicans in Africa, Latin
America or the Caribbean do not need to resemble the church in Great Britain,
in Ecclesiology, Liturgy and Theology as long as they preserve the basic
tenants of Anglicanism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our Episcopal Church today is an international structure,
yet it is still in the image of the church in the United States of America. The
Canons of the Church in Haiti, The Dominican Republic or Honduras reflect the
American form of governance, liturgical practices and theological positions in
almost every area of the faith.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Exploring the possibility of granting the greatest possible
autonomy to our overseas churches would offer a more powerful testimony of the
spirit of Anglicanism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am inviting the church in Haiti and the general leadership
of the Episcopal Church to prayerfully initiate dialogue towards a special
autonomy of the Haitian Church within the structures of the Episcopal Church.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">As TEC prepares for the work of the 2021 General Convention,
the Church is challenged to consider the possibility of “a special autonomy of
the Haitian Church within the structures of the Episcopal Church.”</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My sense is that among the concerns that need to be part of
that dialogue on special autonomy we will find the following:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(i)<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->There have been wide-ranging discussions in
Haiti of dividing the current single diocese into 4 dioceses, with appropriate
changes in expectations of and provisions for the episcopate – “locally adapted
in the methods of its administration” to the Haitian context. (see the Lambeth
Quadrilateral.) This concerns the church being<i> self-propagating</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(ii)<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->A change in expectations of engagement in the
life of TEC so that the burdens of TEC engagement do not put a strain on the
resources of The Episcopal Church in Haiti. (ECH). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(This concerns changing the representation of
ECH at General Convention, representation in the House of Bishops, and provision
for canonical differences reflecting the Haitian context.) This concerns the
church being <i>self-governing</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(iii)<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->There will have to be a clear understanding of
the extent to which the ECH is financially dependent or independent of TEC support,
and a greater sense of its ability to be <i>self-sustaining.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">That is, the ECH and TEC are being challenged to a dialogue
concerning the Henry Venn’s marks of indigenous churches: that they be self-governing,
self-propagating, and self-sustaining. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, ECH and TEC need also to take
the Canadian model seriously: that autonomy does not mean the dissolution of unity
with others, but rather greater regard for the uniqueness of ministries within
the body of the Church. Autonomy can be enjoyed in mutual responsibility and
interdependence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The stretch for a new future for the Episcopal Church in
Haiti is a reality. We in TEC need to stretch too to meet the Church in Haiti at
a place of dialogue where such a future can be celebrated by the whole body of
the Church. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-17929155460100342372019-07-07T20:25:00.000-04:002019-07-07T23:23:24.481-04:00Preaching then and now... and standing with and for captive refugees.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">(A sermon preached at St. Peter’s Church, Lewes, Delaware, July 7, 2019.... Preaching then and now and standing with and for captive refugees.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let us pray: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Grant, O Lord, we beseech thee, that the course of this world may be s peaceably ordered by thy governance, that thy Church may joyfully serve thee in all godly quietness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Collect 5th Sunday After Trinity, Book of Common Prayer 1662)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">July 4, 1776 was a Thursday, just as it is this year. The priest of St. Peter’s, Lewes, probably used the collect we just prayed in services that day. The news of the July 2nd resolution of the Continental Congress, “Resolved, that these United Colonies are and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved,” had no doubt reached Lewes. The Declaration itself had probably not, but the news of the fact of the Declaration probably had reached Lewes. The collect, calling for quietness and peaceful order would have been quite timely.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Declaration advertised itself to be, “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” But of course, as far as the whole people go, it was not unanimous at all. The Declaration was of a hope, not a reality. The difference between these brave statements and the reality of a new governing entity called “The United States of America” rested on a successful war and a twice organized government. The difference was years of blood, sweat and tears, and a time of very sharp disagreements.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">There were plenty of people in the colonies, now declaring themselves to be states, who were against this happening. The conflict of strong opinion was universal and local both, and the birth of the new nation torn from British control was accompanied by great violence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have often wondered how at that time the priest of this parish dealt with the variety of opinions in the congregation about independence, revolution, and the looming war. What was preached? How? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In 776 the priest of St. Peter’s, Lewes, was The Rev. Samuel Tingley. We know about him from the “Brief Annotated History of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church,” which is part of the packet of materials for the Open Door Campaign. You can get a copy from the office, along with a pledge card for the Campaign. The Campaign, as you know, is about continued growth of this church. Mr. Tingley was a prime cause for our being a strong parish now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">An ardent Tory supporter of King George III.” His time in Lewes was probably made easier by the fact that Sussex County was mostly Tory. But the Committee of Correspondence in Delaware was having none of that sort of talk. The propaganda effort in support of Independence required forceful action against detractors of independence. Overt support to the King could lead to very violent response from those supporting the revolution.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Somehow Mr. Tingley survived as priest here until shortly after the war ended. He left in 1783. He survived in part by changing the prayer for the King to a prayer for “those whom Thou has made it our special duty to pray for” and by not “claiming overt allegiance to the King.” He appeared, in other words, to have exhibited considerable caution in expressing his political views. To his credit, Mr. Tingley did the other really important thing: he was faithful to his congregation. He stayed and ministered. He was one of the few clergy in all of Delaware who remained through the war. When it was over St. Peter’s remained a viable parish in a Diocese that was otherwise close to collapse.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Like then, these are times of disunity, fracture, and astounding differences of political and social opinion. In such times, then and now, clergy who preach are under considerable duress. The possibility of being pilloried or tarred and feathered (or their modern social media equivalents) are real. The vultures of various causes are sometimes ready to pounce. It’s a great time for preaching, but not so much for the preacher.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Some of us preachers have been here before. I cut my preaching teeth during the Vietnam war. Not an easy time! Over the years I have come to understand the duty as preacher this way:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Clergy who preach in the Episcopal Church derive their commission from three sources: (i) prophetic call that comes to everyone born of the spirit to attend the workings of the Spirit within and proclaim what is called forth from them by God, (ii) Ordination to proclaim and preach the Word of God, i.e. to preach Christ crucified, and (iii) license to preach in a particular Diocese and congregation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">That three-fold commission comes only to a few of us. I preach and most of you don’t. Which gives me, as preacher an amazing ONE UP position. The full weight of authority – God’s spirit, call and the churches license – are with the preacher. So, as a general rule, the Preacher preaches and the congregation listens. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Of course the congregation can get their opinions into the larger societal mix by making life difficult for a preacher they do not want to hear more from, but that generally outside the service – in the vestry, in the coffee hour, in the parking lot, by the grapevine, now on social media of the internet, and in the larger body politic. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But not in the moment. In the moment of the sermon it is hard for anyone to get in much more that an a positive AMEN or an negative grunt or stony stare and the occasional walk out. (And don’t think we preachers are not aware of such commentary.) Why do you think I am reading this carefully, rather than walking about as I usually do?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As a result of this strange dynamic, where I get to speak and you do not, I believe the preacher needs to be careful not to misuse this position. She or he should not opine in sermon or homily on political preference for this or that person in authority, on specifically who people should vote for, or on the support of or resistance to specific court judgements or legislative actions by government. Instead the preacher should appeal to and direct us to God’s Spirit present in us, believing that there are sufficient pointers and guides in Scripture, the faith we have received, and our ability to reason, that would lead us to right action for the good of all. That is, here, in the Church, in the context of the Word of God and the Sacramental presence of Christ, “we preach Christ crucified.” (I. Cor 1:23). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Or, in the context of today’s lessons, we preach healing, not as magic, but as the product of simple and humble trust, we preach that God is not mocked, and that all our boasting is nothing and the New Creation is everything. We preach Jesus, who said,” Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.' But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, `Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.' "</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As Preacher I do not believe I am here to cure political and social ills, now matter how you or I might perceive them. If I want to do take on dealing with those ills, I do so in the body politic. Many of you know I do that “out there” already.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here, in the Church, I am commissioned to bring the Good News of God’s healing presence, grace and love. There is no place for bombast and great show, no place for personal opinion, no place for mocking God, no place for cruelty. We are here to repeat Paul’s plea, ““Let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So, how does this work out in practice? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Well, we preach all the time that we ought to care for the widow and the orphan, for the weak and the lame, for the foreigner and outsider among us, not because it is politic but because it is God’s spirit speaking through us, informing us that God has a preference for the poor and poor in spirit. And we preach noting that “nothing matters but the New Creation.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So today I believe I am compelled to proclaim that we need to stand with and for those who are held in detention at our borders in hard conditions. It is the Word working in us that calls us to this. And I believe we must stand with and for them because we are called, as Paul admonishes us this morning, “whenever we have an opportunity, (to) work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.“ </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When you hear the Word, however it is presented to you, you will know what to do. And when you know, you will also be given grace to know how to do it. Mr. Tingley go it right, praying for the King is one thing, but better to “pray for those whom Thou has made it our special duty to pray for.” So let us now pray for, and work for the release of all those who are bound in captivity, especially those “whom Thou has made it our special duty to pray for.” That would be particularly the children. And may our prayers be echoed in actions. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I believe strongly in the power of Christ, working through the Spirit, to bring us all to that New Creation, and that that power will be sufficient for God’s good pleasure, for God’s justice and mercy both. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">AMEN.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-80517779041537005962019-05-09T08:00:00.000-04:002019-05-09T08:05:13.079-04:00Why I am not giving to the"Bless, 2019 Annual Appeal."<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />On Holy Saturday I received, as did many of us Episcopalians, I suppose, “Bless, 2019 Annual Appeal” from the Episcopal Church Center. I am only now able to get around to responding to this. <br /><br />I have decided not to respond by supporting this fund. Here is why:<br /><br />According to the Presiding Bishop’s Cover Letter (on the inside of the front cover of the Appeal booklet), “The General Convention of our Church gave us a goal of raising $1 million over the 2019-2021 triennium, with every dollar going to support the collective ministries of a Church…”<br /><br />The booklet then features seven individuals whose work blesses and is a blessing. These are people engaged in the “collective ministries” of the Church. I know several of them personally, and they are wonderful people doing really good and important work. They are indeed a blessing and blessed.<br /><br />Still there are problems with this appeal. <br /><br />(i) Nothing indicates what the relation is between the funds given and any of these ministries. A number of these are paid employees of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. At least one is a Diocesan staff officer. Several serve in federal chaplaincies and are (I assume) paid by the government. <br /><br /> My sense is this funding request is unrelated to the specific stories being told, rather the funding is to augment the general budget. That is both good and bad. Good, because I would hate to think that these specific ministries were on the line if the funding did not come in. Bad because there is a disconnect between the asking and the stories.<br /><br />(ii) The general budget of the Episcopal Church is underwritten primarily by diocesan support, investment income, and services rendered. This million-dollar goal, over a three-year period, is primarily meant to offer individuals a way to personally give to the work of TEC. In some ways that is commendable and there are some individuals who will want to do this. But the literature does not point out the fact that we already give by way of our pledges to the church, in that some portion of our parish income goes to the diocese, and the diocese pays into the work of the whole church. That is, the literature for this million-dollar fund does not connect it to the funding we already give. The answer to the question, “did you give to the Episcopal Church” is already yes. But many Episcopalians don’t know it. A teaching moment passed.<br /><br />(iii) My sense is we would be better advised to relate these ministries described in the funding plea to the reason for contributing to your parish, so that parishioners can see the direct relation between their offerings and the work of the whole church.<br /><br />(iv) If this funding program is meant to reach people who do not otherwise give to the church, fine, but if so, say so. Make this fund an opportunity for thanksgiving by those who do not already give by way of their pledge or offering through the parish.<br /><br />Unfortunately, this request comes with only a vague connection to the realities of either the breadth of ministries in the church or the budgetary needs to support them. A rather large portion of the TEC budget concerns administration costs, which have little funding appeal. So it is indeed much more interesting to highlight ministries of blessing. But it does seem to me that unless we can see meetings of various committees, costs of support staff, funding of mission by dioceses, as blessings as well, we are not making a compelling case for funding through this project. This funding proposal is for the general budget of the church, not just the work of easily identified blessings. <br /><br />I believe the funding of the church is the funding of an instrument of blessing and that the accountability for that funding is not by way of highlighting the “easy” avenues of blessing, but by highlighting the blessing that is the whole thing. Meetings of ecumenical committees, committees studying prayer book issues, coordination of particular sorts of ministries (campus ministry, hospital chaplaincies, etc), investment committees, etc. all need to be brought into the ring of blessings. <br /><br />So, thanks but no thanks. I already give to the work of TEC, and I pay attention to that giving. And, indeed, I see that as supporting a blessing that blesses. <br /><br />This project needs more work.</span>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10326675.post-1615382548922974052019-03-28T11:56:00.000-04:002019-03-28T11:56:17.807-04:00The Episcopal Church of Haiti works for transparency, unity and a new election<div class="yiv4507268562gmail-priestsays" style="background: white; line-height: 14.4pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1d2228; font-family: "New serif",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Episcopal Church of Haiti (the Diocese of Haiti) is setting forth a broad plan to strengthen the diocese through transparent and clear authority, exercised by the Standing Committee as the ecclesiastical authority, a visitor - bishop for pastoral concerns, a chief operations officer, and a committee on reconciliation. This path forward is the result of the work of the 2019 Synod and of the Standing Committee and the Executive Council. <br /><br />The following letter was sent by the Standing Committee to all bishops of the Episcopal Church.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: purple;">March 26, 2019<br /><br />The Most Reverend Michael B. Curry <br />Presiding Bishop and Primate<br />All Bishops of the Episcopal Church <br /> <br />Dear Bishops:<br /> <br /><br />Greetings in the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ.<br /><br />Following a great farewell for Bishop Duracin on February 28, the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Haiti immediately assumed its canonical responsibility of becoming the ecclesiastical authority until the appointment of a new ordinary. We are glad to report that by the grace of the Holy Spirit, many lay and ordained leaders have been at work to keep the Church in Haiti on the right path. Attendance at church services remains amazingly strong in spite of the political turmoil that has plagued the country these last months.<br /><br />We are aware of the confusion created in the minds of many as they hear of all sorts of reports and comments about the last episcopal elections that did not receive the necessary number of consents for the ordination of the bishop-elect. Now that we must move cautiously to ensure that a next election will be successful, we are inviting all concerned to seek the proper answers to their questions by addressing them to the standing committee.<br /><br />The Standing Committee is fully committed to total transparency and is eager to answer any and all questions concerning its functioning, and the integrity and dedication of its members. No question is taboo.<br /><br />We count on your prayers and togetherness in this pilgrimage of Becoming in spite of the borders that separate us, the Beloved Community.<br /><br />A blessed Lenten Season.<br /><br />In Christ, we remain yours,<br /><br /> <br />Rev. Father Fritz DESIRE<br /><br />President, The Standing Committee <br />The Episcopal Church of Haiti</span><br /><br />Additionally, the following report regarding the work of the Executive Council was issued:<br /><span style="color: purple;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: purple;">Haiti </span></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: purple;">Executive Council- Report<br /><br />The first Executive Council was held March 21 from 9h to 13h at the Diocesan Office under the leadership of the Standing Committee, the ecclesiastical authorities of the Diocese. The following decisions made by the Standing Committee have been announced:<br />1. The Rev Kesner Ajax has been named Executive Secretary of the Diocese;<br />2. The Rt Rev Peter Eaton, Diocesan Bishop of Southeast Florida, Bishop visitor;<br />3. A COO will be named soon in consultation with the Presiding Bishop office. <br /><br /><br />Other decisions,<br />1. The Synod secretary must publish a summary report of all decisions made the previous year at the opening of each first meeting of the new year.<br />2. The Diocesan Committee “ Peace and reconciliation " will start its action among the Clergy according to the Plan submitted by the Standing Committee. <br />3. Election and installation of the next Bishop Diocesan will be organized during the next two years. <br />4. The division of the Diocese will be part of the Standing Committee agenda in its discussion with the Presiding Bishop. <br />5. Business in the Diocesan institutions and Diocesan Committees will keep on going as usual.<br />Peace,<br /><br /><br />Rev. Fritz Desire<br />President, Standing Committee of Haiti</span><br /><br />Leadership of the Diocese during this period leading up to the election and installation of a new diocesan bishop is in place, and clear. Principles of transparency and reconciliation are being applied. A process for both a new election and of reconciliation in the diocese is being implemented. It also seems clear that the two processes - for election and for reconciliation - are related but separate. The work on reconciliation will inform the skills and abilities sought for in new bishop candidates, At the same time the Standing Committee will provide the leadership that in turn will guide the work of election and reconciliation both.<br /><br /><br />Interestingly the Executive Council will take up the issue of division of the Diocese with the Presiding Bishop. The long-standing effort to form new dioceses in Haiti seem now to be coming to fruition. <br /><br /><br />The Episcopal Church of Haiti is, as a single diocese, is in terms of baptized members perhaps the largest in the whole of the Episcopal Church. Even with the turmoil in the civic sector and conflicts within the church, the Episcopal Church of Haiti is vibrant and alive. There are good reasons to consider dividing the current diocese in to several dioceses, all part of The Episcopal Church of Haiti, working with an ecclesiastical structure influenced by years as part of The Episcopal Church and modeled on Bishop Holly's vision of an autonomous apostolic-orthodox Episcopal church of Haiti.<br /><br /><br />All of this is very promising.<br /></span><br /><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Helvetica; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1342208091 0 0 415 0;} @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536859905 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;} @font-face {font-family:"New serif"; panose-1:2 11 6 4 2 2 2 2 2 4; mso-font-alt:"Times New Roman"; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:auto; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0in; margin-right:0in; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} p.yiv4507268562gmail-priestsays, li.yiv4507268562gmail-priestsays, div.yiv4507268562gmail-priestsays {mso-style-name:yiv4507268562gmail-priestsays; mso-style-unhide:no; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB; mso-fareast-language:EN-GB;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:11.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page WordSection1 {size:595.3pt 841.9pt; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} --> </style>Mark Harrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06871096746243771489noreply@blogger.com0