Preludium, Anglican and Episcopal futures

The Episcopal Church has Missionaries

2012-01-28T16:11:00.000-05:00

But then you know that. Still it is good to be reminded of that.

At an otherwise ordinary meeting of the world mission committee of Executive Council we had a chance to hear from a returned "Young Adult Service Corps" volunteer who served in the Diocese of the Northern Philippines and her fiancée who has worked in Navaholand. Melanie Jianakoplos and Chris Slane came and shared something of Melanie's experience in the Philippines. You can read all about her work and experience on her blog melaniespineapplediaries.blogspot.com

Both Melanie and Chris are engaging and dynamic young adults, articulate and committed.

There are currently 48 missionaries named by The Episcopal Church. Additionally there are many more serving through parishes and dioceses throughout the church in a wide variety of places all over the world. Some of those work through other agencies, some work independently.

But the fact is, this church has missionaries. It is good to remember.

Brother Bragging Rights: Professor Precious Cooks.

2012-01-18T23:35:00.001-05:00

OK. This has nothing to do with the Anglican Communion, The Episcopal Church, or other matters of modest importance. This is about cooking Cajun curry chicken, and other great dishes, and the chief for the occasion is my brother Christopher R. Harris, professor at Middle Tennessee State University. Who would have thunk it?

As he said in sending this around, "Ain't life grand!" And indeed it is. Apparently he can't afford to cut his beard.

The new Episcopal Church website(s)

2012-01-14T15:22:00.003-05:00

After a long gestation period The Episcopal Church new web presence has been birthed. It turns out there were twins, or triplets, or wait, perhaps quadruplets.

First to arrive was the new Episcopal News Service site which all in all is more or less like the old one, except for a font that I find unsatisfactory. It goes by the name, "episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens".

Then came in rapid succession a facelift of "Episcopal Church" "episcopalchurch.org" which is much better organized than the older site, but with a "stained glass" banner that takes up a lot of bandwidth. The old complaint that it was hard to find things like a staff directory are gone. You can search the site from a box and not simply get old news items, you can click on "who we are" and find Staff Directory right there. Good changes. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it seems much more user-friendly now.

Then there comes "Episcopal Digital Network" itself. If you had "Episcopal Life Online" in your bookmarks, this is now where that bookmark sends you. The EDN pages are not yet filled out, and for good reason. Apparently Episcopal Life online (at best an interim solution to the ending of Episcopal Life in print) is now transmogrifying into Episcopal Digital Network, which will include Episcopal News Service, but will also have many features associated with an online magazine. If you look under "Network Properties" you find ENS. It gives the idea that EDN is the parent publisher / holding company. How soon Episcopal Digital Network will flower into a larger set of offerings is hard to say. This is what EDN says about its mission:

"The Episcopal Digital Network is an ad-supported media network that delivers news, information, and branded entertainment to church leaders, members, and general audiences. The network creates goodwill for the Episcopal Church and receptivity to the message of Jesus Christ by providing timely, accurate, and useful information to our audiences and by delivering value to our advertisers."

ENS is a subset of EDN, so maybe ENS should not count as a separate item.

There is another piece out there, the Daily Scan, which is a product of TEC public affairs. This is an email directed service, with a web version. But it too has undergone a face lift and its banner now reflects that of the Episcopal church website.

What we have here is a variety of services apparently open to including stuff from the wider episcopal church world in blogdom, webbing, etc. Panarama mapped out under two headings: Episcopalchurch.org and Episcopaldigitalnetwork.net.

Of course there are unanswered questions: The site offers a subset of files,"Panorama: Blogs of the Episcopal Church" points to some fine blogs indeed, but why those in particular and not, say, "Preludium" or better yet "In a Godward Direction" or "Leave it where Jesus flang it?" So, I wandered over to "social media," which turns out to be mostly tweeting, with links to some other sites. Then, just for fun, I clicked on the "Donate to the Episcopal Church" and the list was fine, but didn't include a button to click on for Rebuilding the Church in Haiti. Then I looked at "I am Episcopalian" and that has changed into what is apparently a running long video that plays "channels" which are the old short videos. Not all the old ones are listed yet, but the idea is there. I wonder if this series would be better used if one of them at at time might appear on the front page of the website as a witness? After watching three or four I have heard enough for one day.

So there are odds and ends to work on. The Communications office noted that this would of course be the case, given the size of the task. True enough. But even with the bits and pieces of pesky stuff it is still an important new start.

It is a massive undertaking and the results are mostly positive. Congratulations to all who are working on this. Now to take the twins, triplets, or whatever on a walk....

Life is complex here in lower, and sometimes slower, Delaware

2012-01-14T14:53:00.001-05:00

No one said it would be easy. Life in Sussex County, Delaware, and even in Lewes, the little town on the bay where it meets the big waters, can be complex. Witness the headlines in the Cape Gazette these past two weeks:

Well, if that wasn't hard enough, thinking that (a) Rehoboth - the town down from Lewes that sits RIGHT ON THE OCEAN - had a baby Jesus, worse yet that (b) Rehoboth owned the Baby Jesus, and (c) that some one stole it. Still, for the record: I did not steal it.

The second headline is indicative of a larger problem:

Now we've gone and done it: Used to be that only corporations were faux-persons, now a string of words stands trial like a regular paid up human being.

Somewhere in all this there are issues that make the problems of the Anglican Communion pale by comparison.

What sort of commodity is a "baby Jesus"? Can a town have more than one? What is the going price for a stolen one? Do you have to have special mojo to either steal one and not get struck by lightening or to live with the fact that you can't brag about it and have to keep the baby quiet lest you get caught? And the Lord's Prayer...whoosh... What are the repercussions if the trial goes badly? What if the Lord's Prayer is seen, single handily, to be responsible for the poor state of reading and writing in Delaware? Or worse, what if the LP has to take all the blame and no citizen in Sussex County need fear that they might be personally accused of mean spirited, or discriminatory behavior?

The mind boggles.

No wonder our days are numbered, as are the increasingly few hairs on my head.

Common Prayer is Basic Episcopalian stuff.

2012-01-12T08:57:00.000-05:00

Episcopal Cafe has a wonderful essay by Derek Olsen titled, Non-negotiable. The "non-negotiable" is the Book of Common Prayer. There may be all sorts of reasons for doing something else, but Olsen is persuasive in saying that we ought not muck around with the core stuff that makes us who we are. Do yourself a really good favor and read it. It is spot on.

Episcopal Cafe has become such a gift. It is an example of just how valuable church wide ministries can be an offering from part of the church (in this case the Diocese of Washington) to the whole.

Decision in Virginia

2012-01-11T22:46:00.001-05:00

In the long awaited decision, concerning the properties held by seven CANA churches, by the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Court of Virginia, Judge Randy I. Bellows presiding, was made yesterday. The conclusion of the judgments says this:

"the Court finds for TEC and the Diocese in the Declaratory Judgment actions and against each of the seven CANA Congregations. The trustees of the churches must, therefore, promptly convey the properties to the Diocese and the CANA Congregations must promptly relinquish control over the properties to the Diocese. Further, the Court finds the Amended Counterclaims to be without merit and grants TEC‟s and the Diocese‟s Motions to Strike the claims for unjust enrichment, quantum meruit, and constructive trust. Further, the Court finds that the Vestry entitled to elect the directors of the Falls Church Endowment Fund is the Falls Church Episcopal congregation recognized by the Diocese.

"The Court orders that all personal property acquired by the congregations before January 31, 2007 or February 1, 2007 (depending on the congregation) shall be conveyed to the Diocese and all liquid personal property (e.g., contributions and donations of money) acquired after these dates shall remain with the CANA Congregations. As to tangible personal property acquired by the CANA Congregations after these dates, they shall be conveyed to the Diocese unless the CANA Congregations can establish that they were purchased solely with funds acquired after these dates or were donated to the CANA Congregations after these dates."

Well there it is. It will be interesting to see if the CANA congregations want to appeal, but I think this judgment has all but finished the legal process in Virginia.

Now the Diocese of Virginia has an opportunity to renew the congregations in those churches, working with the continuing Episcopal Church congregations that have been without their church buildings for this time. It may also be time to explore with the CANA congregations new ways of cooperating even across the divide of theological differences.

What did all this decide? That the property belongs to The Episcopal Church, locally by the Parish part of the Diocese of Virginia, and more widely by the Diocese in trust for use by members of the Episcopal Church.

It may well be that the Episcopal Church parish or Diocese might find ways to cooperate with groups of its congregation that leave to form another church. But it would do so with the understanding by all parties that it is the Episcopal Parish leadership that exercises stewardship over the holdings of the parish and determines how the properties will be used.

Now the CANA congregations will have their transitional time without permanent residence. It may be a source of strength to them as it has been for some of the Episcopal Church congregations who have been without buildings. But in the end there will be CANA congregations and Diocese of Virginia congregations and somewhere down the path there will be new convergences in prayer and action, for which we can only hope and pray.

Remember Haiti, for we are one

2012-01-11T18:44:00.000-05:00

Two years after, keeping Haiti in our hearts and on our minds:

On Polity #4: The Episcopate.

2012-01-02T20:46:00.000-05:00

On Polity #4: The Episcopate.

Polity and common understandings:

Having written on some first principles of Polity, Polity as provisional, and given a rationale for a series on polity, I now would like tomake some comments on the matter of the Episcopate.

Of course these are brief and no substitute for a realexploration of the subject, but they do suggest a starting point, namely thatpolity involves a lot of what we might call common understandings – thingsunwritten because in some sense practiced and assumed to be true.

The Episcopate ascentral to order.

Anglican Churches believe that the office of bishop is centralto the right ordering of the practical theology of the church – that is itspastoral, sacramental and teaching practice. These roles concern being the headof household, the head teacher of a learning or religious community, or theshaman of a community. The notion thatthere should be a focus of communal unity is a perfectly ordinary expectationof organizational life, common to many structures in society.

Power might or might not rest with such a person, butauthority does. Bishops, like Principalsor Abbots have authority in specific areas. They exercise the powerthat goes with that authority in accordance with a governing polity, and insome sad cases in accordance with personal or corporate desire for power itself.

It is either an accident of history or the product of God’sodd sense of humor that the episcopate has been endowed in many parts of theworld with the trappings of princely power. The fourth principle of the Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateralreads, “The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of itsadministration to the varying needs of the nations and people called of Godinto the Unity of His Church.” Those needs might or might not engage bishops inthe exercise of authority as somehow parallel to the offices of the state, butthe “Historic Episcopate” is not about such powers. It is about the spiritualauthority that guides the church and guards its unity and how that authority isincarnated.

At various times greater or lesser accent has been given tothe bishop as ruler in the church – the role of administrator, judge, liegelord, prince, etc. But those duties, the duties of temporal rule, have beensecondary to the duties as head of household, the stand-in, as it were, forJesus as head of household. In alllikelihood the earliest form of the episcopate was indeed of a person held insuch regard that he (or perhaps she) was like a parent to the household of thechurch. There is an echo of this found in the phrase, “Reverend Father in God,I present to you…” used in the 1928 BCP ordination rite.

There is little warrant in the early church for a Papal orany other “religious” state, such things as PapalTiara, archiepiscopal designations (Archbishops and Metropolitans) which are ineffect parallel “spiritual” jurisdictions to those of various national orimperial “secular” leaders. The notion of a prince bishop is very far from theneeds of most Christian communities.

The temptation to consider bishops as “Lords Spiritual” and“princes of the Church” may be there in English or Roman ecclesial systems, butin The Episcopal Church the Bishop is not “My Lord Bishop”, “Your Grace” or“Monsignor.” She or he is “Bishop.” Inany event it is assumed in the Lambeth Quadrilateral that bishops will operatein different sorts of ways in different church circumstances, and so it hasbeen in The Episcopal Church.

Episcopal order in ademocratic society.

In the years leading up to Independence and the forming ofThe Episcopal Church, churches in the colonies went to considerable lengths tocontinue with clergy ordained by bishops, and when it became clear that TheUnited States of America was off and running, arrangements were quickly made toprovide for an episcopate in this new country. The history of all that is notthe subject of these notes, except to say that Anglicans in the colonies didnot forget, even with bishops absent, that they were part of an episcopalchurch in polity and practice.

Among the problems in determining just what the polity ofThe Episcopal Church is in reference to bishops is that “facts on the ground”often give a different read on the role and duties of bishops than is offeredin the Prayer Book and the Constitution and Canons. Just as in the practice of the Church ofEngland or the Church of Rome there were symbolic and practical ways in whichthe power of the episcopate was exercised, so it was to be in the EpiscopalChurch. But those characteristics of the polity of the Church are adjunct tothe canons themselves, bringing extra-canonical expectations and understandingsinto the question of the role of the episcopate.

There is nothing in the Book of Common Prayer, for instance,that suggests that bishops ought to wear mitres, and certainly no sense thatthese bits of headdress signal any princely standing – spiritual orotherwise. But the “on the ground”polity does indeed include outward and visible signs of the significance of thebishop’s office, including the wearing of the miter, seal rings, pectoralcrosses, etc. In the last fifty yearsthe elaboration of episcopal attire has spread widely in The Episcopal Churchand the relationship of that spread to changes in the role of bishop can not bewholly accidental. The polity accretions of practice are a reality. Bishops that where royal looking regalia can too swiftly assume royal privilege and power.

The ordination of a bishop, as set forth in the EpiscopalChurch’s Book of Common Prayer, distinctly indicates that he or she will guardthe faith, unity, and discipline of the Church, proclaim and witness to it, bea chief pastor and overseer, chief sacramental officer, lead, supervise andunite the Church, ordain priests and deacons and share in ordination ofbishops, teach and stir up the conscience of the people of the diocese,encourage and support all baptized people in their gifts and ministries,nourish them, pray for them, celebrate with them, share in the government of the whole Church,sustain presbyters and guide deacons and all others who minister in the Church,and show mercy and compassion to the poor and defenseless.

Itis left to the Constitution and Canons to specify particular actions ofgovernance that require episcopal engagement, and while there are a wide rangeof such actions, it is unclear that thegovernance role assigned to bishops could not be provided by some alternativeoversight mechanism. The polity of thechurch (BCP) assumes that bishops in their governance function are important,but it does not assume that the authority of the bishop is exercised by thebishop alone. Far from it.

Thecanons spell out in greater detail just how that authority is exercised. It isimportant that we recognize that in The Episcopal Church there existssignificant “checks and balances” such that Episcopal authority and Episcopalpower are not one and the same. Election rather than appointment is the generalrule regarding clergy and governance committees, review by committee the normregarding the ordination processes, discipline by boards and courts rather thanby the bishop alone, all point to the sharing of power within the context ofepiscopal authority.

Anglicans often claim that in the episcopate we find theinstrument that carries forward the apostolic mission and teachings of thefaith. Bishops in their teaching role played a very large part in forming thecreeds, the canon of New Testament scriptures, and the liturgical andsacramental norms of the Church. And with it they also formed, by teaching, thefact that it was by their apostolic authority that they did so. The Episcopal Church BCP service for theordination of bishops stresses the teaching, pastoral and prophetic roles ofthe bishop, but says very little about the administrative function. But theBook of Common Prayer clearly provides that the teaching, pastoral andprophetic roles are also carried out by all baptized persons to one degree oranother.

Our polity, as explicit in prayer book and canons,characterizes the office of Bishop as one of spiritual authority but an authorityexhibited in the church in a dispersed way.

This understanding of the role and function of the bishop inthe church is not one shared by all the churches in the Anglican Communion,much less in the wider catholic community. It is, however, what we have and wecontend, as a matter of polity, that in all things pertaining to the earlychurch’s intention, our bishops are sufficiently the focus of unity in adiocese and collectively as a synod of bishops, sufficiently the focus of unityin a church, to insure that this church continues the “Apostles teaching andfellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers” in a unified way.

The Episcopate inAnglicanism

The brokenness of Christendom is a given. It is unclear ifthis is good or bad, for brokenness in the Church is perhaps a sign that we tooparticipate in the brokenness of the world and that all are in need ofrestoration.

Be that as it may, in the whole church catholic, theEpiscopate has not been the guarantee of unity, but rather both a reach for unityand a source of division. Anglicans havefew illusions about the dangerous scripts available to bishops no matter thestructure of their synods or councils. At the same time we Anglicans believethe core of the episcopate – that we Christians are gathered with Christ as ourhead and that we have an outward and visible sign of that unity is ourgathering with our bishop – is a gift of God.

There are countless ways to be confounded by the idle gamesof power that play out the church, but there are also profound ways in whichthe relationship between bishop and people can and does mirror the householdand the householder, the church and its Chief Pastor for whom the bishop is asign.

While Anglican Polity understands the episcopacy to be acore value – along with Scripture, Creed and Sacraments – I believe it isclearly derivative and subject to suspension, re-formation, and where it hasdied out or never has been, regenerated from the stock of the whole Christiancommunity. I do not believe that onlythose churches possessing the episcopacy by “manual transmission” of the layingon of hands into the bowels of first century Christian community are to becounted as catholic. Rather I believe that churches holding the faith that inour common life is found the presence of the Lord Jesus who will lead us intoall truth will come to some sense of sacramental authority that looks much likewhat we find in the episcopate. The lastquarter of the Lambeth Quadrilateral may be a stumbling block to reunion atfirst, but if we view the episcopate as a gift and not as our “property” we maybe in a better place to work for a unity.

In The Episcopal Church we seem a long way from thatposition, although some of our ecumenical discussions bring us closer to anunderstanding of how we are one with churches who had to develop an episcopacyon their own, or who had the episcopacy and suspended its function because ofthe misuse of episcopal power.

We do, however, firmly believe that the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateralis right on the point: the Episcopacy is locally adapted in the methods of itsadministration to the varying needs of the nations and people called of Godinto the Unity of His Church. In ourchurch that has meant election by the people of dioceses, consent by lay,clerical and episcopal representatives of all the dioceses of the church, andordination by at least three bishops, with jurisdiction limited by ordinationand canons.

There is a tendency for power to gravitate or be pulledtoward those who are bishops. The polity of the church must provide means toguard against this. The purpose in having bishops is related not to power butto authority, not to the sword but to the staff. It seems to me we need to work constantly tosee that the authority of the bishop is exercised in powers dispersed andwidely inclusive of all orders and ministries of the church. Perhaps too we need to find ways to includein our administration of the church the considered input of those who are not partof the gathered community but are part of the larger community in which welive.

What would it look like to include a member of the local synagoguein the search committee for a new bishop? Or a Presbyterian pastor? Or a recipient of aid in a homeless shelter? Are the poor to be numbered among theelectors? Nothing in our polity precludes such possibilities. In the history ofthe church there have been occasions of election by acclimation, and surelyamong the acclaiming were people of no standing in the church itself.

The polity of the church concerning Bishops is fairly clearcut in canons. The responsibilities are laid out, the duties clear, thequalifications and required affirmations of the bishop-elect specified. What isnot so clear is the relationship between the expectations of the BCP and Canonsand the expectations of the rather inbred “episcopal” ethos of the churchcommunity itself.

Shameless commerce.

2012-01-02T17:13:00.000-05:00

Under the heading of Shameless Commerce:

I have just published a second edition of Requiem for the Dictator, The Haitian Poems, expanded to include several new poems, On the sidebar you will find a link to purchase. Hope you like them.

A sample: from "Where Forests Stood" -

The mountains cannot sustain the people,
The archer has broken the bow,
Adding its meager fuel to the fire.

The ancient people are gone.
The slaves who freed themselves are gone,
Their descendants do not remember,
Nor do the masters of the moment,
Descendants of the slave owners,
Retainers of empire.

They do not remember
That Haiti is the mountains,
And that they once were a covering,
And a source of healing,
but no more.

There will be no real revolution
Until the trees are planted:
No new social order
that is not green.

Of Commitments, great and small.

2012-01-02T12:01:00.005-05:00

The last few days of 2011 and the first day of 2012 brought news of commitments refreshed and new, and the passing of a friend committed to campus ministry.

Yesterday, January 1, 2012, at midday, dear friends, Drew Fennell and Lisa Goodman entered a covenant of holy and civil union. Civil Union because in Delaware as of yesterday, persons of the same sex are able to enter a legal relationship whereby their to lives and holdings are wedded (pledged) to one another. Holy Union, because they asked the Church to bless the civil union and them and their family and asked the minister to witness and declare that they were so joined and to bless them. We were among the 400 or so people there to respond "we will" (a grand shout) when asked, "Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their covenant of holy union?"

Kathryn and I were present, and I took part in, Lisa and Drew's commitment service (unaccompanied by any legal resource) many years ago now and it was wonderful to be with them again where their commitment could carry social and legal weight as well.

The service was in the context of the single service for the three congregations related to Trinity Church, Wilmington,(Trinity, Old Swedes and the Hispanic Congregation) at 12 noon. It was "regular church" on a Sunday morning combining The Feast of the Holy Name with the celebration of the Union of Lisa and Drew. The Rev. Patricia Downing, Rector, presided and U.S.Senator Chris Coons gave the sermon.

It was a stunningly fine service, the preaching was extraordinary and the couple and family radiant. Senator Coons' sermon was profoundly theological (he as a Masters from Yale Divinity School). It was finely crafted and wonderfully preached, and he brought into focus the clear relationship between the prophetic pointers towards love and justice and the legal and political aspirations towards inclusion as a means of distributing justice in the real world. I am looking forward to the transcript of his sermon.

Yesterday as well the resigned bishop of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, James Steenson, resigned and now a Roman Catholic Priest, has been named the Ordinary for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter in the US. What this is all about is well explained over at CrustyOldDean's column "An Ordinariate Less Ordinary?" An interesting essay on VirtueOnline also fills in details of the meaning of all this.

Steenson had the honesty and the integrity to ask permission to be relieved of his commitment to the ministry of bishop in The Episcopal Church and then to leave. Others have found that difficult to do and simply stuck around until retirement, then retired and pension in hand left The Episcopal Church for Rome or elsewhere (Anglican Church of North America, etc.)

Now he is a Roman Catholic Priest and the "Ordinary fo the Ordinariate." Apparently this means he will be bishop in all but name, having oversight on behalf of the Pope, for those clergy who leave The Episcopal Church for Rome. I hope his integrity holds in this more troubled context. As Crusty Old Dean remarks, the trouble with the Ordinariate is this:

"Cardinal Kasper, the head of the Pontifical Council on Promoting Christian Unity, said in 2009 that the establishment of ordinariates is not "fishing in an Anglican lake."

This is partly true; they are not fishing in the Anglican lake. They want to drain it.

This is the real concern here, not the handful of schismatics who will join the Ordinariate. It is the profoundly un-ecumenical direction the Roman Catholic Church seems to be taking."

Bishop Steenson is moving into deep waters. Whatever his new commitments, he drank from the waters of Anglican and Episcopal streams and now he is the representative of a Pope who seems ready to try to drain the lake into which these streams feed. One day Fr. Steenson may wonder why he is thirsty again and there is no relief.

And finally, sad news of the death a committed and wonderful priest of the Church and long time Campus Minister, John Crocker,Jr. Several snippets towards a bio:
From xlebris:

John Crocker, Jr., a former Navy pilot and retired Episcopal clergyman has spent most of his professional life as a college chaplain at Brown University (1958-1969) and at MIT (1969-1977). He was also rector at Trinity Church, Princeton, New Jersey from 1978-1989. Educated at Harvard College and the Episcopal Theological Seminary, Cambridge, Mass., he also received an honorary M.A. from Brown University.

Crocker was thirty-two years old, one year out of seminary, the curate at Trinity Church, Boston, and just ordained a priest in 1955, with the job of ministering to students in the Back Bay area when he met Tom Govan. Crocker realized “Here was a man who had a beautifully integrated understanding of life which was woven out of his experience and study, which included an understanding of economics, politics, philosophy, government, American history and its meaning, all held together and energized by his Christian faith. God was real for him and mysteriously active in it all.”

Intrigued and challenged by Govan, Crocker became his lifelong friend. Later Crocker was given all of Govan’s papers including his books, essays and letters in order to write this biography. This book is a longstanding promise fulfilled.

From Trinity, Princeton's history:

The Rev. John Crocker, Jr., came to Trinity in 1977 from the Episcopal chaplaincy at MIT and served until his retirement in 1989. His tenure included expanded outreach, consolidation of the many liturgical changes of the preceding years, and planning for needed facility improvements.

There will be a full obituary in the Boston Globe tomorrow, and a memorial service on Monday in Cambridge. I've been trying to find some pictures of John. Both of these are, I believe, of him. The one on the left is of former MIT Episcopal Chaplains, the one on the right is of him as a young seminarian.

The reasons for marking his death are many, but for me the major one is that John was committed to Campus Ministry and saw that ministry against the larger backdrop of The Episcopal Church on a local, diocesan and church wide level. As a result his insights about how to further the work of this important ministry at times when interpretation of our work was so central were crucial.

As a young(er) chaplain I found him to be a amazingly supportive elder and wiser companion.

The folks of The Episcopal Society for Ministry in Higher Education (ESMHE) have been remembering him these past few days. I hope his contributions to the life of the church are documented as a witness to a full life of Christian service.

Voice in the Wilderness: Powerful words by The Rev. Jim Friedrich

2011-12-27T23:25:00.007-05:00

(Over the transom and through the breezes of Christmas, this powerful sermon by The Rev. Jim Friedrich landed at Preludium. It is an honor to publish it.

It stands the test of being fitting even after the Celebration of the Feast of the Incarnation. It was a costly sermon, as sermons that speak truth often are. It is a Voice in what is increasingly a wilderness within Christendom. Read and be fed. (the formatting is not the same as given in the sermon...I had to refit to the blog.)

Voices in the Wilderness

Advent 3B, December 11, 2011

A Sermon by The Rev. Jim Friedrich

Stir up your power, O Lord.
Come and save us all.

Most prophetic texts look to the future, foreseeing a time

when God shall overcome all the sufferings and evils of history.

But today Isaiah speaks in the present tense –

not about a distant or unimaginable future,

but about something taking place here and now,

in our very midst.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me.
God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.
God has sent me to announce the time of grace,
and the dawn of justice.

Such a revolution doesn’t happen all at once, of course.

It takes time. God respects our temporal natures.

We stand at the dawn of a long day.

But the great work of salvation has finally begun.

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light.

Bit by bit, little by little,

God is beginning to repair the world,

heal the wounds,

recover the lost,

redeem the time.

This passage from Isaiah happens to be the one that Jesus picked for his first sermon back in his home town. And he made the same point. “This very moment,” he said, “this Scripture is being fulfilled.”

That’s right: God is no longer waiting to appear at some future date.

God’s kingdom has come – it’s in your midst – and it’s time to get on board.

No more waiting for some other day.

The Day of the Lord is now.

You’d think that little church in Nazareth would be pretty excited to find out that God was in town. But no.

They dragged Jesus from the pulpit and tried to throw him over a cliff.

Why were they so upset?

I’m sure they felt Jesus was being pretentious or even blasphemous, claiming to be the Messiah. But I suspect that what really upset them was the possibility that the stuff they talked about in church might actually be true. If God’s day were truly dawning, what terrible news for business as usual! For the coming of God’s world always means the end of our own.

Those folks in Nazareth knew just how disruptive God’s advent can be.

God doesn’t come to comfort the comfortable or to bless the injustice of the status quo.

God comes to tear down the walls of oppression, break the power of the wicked, uproot the invasive weeds of iniquity,

plant the seeds of justice and resurrection.

And who shall abide the day of God’s coming?

We all have some stake in the way things are.

We are all mired in the inertia of history.

We are all afraid of what we might lose.

Lose your life to find it.

Give up everything you have.

We know what God wants.

Jesus told us.

And it’s a little scary.

It would be so much easier just to go back to sleep,

to remain undisturbed by God’s invitation to do everything differently. Let the prophets go somewhere else and leave us in peace!

But still we pray:

Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness …

to heed the prophets’ warnings and forsake our sins,

that we may greet with joy – not fear – the coming of our Redeemer.

One of the beauties of the Advent season is the way it turns us inward, inviting us to stillness, receptivity, expectation. But Advent also drives our attention outward, to look for the eruption of divine love in the struggles of the poor, in the cries of the lost, in the world’s deep hunger.

Perhaps it is no accident that Advent coincides this year with the extraordinary outpouring of protest and vision known as Occupy Wall Street, for Advent and Occupy share many of the same themes of “out with the old, in with the new.”

We hear today about “a man sent from God,” who created quite a stir at Occupy Jordan River with his fiery rhetoric about radical change. So the people in charge of public order made their way down from Jerusalem, into the wilderness where John was camping. Some of them were a little put off by John’s appearance – dried honey in his beard, that ratty camelskin.

A few suggested he take a bath and get a job. But most were sincerely curious. “We want to know who you are,” they said. But then they tried to fit him into one of their boxes.

Are you Elijah? Nope.

Are you the prophet? Nope.

Are you the Messiah? Nope.

He drove them crazy. How could they take seriously anyone who didn’t let them define who he was? How could they trust him if they couldn’t co-opt him? Finally they gave up and said, “OK, why don’t you tell us who you are.”

And he said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”

In the Bible, the wilderness isn’t the Cascades or Olympics on a pleasant summer day. It is the inhospitable expanse of Middle Eastern desert. Its burning harshness and incomprehensible emptiness provide one of the great metaphoric tropes in Scripture. The wilderness, the desert, is the non-place between the world that is and the world to come.

The inhuman blankness of the landscape offers no refuge for normal life. Its vast silence consumes all our descriptions and constructions of reality. Its immense spaces, always drawing the eye to an unattainable horizon,

dissolve our sense of proportion, relation, boundary and reference.

It is the interruption that breaks the hypnotic spell of consensus reality.

It is the void where worlds end.

In other words, wilderness is the non-place where all places, and the habitual ways we inhabit them, are called into question.

The desert questions can be unsettling, terrifying.

Even Jesus found the desert a place of trial.

But the desert questions are also an invitation to abandon the illusions that enslave us, and begin to re-imagine the world.

If you want to make the Exodus from bondage in Egypt,

if you are ready to redefine your life and the way you live together, you have to go out where the old certainties are shattered and the old stories are burned away.

So it was for the people of Israel,

who found the desert questions almost unbearable. They complained, they worried, they wanted to go back to Egypt, where at least everything was familiar. The non-place between worlds was very hard for them. But it was there that God turned them from an invisible rabble of slaves

and nobodies into the people of God, ready at last to receive a new future and a new place, the Promised Land. And when the Promised Land turned out not to be so perfect, but still beset with the corrupting influence of

human sin, God would repeatedly raise up some prophet to remember the desert as the place to be purified and emptied, the place to begin again.

And so the prophets of Israel embodied the wilderness in their message:

Get out of Egypt,

put your slavery and your idolatries behind you,

empty yourselves of your old stories and old demons,

and make room for a future you can’t even imagine:

where the deaf shall have music

and the blind have new eyes,

where the mourners will laugh and the hungry be filled.

And this is why John the Baptist, the last of the ancient line of biblical prophets, tells those people, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” as if what is important about him is not his personal identity but the desert questions that find a voice in him. It’s the message, not the medium, that matters.

In paintings of John, he is often pointing, away from himself, toward the new reality that is emerging, embodied either as Christ the babe in Mary’s arms, or Christ the Savior on the cross.

That’s what prophets do. They call to us with the voice of the desert, pointing us toward God’s New Possibility.

Wake up!

Change your life.

And now, this very Advent, a voice is crying in the wilderness again, from Occupy encampments all over this country. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, they have chosen to live as sojourners, wandering the empty

space between the world that is and the world that is to come.

And what do their voices cry? They cry judgment on the many ills of our broken society: injustice, greed, militarism, racism, pollution, all the long litany of familiar systemic sins. All the things we simply accept because addressing them is hard and costly and sometimes even dangerous.

But the voices of Occupy also cry possibility, the kind of possibility imagined by Isaiah in today’s Scripture, or in this visionary poem by Judy Chicago:

And then all that has divided us will merge

And then compassion will be wedded to power

And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind

And then both men and women will be gentle

And then both women and men will be strong

And then no person will be subject to another's will

And then all will be rich and free and varied

And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many

And then all will share equally in the Earth's abundance

And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old

And then all will nourish the young

And then all will cherish life's creatures

And then all will live in harmony with each other and the Earth

And then everywhere will be called Eden once again.

Dare we entertain such great possibility?

Are we prepared to make room for the world of God

to be born in our midst?

Will we consent to change our lives?

Or will we just put God’s New Story out on the curb

like a discarded Christmas tree,

and go back to sleep?

The powers that be are so not prepared for the world of God. They never are. And they certainly don’t want prophets hanging around to remind us we could do so much better. Thus the evictions have begun. The evictions of Occupy encampments are always in the name of civic

order, health and safety. Certainly there are concerns in those areas – the camps are not exempt from the urban pathologies that most of us are able to ignore in the privacy of our own homes. And these concerns are being addressed by the Occupiers themselves in serious and thoughtful ways.

But I suspect that the powers that be are also troubled by something deeper, more eschatological. Longing for a different world, a better world, disturbs the peace. Dreams are dangerous. But does democratic desire really need to be so feared? A journalist on the scene when protesters

returned to Zuccotti Park after the Wall Street evictions reported that the spirit of the crowd was not anger – it was joy.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, I believe that Advent is really happening out there in the streets and the camps. Prophets are enduring the cold and the pepper spray to be voices in the wilderness, stewards of a great message of judgment and promise.

At the same time, they are carrying out a fascinating social experiment: in the way they live together in community; in the way they provide hospitality to the homeless and misfits, difficult as that may be; and in the way they forge processes to govern themselves, articulate concerns, and

make decisions that are radically democratic and inclusive. As one Occupier said, “It’s a mess. But it’s a beautiful mess.”

Last month I presided at a Eucharist in the Sanctuary tent at Occupy Seattle, along with the Rev. Sally Carlson, a deacon who got us on the interfaith rota for the day. From 3 to 6 p.m. on the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost, we were the resident chaplains at the Capitol Hill encampment

on the corner of Broadway and Pine.

We set up a small altar with candles, and I led songs with my guitar. We began the Eucharist with a congregation of two, which doubled as we went along. We talked about the Parable of the Talents as a story of risk-taking – choosing faith in the Kingdom's possibilities over fear of what might go wrong, a timely topic for the Occupy movement. Then we shared the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sanctuary tent, while all around us in the camp people were talking, eating, reading, drumming, and just hanging out,

dwelling closely together as few of us do in our cities, towns and suburbs.

And I thought: Was it like this for the children of Israel in the Sinai? These protestors may not have reached the Promised Land, but at least they've said no to Egypt.

After our small eucharist, we let the altar candles burn for the remaining hour of our time there. As dusk turned to dark, various people were drawn into our circle of peaceful light, and soon there were a dozen of us sitting together on the floor of the Occupy Sanctuary, talking quietly, earnestly, thoughtfully about God, hope, community, justice, and social change. The things that matter deeply. Each time some new person peered into our tent, a welcome was issued: "Come sit with us."

Just as in the Exodus, God took a ragtag band of social exiles and strangers and – for a very precious hour – made us into the people of God.

It was the conversation – and the community – that I long for every day, but only find in those unexpected moments when the Kingdom shows up once again, pitching God's tent in the wilderness.

Is the Occupy movement the Kingdom of God? No, of course not. The Occupy people would be the first to tell you that. Like John the Baptist, they point away from themselves to a greater reality.

A woman who helps run the Occupy Wall Street website told a journalist: This could be the greatest thing that I work on in my life. But the movement will have other Web sites. Over the coming weeks and months, as other occupations become more prominent, ours will slowly become irrelevant. We can’t hold on to any of that authority. We don’t want to.” (“Pre-Occupied: The origins and future of OWS”, The New Yorker, Nov. 28, 2011)

There’s no need to idealize the Occupiers. While there are many incredibly articulate, idealistic and thoughtful people doing the hard work of creating community and forging collective actions, a lot of the campers are homeless street kids, some of them dysfunctional and emotionally underdeveloped. And a number of parasites and pushers

have drifted through as well, creating headaches for the camps.

But Rich Lang, a Methodist minister who has been a faithful presence at Occupy Seattle, sees God at work in even in “the least of these”. In a recent online post he says that

… these kids are not just a bunch of losers. They are full of desire for something new, something more, something not seen but deeply felt. They ache for the New World where everyone [can] not only survive but … thrive.

… They want to be freed from the Old Story of constant competition and the wars unleashed in competition’s name. They anticipate liberating everyone from this old story and developing a New Story rooted in connection, compassion and mutual aid…

And I looked and I saw that they are doing the best they can with what little they have… These young folk, who have nothing and therefore nothing to lose, are refugees daring to walk the new highway even before it’s built.

(http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Chaplains-Seattle/297212383622559)

Two days ago, Occupy Seattle broke camp on Capitol Hill, in search of some new shelter as yet unknown. They must walk for now a literal Las Posadas, like Mary and Joseph wandering from door to door:

Do you have space to let us lie down?

- No, no, so sorry, no.

Do you know of a place in this town?

- No, no, so sorry, no.

Now you must go.

I hope to God there will be room for them somewhere.

I hope that their desert questions will not be silenced,

nor their prophetic spirit be quenched.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me…

to bring good news to the oppressed,

to bind up the broken-hearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and release to the prisoners.

God has sent me to announce the time of grace,

and the dawn of justice.

Let every heart prepare him room!

- The Rev. Jim Friedrich

Anglican Down Under misses the point, just in time for 2012

2011-12-27T11:46:00.000-05:00

Peter Carrell, the blogger at Anglicans Down Under got in several musings just under the wire before Christmas so that he could take a break, leaving us, of course with the product and a promise of "more in 2012." Among thse musings was the following, a suggestion that the Anglican Church in North America and The Episcopal Church might both be member churches of the Anglican Communion. He asks, "give one good reason for ACC 2012 not to invite ACNA to join the Anglican Communion." Here is his musing:

"THINKING about the Anglican Communion and a theme for 2012 ... 'Give one good reason for ACC 2012 not to invite ACNA to join the Anglican Communion.' I will come back to this in 2012 but ...

Here is my thinking: when TEC ordained Gene Robinson as bishop in 2003 it opened a new chapter in Anglicanism. First, it declared that what other Anglicans think does not matter re an action deemed to be 'Anglican.' Secondly, it declared that the past is irrelevant to Anglicans acting as Anglicans. In this case the past includes the grain of Scripture, the Tradition and traditions of Anglicans, and Resolution 1.10 of just five years earlier. Thirdly, it underlined that previous rules, regulations, articles and canons pertaining to Anglicanism, especially the Thirty-Nine Articles, are indeed to be held lightly and let go if they stand in the way of a desired action. Fourthly, it stretched the concept of Anglican diversity yet further, while loosening the sense that 'diversity-in-unity' might be an important Anglican value.

If then we ask why ACNA could not be invited to join the Anglican Communion we should seek to be consistent in offering an answer to the question. We should not worry about what TEC thinks about making the invitation. We should set aside any concerns about lack of precedent for it or the weight of Tradition or traditions being against it. We should not invoke any ancient rules etc, and certainly not any canons of Nicea which talk about only one bishop with jurisdiction per region. As for such an invitation stretching the idea of what Anglican diversity means: we should welcome the invitation being made. Not only would it increase our diversity, it would be of no concern if it weakened our unity. Further, such an invitation would strengthen all Anglican claims to inclusiveness of the outsider and the marginalised.

We can in fact go further. If the Covenant is a bad idea because the crucial value at the core of the Communion is simply ++Desmond Tutu's "We meet" then what harm could be done by inviting a new member to the meeting? If the Covenant is a good idea for the Communion then we would have a potential barrier to ACNA being invited to belong to the Communion: what if it refused to sign the Covenant? At that point I think they should be refused membership."

Peter asks, 'Give one good reason for ACC 2012 not to invite ACNA to join the Anglican Communion.'

Now he sets some limits or the sort of answer that will do:

(a) not worry about what TEC thinks about making the invitation,

(b)We should set aside any concerns about lack of precedent for it or the weight of Tradition or traditions being against it.

(d) on the grounds of increasing diversity, we should welcome the invitation.

He bases these limits on his perceptions of the way in which The Episcopal Church acted in 2003 in consenting to the election by the Diocese of New Hampshire of Bishop Robinson. That his perceptions are mistaken, warped or otherwise to be considered with a large grain of salt is beside the question. He has asked a question with limits, so there it is.

I value Peter's friendship on the Internet enough to want to take his question seriously even if I don't agree at all with his wind up for the pitch. So here goes.

Name one reason:

Because no Communion of Churches in its right mind will deliberately include a new member church that exist precisely because the new member Church believes an existing member church to be un-Christian, heretical and not truly Anglican. Because the Anglican Communion has some interest in being in its right mind, that is a communion in which scripture, reason and tradition all play a part in discernment, the Anglican Communion will avoid, if at all possible, doing something as blatantly stupid as inviting membership from a church already a break-away from a member body.

The fact that there are member churches that are in impaired or broken communion with others is a reality, but in no case has a church become a member of the Communion with brokenness with other churches already part of the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Church in North America recites its history with a primary emphasis on it being or becoming the true voice of Anglicanism in North America. The unveiled assumption being that The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, being revisionist, heretical, unorthodox, anti-biblical, etc, are not an authentic voice of Anglicanism in North America.

The second reason (just for added fun) that the ACC can not "invite the ACNA to join the Anglican Communion" is that the ACC can't invite any church to join something other than itself. Becoming part of the Anglican Consultative Council puts a church on "the list of member churches." Being on the ACC list makes one a member church of the Anglican Communion as it is understood by ACC itself. How well that list matches with the list of Church bishops invited to Lambeth, or Primates invited to the Primates Meetings is another question.

Well, there's a start.

Christmas Amalgam

2011-12-24T10:41:00.001-05:00

Christmas Amalgam:

I’m dreaming of a true Christmas
Where every one who seeks will find,
And the doors will open,
No hopes be broken,
Where hearts find joys profound.

Silent Night,
unbroken
By the sighs of the weary
Because they are weary no more,

Silent Night, Holy Night
All is calm,
no longer fright
Of hunger, war or ravage,
Justice and love now accomplished
In God’s new day.

Of the Father’s love begotten,
Let there be
A new earth to greet
The chosen of the Lord,
And Paradise restored.

Angels we have heard on high
Singing this time,
and with great joy,
Not of the first coming,
In its simplicity
Not of the second,
In its power,
But of the very best,
The present reality.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Mark Harris, 2011

Christmas Greetings from Preludium (repost)

2011-12-24T08:22:00.000-05:00

This extraordinary work of art depicts the Holy Family, sans Child, who is off barking at the self same Morning Star arising.

Any suggestion that the big goofy one sort of looks like Preludium's author, and the little one like the the Lady of Christmas present at chez Harris is ill-founded and the work of nasty critics who will have their reward.

In the spirit of Christmas, may the Light shine its everlasting Love on you, and may you find peace and joy in the years to come.

Meanwhile we dog types are still waiting, panting Antiphons each day, in the outrageous hope that Christ will be there at our barking, at our beginning and in our ending.

Province of the Souther Cone's adopts Covenant, give or take a clause or two.

2011-12-21T21:38:00.000-05:00

Just to be clear from my previous post:

The Province of the Southern Cone has adopted the Anglican Covenant, but with its fingers crossed. Apparently the PSC hopes that no one will notice that it still has the deposed bishop of Recife under its wings, along with a sizable number of congregants constituted as a diocese.

The PSC claims that it is no longer doing those things it ought not to have done in Canada and the United States, but makes no apology for having done so.

I suppose this counts as a "yes" in the score card on the acceptance of the Anglican Covenant, but there will not be much joy in Anglican-Land over this one.

So who do ACNA bishops go for jurisdictional connection?

2011-12-21T21:28:00.001-05:00

The Province of the Southern Cone has adopted the Anglican Covenant. The announcement was made today on the Anglican Communion News site. The Province made no apology for its boundary crossings over the past ten years. The report states (highlights mine)

"The Province views the covenant as a way forward given the difficult circumstance of watching certain Provinces of the Anglican Communion propose novel ways of Christian living in rejection of Biblical norms.

In response to these novel practices the Southern Cone had held churches in North America under its wing for some time while the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) was formed. However, the Province has not maintained jurisdiction over any local churches there for over a year. As a result, all so called ‘border crossings’ by any provincial members ceased (as of October, 2010) even though the Southern Cone still remains in impaired communion with US and Canadian Provinces. It is hoped that the Covenant can now provide Communion stability"

So none of the ACNA bishops are now under the jurisdiction of the Province of the Southern Cone. Fine. No apology form the PSC folk about having messed about in other's back yards, but then that wasn't expected.

In ACNA land the Archbishop, himself a deposed bishop in The Episcopal Church was given residence in the PSC... that was in September 2008.

The Living Church stated, "Immediately after his deposition from the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church, Bishop Duncan was welcomed into the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, according to Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables." But those days are over. If Duncan is not in the PSC, where is he?

This becomes an interesting question since the Archbishop of ACNA has been troubled by the bishops of the Anglican Mission in America who have left the Province of Rwanda, the place where their jurisdictional connection was made into the Anglican Communion. Duncan wrote today,

"The resignation of nine Anglican Mission bishops, including the Bishop Chairman, from the House of Bishops of Rwanda, changed relationships with Rwanda, with fellow bishops and with the Anglican Church in North America. The resigned bishops lost their status in our College of Bishops as a result of their resignation from Rwanda. The Anglican Mission also lost its status as a Ministry Partner, since that status had been predicated on AMiA’s relationship with Rwanda. In addition, confusion and hurt has been created in Rwanda and in North America, and there is much serious work ahead of us."

Later in the letter he wrote this:

" All those at the meeting today agreed “that there were no subjects that were not on the table.” For the Anglican Church in North America, these subjects must include leadership, relationships, and jurisdictional participation in a way that is fully Anglican" (emphasis mine)

Now it would appear that Archbishop Duncan et al believe that "jurisdictional participation in a way that is fully Anglican" involves being part of a Province of the Anglican Communion as currently constituted. So the AMiA bishops "belong" to Rwanda. The Bishops of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) "belong" to Nigeria. The Bishops of ACNA "belong"...where?

Did Bishop Duncan become part of another province, other than the Province of the Southern Cone? If so which province?

And, not to put too fine a point on it, but the Province of the Southern Cone continues to have a bishop, deposed in Brazil, as part of its college with an "Anglican diocese of Recife" as part of the wider ranging work of the Province of the Southern Cone. PSC has not ended its messing about in other Provinces even if it no longer messes about in The Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada.

So things appear even more muddled than before: Now we have Duncan et al apparently dangling out there and not "part" of any Province, AMiA bishops cut off from Rwanda, the Province of the Southern Cone adopting the Anglican Covenant with their fingers crossed hoping that on one will notice the rogue diocese of Recife.

Of course the core problem is that ACNA, CANA, AMiA, ex Recife, all believe these interventions by Provinces in the jurisdiction of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are "jurisdictional participation in a way that is fully Anglican."

Where the hell did they get that idea? One hopes not from Lambeth Palace, but if not there where? Who knows?

But one thing is for sure. Who ever thought that propping up deposed bishops under new flags in jurisdictions already having Episcopal / Anglican oversight was "fully Anglican" was full of it.

If ACNA bishops are not in "jurisdictional participation in a way that is fully Anglican" well, the deck of cards begins to collapse. And they are not. Archbishop Duncan admits as much when he writes, "The present reality is brokenness. The vision, however, that governs our fledgling Province remains unchanged..."

ACNA is not yet a "province" of anything, no matter that the Episcopal Church in the Sudan recognizes it as and "orthodox" partner and the GAFCON / Global South folk considers ACNA a full fledged partner. This is because not being a recognized province these bishops and people understand that to be "fully Anglican" they need to be under the jurisdiction of an existing Province.

AMiA bishops who have left Rwanda are clearly not under jurisdiction now. ACNA bishops in Fort Worth, Quincy, San Joaquin and Pittsburgh are not with the Southern Cone. If not there where are they?

Crusty Old Dean on Polity matters

2011-12-21T08:00:00.003-05:00

Polity does matter. Tom Furgurson, aka "Crusty Old Dean" (COD) knows this and writes about it on his blog. As some of you know I have been working on polity issues here as well, but have been stuck on the matter of bishops for some time now. Its beginning to feel as if I'm working on a dissertation, not some notes worthy of a blog entry. (Sigh...) COD still has an eye for the short pithy commentary on various elements of polity.

Go over to his site and read his latest, "Reforming the PHOD as well as PB"

Good stuff!

Meanwhile, stay tuned, COD has provoked me to a grand editorial hacking away and through the brush perhaps a path will be found towards a description of our actual polity use of the episcopacy and some hopes for a better use.

Occupy Wall Street, and/ or Occupy Trinity land at Duarte Park

2011-12-20T22:55:00.002-05:00

Bishop George Packard is an amazing man. He worked in many quiet ways to bring a word of justice and mercy to people in power in the military and political leadership in the American establishment. That he has shown up in the Occupy Wall Street movement is a surprise, but not a great one. But it is a great joy to see. Lots of blog work has been done on the OWS movement and the part played and not played by religious institutions and people in it. It seemed unnecessary to add anything to what was already available, but today Episcopal Cafe pointed us all to an article by Tom Beaudoin titled Occupy Wall Street Versus Trinity Wall Street? Episcopal Cafe recommends we all read Tom Beaudoin's article, and so....read it.

Embedded in the article was this video by the OWS video folk. It's a fine piece of work in itself and I invite you to listen to it. There he is in all the purple you could hope for... a bishop over the wall.

I am very proud to be related to Bishop Packard, even one step removed.

There is a lost chance here for Trinity and the OWS folk to work out a way to use the park. Hopefully it can be a chance taken up again soon.

Meanwhile we have the analysis of this article and of the video to guide us towards a way of recasting the question of the use of the land. Is this land COMMONS, in much the same way as, say, the nave of a church - a place of sanctuary and if not that a place to let the lion and the lamb make peace?

On another note: Why was "occupy" the word chosen? Much of the world understands "occupy" to mean, in American English, the activity of taking over their country at will. It is not a positive idea. Well, "spring" seems to have been taken in "Arab Spring." But maybe "reclaim" might have worked, as in "reclaim Wall Street for the people." The thing about reclamation is that it is an activity of restorative justice. Occupation seldom is.

But there it is - history has made this the "occupy" movement. But occupy does not itself imply making things right or restoring them or reclaiming them. It only means taking over. I'm always a bit edgy about takeovers. The new powers are too much like the old powers much too often.

Enough is enough: Comment moderation on. Let the weeping and gnashing of teeth begin.

2011-12-20T12:33:00.000-05:00

A note to readers of this blog and those who make comments on this blog:

I was asked last year to allow free interchange among corespondents to Preludium without "comment moderation," the plea being that this would make for more rapid and healthy interchange of ideas without my having to be burdened by being disciplinarian for this blog.

Well, in the past two months it has become increasingly clear that several correspondents have no desire to further the comments on any given topic but rather would take every topic back to one of three conversational traps:

(i) one thread capture wanted to somehow assure us (whether or not that was the topic at hand) that we ought to not sign the Covenant for the sake of conscience, and that we should stand on principle and that of course this would mean two Communion groups, etc. The capture was to get "liberals" to effectively buy a realignment principle, namely that alignment would mean a future with two different Anglican Communion groups. This thread capture lead to entrapment in a decoy argument.

(ii) one thread capture wanted to take whatever the topic and bring it around to a rant about how terrible The Episcopal Church is, that it is on its way to extinction, that its leadership has a "gay agenda" at its core, that The Episcopal Church is the enemy. This thread capture was a trashing scheme.

(iii) one thread capture simply wanted to turn every conversation in on itself so that members of the corresponding community would be led down a path to a place where no actual commentary on any topic would happen, but only escalating name calling. This thread capture was simply a spoiler so that no one in his or her right mind would stick around.

So. It turns out there is a simple way to stop this nonsense. I am turning on comment moderation. That means no comments will appear until I have read them, and I will exercise the following:

(a) I will allow whatever comments I wish. It is finally my blog and if others want to go somewhere else with issues then let them start their own blog.

(b) I am very interested in constructive criticism, alternate viewpoints, useful counter essays, etc. So comment moderation will make substantive alternative comments all the more useful. Comment moderation is not here to be used as a means of allowing only the like minded in the room. I invite substance, and if what is written seems worth it, will give primary blog space to the writer.

(c) I will trash any comment that deliberately misleads the reader, maligns others, or is destructive of the line of argument or arguments going on on the thread.

(d) I will allow considerable latitude in a thread, but if it gets too far off topic, I will suggest that the writer send an entry that begins, "Consider this for a new topic" and I will.

(e) Those who comment can sign on with any name they want, but if the continue to come back without a name I will eventually trash them as well. Find a name and on a given thread stick to it. It makes it easier to follow arguments if we can know that a response is from a particular player in the program. I have no idea who people are (except for a few) and I don't need to know. But if it appears to me that someone is signing on with several different names in order to "manage" the conversation, I will delete their comments.

The level of stupidity and foolishness in some of the comments these past few months has been very discouraging - enough to make me think of simply shutting down the blog. However, I am convinced that some of what is written here does in fact concern "Anglican and Episcopal futures" and have given that as a sub-heading to "Preludium" and is of value to readers.

Speaking of readers: I have discovered a temptation in blogdom, namely to be conscious of the number of readers, where they come from and daily readership. The wackos in the comment sections revisit often and when they start their comment wars there is obviously a spike in readership. So the temptation is to leave the comments section open to all comers - after all ten visits a day from one of our trolls is still ten visits. But then it kicks in: by visit eleven our troll has disgusted readers, and more rational folk pick up and leave. Furthermore, I believe it is better to have fifteen "hits" for the content and the possibilities for discussion then to have one hundred "hits" for the purpose of pissing in the soup.

I am pleased that Preludium has now had 1,450,000 visits. I hope there will be many more. But I also hope those trolls who live in the shadows will stay there or go elsewhere. If them come out they will be cast into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Just a little blue box, a little blue box that a little small prayer unlocks...

2011-12-19T23:50:00.000-05:00

The other day I got a note from the Third Province Representative to the United Thank Offering Board, encouraging us all to remember the work of the United Thank Offering and, to put it bluntly, to do something about it.

Anne Gordon Curran writes, "I ask you in this time of Advent to prepare, to discern, and to energize your spiritual and personal self into a new birth and discover a commitment to go forward basking in the love that God is, and in the experience that His Son gave to us in his life on earth. We ask that you give daily tanks donating a small gift with a prayer in a Blue Box and we assure you that each gift, no matter how small, will indeed make someone else's life a little better. This ministry lives fully into our Eucharistic experience - give thanks and go into the world spreading God's love and many blessings, giving some of what we have to our neighbors, and in so doing, act as a reflection of God's image to the people of the world."

In our parish there has been a long history of this "blue box" ministry of thanksgiving, prayer, giving and action. UTO was for many years a major part of the extension of the parish's concerns fpr others into the world. In recent years the practice of distributing UTO Blue Boxes and gathering them in twice a year was gradually forgotten. We started up again this year and in the ingathering this December we raised over $1000 for UTO giving. More importantly we found this simple engine of thanksgiving and made it real again in our lives.

I was privileged to be part of the Executive Council's "Study Committee" that worked with the UTO Board to find new ways of expressing the basic core mission of UTO in the life of The Episcopal Church.

Most importantly, in the context of that work, I remembered: I remembered that in the midst of all sorts of complex schemes to fund this or that worthy purpose, the simple act of thanksgiving and prayer, combined with offering of funds for the work that needs to be done, means. UTO is in some sense "The little engine that could." Like the engine in that story UTO thinks it can, and thinks it can, and thinks it can, and then does.

From the later year of my youth I also remembered the song from Fiorello!, the "Little Tin Box" which was a means of "saving up my money bit by bit."

The "Little Engine that Could" and the "Little Tin Box" are both fanciful extensions of an optimism for possibilities.

UTO is greater than these: it is an actuality. Simple thanksgiving and prayer and giving year after year ends up being the engine that does fund mission and ends up being the little box in which the funds mount up bit by bit.

So, if your parish already has a UTO ingathering, God bless you. If it doesn't, well God bless you to give thanks and pray and give for the mission of the Church through UTO.

Ups and downs in Episcopal / Anglicanl Land: Pittsburgh, Quincy, Papua New Guinea and The Sudan

2011-12-19T22:30:00.000-05:00

Hopefully all across Episcopal land people are turning towards the Light that enlightens us all, and putting aside blogdom (including this blog) for BETTER THINGS.

Still, we might note a week before Christmas, that matters continue a-pace in Episcopal-Land. Decisions about who owns property and how it is used are being made right up to closing time. For some it is a time of joy, and for others it is a difficult Christmas indeed.

Over in the Diocese of Pittsburgh the Cathedral is now the Cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Lionel Deimel carries some thought on this HERE. So the Cathedral is now the Episcopal Cathedral, and the bishop's chair, once occupied by now deposed Bishop Robert Duncan, then occupied by two bishops, is now occupied by the Episcopal Bishop once again. Sit well.

Meanwhile in the Diocese of Quincy legal matters have taken a turn for the more complex. The judge has determined that the matter of who has property rights in the Diocese of Quincy - those who have moved on to the ACNA (Anglican Church in North America) world, or those who are still the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy - can not be settled without a trial. The ruling doesn't solve anything but it makes it clear the struggle for ownership will not be solved easily. Over at the Anglican Curmudgeon there is an analysis (I don't know how good) but it is an interesting read. It is titled, ECUSA Denied Summary Judgment in Quincy: Court Finds a Triable Dispute Whether Church Is in Fact "Hierarchical" His Curmudgeonly self's, titles match my own for length.

Out there in the Anglican universe there are reports that the Province of Papua New Guinea has adopted the Anglican Covenant. Their approval was accompanied by a letter to the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion in which they wrote,

“Communion”, in our understanding, describes a particular kind of close relationship which both ensures autonomy and requires responsibility. It is an expression of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and as such is a precious gift to God’s people. It clearly requires mutual respect, open communication and patience in dealing with issues that threaten it. In recent decades we have been saddened by the apparent lack of these things in the controversies concerning the ordination of women and issues of human sexuality.”

He went on to say that the bishops felt it was important to remember the need to pray for unity beyond just the Anglican Christian tradition. “Anglicans are only part of the wider Christian “communion” that is the Church of God, which must have an important role in discerning the truth. Anglicans, we believe, have been called to live a particular style of Christian witness which, because it is less juridical and confessional than that of some others, clearly requires a high level of mutual concern and respect.

Bp Ramsden concluded, “Meanwhile, Anglicans in Papua New Guinea are proud to belong to the Anglican Communion. As bishops we attended the 2008 Lambeth Conference, supported the three moratoria, endorsed the covenant process and value the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury to promote our unity. The Covenant might not have been proposed if some Anglican Provinces had not acted in the way they did, but recent history has produced it and we believe it deserves our support as a contribution to shaping and strengthening a future Anglican Communion, faithful to our calling to be ‘eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Eph 4.3).”

The letter comes from what apparently is the "calm middle," those churches that have taken part in the full life of the Communion and have not wandered off to GAFCON land, but on the other hand have seen nothing unwarranted in the slow pace of change in the Communion. But here is the problem: the patience called for, had it been applied to the matter of the ordination of women, would have meant a much slower process in The Episcopal Church for the ordination of women in general and in the episcopate in particular. The patience, as called for in matters of the ordination of gay persons or the blessing of gay relationships, would mean that there would institutional silence and no movement, except the movement out of The Episcopal Church of the very best and most personally integrated gay and lesbian members of the church.

Papua New Guinea did what was asked: they considered the Anglican Covenant and found it good enough, and they make it clear that they wish to be loyal to the Anglican Communion. Fair enough. I believe they are wrong in this, but they did what was asked. In the score keeping that is done by the No Anglican Covenant there has not been an update to reflect this yes vote. This would bring to four the confirmed yes votes, with two others (Ireland and South East Asia being effective yes votes as far as the head office is concerned), making six. There is only one confirmed no vote, the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, but a number of unhappy emoticons.

Over in the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, the Archbishop has written asking the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church not to come for a visit. In a longer statement from the bishops of the ECS, they stated that they will have nothing to do with the thing called The Episcopal Church, recognized the Anglican Church in North America as part of the inter-church world they will relate to, and determined to relate to Episcopal Church dioceses and parishes they consider orthodox anyway.

The letter is very simple and straightforward. The statement from the bishops is a reiteration of their position taken at Lambeth 2008 . Here it is, from Episcopal Cafe (highlighting mine):

STATEMENT OF HOUSE OF BISHOPS OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF SUDAN ON HUMAN SEXUALITY

The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan in its meeting held in Juba from 14-16, November 2011 in the context of General Synod has reaffirmed the statement of the Sudanese Bishops at the Lambeth Conference in 2008 as quoted below:

“We reject homosexual practice as contrary to Biblical teaching and can accept no place for it within ECS. We strongly oppose developments within the Anglican Church in USA and Canada in consecrating a practicing homosexual as bishop and in approving a rite for the blessing of same-sex relationships.”

We are deeply disappointed by The Episcopal Church's refusal to abide by Biblical teaching on human sexuality and their refusal to listen to fellow Anglicans. For example, TEC Diocese of Los Angles, California in 2010 elected and consecrated Mary Douglas Glasspool as their first lesbian assistant Bishop. We are not happy with their acts of continuing ordaining homosexuals and lesbians as priests and bishops as well as blessing same sex relations in the church by some dioceses in TEC; it has pushed itself away from God's Word and from Anglican Communion. TEC is not concerned for the unity of the Communion.

The Episcopal Church of Sudan is recognizing the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) fully as true faithful Orthodox Church and we will work with them to expand the Kingdom of God in the world. Also we will work with those Parishes and Dioceses in TEC who are Evangelical Orthodox Churches and faithful to God.

We will not compromise our faith on this and we will not give TEC advice anymore, because TEC ignored and has refused our advices.

(The Most Rev.) Dr. Daniel Deng Bul, Archbishop and Primate of Episcopal Church of Sudan, Juba, 12th December 2011"

Note several things:

The Statement does not reference Lambeth 1998 on Human Sexuality but to its own independent statement at Lambeth 2008.

The statement's title match its content. It is not a statement on Human Sexuality, it is a statement on Homosexuality and on the relation between the Episcopal Church of the Sudan and The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America.

It charges that The Episcopal Church is not concerned for the unity of the Anglican Communion, a charge that is not at all true. Many of us are indeed concerned and it is precisely our concern that has led us to question the usefulness of the Anglican Covenant while at the same time affirming the value of the foundational "supports" for Anglicanism.

It declares that ECS will not work with The Episcopal Church on a church wide level, on the assumption that we are not orthodox or faithful. It will work with the Anglican Church in North America, whose leadership has consistently shown a failure to exercise the ministry in The Episcopal Church for which vows were taken and promises made, whose leadership has been deposed by legitimate Anglican authority, and whose church is outside the community of churches that makes up the Anglican Communion. The Bishops statement is careful to say that their recognition does not imply anything about ACNA's relationship to the Anglican Communion. But they are following the line of GAFCON Churches and simply developing an alternative Anglican world in slow incremental steps.

The end of the statement is a bit odd: "we will not give TEC advice anymore, because TEC ignored and has refused our advices." My sense is what they mean by this is that they do not intend to be part of meetings in the Anglican Communion where TEC folk are present on the grounds that the only possible conversation between the two churches would be one of conversion - TEC converting to what they believe to be the "orthodox" position on gay and lesbian participation in the life of the Church. Since we obviously are not doing as they advise, they will not do that anymore.

They will then be numbered among those churches who will boycott meetings where TEC is present and engaged - not going to Primates meetings, not participating in ACC - or alternately they will go only if the meeting begins by voting TEC representatives out of the body.

If this is not what they mean, then it is mostly a statement of hot air. If it is what they mean it is yet another step towards a breakup of the Anglican Communion.

A Meditation on Holy Waiting: A little something for Advent.

2011-12-18T19:19:00.001-05:00

(Here in the little town on the bay at the edge of the big water the Rector of all Lewes decided it was my turn to preach on Advent 4. Well, thing is what the good people got by way of a meditation. If it serves you well, wonderful. If not, there is always the trash button. May your Advent time find you filled with wonder in the waiting. )

To God alone be glory: Amen.

This is a little meditation filled with “I” language.

The “I” is me, but maybe too it is You.

This song is yours, perhaps, even if I sing it:

Here it is:

I am waiting.

Not so much for the perfect present, either one I get or oneI give.

I am waiting, but not for Santa, not for the baby to be putin the crib, not even for the Mother mild to smile at me, not even for Jesus to return.

I am waiting , I am always waiting, for confirmation that Life and Love and Justice are real. Ibelieve they are, but where’s the confirmation?

And I am waiting for the daily visitation of Almighty God,not in thunder and lightening (which would scare me to death) but in a stillsmall voice, preparing me, as the collect today says, to be a fit place for thepresence of Jesus Christ the Lord. (Somedays that waiting seems confirmed, others, well, less so.)

And I am waiting for the stirring up of great power, thepower of the Lord, whose stirring will be so great as to even get me into gear,and get me moving, so that I am delivered from being a lump and made aliveagain. Oh, I am ready and waiting.

And I am waiting for new cloths, the armor, that will makeme, in this present time, a Child of the Light.

And I am waiting for Johnny and Sally and all the other menand women in our armed forces to come marching home again hurrah, hurrah, and for war to become an oddity ofhistory’s distant past,

And I am waiting to be, well, pregnant with hope, and goodluck with that – I’m not a woman and I don’t play one on TV. But with God,anything is possible, even being like Mary, overshadowed by the power of theMost High. Maybe I too can be pregnant with hope and give birth to some new wayof being in the world. Hey, with God…it is all possible.

I am waiting, I am perpetually waiting, along with Lawrence Ferlingehettiand good ol Allen Ginsberg and wacky Jack Kerouac, for the truth to sink in thatnothing matters except perpetual wonder.

And I am waiting for that wonder to strike home, so that Itoo can follow the star to the place where The Lord God gets a body, and thebody gets a life, and the life is that of God with us, and the new age isushered in,

And I am perpetually waiting and wanting to do those thingsthat befit the belief that God has become as one of us so that we can becomeone with Him.

I am waiting.

And while I am waiting, and while you are waiting, let’s notflinch from what we are waiting for:

Christmas is a wonder only so long as we understand that Christmasis about waiting, wanting and finding Jesus as Lord. I mean Jesus as God withus.

John Dominic Crossan says that it is not Jesus as Messiahthat drove God believers nuts. Messiahswere a dime a dozen. The notion that a human could be the Anointed One wasperfectly understandable. There the argument was not whether Jesus could be the Messiah, it was whether he was in factthe Messiah. You could even call someonethe son of God and get away with it, provided you didn’t push it too far.

The thing that drove God fearers crazy was theChristian belief that Jesus is God among us, the Incarnation of the Lord God.“Jesus is Lord” meant in the way that “God is Lord of all” was a step over the line.

Ho, ho ho. It was atleast heresy, ascribing to a human the character, and more, the essence of God. More, it wasblasphemy.

Now there’s a wonder worth the waiting. If we are going to do it, do it with gusto. There’sa heresy worth the having: God, the great thunderer, or even the small stillvoice, was always the great OTHER the judge, the creator, the beginning andend, (or even Father in a manly and distant sort of way.) God, the one and only God, was totally other,and no particular bit of protoplasm need apply. And here comes Jesus, Blasphemy on the hoof. God in the flesh.

What we have been perpetually waiting for is for the truthof all this to come home and smack us in the head and heart:

I want to know God close enough so that we can be touched,held close, nurtured. God can be our nurturer. And I want to be a child of God, held and nurtured. We can be likelittle children.

I want to experience that God is not dead, God is bread, andthe bread is rising. We can be hungry for God. We can eat God and be nourished,and grow with God as part of us.

I want to imagine God present to us as a baby who must beprotected by a caring Mother, and we can like Mary, be a source of comfort tothe Judge of All, and whisper in God’s ear, “let it be, let it be, “ and rubGod’s back until the little gas burp comes. If God is among us, we can imagine that we, like Mary, can comfort theinfleshed God with us. As God comforts us, we can comfort God.

I want to believe that God can walk the streets and visit inpeople’s homes and be found among the shanty towns of Manila and Nairobi, andwith the saints at work or at tea, and that when Bishop Packard climes over thefence into Trinity Church’s park an gets arrested and hauled off to jail God issitting right next to him, chatting him up. I want to know we can meet God in others, the saints, and be one too,and God can be in us. I want to know that, just as God is present in thesaints, we can be saints of God too.

The rebirth of wonder is always worth the waiting:

Christmas is a turning point.

We know in Christmas that the waiting is worth it, that we wait in patience for our eyes to beopened and for wonder to be realized, and we are made whole for a whole newworld.

This business of Christmas is about the wonder and thewaiting fulfilled.

The rebirth of wonder is worth the wait, but still LordJesus, come quickly.

I am waiting, but Lord the meter is running.

Come quickly.

I’m patient, but Lord, we could use a little justice, mercy,life and love just now.

Be born in our hearts today. AMEN.

From a more or less important Anglican Communion commission near you...

2011-12-13T23:20:00.000-05:00

The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order met in Seoul, Republic of Korea 2 to 9 December 2011. The Commission is dubbed "IASCUFO" - pronounced "i-as-cu-fo" (as in "I ask u fo" - money probably.)

IASCUFO issued a communique following its December meeting. There seems not to have been a communique following last year's meeting, so this is only the second full blown report in hand.

Their work involved the following:

reflecting critically on the Instruments of Communion and the relationships among them. Our discussions continue to develop the potential of these in the wider contexts of Anglican and ecumenical ecclesiological reflection;
studying the definition and recognition of churches;
providing a variety of materials to assist in the reception of the Anglican Communion Covenant. The guide which we produced during the past year is being augmented by a short video presentation which will be made available from the Anglican Communion website;
assisting the Communion in its engagement with the complex processes involved in reception. This includes receiving from one another and embracing the fruits of ecumenical dialogue and of Anglican theological reflection at all levels in the Communion. In our work as a Commission, we have become increasingly and acutely aware of the importance of this task in the life of our churches;
considering the question of transitivity, that is, the way in which regional ecumenical agreements between churches which are members of different global communions in one geographical area affect or extend to other parts of the Communions

Jim Naughton, over at Episcopal Cafe has pointed out that item 3 is pointedly directed to convincing Churches of the Communion that they ought to buy on to the Anglican Covenant. The matter was pointedly raised as an item separate from but immediately following the general "to-do" list:

"Aware of our mandate to promote the deepening of communion between the churches of the Anglican Communion, we emphasised the importance of being a fully representative group, and we greatly regret that some of our members were not present. We re-affirmed the significance of the Anglican Communion Covenant for strengthening our common life."

As Jim points out IASCUFO is not a "fully representative group" even if all the members were to be present. And, not to put a fine point on it, the group not only had members absent, but one of the members listed was a persons reduced to consultant status.

But as Jim also points out, none of the members "represent" churches anyway. If they are representative they are representative of various views in the larger Communion, in which case reducing someone to consultant status because their church is being reprimanded is just, well, silly.

Go read Jim's thoughtful piece HERE.

Meanwhile, who was absent? Well, its hard to find a list of just who is on IASCUFO at this time.

The Commission met in 2009 and a meeting was planned for 2010 in South Africa. There is no communique published from that meeting. The list of those attending the 2011 event was as follows, with notations about differences from the 2009 list (those "starred" with an asterisk were present at the 2009 and 2011 meetings) :

*The Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi
Province of the Anglican Church of Burundi, and Chair of the Commission

*The Rev. Canon Professor Paul Avis
Church of England

The Rev. Sonal Christian
Church of North India

*The Rev. Canon Dr. John Gibaut
World Council of Churches

*The Rt. Rev. Dr. Howard Gregory
The Church in the Province of the West Indies

*The Rev. Professor Dr. Katherine Grieb
The Episcopal Church (USA) (Consultant)

The Rt. Rev. Kumara Illangasinghe
Church of Ceylon, Sri Lanka

*The Rev. Canon Clement Janda
Episcopal Church of the Sudan

The Rt. Rev. William Mchombo
Church of the Province of Central Africa

*The Rev. Canon Sarah Rowland Jones
Anglican Church of Southern Africa

*The Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews
Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia

*The Rev. Canon Dr. Charlotte Methuen
Scottish Episcopal Church/Church of England

The Rev. Canon Dr. Simon Oliver
Church in Wales/Church of England

*The Rt. Rev. Dr. Stephen Pickard
Anglican Church of Australia

*Dr. Andrew Pierce
Irish School of Ecumenics

*The Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Guen Seok Yang
The Anglican Church of Korea

Missing from this meeting but listed in the 2009 list (full list provided by courtesy of John B. Chilton, the Lead, the Anglican Communion website being down at the moment.)

The Rt. Revd Dr George Titre Ande, Congo

The Ven Professor Dap Asaju, Lagos State University, Nigeria

The Rt. Revd Philip D Baji, Bishop of Tanga, Tanzania

THe Revd Dr. Edison Muhindo Kalengyo, Unganda Christian University, Uganda

The Rev. Canon Dr. Michael Nai Chiu Poon, Trinity Theological College, Singapore, South East Asia.

The Rt. Revd Tito Zavala, Bishop of Chile and Primate, Southern Cone. (Consultant)

From the ACC Office:

The Rev. Canon Joanna Udal
Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for Anglican Communion Affairs

The Rev. Canon Dr. Alyson Barnett-Cowan
Director for Unity, Faith and Order

Mr. Neil Vigers
Anglican Communion Office

There were four members present in 2011 not members in 2009. There were six members of the 2009 group not in the 2011 list. So at the least two members of the invited list did not come, at the most six.

The only thing we can note is that of the six from 2009 who were not there in 2011, all or almost all were members belonging to churches identified with the GAFCON / Global South alternative universe - Nigeria, Tanzania, Southern Cone, South East Asia, and Uganda. ( I am not sure of the "status" of Congo vis a vis GS.)

About the four members present in 2011 not at 2009, three are from the "global south" (Central Africa, Sri Lanka, North India) although it is unclear if they are from the Global South Anglican group.

Regarding IASCUFO's statement about the Covenant:

IASCUFO looks to be a fine group of people of great abilities. They are not representatives of the Anglican Communion, but rather representatives of various theological understandings. Whether those are "widely representative" is another matter. Apparently they don't include many folk from the GAFCON world.

Their view of the Anglican Covenant does not then represent a "communion wide" vote of confidence, at least not on the face of it.

Nice try.

Everyone gets something right... insight from AMiA (second iteration thereof)

2011-12-11T17:39:00.001-05:00

The clergy of the Anglican Mission in North America (AMiA) that have decided to remain under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of Rwanda, whose official title is "L'Eglise Episcopal au Rwanda" have written a well thought out paper on their concerns and understandings of church order. While (of course) there is little agreement with some of what they say, I admire their clarity and in particular their sense of what synodical governance by bishops is about.

The whole thing is worth the read, and you can find it HERE. The group calls itself "Apostles in Mission (presumably in North America) this being able to use the AMiA sign on). The link to the paper on their site seems not to work.

I was particularly interested in what they had to say about episcopal governance:

"Spiritual Authority: The Church of Jesus Christ is his Bride and he Body, of which he is the head. That translates into the necessary presence of an operational system of spiritual authority. Three fundamental definitions are essential to understand spiritual authority within the Church.
1. All spiritual authority is derived from God's gracious delegation of his authority (Romans 13:1--‐2) and is by very nature contingent on proper stewardship of that authority (Acts 1:15--‐26).
2. Spiritual authority is conveyed via the call of the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:1--‐19) and the outward call of the Church (Galatians 2:2--‐10).
3. Spiritual authority is confirmed by the gifts, graces, and fruit consistent with the call to exercise such authority.

Therefore, these implications follow:
   Spiritual authority must be embodied within the structures and operations throughout the ministry in an actual, visible system.
  In Anglican polity, that includes the healthy tension of being under another person who is designated as one’s overseer as well as functioning within a collegial team.
  Therefore, oversight at the “top” involves functional conciliar (or collegial) oversight rather than unilateral leadership. AMN Q&A, p. 5
  In the context of Anglican polity, the presence of bishops who embody and exercise spiritual authority and servant leadership is a non--‐negotiable.

Spiritual authority flows through leaders who embrace the principle of mutuality between all parts of the body of Christ.
   Together these translate: leaders who exercise spiritual authority do not seek pre--‐eminence but seek to honor, empower and depend upon a broad range of fellow leaders and members within the Body of Christ.) "

Now putting aside all rancor and dim remembrance of distances brought on by our divisions, I ask, "What is right and wrong about this statement of concerns about the authority of bishops?

Frankly, I find their description quite helpful and broadly congruent with that of The Episcopal Church.

What do you think?

Truly Tacky Santa and environmentally friendly shop

2011-12-09T22:42:00.001-05:00

Sometimes in the small town on the bay by the big water one is exposed to the truly tacky and the politically correct, but awful, notice. My cup overflowed today. Out at the industrial park where the boat works are, along with plumbing shops, garages, and various converted containers now used as workshops, I found the following:

This wonderful machine that does nothing of redeeming social value:

And, as an added bonus, the following note was found in the offices of the boat yard. It makes a person quietly proud to know that no penguins were harmed at least once and a while in the very industrial park where his boat and studio are located.

Life is good.

Sprucing up ENS site - a sign of things to come?

2011-12-08T23:00:00.001-05:00

I consult Episcopal News Service daily. ENS now has a new look and a new address. Now it is episcopaldigitalnetwork. com/ens. The old one still works, but takes one to the new site. The type face is a bit odd, but I suppose I will get used to it.

For the past months the Episcopal Church website (http://www.episcopalchurch.org/) has had the following small tag / banner on its front page:

Its getting close to the end of the year and we wonder how the project is going. Is "episcopaldigitalnetwork.com" replacing "episcopalchurch.org" or part of it? Is the sort of type face on the ENS pages what we can expect elsewhere? We will see.

The task of taking a site that has thousands of pages of material of different sorts and resetting the whole in a coherent way is daunting. I am not surprised the effort is taking some time. When it all settles out I look forward to a more user friendly search function and better paths through the pages.

George Conger, intrepid reporter, gets it half right.

2011-12-07T20:40:00.001-05:00

George Conger has been the primary reporter tracking the doings in the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) group. Most of his articles are over on his blog, transferred there from the Church of England Newspaper and other venues in which he writes. He is an aggressive enough reporter to sometimes get ahead of the curve and become something of news himself, but mostly he pushes just enough to get to some real news. His articles have been very helpful.

However, at the close of an article in Christianity Today he is quoted as making this rather odd statement:

"The liberals in the Episcopal Church are having a field day," he added. "They're saying, 'They split once, and now they've split again. It must go to show that they are rebels at heart and not really motivated by any gospel imperative."

He has slid off into his commentary persona, reporting on his own impressions than on facts, or at least I think so. I will admit, I have no inkling of just how much a field day we liberals are having. There seems to be only limited interest in what AMiA does anymore, since from at least some liberal perspectives AMiA has been living for a long time in an ecclesiastical universe far far away from that of the Anglican Communion.

I consider myself a liberal (at least some of the time) although my hope is that I will finally be considered as a visionary. But I am not in charge of that. As more or less liberal I take no pleasure in AMiA's troubles.I do not think they are "rebels at heart and not really motivated by any gospel imperative." Rather because I believe they are motivated by a gospel imperative and have been motivated to new evangelical energy around congregational development I find the recent decisions made by Bishop Murphy sad indeed. AMiA folk do not seem to this liberal to be "rebels at heart." They have some gospel imperatives well in hand, at least some of the time.

From my perspective, what they lack is church order. They simply don't have a well defined sense of episcopal obligation to a church order out of which their license / orders derive.

If there is any "field day" being had, at least in this wee part of the liberal camp, it is to note that NOT messing in other's back yards is not only old and good canon law, it is good sense. AMiA's drift from Anglican ways of being was pretty much a settled thing from the outset.

So what was AMiA and what is it?

2011-12-06T19:47:00.001-05:00

The Anglican Mission in the Americas was a flawed and (in terms of ancient canons) un-canonical messing about in your neighbor's garden. It was the establishment of a purist mission in what was generally thought to be the evil, craven and culture worshiping Episcopal Church. It was an idea cooked up by the evangelical bishop of Singapore, and the Archbishops of the Church in Kenya and Rwanda, both strongly influenced by the East African Revival, in conjunction with several disaffected American Episcopal Clergy eager to both be bishops in a new improved Anglicanism and happy to promote the notion that there was a grand crisis in The Episcopal Church requiring salvation by establishing a mission outpost in bleak EpiscopalLand.

Well, Bishops Chuck Murphy and John Rodgers and others got their reward - as it fell out AMiA ended up being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Church of Rwanda at work in the United States and in total disregard of the Episcopal Church. They were bishops, and the work they did looked less and less like anything that Anglican Churches (including their own Church of Rwanda). Their work remained un-recognized by the Anglican Communion "instruments" - the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates, and the Lambeth Conference. They were just barely "in" the tent, just.

The Bishops of the Church of Rwanda could not help notice that AMiA was drifting away from Anglican sensibilities and more important Anglican accountability and demanded that Bishop Chuck Murphy step back from taking AMiA out of the jurisdiction of the Church of Rwanda. He had until December 8 to respond. Two days before the deadline for a return to conformity or "consequences," Bishop Murphy wrote the Archbishop of Rwanda that AMiA bishops were no longer bound by any relation to the Church of Rwanda.

Syonara baby (aka Hasta la vista baby).

Bishop Murphy puts it this way: "... we as individual members of the Council of Missionary Bishops, will be stepping back from our voluntary submission to the Canons of PEAR in order to continue to lead the Anglican Mission (AMiA) as a Missionary Society..." Apparently the Province of Rwanda doesn't think submission, when given, is retractable simply because it was voluntarily given.

So AMiA is free of Rwanda. Of course what that means is that AMiA which had a shaky relationship to the Anglican Communion, its bishops being members of a Provincial college of bishops in Rwanda, a member church of the Communion, no longer has that link.

AMiA is now a group of congregations related to several bishops who themselves are related to no larger jurisdiction int he Anglican Communion. And they are unrelated to any episcopal synod larger than their own. They are at worse vagrants at best a small Anglican-like body. They are not part of an supposed "Province in the making." They are not part of a Province.

All in all, AMiA has become one of the many false starts to a pure Anglican church. The clergy and people of AMiA may have thought they were part of the larger Anglican enterprise but they are not. Bishop Murphy has indicated that they can, if they wish, stay with the Church of Rwanda, but how will that happen? Will the Church of Rwanda appoint new bishops or commissioners to carry on the supervisory work in the US? Will clergy and people drift to the Anglican Church in North America? Will Murphy allow that? We will see.

Meanwhile, it is clear. George Conger in his article on the subject wrote this: "...Bishop Murphy had come to the opinion that it was in God’s plan for the AMiA to quit the Anglican Communion and venture out on its own."

That about sums it up.

In the AMiA the clock is almost at midnight.

2011-12-05T23:20:00.001-05:00

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has for years had a graphic of a clock indicating just how close to midnight (meaning when atomic weapons get used again). At the moment it stands at six minutes to midnight, a not too comforting thought.

In AnglicanLand, with considerable wringing of hands there are times when it appears there are only moments to go before "the Communion falls apart" and "Anglicanism as we know it" is doomed. But unlike the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists whose assessments are both grim and very serious, the occasional bulletin of AnglicanLand doomsayers is less, well, scientific and less serious.

The Clock is ticking out there on the fringes of AnglicanLand where there is this thing called the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA). Formed as the first major rip in Anglican fabric, in which Anglican bishops outside the jurisdiction of The Episcopal Church saw fit to ordain bishops for work in that jurisdiction, AMiA has had an eleven year history that has been colorful and sometimes innovative. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Province of Rwanda. Its bishops are part of the college of bishops in Rwanda.

Now it appears that Bishop Chuck Murphy of AMiA has been give until day after tomorrow (that is Thursday) to bend the knee to the Archbishop of Rwanda, et al, or face disciplinary measures. All of this is reported by George Conger HERE.

So what? Well, AMiA is not recognized, even indirectly, by the official bodies in the Anglican Communion. If the thread to Rwanda is cut AMiA will not even have that basis for claiming to be Anglican. It will of course continue to claim it is Anglican, but that becomes more and more a claim like that of wondering bishops who claim to be the true, everlasting, total and real Catholic Church, while at the same time being nowhere at all. So the whole thing matters, but not a lot. If it all falls apart there will be simply some more wandering bishops.

AnglicanLand is a land of broad expanse and open to all sorts of oddities, but the notion that some disgruntled Episcopalians could get to be bishops in an African Anglican Province and think that they were home free and without accountability to Rwanda is just stupid.

There is no free lunch. The clock is ticking and, although there will be no big boom when it happens, at the bewitching hour those who are indebted will either pay up or be thrown out into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matters in the Diocese of South Carolina just go on and on and on.

2011-12-05T22:50:00.001-05:00

Just when it appeared that things were quieting down, what with charges of abandonment against Bishop Lawrence of South Carolina having been dropped for lack of sufficient cause, new concerns have been lifted up from other quarters.

The Bishops of the Fourth Province (most of the South) have written a letter to ask for a meeting with Bishop Lawrence to ask him to explain just what is going on with this business of quitclaim deeds being given to parishes in the Diocese of South Carolina.. They write:

We also considered, with some concern, recent publicly reported actions regarding quitclaim deeds given to parishes in the Diocese of South Carolina. Since we have had no direct communication from you regarding these reported actions, we determined that it is our duty as bishops of this province to address these concerns in direct communication with you, as Jesus exhorts his followers in Matthew's Gospel (18:15-20), and in accord with our ordination vows regarding the unity and governance of the church. What we seek in the coming weeks is a face-to-face meeting with you and and a representative group of your fellow Bishops Diocesan of Province4 in order to have a clarifying conversation and to address the concerns raised among us:

A. We have heard and read reports that you have given a quitclaim deed to each congregation in yourdiocese. Is this true? If this report is true, under what canonical authority did you proceed? Did you involve theStanding Committee and are the members of the Standing Committee in accord? Who signed the deeds?Would you provide a sample copy of a deed and the letter of explanation that accompanied it?

B. In order to better understand your action, the Bishops of Province 4 gathered in Memphis respectfully request that you meet with several of your fellow Provincial Bishops Diocesan in Charleston, orelsewhere if you desire, to discuss what has been noted above. We make this request in a spirit of collegialityand fellowship as well as out of concern for the people of the Diocese of South Carolina and concern for thewell-being of The Episcopal Church.

Unlike the charges for abandonment this letter addresses a concern that might have greater weight precisely because the quitclaim deeds directly come from him (although they may have Standing Committee or other approval) and because as a wholesale lump they are not directed at any particular parish and its desire to quit The Episcopal Church or sell their buildings, but rather as a direct test and confrontation with what the Bishop believes is a rotten canon. The Bishop believes that he is bound to the Constitution of The Episcopal Church but not its canons if they are deemed bad law. This is sort of like saying you uphold the Constitution of The United States, but are free to disregard laws that don't meet your standards re conformance to the Constitution.

I am glad the bishops in Province IV have raised questions and done so in a friendly way. But things will get increasingly unfriendly if Bishop Lawrence can't do better than argue that the oath and vows don't mean paying attention to both Constitution and Canons until such time as you change them by due process.

The Bishop is quite right to argue that we don't have a parallel to the Supreme Court to try and test the validity of particular laws and so they must be tested in some other way.

He has chosen the way of distancing himself and his diocese from supposedly bad canons - the Dennis Canon (Title I 7.4) and the whole of Title IV. But that is by far the least helpful way to go, since it leads to yet another round of charges, trials and mess. A much better way, actually a democratically useful way, is to take the matter back to General Convention and push back against canons that are believed to be unconstitutional. But the Bishop of South Carolina seems distant from any such action.

One could bring forward a resolution, "resolved that Title i 7.4 be rescinded because judged by this General Convention to be unconstitutional." See how far that goes. General Convention passed the thing. Give General Convention the option to reconsider.

Good luck with that! But about Title IV there might be a better chance. But the way to get these things out of the way is to challenge the constitutionality in Convention and see what the bishops and deputies do then.

This way, the way of the victim suffering for the worthy cause of ridding the church of unconstitutional canons, is awful.

Regarding the Diocese of South Carolian, by moderately "Crusty Old Dean"

2011-12-05T22:36:00.001-05:00

Get on over to "Crusty Old Dean" who has a fine article on all the goings on in the Diocese of South Carolina, and why we should not be surprised. "De Tocqueville, South Carolina, and Historical Myopia" is a ripping good take on the whole matter of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops, what it did and why it was not, as The Living Church was want to say the process was "Kafkaesque." The very same Crusty not so old Dean was in living memory doing the heavy lifting in the Ecumenical Office of The Episcopal Church and his remarks near the end of his article are particularly pointed and helpful. There he says,

"COD doesn't think much of moratoria, given the PTSD he still has from the 2006 General Convention and being sacked from the international Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue because of a moratorium the Episcopal Church didn't violate as that moratorium was defined."

He ends with this note:

"...until we take any steps to break this cycle of dysfunction in our ecclesial legal system, COD would definitely be in favor of a moratorium against claiming victimhood and canonical manipulation."

I look forward to what COD has to say about the letter from Province IV Bishops to Bishop Mark Lawrence regarding the matter of quitclaim deeds.

Canterbury writes a letter. It is Advent after all.

2011-12-01T10:12:00.001-05:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury has written an Advent letter in which he maintains (rightly) and at some length that "communion matters." Of course it does. He points to several important occasions in the life of the Anglican Communion where the various "instruments" of the Communion have been encouraging to Anglicans "on the ground" who have been bearing the load in the heat of the day.

That "Communion matters" does not, however, lead to the next bit of his exposition, namely that because Communion matters we need the Anglican Covenant. There have been several excellent commentaries on that proposition, and I urge you read them.

Of particular interest to those of us concerned about the current "troubles" in the Anglican Communion are the Archbishop's reflections beginning at section 6 of his letter. In section 7 and 8 he outlines his argument for the Anglican Covenant. Here is section 7 and portions of 8 reformatted as an argument:

(Argument against the Covenant)

In spite of many assurances, some Anglicans evidently still think that the Covenant changes the structure of our Communion or that it gives some sort of absolute power of ‘excommunication’ to some undemocratic or unrepresentative body.

(Argument for the Covenant)

With all respect to those who have raised these concerns, I must repeat that I do not see the Covenant in this light at all.

(1) It sets out an understanding of our common life and common faith and in the light of that proposes making a mutual promise to consult and attend to each other, freely undertaken.

(2) It recognizes that not doing this damages our relations profoundly.

(3) It outlines a procedure, such as we urgently need, for attempting reconciliation and for indicating the sorts of consequences that might result from a failure to be fully reconciled.

(4) It alters no Province’s constitution, as it has no canonical force independent of the life of the Provinces.

(5) It does not create some unaccountable and remote new authority but seeks to identify a representative group that might exercise a crucial advisory function.

(challenge to the argument against to provide a better response to the issues)

(6) I continue to ask what alternatives there are if we want to agree on ways of limiting damage, managing conflict and facing with honesty the actual effects of greater disunity.

(the argument against the Covenant fails to provide such alternatives)

(7) In the absence of such alternatives, I must continue to commend the Covenant as strongly as I can to all who are considering its future.

(in section 8 he offers two additional arguments)

These questions are made all the more sharp by the fact that the repeated requests for moratoria on problematic actions issued by various representative Anglican bodies are increasingly ignored. ...The question remains:

(8) if the moratoria are ignored and the Covenant suspected, what are the means by which we maintain some theological coherence as a Communion and some personal respect and understanding as a fellowship of people seeking to serve Christ?

(9) And we should bear in mind that our coherence as a Communion is also a significant concern in relation to other Christian bodies – especially at a moment when the renewed dialogues with Roman Catholics and Orthodox have begun with great enthusiasm and a very constructive spirit.

The Archbishop then moved on to support his argument by additional observations which reflect rather more strident feelings. First he suggests that the unwillingness to address these questions by adopting the Anglican Covenant might be related to the "old habits in our lives, the "works of darkness."( Just a note: I strongly dislike having objection to the Anglican Covenant connected to "works of darkness." and old habits in our lives.)

(section 9) "... we Christians all have to acknowledge that in many ways we still live as if Christ had not come. We recognize the marks of the old habits in our lives, the ‘works of darkness’ that the Collect^* speaks of."

Then the Archbishop opines about "authentically biblical" churches and suggests that those who in one way or another have strayed from the Covenant path fail the test and are "imperfectly biblical churches."

(section 10.) (the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the King James or ‘Authorized’ Version) ... has focused for me yet again the question of what a Church looks like that is authentically biblical.

(a) It is clear enough that Christian communities that are vague or lukewarm about the unique miracle of the Word made flesh once and for all in Jesus of Nazareth, and about the revolutionary demands this makes on individual lives and relationships, are imperfectly biblical churches.

(b) But we should remember too that Christian communities which consistently believe the worst of others who bear the name of Christ and attack or undermine them are also very imperfectly biblical.

The Archbishop suggests that the "real foundation of a biblical church life" is in communion (in covenant?):

(c) Our shared willingness to give thanks to God together for the inexpressible gift of the Word made flesh once and for all is the real foundation of a biblical church life, turning our attention away from ourselves towards our gracious Lord.

He polishes off his argument by a return to an earlier theme, the risk of saying "I have no need of you." Churches that don't remember that we need one another are "imperfect churches," and we all live in such churches.

(section 11._ ...Throughout the time of my service as Archbishop I have tried to keep before my own eyes and those of the Communion the warnings given by St Paul about the risks of saying ‘I have no need of you’ to any other who seeks to serve Jesus Christ as a member of His Body. I make no apology for repeating this point. Advent is a good time to recall that we all live in imperfect churches, that we all must draw together in hope for the fuller presence of Our Lord, and that we all therefore must be willing to receive from each other whatever gifts God has to give through them.

The Archbishop is a fine thinker and his argument is tight enough to where the best place to explore alternatives is to be found in his way of viewing "the problem" churches and their problems with The Anglican Covenant. (There are perhaps interesting points of debate along the way regarding his argument, but that is for another day.)

He says of the "opposition" in his argument:

"Some Anglicans evidently still think that the Covenant changes the structure of our Communion or that it gives some sort of absolute power of ‘excommunication’ to some undemocratic or unrepresentative body."

Well, that's true enough. "Some" Anglicans think all sorts of things about the Covenant. However he doesn't seem to get it that some Anglicans (and perhaps some Anglican Churches (Provinces)) see the structure which is surely there in sections 3 and 4, as the descriptive product of structural changes already made precisely so that the Anglican Covenant would have the means to limit involvement of disobedient and self willed Provinces in the life of the Communion.

The Covenant is not an agreement about what we will do, it is an agreement to abide by what has already been put in place. It is a Covenant between Master and Servant, between owner and tenant. It is not a covenant between equals, but a covenant between Provinces (parts of the Anglican Communion ) and the Anglican Communion.

It was a great mistake to call the churches of the Anglican Communion "Provinces." It set out from the beginning the notion that we are subsets of some larger thing. But the Churches of the Anglican Communion do not belong (at least now) to "The Anglican Communion", they ARE the Anglican Communion.

The objection to the Anglican Covenant is that it is not (yet) the constitution of a world wide Church, but it will have the effect of a start towards one.

Maybe the Anglican Communion needs indeed to be an Advent sort of body - but we don't need heavy armor, the armor of light is, well, light. The Anglican Covenant is heavy.

Bishop Lawrence has a problem, actually several problems

2011-11-30T12:52:00.001-05:00

The Disciplinary Board has judged that there is insufficient cause to bring charges of abandonment of communion against Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina. Great. I'm glad and thought from the outset that the charges could not be sustained. Still, there are two problems with this judgment:

(i) It is bad news for the Bishop because for him to celebrate the judgement in his favor is to acknowledge the reality that its findings carry canonical weight. So here is what Bishop Lawrence had to say about it all (from his November 29th Letter to the Diocese).

"While the statement leaves many questions unanswered — frankly, to my mind it appears to read like a complex statement of a complex decision in a complex time within a complex church. Nevertheless, I believe it is best to take it at face value (even while noting that this diocese has not recognized the constitutionality of the new disciplinary canon). For now given no more allegations from anonymous sources within the diocese it is my hope we can all get back to focusing our full attention on proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and to Glory of God the Father that the Church here in the Diocese of South Carolina may add daily to its number those who are being saved." (emphasis mine).

The "face value" of the judgment is that "we can all get back to focusing our full attention on proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ..." Right. But the note that "this diocese has not recognized the constitutionality of the new disciplinary canon" is something that can only be tested in the field - that is the Diocese and its Bishop must object in practice and somehow bring the issue to some next level of reconsideration by the whole church. Because the judgment came down in his favor it turns out this case is not as likely to provoke the reexamination of the canon. Still, one can hope for a variety of reasons that the next General Convention will apply itself to some refinement of the canons.

(ii) Bishop Lawrence has a sense of vocation for the diocese and for himself. He writes,

"Please know our vocation has not changed. While making disciples and witnessing to the unassailable Truth of the Gospel to a hurting and troubled world, and speaking truth to power within the unfolding struggles of The Episcopal Church, as well as taking our place in the larger Anglican Communion, we are, as you have heard me say on many occasions, called by God to Make Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age."

Again I think it a good thing that Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina have a sense of vocation. I assume that such a calling takes place within the context of the vocational call Bishop Lawrence took on at ordination to the episcopate. Here are the elements of that call:

(1) "We are called by God to Make Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age."

(2) (We are) "making disciples and witnessing to the unassailable Truth of the Gospel to a hurting and troubled world"

(3) (We are) "speaking truth to power within the unfolding struggles of The Episcopal Church,

(4) (We are) "taking our place in the larger Anglican Communion."

Items two and four are exemplary statements of the vocation that ought to pertain to all bishops.

Item three assumes a conflict with "power(s)" present in The Episcopal Church, and makes a vocation of "speaking truth to power" in that context. There seems to be no parallel vocation to common life within The Episcopal Church. There is no vocation to common life, apparently, within The Episcopal Church.

Item one: to "make Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age" is clearly a slogan. As a vision it lacks any clarity at all. What is a "biblical Anglican"? and what makes this a "Global Age"? We sort of know what Bishop Lawrence means, but it can slip easily from being about biblically grounded Anglicans in an age of world wide communications and interchange, to a more restrictive and draconian slogan for world wide imposition in a world-wide church of a particular Anglican group's understanding of biblical morality, acceptable behavior, etc.

And of course the real problem here is that Bishop Lawrence claims this vocation as that of his diocese and his own ministry. He claims "we are called by God." How sure is he of that? Or better, how are we to know that he and or his diocese is called by God to this task? And does he assume that this is not at task taken up by The Episcopal Church's leadership or by a majority of other bishops?

Well, the problem is that the judgment of the Disciplinary Board removes a perfect venue for Bishop Lawrence to live out the trial of his vocation. By saying there are insufficient grounds to certify that he has abandoned the communion of this Church (thank God and the Board for that!) he has lost a pulpit to proclaim that God has called him and the people of the Diocese to this holy task, one apparently dismissed by the powers that be in The Episcopal Church.

The letter from Bishop Lawrence can be found HERE.

I can't help thinking that the Bishop will push some more, as he has by granting quitclaim deeds to the parishes, to the end that he can take the fight to the enemy and "speak truth to power within the unfolding struggles of The Episcopal Church."

Why I think poets trump theologians, and artists priests.

2011-11-29T19:22:00.001-05:00

I think this because even as a student of students in both art and poetry, this is closer to what I think Advent is about, moral grounding is about, and even poetry and art is about. The words are from Wendell Berry's "Manifesto: The Mad farmer Liberation Front", in his collection, The Country of Marriage. The linocut is my own, and even with its failings it evokes for me what I hoped it would. Poets trump theologians and artists priests. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Of course I will keep plugging along here at Preludium as a priest with some theological mutterings to make now and then, but back in the back of my head there is the whisper, "you might have been better off farming for visions."

Late breaking news re charges against Bishop Lawrence

2011-11-28T18:31:00.001-05:00

The Living Church has posted the letter from Bishop Henderson concerning the charges against Bishop Lawrence. The letter is dated November 22nd. Read it HERE.

I am glad the specifics of those charges were not found sufficient. I too felt they fell short of the abandonment canon.

They did not include the matter of the quitclaim deeds, as those were issued only on November 15th and were not part of the charges first brought.

Bishop Lawrence, quitclaims and croziers

2011-11-28T18:26:00.000-05:00

Bishop Mark Lawrence, in an interview with The Living Church, opined that “For 190 years, no one imagined that parishes did not own their property, yet they were connected to the Episcopal Church through the bishop. The parishes provide the bishop’s chair and the bishop brings the crozier.”

That sounds nice, but what in the world does it mean? The reference to 190 years is to the time from the Constitution of The Episcopal Church (1789) to the time of the passage of the Canon I.7.4 in 1979. There is considerable legal opinion that Canon I.7.4 makes explicit what was previously covered by canon 47. Here is Canon 47:

The former Canon 47 and the current Canon I.7.4 seem to indicate that churches are not to be "alienated from those who profess and practise the Doctrine, Discipline, and Worship of this Church"(meaning The Episcopal Church). The church is held in trust for the ecclesial body called The Episcopal Church. Property can, of course, be let go, but only by consent of the Bishop and Standing Committee. The holder of the deed may be the parish, but as far as the church is concerned it is held in trust for people of this Church.

So Bishop Lawrence, believing that absolute authority to dispose of church property resides with the vestries of parishes, has set out to relinquish whatever legal claim he had on the the disposition of church property, on behalf of the diocese or The Episcopal Church. He is using what is called a quitclaim deed to give over to the vestries whatever legal claims there may be to the properties.

The Bishop apparently feels that he doesn't have a claim on these properties anyway and that the quitclaim deed is a way to make that clear. But of course if canons going a long way back do indeed make change in use of the Church dependent on his approval, and if the Church is understood to be held in trust for members of The Episcopal Church, then he does have responsibilities for the proper disposition of the property in accordance with canons of the Church.

This action on Bishop Lawrence's part seems clearly to be in disregard of the canons of the Church, canons which he has vowed to uphold as part of the "Doctrine, Discipline and Worship" of The Episcopal Church. If he didn't want to do thing, perhaps he should not have accepted the office of Bishop. But he did and he is thus bound by the canonical proposition that he is required to hold churches in trust for the people of the Church, and if such property is to be disposed of to first seek the assent of the Standing Committee and then remove it from church use. He is not, in this read, simply able to hand over his trust responsibilities to the parish vestry in a quitclaim deed.

This is going to add to his troubles regarding possible charges. Well, there it is.

What is sad is his comment, "(parishes) were connected to the Episcopal Church through the bishop. The parishes provide the bishop’s chair and the bishop brings the crozier.” The notion that the connection is that when the bishop visits they offer him a chair and he brings the symbol of being their pastor. So, suppose a parish vestry decides to leave The Episcopal Church:Do they throw out the chair? Do they suggest that the Bishop leave his crozier at the door, as if it were a loaded weapon?

No. I am afraid what the bishop suggests is that a congregation might leave The Episcopal Church, that they might keep the chair and invite him to come visit with his crozier and sit in that chair, and that he would be their bishop quite outside the context of The Episcopal Church. Or, for that matter, they might stay in The Episcopal Church and do the same. Either way they bring the chair, he brings the crozier and that's enough. Too bad about the Doctrine, Discipline and Worship of The Episcopal Church.

This thing will do him no good. One day he will visit a parish where they will indeed invite him in to sit, crozier and all, and he will wonder just where he is. And when, crozier in hand, he attempts to provide sound teaching, preaching and sacramental offices, they find him objectionable, they will throw him out. After all the chair is theirs, the church is theirs, and he may have a crozier, but he is not their shepard.

Sayonara baby, indeed.

More on the DIocese of Haiti election.

2011-11-28T14:22:00.001-05:00

This letter from The Rev. Kesner Ajax, Executive Director of the Bishop Tharp Institute, was posted on the "Haiti Project" web pages:

"Today, the Diocese of Haiti held elections for Haiti’s first Suffragan Bishop. I am pleased to announce Ogè Beauvoir as the Suffragan Bishop -- to be based in Cap-Haitien.After a few canonical formalities, Bishop Duracin will announce the official date of the bishop elect’s consecration.

Some details of the election: 48 of 52 priests were present for the vote. 95/95 members of the lay order were present.

In the first ballot, Ogè Beauvoir received 64 votes from lay leaders and 24 votes from the priests. Noè Bernier received 12 votes from the lay leaders and 8 votes from the priests. Jean Jeannot Joseph received 19 lay votes and 14 priest votes. There was one blank vote and one cancelled vote.

In the second round, Beauvoir received 68 lay votes and 25 priest votes. Bernier received 7 lay votes and 3 priest votes. Joseph received 20 lay votes and 18 priest votes.Father Ogè Beauvoir won the election with a majority vote.

The election was held during a convention in Ascension Church in Carrefour, a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

The Candidates were:

Canon Oge Beauvoir, dean of the seminary

Ven. Noé Bernier, archdeacon of North

Ven. Jean Jeannot Joseph, archdeacon Central Plateau

Thank you for your prayers and continued support as we develop the Diocese of Haiti.

The Rev. Kesner Ajax

Executive Director, Bishop Tharp Institute (BTI)Partnership program coordinator, Episcopal Diocese of Haiti

Priest in Charge, Ascension Church, Beraud.

Canon Oge Beauvoir elected Suffrigan in Haiti

2011-11-27T22:33:00.001-05:00

Canon Beauvoir (right) and Seminrian

A friend reports that The Rev. Canon Oge Beauvoir has been elected Suffragan Bishop in Haiti. The election took place today, Saturday, November 27th at a special convention at Ascension Church Carrefour.

Canon Beauvoir is the Dean of the Seminary in Haiti. I am sure there will be more official information soon from Episcopal News Service.

Pray for Bishop-elect Beauvoir and for the Bishop and people of the Diocese of Haiti.

Here is an interview with him done by Trinity Wall Street.

A Few Language Burps: Why trying to be correct is not the same as communcting well.

2011-11-26T18:05:00.000-05:00

OK. Some post Thanksgiving Day thoughts on "correct" language in various venues in Episcopal Land.

(ii) Why "Occupy" is not necessarily good news. The "Occupy" movement has a name that doesn't work so well in Haiti an other places that have primarily been occupied by, say, the United States. "Occupy" is not necessarily good news if you live on the West Bank, in Haiti, in many countries of Central America, on various Reservations, etc. In Haiti the plus side of the Occupy movement is sometimes called "Big Change." The nice thing about that name is it doesn't say change for what...only big. As the agenda of the OWS movement begins to develop we will need to note carefully, "change for what?"

(ii) On "God's Mission" and "Outreach." Bishop Sauls, Elizabeth Kaeton and others of my heroines / heroes have suggested that "outreach" is not the right word for whatever it is that we ought to be about in relational terms with people in the context of God's purpose. So "outreach" is a not so good word.

Well, OK on some levels, point well taken. Mission and outreach are different things, and while Jesus' followers were clearly on a mission, and we talk about God's mission, which we are always running to catch up with. Still, "doing for the least of these..." is kind of like visiting in prison, giving food to the hungry, clothing to the freezing, etc, and those things have a lot of "outreach" sort of flavor.

More, however, is that a reasonable principle is not to spit in the soup, we've all got to eat. So we need to be careful not to consider some lesser beings because they are "just doing outreach." Outreach is what some people do, and when I see them about that and wonder when the last time I worked in the Thrift Shop or collected canned goods for the food bank, I find the outreachy people up to lots more than "just outreach." They are making a good stab at what Jesus suggested was in order.

Which is to say, arguing about mission rather than outreach as the driving term is maybe going down the wrong road. Asking myself when was the last time I did anyone any good and when was the last time I wondered just what God is up to are not so different sorts of activities. They are both paths, one perhaps greater, one lesser (I don't know), but they are paths to be honored.

And I know for a fact that the esteemed Stacy and Elizabeth do both sorts of things, and in the blink of an eye fold one into the other. I only hope sometimes to do as well.

(iii) The Episcopal Church is an International Church. For some years now, beginning with George Warner's display at General Convention of the flags of the many nations in which The Episcopal Church is present, it has been fashionable to argue that The Episcopal Church, because it consisted of some 110 dioceses in 16 countries, is an International Church. Although the large majority were in The United States, the other dioceses are integral to the life of this church and so it is important to state it clearly - we are an international church.

The accent on the international character of the church has been beneficial, at least on some level.Over the years there has been greater effort to be sensitive to the diversity of languages and cultures in the Episcopal Church population.

But as with most fashionable ideas this one has a flaw. The Episcopal Church was clearly from the outset understood to be a Church in The United States of America. As The Episcopal Church extend its overseas work it understood its long range efforts to be the establishment of Episcopal / Anglican national churches in places where it had missions. We can look with pride at the Episcopal Church of the Philippines, The Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil, the Anglican Church in Mexico, The Anglican Church in the Region of Central America (IARCA), and the Episcopal Church in Cuba, are all Churches that had their beginnings as overseas dioceses of The Episcopal Church. They have all become their own national church or part of some other regional body.

I presume it is the continued assumption that churches in locations outside the United States will eventually become their own churches or part of regional Anglican bodies.

So The Episcopal Church is, for the time being, an International Church, but always hoping that its member dioceses in other countries will have the benefits within those countries of the peculiar liberties that all Anglican Churches have to determine their own polity in the context of the societies and cultures in which they find themselves, not subject to "foreign" domination.

The phrase "The Episcopal Church is an international church" is a helpful reminder of the fact that we have many members who are not part of the US culture(s), economy, language and governance, and that we need to celebrate and attend to that. At the same time it is a statement about the present, not about the future.

About the future: We should be about supporting the separate and equal status of churches in those places where we began new work, so that they take their place among the Churches in the Anglican Communion.

In all these, and more, the problem is that words are slippery devils and likely to take us in directions unintended. I ought to know. I do it all the time.

So do you.

Lessons from the lands of ACNA and AMiA re Episcopal venue.

2011-11-22T21:50:00.001-05:00

The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) were both formed contrary to a long standing canonical understanding that bishops mind the store in their own dioceses, not mucking about in jurisdictions other than their own. In both ACNA and AMiA bishops from elsewhere in the Anglican Communion have interjected the polity of their jurisdictions into community already the jurisdiction of an existing Anglican Communion church diocese. Their justification was that the existing jurisdictions (dioceses in The Episcopal Church) were part of a church whose policies and beliefs were no longer true to "the faith once delivered." That is, heretical and un-biblical.

This mucking about has had been a sorry mess, and yet ACNA and AMiA continue on in the rightness of their respective causes, believing that disobedience to ancient canon is trumped by obedience to the higher call of God to a pure and undefiled religion, etc.

So. Good for them.

But the unfruitful results of their ignoring care about jurisdictional niceties of boundaries has gotten them into some trouble. A flurry of sparks were reported this last month that show just what a quagmire this jurisdiction business can be.

The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) is part of ACNA and at least in theory bishops ordained in CANA are part of the ACNA house of bishops. At the same time CANA is integral to the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) and Bishop Dobbs of CANA believes "As a missionary outreach of the Church of Nigeria, CANA maintains our unimpeachable connection with authentic Anglicanism in the Anglican Communion; with our partners in the Anglican Church in North America we are building a future for faithful Christians,” (From an article by George Conger first written for the Church of England newspaper.)

New bishops for CANA become part of the bishops house of ACNA, so one would suppose prior consultation by CANA and the CofNigeria before election or ordination, if not outright election, by the house of bishops of ACNA. Well, it didn't happen. Nigeria went ahead and elected a bishop for a predominately Nigerian diocese in CANA without first doing the connective work. All seems, according to George Conger to be smoothed over. We shall see. Nigeria owns CANA outright (their bishops are ordained out of that context and are part of the CofNigeria's house. But they are also part of ACNA's house. Eventually the two master thing will come home to roost, and they will have a tast of the jurisdictional fine points of mucking about in gardens not their own.

Meanwhile over in AMiA land the news is that a variety of jurisdictional problems are arising because of the unique situation where AMiA is an owned subsidiary of the Church of Rwanda without the dual home provided by ACNA. The whole thing is Rwandan. So when the Primatial Vicar / Bishop - Murphy - began to make decisions about recasting the work of AMiA in different terms, Rwanda got a bit put out. And when Murphy muttered about Rwanda acting in a colonialist way, there was, let us say a bit of finger pointing. Read it all in Conger's article HERE.

It turns out that if AMiA really is part of the Church of Rwanda then Murphy can be hauled in and held accountable by the CofRwanda. But he is several thousand miles away, in a foreign land, and the audacious mission of Rwanda that crossed all sorts of jurisdictional boundaries may have crossed one too many. Murphy may claim his orders from a church of the Anglican Communion, but if he is in disobedience to the house of bishops or the Archbishop of that Church what are they going to do? Not much. For Murphy it appears Rwanda was a matter of convenience. For Rwanda it was something more - an international missionary effort to the heathen - the people of the US so long suffering under oppressive and heretical actions of a runaway church - The Episcopal Church.

So the jurisdictional problem for Rwanda is that AMiA may be disobedient but what can it finally do? AMiA is too far away, to independent, and finally not Anglican enough to be bound by jurisdiction. After all it was born in defiance of jurisdiction, why not continue in defiance?

Well, venue matters. Muck about in others gardens and the next thing you know there will be issues of trespass.

We have not seen the end of all this. But we have seen enough.

The President's New Suit: A Dream in Haiti

2011-11-20T14:32:00.001-05:00

(To dream in Haiti is easy.

When it is hot, which is almost always, when the electricity is down and there is no fan, when the air is still and the dust from the road hangs in the trees, which is often, when the busy world is on the other side of the iron window grill, the bed looks particularly inviting.

It calls not to easy dormition, but to tossing and turning in sweat and those peculiar half-dream states that most resemble the description of life in the world of shadows, of time in Hades. Still, in the heat it calls.

There one find dreams filled with apparitions of the undead - the ones who have no place to go because they left us before we were ready to let them go. They reappear, again and again, like ancient players in a drama where they are center stage and we are reduced to observers. Dreams in this regard are portents of the realities not seen, but known to be present. They are in that sense prophecy.

I have said that until we truly bury the dictator and his acolytes and his unholy entourage, they will not rest. Perhaps this dream affirms that tragic truth. Or, perhaps it is, after all, just a dream on a hot Haitian day.)

The President's New Suit - A Dream in Haiti

He came into the shop and said to the tailor,
"I need an new suit.
I have just been elected president
and need a dignified suit,
something that will show that I am
serious about change, big change,
that will make Haiti a better place,
something that will show that I am
serious about the rule of law."

"I know just what you need,"
said the tailor.
"But permit me,
it is not only a suit you need,
but also a suitable tie,
a classic shirt,
substantial shoes,
and the right sort of hat -
in short the whole ensemble."

"You are exactly right," said the President-elect.
"A complete picture of the Man
to lead the Country."

To which the Tailor replied,
"Let me work on it. You will not be disappointed."

So the President elect came by for several fittings,
and he and the Tailor had discussions
about belts, handkerchiefs,
styles of cuff, lapel widths, and so forth.

Finally the suit was ready.
The Tailor believed it perfect
for a serious President
for a serious time
with serious goals and visions
for the country.

And the accouterments were as carefully chosen:
just the right tie, shoes, belt, shirt,
and on the last day,
just in time for the presentation
of the new vision of presidential sartorial splendor,
the hat - a dark black Homburg -
arrived.

The Tailor dressed the President elect
in his new clothes, and placed the hat
like a crown on the presidential head.

He turned him to face the mirror
so that the President elect could see himself
as others might.

Looking in the mirror he saw
the President for Life,
Francois Duvalier,
return his gaze.

After a moment,
just a moment,
he said, almost in a whisper,
"Perfect!"

What goes 'round comes 'round ...and so for Bishop Lawrence..

2011-11-19T08:57:00.001-05:00

The Bishop of South Carolina, Mark Lawrence, continues to be an enigma. His understanding of the polity behind the polity (that is the unwritten matters of power and policy, as opposed to the surface duties and responsibilities outlined in the Canons) is either a brilliant but minority read of his episcopal office or the Machiavellian work of a bishop up to no good, for purposes that lie far from the good of The Episcopal Church or both.

This week we have another instance of the enigma in practice. Bishop Lawrence as apparently notified every parish that as far as the Diocese of South Carolina is concerned, whatever the rights to parish property held or understood to be held by the Diocese on behalf of The Episcopal Church, the Diocese considers the parish to have total deed rights in itself. A group,"South Carolina Episcopalians" believes this action is part of a longer set of actions of "rebellion." It is certainly a move to a congregational church polity.

Over on David Anderson's American Anglican Council the act is viewed as a brave effort. He asks,

"Why would Bishop Lawrence and the diocesan leadership take such a step? I believe it was out of a desire to preserve the legacy of the gospel in the parishes, as well as to keep the parishes together with the diocese as the means by which the good news of Jesus could be proclaimed. (The fact is that without such deeds some individual parishioners and particular churches would not feel protected from potential threats).

You and I both know that both the diocese and the bishop are under growing pressure from the national church leadership. We also know that exactly those leaders will countenance all sorts of ruinous teaching of Christian doctrine and life, but suddenly when it comes to questions of property they insist that their new line (which is out of step with Episcopal polity and history) be toed."

Bishop Anderson seems to believe that Bishop Mark Lawrence will by this action "preserve the legacy of the gospel in the parishes (whatever that means) and will "keep the parishes together with the diocese," all of which sounds mild, until one considers two possible outcomes:

(i) A number of parishes might leave The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of South Carolina. Apparently people are being taught to mistrust the "national church" and consider it the enemy, so it might be most of the parishes are so inclined. Bishop Lawrence simply stays with the remainder and allows the parishes to wander off to ACNA or AMiA land. In which case some will believe that Lawrence has betrayed the remnant minority who stay, but have to leave their parishes. He can maintain that for principle he allowed the parishes to go and he remains with the remnant, a suffering servant until the end. Or,

(ii) The parishes leave, all going to one venue or another - all to ACNA or all to AMiA- and the bishop then resigns his office, leaves too and rejoins them on the other side. In this case he resigns his office in TEC, fully acknowledging that the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina continues as part of TEC. However, that doesn't mean much because the Diocese is now simply a shell and its population a small percentage of its former size is without either parishes or parish support.

Then Bishop Lawrence simply organizes the parishes that "went over" and they become a diocese in ACNA or AMiA or whatever. But the end is that the parishes, the property, the clergy, and a good bit of the basic support for the diocese are then landed in a different place. In which case Bishop Lawrence is again the Bishop of a diocese in an "orthodox" synod of some sort.

Those who believe the Bishop is up to no good believe the second outcome is the more likely.

Bishop Lawrence has indicated that he is not leaving The Episcopal Church. In the past I have wanted to take him at his word. But I now suspect that is so only so long as there is a functioning Episcopal Church diocese. When through his own actions - like this one - he contributes to the demise of the Diocese, he is preparing a way by which his move out of TEC will no longer be about his abandoning the Communion of this church but rather about his no longer having a functional diocese in TEC, and a call elsewhere.

We won't know which outcome (or perhaps some other) will transpire. But if there is a "smoking gun" that indicates that a scenario something like outcome (ii) is in the offing, and if it can be traced to Bishop Lawrence, then he is subject to examination by his fellow bishops as to whether or not he has abandoned the communion of this Church by conduct clearly calculated to destroying the Diocese as it currently exists so that it can be reconstituted in ACNA or AMiA or some other off-shore drilling company, with him as the resigned bishop, now un-resigned in new quarters.

"What goes round, comes round." If the parishes are indeed voluntarily part of the Diocese and can leave and take their marbles with them, they may just do so, and then the bishop has a choice to either go after them into new lands or stay, but either way he will never again be able to be sure of the people and parishes he is with. And in particular, if he follows the parishes that leave, what if they don't like him and his little ways? They can cut and run again and again. They may run from the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, but they may from the next better thing as well, and who knows if they will always love Bishop Lawrence and accept him as their Father in God? Why should they?

They have cast their nets in the world of congregational polity, where every parish can choose its niche in whatever synod it wishes, the bishop be damned.

This is a mess and likely to get messier.

Point of Very Personal and Quite Wonderful Privledge

2011-11-18T14:03:00.001-05:00

Citizen Ema

It is a very personal and quite wonderful privilege to introduce a new citizen of these United States, our daughter Ema. She took the oath yesterday in San Jose. I am indeed a proud father. Her proud mother took the picture.

How it is that the Harris household came to include a daughter already grown and now a new citizen is a story too long to tell here. Suffice to say it is a blessing and a joy.

Congratulations Ema and the USA.

Off the Grid for a few days

2011-11-14T05:59:00.001-05:00

I will be in Haiti for a few days and Preludium will be silent, but the wheels will be turning and the little grey cells sparking and on my return I will be fired up. Happens every time. Blessings all around.

Lord Carey and the encouragement of clergy.

2011-11-11T14:07:00.001-05:00

In the mid 90's I was one of eight persons interviewed for a position having to do with Anglican Communion affairs by then Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey. It was a fascinating experience and one I look back on with some delight. During the interview with Archbishop Carey he asked what I thought he ought to be about when he visited various churches in the Communion. I responded that I believed many Anglican clergy and congregations felt isolated and wondered sometimes if they were alone. So I recommended that when possible he give words of encouragement. "People," I said (or something like this), "don't need to be told what to do or worse what not to do. What they need is encouragement to be what they are trying to be - faithful people of God."

The Archbishop to chose someone else which was at the time a disappointment, but it turned out to be just fine. Still, I was interested to see in The Living Church online the following:

"Carey knows that the enormities of the Anglican Communion can wear on priests. His advice: ' Don’t spend all your time worrying about the wider issues. Don’t look at the huge picture. Look at the picture you have. You are the rector here. Spend your time on that and don’t go darting about trying to solve national issues. Teach the Scriptures and be proud of our church.'"

Lord Carey got that mostly right. "Look at the picture you have. Teach the Scriptures and be proud of our church." Those are words of encouragement. As for the rest, "Don't spend all your time worrying about the wider issues. Don't look at the huge picture. Don't go darting about trying to solve national issues," I think he fell into telling folk what not to do.

I wonder if, "don't go darting about trying to solve national issues..." is advice that grows from a particular understanding of polity in the church? (I know, I'm on a rant about all that these days.) One might suppose that the Archbishop believes the work involving "the huge picture" is for others elsewhere on the "subsidiarity" chain. It seems a scolding: as in, "it's not your job to deal with, question or even pay attention to big picture concerns."

In American polity - both ecclesiastical and civil - it is precisely those with their hearts and minds into the tending of local gardens, teaching and all that, who individually and collectively are expected to contribute to the solution of the huge issues, for the good of the nation and the whole church. Granted we often make a mess of things because the strangest sorts of people end up having a voice on a national level, but we do believe that there is a place for the voice for the rector or curate, the lay woman or man, in the highest reaches of decision making in the church.

Perhaps we might more charitably think on his precise words, "don't spend ALL your time..." In that he is right. But that cautionary truth is not only for the lowly curate and the faithful lay person, it is also true for the heads of Churches as well. Which is why it is of some value to ask those in high places to remember their calling is always local.

Bravo Chris Coons and little ol Delaware

2011-11-10T23:36:00.001-05:00

Delaware doesn't often make the news, now that good ol' Joe is VP and no longer is connected completely with Delaware and that awful tea party woman who is lost to the future is out of the picture. So it was great to read that Susan Russell over at "An Inch at a time" picked up on this statement from Senator Coons during the repeal DOMA hearings. BRAVO to Chris and thanks to Susan.

On Polity 3: On clarifying the objectives of this series

2011-11-10T16:42:00.001-05:00

Someone commenting on my first essay on Polity remarked,

"Polity is the means by which order is maintained. If it is inherently provisional, it is disordered.

Also, is this intended as a kind of 'thesis' -- not factual, but a sort of wish about things? Polity means this *for me, Mark Harris.*

Why not simply say polity is a bad idea rather than to try to make the word mean something it obviously does not mean. Polity is governing structure. It takes a certain form. It is amended by specific processes, stipulated in orderly ways."

I've give this considerable thought, realizing that perhaps there is nothing much to say that has not already been said by the great luminary on these matters, Richard Hooker, and contemporary stellar essayists, such as The Rev. Dr. Dwight Zscheile. Perhaps the comment is right, that I am saying "Polity means this "for me, Mark Harris." If so, these exercises in interpretation are of limited value to anyone but me, and I might just as well take up some other task and make myself useful.

I rather hope this is not the case. Of course what I am writing is opinion about a way to approach the question of Episcopal Church Polity, and about the content of such Polity. Of course it is interpretation. I believe the polity of The Episcopal Church is deeply dependent on the interpretive understandings of a rather complex story.

The remarks that "Polity is the means by which order is maintained" and "Polity is governing structure. It takes a certain form," and "It is amended by specific processes, stipulated in orderly ways," all suggest that Polity, in any give context, say, the "polity" of The Episcopal Church, refers to specific and verifiable "facts on the ground" about the way in which structure and order is provided a Church. So the Constitution and Canons, the Book of Common Prayer, the observable traditions in the common life of the Church, and other "factual" material constitute polity. The point seems to be that matters factual regarding polity are to be gleaned by the careful examination of the ways in which churches are organized. Anything else is "a sort of wish about things." I disagree.

Let me then say again what I am attempting to do in these notes.

(i) I am beginning with the understanding that polity, as it applies to any specific church, is a product of human ingenuity and has no divine authority attached. Therefore it can be changed precisely by human interaction. I want to explore what changes might make us a more missional church.

(ii) At the same time the polity of any church is also a means by which theological viewpoints are expressed. Often these are not propositions that are part of the polity itself, but rather underpinnings of the polity, often unknown to those whose lives are impacted by the rules and regulations of the church. I want to explore the theological basis of the polity of the church.

(iii) There is some level of untidiness in the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church, and considerable untidiness in the ways in which the offices of various ministries in the church are understood, and a broad range of theological interpretation of many of the governing structures of the church. In the light of this untidiness I want to interpret various matters of polity in a way that I believe makes most sense and serves a missionary structure - a missional polity.

Dwight Zscheile in his essay "A More True "Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society," (The Missional Church and Denominations" Craig Van Gelder, Eerdmans Publishing 2008, p. 133) quotes Richard Hooker, from the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, III.x.7,

"There is no reason in the world wherefore we should esteem it as necessary always to do, as always to believe, the same things; seeing every man knoweth that the matter of faith is constant, the matter contrariwise of action daily changeable, especially the matter of action belonging unto church polity."

Richard Hooker apparently believed that polity involved both the actions of the Church in its organization and order AND the interpretation of those actions. Thus commentary on the life of the organized church was understood as providing a kind of meta-order to the order (or disorder) of the particulars of the polity of a church body.

These notes on polity then are not made up out of thin air. They might be hot air, but that is another matter. I hope that these remarks are contributions to the interpretation of the complex connections of law, worship, biblical reflection, and actual practice that constitute the polity of The Episcopal Church.

This is in some important way a theological task. I take Zscheile's warning to heart. He says, "Attending more explicitly to the theological foundations of Episcopal polity will strengthen the church's participation in God's mission and serve perhaps in some small way to correct the historic Anglican tendency to make organizational decisions based first on politics and the, if at all on theology." (p.147, The Missional Church and Denominations)

Assuming that this clears the air a bit, I want next to turn to that part of Episcopal polity that pertains to the matter of the Episcopate.

Meanwhile, those who believe I am simply off the mark on the whole project will just have to bear with the fact that, as the commentator suggested, "this is your blog." If I am on the mark, at least in part, and readers have corrective or additive materials to bring to the blog, I invite you to contact me at poetmark1940@gmail.com with material that you think might become part of this series "On Polity." Thanks.

Give me a day or two to get that in order.

On Polity 2: Polity as Provisional (revised)

2011-11-09T10:33:00.001-05:00

In my first post on this subject I concluded: "So the polity of The Episcopal Church is grounded in a vision of being a community of prayer and adoration - clear, straightforward, affecting and majestic - for the sake of Jesus Christ, to the advancement of the whole Church's vocation to be instruments of God's mission - one of creation, sustenance and restoration."

I also noted my opinion that "There can be no valid claim therefore that the polity of any given church reflects either the "mission of the Church" understood as God's mission reflected in the vocation of the Church as the body of Christ, or the whole of the apostolic, catholic, united faith."

A keen observer has pointed out that I must stress that these are my opinions about polity. Any given polity has different meaning for those who are bound by the governance provided, and viewed from within may not appear at all provisional.

Still, I maintain that all polity is provisional - that is its primary limitation as to justice and mercy is that it falls short of the full embodiment of God's restorative justice and limitless mercy. This may be nothing more than the observation that polity is of human making, not God's ordaining.

The polities of the various churches, including our own, are themselves subject to appeal - appeal to judgment regarding the extent to which they reflects what we know of the Christian faith and the Good News. The appeal to the Word of God is, however, an appeal beyond the polity itself.

I believe that polity is provisional within - meaning that the community of faithful people bound by that polity may change it - and it is provisional without - meaning that the community itself stands in judgment before the all consuming wrath and mercy of God.

There is no hiding place down here. Right polity does not save us from error and belonging to a particular church does not keep us from judgment and mercy before the people of God, the body of Christ as a mystical communion of all faithful people. In the 39 Articles, Article 19, "As the Church of Jerusalem,Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only intheir living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith." and Article 21, concerning the councils of the Church, "when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereofall be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even inthings pertaining unto God."

Having said this, polity is an entry point into the necessary discussion among the various churches, the denominations (named churches) about God's mission and our several vocations as churches. Ecumenical conversations begin with clarity about what our vocations as particular churches brings to the common desire to be active participants in God's mission.

To put it another way: I believe that churches - The Episcopal Church or any other denominated church - are not what Jesus had in mind. Church is our best answer as to how to be organized to respond to what Jesus did have in mind - the reconciliation of all things in God.

Provisionalily is a limitation on triumphalism. It is much needed in these days, when pure church movements abound.

As I hope we will see, the issues of changing polity will become increasingly important as these postings continue. On whose authority such changes are made is itself a major polity issue, and the particular (although not unique) vocation of The Episcopal Church to be a church with bishops who guide but a wider body of believers who decide is in a sense a "trial run" of a possible way to organize as a church.

Fulcrum and the English Problem

2011-11-09T00:24:00.005-05:00

Fulcrum has written an interesting piece on the Anglican Covenant, "A Churchgoer's Guide to the Anglican Communion Covenant"

The authors give their best shot as to why people, particularly members of the Church of England, ought to support the Covenant. It does not convince this reader.

Among other things, Fulcrum observes:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been among the strongest advocates for adoption of the Anglican Covenant.

The first and the last of the "Ten Reasons to Support the Anglican Communion Covenant."

1. It has been consistently supported by the Church of England which significantly shaped its content through the years of its development and so we should not now reverse our positive and constructive response.

10. The Archbishop of Canterbury has asked the Church of England to support him and the other Instruments in working for the widest possible acceptance of the covenant within the Communion.

The upshot is that the Archbishop of Canterbury wants it, and that is why the Church of England needs to say "yes" to accepting it.

It is a matter of loyalty.

This sort of argument for the adopting of the Covenant is bad indeed. It is too bad, in fact, for some of Fulcrum's other arguments for the Covenant make some sense. But for this to become a loyalty test is really uncalled for.

The Archbishop is for it. True. The CofE has been supportive, at least by support of the Archbishop of Canterbury. And the ABC has asked for support. (OK, I don't know that as a fact, but I am sure it is true.)

The thing is, that is not accepting the Covenant on its merits, that is accepting it because of who is offering it. It may be polite to eat whatever is put before us, but it is sometimes unwise.