Monthly Archives: July 2008

faux catholic

I went for a run last night in the rain. It was only my second real run since my high school cross-country days (and boy am I out of shape!). Since the spider episode I’m much more committed to improving my fitness so with that behind me and the good example of M before me, I’m out pounding the pavement again.

It gives me space, an open place, to think as I run.

Last night my mind kept drifting back to the English decision on women bishops and to this post on the matter by Third Mill Catholic. If not accepting women bishops and clergy is the distinguishing mark of catholicism, then Young Fogey and others are right—it is done within Anglicanism, now and forever. If we’re honest, it was a done deal back in the ’90s but the implications are only now moving towards their inevitable conclusion.

If women can be priests, then there is no logical reason why they cannot be bishops. If they can be bishops, there is no reason why they cannot be archbishops. If they can be archbishops than it is only a matter of time before one sits upon the throne of the See of Canterbury.

In England, the Anglo-Catholics who remain will be further indulging themselves in a game of “let’s pretend”. In America, the “true” catholics are acting like congregationalists and joining themselves to to a Protestant province or hooking their hopes to an evangelical organization who won’t hesitate to turn on them once it’s convenient. (If liberals who like to play dress-up and swing-the-censer without an embrace of catholic theology are AffCats, we’ll shortly need to come up with a new word for evangelicals with similar tastes.)

I suppose in the midst of all of this, I’ll just keep on being what I am: a faux catholic. I’m resigned to never meriting being a real one as I’m not against the right things. I’ve irrevocably sold-out the faith by maintaining the silly notion that what grounds and guides Christian morals is the practice and cultivation of virtue, rather than ticking boxes on vice lists. I’ve betrayed Christianity in my belief that the power of the Holy Spirit and the firm promises of Christ are efficacious even without the presence of a penis. I’ll just keep understanding scripture in light of my three creeds and seven councils. I’ll keep on reading the Fathers.

But the readings from Matthew we’ve been moving through in the Office sound the louder note: it’s not about our words or the faith that we profess. It’s not even about our deeds of power. It won’t matter at the end of the Day what back-stabbing little faction we’re part of—the key is our fruits.

When we look at others do we strive to see Christ; when Christ looks at us, does he recognize himself?

Another thing rolling around on my run was words I’d read on the bus ride home from work:

Since all of our Lord’s sacred utterances contain commandments, why does he say about love as if it were a special commandment: This is my commandment, that you love one another? It is because every commandment is about love, and they all add up to one commandment because whatever is commanded is founded on love alone. As a tree’s many branches come from one root, so do many virtues come forth from love alone. The branch which is our good works has no sap unless it remains attached to the root of love. Our Lord’s commandments are then both many and one: many through the variety of the works, one in their root which is love. He himself instructs us to love our friends in him, and our enemies for his sake. That person truly possesses love who loves his friend in God and his enemy for God’s sake. (Gregory the Great, Hom. 27)

The love of which Gregory speaks is not some gooey emotion, a set of excuses for bad behavior,or a label to cover over a different agenda. It’s a way of life. It’s a fundamental orientation.  It’s a burning engine that impels and compels us to do even that which we do not wish to do. And from where I sit it seems in precious short supply. God knows I lack it in spades, but that seems to be not uncommon around our Communion either.

Now don’t get me wrong—I’m not calling for an end to Christian factionalism. After all, it has a long proud history: every single writing in the New Testament mentions it at one point or another. It’s more traditional than Tradition itself!

What I do wish is that we have an awareness: every time we pull out the long knives—whatever we achieve—-we always carve away a piece of ourselves in the process…

Monastic Mysticism: Diadochus of Photice

I’m doing some reading around to prepare for my next Cafe article that’s in the works and ran across some good stuff from Diadochus. There’s no way this’ll make it into my final text, but I thought this was pretty cool and definitely worth sharing.

I’m looking at Andrew Louth’s The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981) and his chapter on “The Monastic Contribution”. Of course, he’s doing a quick survey of a huge field and subject and the thinkers about whom he speaks are representatives of types that contribute to his synthesis. It’s not comprehensive nor exhaustive by any means, nor is it intended to be. In this chapter he looks at three folks/texts: Evagrius of Pontus, the Messalian homilies attributed to Macarius, and Diadochus. Those who know their history will note a common thread between the first two—they were both condemned as heretical… The way he sets it up, Diadochus is the synthesis between the thesis and antithesis set up by the first two. That is, Evagrius is an intellectualist and emphasizes the spiritual nature of prayer while the Messalians are intensely practical and center themselves very much on feeling.

The best part of Louth’s treatment of Diadochus and what really caught my eye was his discussion of the place of baptism:

The center of Diadochus’ spiritual theology is perhaps his clear grasp of the significance of baptism. Neither of the monastic traditions we have discussed in this chapter gives any place to baptism. Evagrius does not mention baptism, and even his understanding of the basic significance of faith cannot be related to baptism, as he regards faith as an innate capacity. The Messalian position explicitly rejects any place in the spiritual life for baptism. [ed: Indeed, this is an issue with monastic theology as a whole—even in Cassian, monastic vows seem to trump baptism…] In rejecting this tenet of the Messalians, Diadochus is led to develop an understanding of the spiritual life that sees God’s work in the soul through the sacrament of baptism as the foundation of that life.
. . .
In baptism, according to Diadochus, two gifts are given. The first, given at once, is restoration in the image of God. [ed: cf. Athanasius, On the Incarnation—to the delight of M and Anastasia…] The second, which far surpasses the first, is restoration according to the likness of God, and this is not given at once but depends on our cooperation.
. . .
Diadochus uses, as Macarius [of the Messalian homilies] has done, the analogy of a painter who, in this case, first traces the outline and then applies the colors. The grace of God first traces on man in baptism the form of the image that he had in the beginning, and as he begins:

“with all his will to desire the beauty of the likeness and stands naked and undaunted in his work, then grace causes virtue upon virtue to blossom in us and it raises the form of the soul from glory to glory and bestows on the soul the form of the likeness. So the spiritual sense reveals to us that we are being fashioned after the likeness, but the perfection of the likeness we know through being illuminated.” (Century 89)

The spiritual sense, then, is that by means of which we progress in the spiritual life. It is by discovering it and using it that we cause the image (eikon) in ourselves, which has been restored in baptism, to take on the full glory of the likeness (homoiosis). Through it we acquire virtues . . . and thus adorn the soul with spiritual beauty. But beyond all that our spiritual sense can do there lies perfection. This is to receive ‘spiritual love’ and it can only be received when the soul is enlightened in complete assurance by the Holy Spirit. The final perfection of the likeness can only be accomplished through love: ‘no other virtue can acquire impassibility for the soul, but only love.’

I love this image of the spiritual life! Through baptism, a line-drawing (as it were) of the image of God is restored in our soul. Then, through the cultivation of the virtues and our own opening to the working of the Spirit, the drawing is painted in (or perhaps the colors effaced as we slip between virtue and vice) until we hold in ourselves a portrait of the likeness of God, only completed by the iridescent glow of love.

Ancient “Messianic” Tablet and the Resurrection

Discussion has recently entered the public domain concerning a tablet that may have come from the Dead Sea area with a lost text written on it. As always, wild speculation abounds and the media and others are trying to instantly assess whether it “proves” Christianity true or false.

If you want to know what it’s really about, then head over here to the article at Ed Cook’s site. Ed is a conservative Anglican but his real credentials for this would be that he’s a proper scholar of Second Temple Judaism. One of the books I keep on my short shelf next to my computer is a translation he and a few others did of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Needless to say, I trust his judgement in this matter…

Musings on Independence and Interdependence

Christopher and I have been thinking recently about independence or self-sufficiency and interdependence. Well, we’re not alone; here’s a great musing at the Daily Episcopalian that wrestles with them in combination with Benedict’s Rule and delves into one of my favorite MP collects.

In my opinion, this is what good Anglican writing looks like—measured, rational, grounded in the Prayer Book.

Thoughts on Transitioning to More Food Production and Raised Bed Gardens

M and I are getting more and more frustrated with our temporary living situation which has existed for…well…since we were married (almost 9 years now)… And by that I mean the fact that we’re always on the move, without roots. That’s one of the factors that’s prompting this coming move. We want to get a place of our own where we’re going to be a while.

One of the ways this has played out is that we’ve been restricted to very limited container gardening. Mostly herbs, peppers and tomatoes. We’d love to have a bigger, more comprehensive garden once we “arrive” but we’re just not there yet.

As we talk more about rules of life (more on that later) and sustainability and how we’d like to embody our priorities, we’re starting to see this delay as an advantage. I’m working off the fundamental notion that—diets don’t work. (Bear with me for a moment…) If you want to lose weight and keep it off, diets fundamentally don’t work. What works is long-term lifestyle adjustment. A diet is something you pick up and put down—often in cycles. A comprehensive lifestyle change is far more long term. It means changing the ways you eat food, changing how you cook, changing how you schedule your time to include time for regular exercise, etc.

I think the very same is true of making a move to sustainability. It’s one thing to get excited and to put some plants in a pot. But—like a diet—that can burn out rather quickly. (And there’s nothing wrong with doing that for fun for a season or two to test whether growing food is something you have skills/gifts for or as a casual hobby.) But if you’re serious about 1) planting a measurable percentage of your own food, 2) reducing your grocery bills, and 3) moving towards a more interdependent sustainable way of being then it actually means being “serious” about it. Like, making budgets. Analyzing your grocery store receipts. Thinking abut what and how you cook. Putting together with your family a picture of where you’d like your food growing to be in five years on a year-by-year basis. Calculating how much time, energy, and money it will take to achieve those goals. (Especially as we recognize that we both have jobs—we’re not full-time farmers…)

Or, as Jesus mentioned… “‘For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish'” (Luke 14:28-30). Of course, he was talking about counting the costs of discipleship, but the point still holds…

So—we’re seeing this delay as a time of planning, of thinking, of exploring and researching. It’s not wasted time; it’s essential if we’re going to make an long term changes in how we live.

I’ve been thinking in particular about food supply and trying to wrap my head around just how much food we’d have to produce to feed us on a regular basis. I find the best way to do this is to boil it down to completely concrete terms.We make a pretty rockin’ home-made pizza and it’s our tradition to have it every Friday—so let’s break it down:

  • Ingredients: flour, olive oil, salt, water, yeast, sugar, tomato sauce, tomato paste, basil, wine, cheese
  • Of these, realistically, we can only grow two: tomatoes and basil (which grow especially well together. Bonus!)
  • We use perhaps a cup of sauce a week spread over two crusts.
  • By my crude estimate, a cup of sauce at the consistency I like might require 5 or 6 roma tomatoes.
  • Assuming that we’d be canning quantities of sauce for our use through out the year, this means that 1 pizza a week for a year would require something on the order of 300 tomatoes.
  • How much does an average Roma plant produce in a season? (I don’t know yet…)
  • And that’s just one meal—we go through salsa like there’s no tomorrow and like tomatoes in other things as well. Suddenly the scale seems a bit more sobering, and the need for good research and planning comes to the fore…

So, keeping these kinds of things in mind, I’m going to and fro in my “spare” time to get a sense of what’s out there and what’s feasible. I may post some of what I find as the mood strikes me. And, at the moment, I’m liking what I’m reading about the efficiency of raised bed gardens—and here are three of the things I’ve been reading: a pdf from the Kansas State Ag Extension, a pdf from Purdue University with some basic construction calculations, and a website from some chump school in the state where the University of Texas holds pride of place. (Did I mention my dad and brother both graduated from UT…?)

Shrewd as Serpents

I have refrained for quite a while from commenting on Anglican affairs, but the time has come to speak my piece.

The presenting topic is, of course, the Jerusalem Declaration, but I think it worth the time to step back and take a bigger picture view of what is going on. I will, however, begin with that document.

The Jerusalem Declaration is the declaration that the emperor—or archbishop, rather—has no clothes. That is, regardless of whether the Archbishop of Canterbury has the power or authority to discipline, the declaration challenges whether he has the will to discipline. It makes sense from their perspective: after begging him for five years to discipline the American and Canadian Churches, they have decided that they, in like fashion, will go ahead and do what pleases them, emboldened by the complete lack of consequences to us.

Technically speaking, a schism has not occurred in that no-one has broken with Canterbury—they’ve simply declared him irrelevant. Pittsburgh will still be leaving; Fort Worth will still be leaving. No doubt Quincy and others will soon attempt to follow. Parish departures will increase. While schism has not happened I think we’ll find that the incursions of foreign prelates will increase in the coming months.

Which will call forth a response… Yes, the GAFCON crowd has been shrewd—but they are not alone in their shrewdness.

At a particular point—and I’m sure a careful review of news stories could tell you exactly when, one or more liberal Episcopalians discovered an interesting use of antitrust law. They determined that the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation could be used as leverage. In a nutshell (from a non-lawyer here), this legislation means that, in order to prevent Enron-type malfeasance, a much wider group of people are responsible for checking on what the organization as a whole is doing. In nonprofit circles, it means that the board is also liable if a president is up to something untoward. Within our little circle, the interested parties realized that these laws could be used to apply leverage to bishops; if they negotiated with dissidents and did something like—say—selling them their property at fair market value, they could be sued for breach of fiduciary responsibility.

Now, whether a threat of this sort was actually made or whether it was simply detected, I don’t know. What I do know is that dioceses in negotiations abruptly ended them at roughly the same time and embarked on a national policy of litigation.

So many people are being so shrewd these days—by my reckoning too shrewd by half.

Litigation won’t help me. It won’t help us. Rather, it reminds me what’s at the bottom of all this. I’m sorry, but I really don’t think this is about “inclusion” or about the “authority of Scripture”, or even about the “faith once delivered”. Some in the pews may see it that way, but at the end of the day the sense that I get is that this is about whose clique calls the shots. I see it as a power game, pure and simple. And that’s what makes me most angry. I see two groups at the highest levels in a pissing contest that has pulled in the entire Anglican world. We’re burning through literally millions of dollars in big international gatherings and conferences and lawsuits while we stand on the brink of something much bigger and much more dangerous.

America is heading into a recession. Of that I have no doubt. And, if the peak oil people are right—and I’m becoming more and more persuaded that they are—than it will be longer, harder, and deeper than anything we’ve seen in a very long time. There are going to be a lot of people who will need help: covering rent, covering bills, families who have lost jobs, houses, and hope. How much do our squabbles and litigations cost when measured out in bags of flour and gallons of milk?

Not only will we need money to face the challenges of social change, we’ll also need grounding. We’ll need a rooted, grounded faith to proclaim as everything else is shifting.

How are we doing there?

Today is the first day that Seabury-Western officially has no faculty. Bexley Hall is collapsing back into rented quarters at a Lutheran school and EDS is selling off buildings. Not exactly hopeful for the well-trained clergy of tomorrow… How much do our squabbles and litigations cost when measured out in faculty salaries or credit hours?

I’m not happy with our leadership—and I don’t see these trends reversing anytime soon. But I’m not going anywhere. I’ve already swum the Channel from the Lutherans and could plausibly head across some other body of water but I’ve burnt my ships. I’m staying put and the church will have to deal with it.

Caelius may say he’s wondering what to do, but I think he already knows—at least the outlines—and I do too. There’s no point in waiting for the pointy-hats to come around. Lay people and local people need to:

  1. Rediscover the Book of Common Prayer. As a broadly catholic and evangelical document, the Prayer Book in its many forms holds together the essentials of our theology, our doctrine, and the necessarily disciplines of a robust spiritual life.
  2. Teach the Book of Common Prayer. We cannot rely too much on the clergy. Clergy are already swamped with what they do and, frankly, not all have been blessed with the gifts to teach and inspire others with regard to our basic documents and history. And no, you can’t teach the prayer book with out simultaneously teaching Scripture, history, and theology—they all flow together.
  3. Recover Practical Rhythms of Life. A deeply grounded spirituality does not happen apart from regular ol’ life as we know it. Spiritual rhythms are sustainable rhythms. And that goes back to knowing who and what you are and where your priorities lie.
  4. Recover Communities of Faith as Communities of Practice. Modern Americans are notorious for rejecting social opportunities (the Bowling Alone phenomenon). And yet, churches are places where people gather and form a community in spite of themselves. As things get worse—whether short term or long term—local communities will become more important. People and communities weather crises best when supported by effective habits and disciplines. The time to get these up and going is now, not later. Do things together. Do things that instill healthy, simple, practical practices together. Does your church have a garden? Does it landscape with herbs and/or edibles? Is there a compelling reason why not? Even if the fossil fuels last another three hundred years is there a good excuse for not doing some of this now?
  5. Collect and Craft the Necessary Resources. All of the above things are good (in my eyes), but none of them are simple. They’ll take work. To do them poorly may be as bad as not doing them at all. There’s simply no point in attempting them without adequate preparation. And this is where we find ourselves now. The internet provides the perfect place to collect resources, instructions, and histories of projects successful and unsuccessful gathered into a common place. It’s time to start collecting and it’s time to start creating.