Monthly Archives: August 2012

Reading Scripture: Nuts and Bolts

I received an e-mail the other day from a seminarian who requested some follow-up on what I had discussed earlier as neo-patristic biblical interpretation for the church. He’s quite right – this is a topic I have wanted to talk about, but have neglected for far too long. In particular, he asks what sort of resources or authors he should be reading in order to gain a sense of this approach.

Let me start by saying that the first step is to get the purpose right. Entirely apart from other modes of reading, the church has one particular question that should drive and focus all of our interactions with Scripture: how does this passage reveal God’s desire for the church to be built up in love for service and reconciliation? There are other approaches to Scripture. There are other questions that interpreters ask Scripture. Academic and theological study will suggest different concerns and focuses. But at the heart of the Christian community remains this question: how does this passage help the Body of Christ grow into the mind of Christ? (I see these not as two different questions, but as two ways of framing the same intention.)

Once this seeking for God’s desire concerning our maturity and edification has been centrally seated, then other tools and resources can be allied in sympathy with it.

A book that I am returning to right now as I prepare my presentation for the Society of Catholic Priests is The Future of Catholic Biblical Scholarship: A Constructive Conversation by Johnson and Kurz. The first section, written by Luke Johnson, speaks specifically to rejoining the long conversation of the church about the Scriptures and offers as a dominant practice imagining the world that Scripture imagines. Johnson compares the historical critical paradigm to excavating a city whereas the church’s paradigm is living within the city. This sense of reading Scripture in order to learn how to live is thoroughly patristic: as Cassian’s Abba Nesteros reminds us, “receive the institutes and words of all the elders, preserve them carefully in your breast, and strive to fulfill them rather than to teach them.” Too often we skip the fulfilling part…

In terms of other works, I think Christopher Hall’s Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers is helpful especially for those who have not read widely in the Fathers. Looking to the fathers themselves, Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine is essential, particularly books 2 and3, and the whole of Cassian’s 14th conference. The one resource above all others to which Augustine and Cassian will both direct you, however, is Scripture itself. I cannot over emphasize what Augustine says, the best way to learn to interpret Scripture is to read more Scripture.

The difference between the perspective that I’m driving at and what is commonly taught in academic and seminary circles is less a matter of content and more a matter of purpose and direction. The Spirit guides our reading of the inspired word for the sake of building up our communities in love. Other tools and techniques are useful for our spiritual lives and the spiritual lives of the people we touch to the degree that they enable us to understand and embody how God’s action in Christ frees us for love and service. Sometimes we may find this at the basic literal level of the text. Sometimes we may find this in one of Gregory’s allegorical explanations. Sometimes we may find this in one of Aquinas’s doctrinal points. Or we might find it in a historical critical nuancing of what a particular phrase meant in its ancient near Eastern context. We can and should learn from all of these, attending most particularly to those that we find aiding us in our central goal.

We do need to be reading more of the fathers. But we also need to be reading them in the right way. I put Paul and the fathers in the same category in terms of how they need to be read. Sometimes they teach us by what they say in the decisions they come to. But other times they teach us because of the ways that they show us to think. Paul has given us a treasure in First Corinthians; while it may not wrestle with justification like Romans or present a grand vision of the church like Ephesians, First Corinthians shows us a master edifier working through the practical problems of the local church in light of the resurrection and the Scriptures. We need to learn from his example, not just his conclusions. The same is true of the fathers – we need to learn from their examples, not just their conclusions.

So—reading in a neo-patristic fashion is about reading from a particular perspective for a particular purpose. Another piece of this is that our reading context also directs what we read and what we find because our reading occurs within the context of our fundamental practices: the Mass and the Office. These practices themselves give us texts and sensibilities and experiences that further guide our interpretation. Constant repetition of the Creeds, the Gloria, the Magnificat, the psalms direct what we see and find. The experience of encountering Christ in the Eucharist gives us a fuller understanding of the person and personality seen within the text.

Much more remains to be said about this, but I hope this at least gives some further pointers down the path.

Lee on the BCP

I’ve just finished Jeffrey Lee’s Opening the Prayer Book which is volume 7 in The New Church’s Teaching Series. Reading this was a very thought-provoking experience on a couple of levels. On one hand, the work itself is interesting, written in a colloquial and engaging fashion, and makes a definite case. As I was reading, I found myself stopping and asking how and why I would say something differently, approach something from another angle. Having just finished looking at Vicki Black’s book, I noted commonalities and consensus between the two with which I would not agree that gave me good questions around what is generally believed and taught and the degree to which I agree with this taught consensus. I also found myself asking how I define theology and spirituality, where I would draw the line between the two, and why (and to what degree) such a line matters. As I said—a thought-provoking read.

There is much that I like about this book. In particular, Lee emphasizes two critical points:

  1. Liturgy and the life of faith are dynamically interconnected. The liturgy—experienced to its full—changes lives.
  2. The prayer book enables a system of Christian habits oriented by our corporate liturgical prayer. Eucharist and the Office aren’t simply alternate choices for Sunday morning, but are part of a coherent pattern of Christian worship with deep historical and theological roots.

Lee talks about history and relates it to the prayer book, but he has not written either a prayer book history or a history of the rites of the prayer book. Instead, he discusses history in order to demonstrate that there is an historically grounded pattern of worship of which the current American prayer book is the participant par excellence. He then presents a theological orientation to the prayer book, locating its center in the Easter Vigil, then moving from the paired Eucharist and Office to the other rites of the book.

One of his central theses is that the current American prayer book displays its excellence through apparently contradictory impulses of complexity and simplicity. That is, he sees the massive multiplication of liturgical options as a sign of healthy organic growth that, at the same time, simplifies the rites as a whole because the basic foundational pattern of the rites is more apparent even through the flowering of options. The ’79 rites more fully cohere with the ancient intentions of Christian worship than even earlier Anglican rites, and thus their framework offers a superior entre into the Christian liturgical experience despite the contents of the elements in the framework. (Those familiar with Gordon Lathrop’s work will see his fingerprints all over this perspective and Lee cites him a number of times.) This gives Lee the freedom to embrace the trajectory of liturgical diversification represented by Enriching Our Worship and similar initiatives with open arms: as long as the framework coheres with his sense of the pattern, the content can be fluid.

It’s an interesting perspective, but not one with which I can wholly agree. Such a perspective when taken too far can become quite cavalier about the actual content of Christian worship; Lee doesn’t go there, but neither do I find him drawing the boundary lines that would have to be drawn concerning content.

Perhaps my central point of disagreement with Lee is in his synthesis of Christian liturgical history and his notion of a single correct primitive pattern of Christian worship from which the past departed, to which the Reformation pointed, until ultimately recaptured by the Liturgical Renewal Movement. Following this kind of a pattern it’s inevitable that the word “medieval” will become a swear word as it represents the nadir of falling away from the primitive pattern. And such is certainly the case throughout this book. As a student of medieval liturgy, this struck me as a bit short-sighted…

On one hand, I fault failures in his synthesis. In particular, he falls into the trope (also found in Black’s book) that in the (Western—the East is never in view) medieval period, liturgy and its spirituality became the sole preserve of the clergy and monastic elite who alone inhabited and understood it. First, this ignores the vibrant tradition of lay liturgical spirituality represented by the Books of Hours and prymers. Second, I believe it assumes a much more educated clergy than the sources do. Latin literacy of average parochial clergy would not have been that much greater than many of their congregants requiring a different perspective on the assumed (and perhaps largely constructed) gulf between the understanding of the laity and the clergy.

On the other hand, such a synthesis raises again the theological problem of the Holy Spirit. If the entire body of Christendom—East and West—fell into such significant error around our fundamental worship practices, what exactly was the Holy Spirit up to with reference to the Church? Did it take a millennium-long nap and only conveniently wake up for the Western Reformation? Sorry—I have a really hard time buying it… Yes, the Liturgical Renewal Movement did some great work. Yes, there are aspects of our current prayer book that seem to better reflect the spirit of apostolic worship than our caricature of a thirteen century non-communicating High Mass. And yet, I can’t go along with the notion that the medieval liturgical experience, the spirituality that supported it, and the thinking, writing, and praying that came out of it (think Julian of Norwich, for example…) was entirely an aberration.

At the end of the day, I find Lee’s book to be a big step closer to what I’m looking for than others. Its emphasis on a pattern of Christian liturgy informing Christian life and on the prayer book offering a system of habits is most salutary. However, its historical synthesis and its over-emphasis on framework as opposed to content give me pause. I could see myself use this in a discussion group, using it as a text to be engaged and wrestled with rather than subscribed to.

Up next, Louis Weil’s A Theology of Worship likewise from The New Church’s Teaching Series…

SCP Conference!

Registration is open for the upcoming Society of Catholic Priests meeting. This year, it’ll be taking place near CDSP in Glendale, California from October 10th through the 13th.

The SCP has graciously asked me back this year as a presenter. Here’s the official schpeil I wrote up for my talk:

Attentiveness: Liturgical and Scriptural Formation and the Anglo-Catholic Social Tradition
Dr. Derek Olsen, Theologian-in-Residence at Church of the Advent in Baltimore, MD

How does social consciousness relate to a movement best known for elaborate liturgy and ceremonial? What is the role of liturgical prayer in solving the ills of the world outside our naves? Drawing on Scripture and the Anglo-Catholic tradition of liturgical prayer, Dr. Olsen will discuss how a vibrant liturgical spirituality draws us into–rather than away from–engagement with and advocacy for justice and reconciliation in the political and social orders.

Writing is well under way, and I think we’ll be going in some interesting directions!

I feel quite strongly that the SCP is an important organization for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada right now. Our churches need a group that will speak clearly about Anglican doctrine, liturgy, and spirituality grounded in the richness of our catholic heritage. I still feel that a lay group is needed and have been doing some writing and networking around this (on and offline) that has yet to bear concrete fruit. However, along this line, I want to bring to your attention a change in policy for the upcoming SCP meeting:

 For the first time in its existence, the SCP has decided to open up a limited number of guest registrations to lay people who may be interested in and contribute to our common life. BEFORE YOU REGISTER HERE, please send an e-mail to thescpinnorthamerica@gmail.com with information regarding why you would like to attend the Conference. The SCP Council will consider each registration on a case-by-case basis. Once approved, you can register your place here.

Now, I know there are some folks out there who really ought to be at the meeting but who are not among the ranks of the ordained. Please consider this prayerfully, and get in touch with these folks if you’re able to attend.

If you are a clergy person and read this blog, and haven’t considered the Society and what it does, please do.

The registration page for the conference with more details and info on the other speakers is here.

Resourcing BCP Spirituality

Following my “almost manifesto” on the need to teach the spirituality of the BCP to the church rather than simply teaching points of historical development and an initial start in that direction, I’ve received a number of requests concerning what resources are available to do this.

It’s a good and important question to which I am attempting to find an answer…

In response to my post, JD Ballard put up a solid post that moves the ball a bit further down the field than mine.

I also started wondering about the popular introductions to the BCP that have been put out by the Church Publishing and others. I confess that my own studies of the BCP have come in through the back rather than the front, so to speak. That is, I’ve engaged it as someone grounded in the medieval English liturgical tradition and early history of the BCP and have largely skipped over introductory works. As a result, I’ve realized that it’s time to go ahead and do that.

I’m in the process of surveying some books on the topic and will post thoughts here as I read through them. My focus here will not be to offer a general review of the books and their content but to ask the narrow and specific question of how how well they work as resources for teaching either laity or clergy the spirituality of the BCP.

While it’s not necessarily an introduction, I’d be remiss if I didn’t start with Hatchett. Typically, clergy offices and the bookshelves of interested laity contain a copy of Marion Hatchett’s Commentary on the American Prayer Book. As a result, when clergy or lay leaders want to know or do something with a part of the prayer book, this tends to be where they go first. That’s a natural response. In fact, it’s a learned response because most folks who have taken formal academic coursework on the prayer book did this for homework. Unfortunately, it’s not the best response when dealing with the topic at hand.

Hatchett’s book is an excellent tool and does what it is intended to do very well. A quick glance at the table of contents shows how the book is structured and lets us know how it’s going to proceed. As most commentaries do (biblical or otherwise) it cleaves to the order of the text and moves systematically from part to part. For major portions, the text is organized in two logical units labelled “Background” and “Commentary”. The “Background” section gives a brief treatise on the history of the rite or concept as a whole touching on some theological themes or changes but speaking primarily about historical changes to the structure and/or content of the matter at hand. The “Commentary” serves to point out applicable rubrics, suggest when various options might be utilized, to point out theological differences between the ’79 book and earlier forms, and to identify the source of the prayer book text.

I go to Hatchett when I want to see how he draws a big-picture synthesis of a particular change to a rite or when I want to know when, where, and for what purpose a particular prayer was composed. That is, I’ll approach a prayer from the Gelasian Missal differently from one written in 1662 o in the 1930s. Not that the earlier one is necessarily better, but knowing the sources gives me insight into why certain concepts or doctrines are framed the way they were—what the prayer is and is not saying and what fights it’s either picking, avoiding, or totally oblivious of.

Knowledge of this sort is, for the most part, not particularly useful for entering into the spirituality of the text. Rarely does knowing the origin of something help me pray it better, more attentively, more intently. Understanding the organization of the rite does play into our ability to access its spirituality, but our spiritual appreciation of a rite’s movement is rarely tied to understanding the historical movement of distinct elements. Rather it’s understanding how the flow leads our spirits in particular directions and this is a not a topic that Hatchett has helped me see. Again—that’s not his intention either.

Thus, Hatchett gives us a very useful tool for understanding the history of our rites. I don’t agree with him in all particulars, especially in his syntheses (I’d accent certain things differently), but there is no other resources that gives such a clear identification of the sources of the prayer book elements. Its value for understanding and communicating the spirituality of the texts described is limited. Yet time and again when I hear presentations on liturgy they fall back into this pattern and model.

I’ve also been reading Deacon Vicki Black’s Welcome to the Book of Common Prayer in the Kindle form (hence no page numbers—sorry…). This is a brief introduction to the prayer book that serves as both an introduction and an apologia. That is, it’s aimed at communicating to a  broadly American protestant audience that may be slightly suspicious of a book of “wrote-down prayers.” The writing style is friendly and accessible, leaving aside the bulk of the liturgical jargon and explaining terms that would be unfamiliar. The perspective presented is a middle-of-the-road trending higher. Thus, it acknowledges that there will be differences between high and low liturgies and mentions that a thurible might be present at some elements (like a Eucharistic Gospel procession), but otherwise takes a Broad Church line.

The table of contents shows that the ordering of liturgies is somewhat different from the BCP itself; it follows the order in which the liturgies might be encountered by a visitor or seeker, starting with Baptism, then going to Eucharist, then the Offices, and then into the pastoral rites. However, the approach within the rites themselves is also cast within an historical mode. While Hatchett and I prefer to look at liturgies by beginning with the 2nd or 4th century and moving to the present day, Black resolutely begins with the perspective of the present prayer book, and looks at the history in light of where we are now, highlighting in particular continuities between present and past practice but also noting spots where we differ from either historical practice or other Christian groups.

Because it’s a short book with limited space for each topic, Black does a lot of synthesis in describing the history of churches and rites. Aside from a few factual errors my main disagreements with the book would be in how these syntheses are sketched. In particular, the relationship between the pre- and post-Reformation churches seems much to discontinuous for my liking and follows the standard narrative that all of the liturgies were taken away from the people and were the preserve of the clergy and religious. Books of Hours in this section are mentioned in passing only, and are explained as one-volume breviaries which fails to capture their spirit or their use. (This definition is corrected to a slight degree in the section on the Office but not to my satisfaction.) While this may seem a minor point, I’d argue that overlooking the place of the Books of Hours, prymers, and lay mass devotionals presents a much more discontinuous picture of English spirituality pre- and post-Reformation than was actually the case.

Black does weave in some comments on theology and spirituality. For instance, her discussion of how we engage the words of the liturgies—following the words of the book in common with the church and one another, but ideally not getting hung up on the words themselves—or her discussion on the spirit of the Daily Office as offering are helpful but brief. Again, she’s writing a brief introduction; spirituality is not her focus.

In summary, Black’s book does what it intends to do—to give an accessible introduction to the prayer book for those getting into it for the first time. History is its main paradigm. Attention to spirituality is present but not prevalent. While this book would be a good MOTR introduction, it cannot serve as a text for teaching prayer book spirituality without significant addition and adaptation.

This is where I shall pause…

I’m also reading Jeffrey Lee’s Opening the Prayer Book and will give it a post of its own once I’ve finished it and collected my thoughts; my initial sense is that this work is more what we’re looking for. I also intend to write-up a bit concerning where the teaching of prayer book history falls in the teaching of prayer book spirituality. In my experience and in the historical orientation of the books surveyed to this point, the teaching of history is often done in place of the teaching of spirituality or—perhaps more unfortunately—the teaching of history is mistaken for the teaching of spirituality.

Xunzi and Ritual: An Initial Suggestion

Xunzi was a Chinese philosopher active at the very end of the Warring States period and lived roughly between 312 and 230 BC. A Confucian, his eponymous Xunzi is the earliest surviving attempt to systematize Confucian thought in the face of rival schools (like the Daoists and the Mohists) and earlier Confucian interpreters (especially Mengzi/Mencius). The classic Confucianism of the Analects is based on living life in a well-ordered society, a revivalistic use of tradition, proper participation in ritual, and education that cultivates the virtues. The word “ritual” here is the Chinese li which is broader than the American usage and includes everything from etiquette to proper decorum to actual religious ceremonies as we think of them. Coming from my Western Classical perspective, Xunzi strikes me as being almost Epicurean in his approach to the presence and usefulness of gods and spirits; he’s rather agnostic about them. What’s significant—especially given this stance—is that he is emphatic about the importance of ritual (li) and its direct connection to the cultivation of virtue. On one hand, rituals and ritual observance are part of the cosmic pattern of things; on the other, rituals were created (and adapted and modified) by the sages to guide and norm human affections and actions into virtuous habits. (Here’s the Wikipedia entry on him; his teaching on ritual is rather downplayed in the article IMO.)

A few years ago, I first ran across chapters from the Xunzi in the Burton Watson translation. Naturally, I was struck by his teaching on the connection between ritual and virtue. I thought about him again when preparing the electronic text of Frere’s Principles of Religious Ceremonial because Xunzi’s teachings on the root source and purpose of ritual/ceremonial was both absent and complementary to what Frere was expounding. I was reminded of him again this past week while reading through a new acquisition, Bryan Van Norden’s Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy. After years of reading around in Confucian and Daoist material, I thought it was time for a good systematic intro to put it into a big picture. The book’s an easy read for such weighty material—well-written, thought provoking, and engaging; I recommend it! 

Seeing Xunzi placed within the larger perspective of the classical Chinese tradition, I’m even more convinced that he would be a very interesting dialogue partner in an Anglican catholic appraisal of ritual and ceremonial. For form’s sake I’ll state clearly here that I have no interest in syncretism and that’s not what I’m suggesting—people who know me will already know that’s not what I mean. Rather, I’m intrigued by what a catholic Christian understanding of liturgy can be informed by when we consider the philosophical and ethical dimensions of Xunzi’s understanding of li.

Still Alive…

I’m back from vacation now and am slowly getting into the swing of things. I haven’t even looked at my feed-reader so no doubt there are interesting things that I’ve missed while away. My birthday rolled around towards the end of vacation and those of you who have been around here for a while know what that inevitably means—new books!

That plus the infusion of material from the Paraclete Press book sale earlier in the summer means that I’ve got a number of things floating around I intend to blog on. Exactly when that will occur cannot be foreseen with any accuracy…