Yearly Archives: 2012

Teaching the Torah

I got an e-mail from a reader regarding Scripture and Christian formation.  The reader reported that his parish was beginning a study of the Torah, and the priest began with a presentation on the Documentary Hypothesis. For those unfamiliar, the documentary hypothesis is a product of 19th and 20th century German and American scholarship that seeks to identify specific strands and layers of sources within the Torah. As one of the key features of this theory involves the names for God, J and E stand for two of them while the other two (P and D) identify theological emphases. I can see why a priest might start this way–it’s typically taught in seminaries at the start of OT study. I have nothing against the documentary hypothesis as a tool for scholarship; I think some scholars take it way too far and I find some of the methodology problematic, but it’s how some folks have made their academic careers.

But how useful is it to the church?

I want to be careful to answer this in the right way – it can be useful when it is set in its proper place and used for its specific purpose. It’s like the miter saw of the Christian formation workshop: there are a few specific tasks that it does well, but most of the time it should sit on the shelf. If you try and do large-scale woodworking with it, you won’t accomplish your task and you’ll screw up your tool!

Alright, smarty-pants – how would you do it?

What needs to happen first, in my opinion, is an orientation to the Old Testament in general and the Torah in particular. The place to start is by setting down some fundamental ground rules. Then as the group reads or studies, we can go back to these guiding principles and apply them as needed.

1. God and history: the first guiding principle must be something like this: as Christians, we believe that God has decisively interacted in history, but that history cannot define God. The basis of our faith is the understanding that the Supreme Being is not just a good idea – rather, we identify the Supreme Being as an active, hands-on presence at work in the world, in the lives of nations, and in the lives of individuals. Furthermore, God’s character is revealed to us through the patterns of action that emerge from God’s decisive interactions with history. However, the historical record itself rarely captures these interactions in an obvious or simple fashion. Thus, corollaries:

1.1.    Historical events must underlie the decisive interactions between God and humanity: for example, creation occurred; Israel was freed from Egypt; the Jerusalem Temple was built and destroyed.

1.2.    History and archaeology are blunt instruments that rarely confirm or deny the spiritual truths that Christians locate within these interactions: for example, the fact of creation does not prove the existence of a creator; historical science can tell us that population movements occurred, but cannot conclusively explain why they occurred; even when the facticity of an event is not in question, history and archaeology cannot hope to answer all of the natural and/or supernatural factors involved.

2. History and literature: the second guiding principle serves to complicate the first. History, and the facticity of God’s decisive interactions, are important to us. But they are usually not available to us. History is a complicated thing. The scholarship of the last 50 years or so has only reinforced that point. We now see history as more subjective, and less objective, always remembering the dictum that history is written by the winners. There are solid historical facts: cities existed, cities fell; kings reigned, kings died. But the fullness of the factors around these events is complex and imperfectly preserved. Any three competing histories of the Vietnam War will demonstrate that even in an era of recording and photography, history, interpretation, and truth are easier said than arrived at. In particular, interpretation is a big piece of any work of analysis and there are no “objective” stories; even an author striving to be as objective as possible will come from a particular perspective and read certain events in certain ways. Move into antiquity, and things get a whole lot more complex. Move into a body of religious literature, and understand that interpretation is central. The Bible, as we have received it, is literature. It is a written record. It is a written compilation of a wide variety of oral and written sources transmitted from different times, places, and purposes. (And this is where the JEPD thing comes in.) The collection as a whole does have a particular purpose. All of the texts within it were edited and selected (remember—there are books from the period not preserved within it; the OT isn’t just “everything ever written in Hebrew in antiquity”) for a reason: to recount the relationship between God and his people and to transmit the identity and consistent character of God through these stories.  In large measure, then, especially in the Torah, and particularly in Genesis, we are not accessing history directly, but reading literature recounting stories set in the past that preserve history or historical remembrances as a secondary purpose. As such, we encounter it first as literature, and second as a record of the events recounted. As a result, our primary tools should not be of a historical nature, but of a literary character. The question on everyone’s minds at this point is whether the Bible is true. My answer is a simple yes – it is. It communicates the relationship between God and humanity as understood by the writers and editors of the canon. A more nuanced question asks whether all of the events recounted in Scripture are historically factual. My response (that some people may see as a cop-out) is that we are asking historical questions of a large collection of documents without first assessing the literary character and purpose of the section we happen to be reading. The first task of a literary expedition is to assess the genre of the text in front of you. In light of the specific question that we’re asking, we have to ask what the purpose and function is of the text we’re reading: is it seeking to document history according to 21st century American standards? The answer must be no. Some texts and passages do come closer than others. For instance, certain sections of the Samuel-Kings complex read as being very factual—some parts of Genesis read as less so. Does it mean that we trust one and not the other? No—it means that we regard their historicity differently, holding one more lightly than the other.  Neither historicity nor facticity equal truth—if that were so, then we would not read Tolkien or Shakespeare or Coleridge and be transported and transformed by them. Nevertheless, this point must be held in tension with the first: we do believe that God has decisively interacted with history and thus we should not be too quick to write off the historicity of what we read. So, to state the corollaries:

2.1.    Historicity does not exhaust truth.

2.2.    The primary purpose of Scripture is to communicate the relationship between God and humanity and to reveal the consistent character of God and humanity.

2.3.    While we do believe that God has decisively interacted with history, historicity is always at most a secondary concern of the literary text that we have received.

3. Literature and interpretation: Not only is the Bible a compilation of documents and sources, it is largely a compilation of theological interpretations either of life itself or specific events including certain historical events. A lot of interpretations are set side-by-side one another. Some of these are complementary, some are supplementary, others are conflicting. That is, the same historical events or life-events are understood in (sometimes drastically) different ways. Cases in point are the two different interpretations of the destruction of the Temple found in Psalms 74 and 79 or the differing approaches to life threaded throughout Proverbs and Job. What does this do to the “truth” status of Scripture? Nothing as far as I’m concerned… Rather, it means that different authors and editors have understood specifics about the relationship between God and humanity differently. They are united in their witness to the relationship, though, despite not reaching the exact same conclusions. Corollaries:

3.1.    The Bible consists of a collection of diverse theological interpretations.

3.2.    Even when biblical interpretations directly conflict, they are united in their witness to the nature and character of God’s relationship with humanity.

4. Purpose: Why do we read the Old Testament, the Torah, or Genesis? Because it gives us the backstory of the relationship into which we have entered. In the Nicene Creed we confess that the Spirit spoke through the prophets, affirming that the relationship described in the Old Testament is in fundamental continuity with the relationship described in the New Testament and the relationship lived out today in the life of the Church. As 2 Timothy reminds us, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” We read so that we can learn the relationship, grasp the character of God, and unite our lives in witness to that character and the reconciling will that proceeds from it. It goes back to the fundamentals: how does this passage reveal God’s desire for the church to be built up in love for service and reconciliation?  Sometimes Old Testament passages may seem to be remote from this question. When we find ourselves wrestling with that kind of passage, we can ask a few basic questions that can help re-orient ourselves to this question:

4.1.    What does this passage show about the consistent character of God?

4.2.    What does this passage show about the consistent character of humanity?

4.3.    What does this passage reveal about the relationship between God and humanity?

4.4.    How does this passage confirm or challenge what we understand to be the consistent character of God or humanity?

4.5.    To what degree does the character of God or humanity revealed here cohere with the consistent character revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and confessed by the church?

4.6.    How do these findings tie into what God desires from a mature Church participating within the reconciliation of God’s creation to himself?

One of the great strengths of the Church’s “pre-critical” typological and allegorical reading strategies is that they focus around the concept of a consistent character and pattern of behavior running through the relationship: God works in particular and consistent ways to maximize human freedom and liberation (despite humanity’s spotty record in cooperating with the divine will!).

Moving from these basic guiding principles, I’d open the Torah with a drive-by overview of the main genres that make up the first few books. Thus, we would identify the first 11 or so chapters of Genesis as cosmological epic. The point here is less historicity (certainly not scientific or anthropological accuracy!) than setting the stage: God is the author and source of creation, humanity works at cross-purposes to the divine will, yet God cares for creation and for humanity, working in particulars—through individuals and families. From chapter 12 on we are working with family epics that narrate the experiences of the great patriarchs and their families from Abraham through Joseph. The historicity factor may be a bit higher, but what is at issue is the relationships between family members with one another and with God and his liberating works. (The Icelandic family epics are very useful analogues for how and why people record family squabbles and internecine disputes.) With Exodus, we see a shift to a bit of heroic epic in the beginning with a focus on Moses, his origins and actions, before a move towards legal materials after the Sinai experience.

So—This is how I would go about introducing and contextualizing the reading of the Torah within a Christian community. What are your thoughts, questions, and caveats?

Digital Manuscripts of Books of Hours

Consider this a digital sticky note so I remember where these things are. More will appear as I find them. Feel free to use it yourself, of course…

British Library

Add MS 50001 (The Hours of Elizabeth [of York] the Queen) [ca. 1440]

Harley MS 273 (Composite manuscript including psalter, Hours of BVM, Office of the Dead) [15th cent.]

Harley MS 3814 b (latter half of Italian prayer book) [?]

Royal MS 2 a xvi (The Psalter of Henry VIII) [ca. 1540]

Royal MS 2 a xviii (The Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours) [ca. 1405]

Royal MS 2 a xxii (The Westminster Psalter–contains Office of the Dead) [1200-1250]

Paris, Bibliotheque nationale

Horae ad usum Aurelianensem [ca. 1475]

Horae ad usum Matisconensem [ca. 1475] (partial Hours of BVM)

Livre d’heures, en latin et en français, à l’usage d’un diocèse de l’est de la France [ca. 1300] (Begins with Hours of the Cross, then goes to Hours of the Holy Spirit)

Horae ad usum Constantinensem [ca. 1450]

Horae ad usum Parisiensem (Heure de Charles d’Angoulême) [ca. 1475]

Horae [livre d’heures] [ca. 1400]

Psautier de Jean de Berry [ca. 1380]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3897) [ca. 1460]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Rome (coll. Bouhier) (Ms 3900) [ca. 1425]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3901) [ca. 1470]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3896) [ca. 1460]

Livre d’heures [Heures de la Passion du Christ, Office du Saint Esprit, Heuresde la Vierge] (Ms 1905) [15th cent.]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3713) [ca. 1410]

Livre d’heures à l’usage de Troyes (Ms 3890) [ca. 1500]

Horae ad usum Parisiensem ou Petites heures de Jean de Berry [ca. 1410]

I don’t have time to put in all the items from the BN—suffice it to say they’ve got a bunch and this is just a few…

 

There seems to be a serious lack of books of hours in the German collections which suggests that I’m not looking for them in the right way…

Medieval Liturgy Web Resource: Dreaming Dreams

The web is a fantastic tool for studying medieval liturgy and it keeps on getting better every day. With the continuing flow of out-of-copyright books via Google Books and the Internet Archive, good early stuff is appearing from the Surtees Society and the Henry Bradshaw Society; furthermore, more and more libraries are digitizing their manuscript collections. I headed over to the British Museum site yesterday (not having been there in a while) and was blown away by some of the material there I hadn’t seen before. So—important material for specialists is become more widely available.

But how useful is that for everybody else? (And when I say “everybody”, I’m obviously referring to the rather minute subset of people to whom this is interesting!) There are quite a lot of barriers to profitably utilizing some of this terrific material that’s appearing. Most medievalists, even western European or England focused people, have a difficult time keeping in their heads the sometimes confusing inter-relations of Offices, Masses, Chapters and so forth. What’s an antiphoner and when do you use it? Well—do you mean an office antiphoner or a mass antiphoner; since Hesbert the same term gets used for two very different books. When was some little bit of text used and how and where would it have been used or experienced within a service? Who would have been able to hear it said or sung and how intelligible would it have been? These are just a few of the difficulties and many interested people don’t even know that these questions exist to be asked and wrestled with.

So what’s the answer…?

If I had an unlimited amount of time, money, and research minions, I have a vision for a project that could address this difficulty. My chief model is, naturally, the St Bede’s Breviary. The breviary performs two simple tasks:

  • First, it pulls together the disparate elements that make up the Daily Office of the Episcopal Church. Using a framework from the static/ordinary elements, it draws from database tables the changeable/proper elements and seamlessly integrates them into an organic whole. Thus you have at your finger-tips the complete office without a need to flip or click back and forth among different resources.
  • Second, it provides an array of options (within certain parameters). Thus, you can vary the language, the kalendar, and the embellishments to the Office.

What if a framework were developed to put this sort of material at the hands of medievalists? The project would need to move in a series of stages. First, it would tackle the Mass, then build to the Office, then to the various supplementary liturgies. Chapter could be fit in either before or after the Office based on time and inclination.

The reason for starting with the Mass is simple—far fewer moving parts. To present a Mass properly you would need to bring together a minimum of  four parts:

  • Sacramentary/Missal: This is the most obvious piece. It will provide our ordinaries (the canon and such), the kalendar, and the collects. Depending on how developed it is down the missal line it may or may not be able to provide minor propers and Scripture readings.
  • Gradual/Mass Antiphoner: This would certainly give the minor propers whether the missal/sacramentary contained them or not.
  • Lectionary: I’m collecting two things here under one roof as epistolaries and evangelaries were typically different physical objects—at least from my early medieval perspective.
  • Ordo: Did you forget about this one? I would argue that, if you’re looking for a big-picture sense of what was going on and how your particular text as being used, you ignore this one at your considerable peril. Indeed, the basic structure of the liturgy and its presentation would not be defined by the missal/sacramentary as you might expect—rather, I’d embed all of the missal texts within the structuring context of an ordo. Now, granted, as missals developed, some ordo-type matters were inserted into the missals themselves.

Once these blocks are in place things like tropers could be added.

That’s the conceptual framework. Text-wise, I would attack this from three different directions and time-periods. First, I’d hit the English Late Anglo-Saxon period by entering Ordo I*,  the Missal of Robert of Jumiege, and the (Oxford) Winchester Troper. Lectionaries are less of an issue—Lenker’s work has demonstrated how firmly established the type 3 and type 3-alt lectionaries were established in late Anglo-Saxon England. Since my copy of her dissertation is currently in a box, I don’t have access to it to pull out a suitably representative lectionary. Second, I’d use a late Sarum printed missal. The obvious benefit here is that the necessary elements are already pulled together; little would need to be tracked down. Third, there is an excellent collection of well-preserved (and well-known) texts at San Gall that offer ordines, missals, graduals, and most anything else you’d want in the 10th-11th century range. Between the three, most of the issues could be raised, if not fully solved, and a base set of major, useful liturgical texts would be established.

The key is establishing an open architecture where user inputs could select specific manuscripts  texts (once a sufficient body were entered). Thus, you could select specific manuscripts (or categories like “Gelasian”) for your ordo, missal, gradual, etc. in order to get the closest possible picture of the liturgical environment that you’re seeking to re-create.

Furthermore, homing in on the “open” word, it would be absolutely ideal if the manuscripts were encoded in a standardized format, allowing others to submit manuscript files that could be integrated with a minimum of effort. Clearly, this would suggest the TEI using whatever their latest structures are for liturgy in conversation with some of the other existing liturgy projects out there.

So—that’s the dream. What’s the reality and scope for something actually do-able? As awesome as TEI is, it’s an XML derivative. It’s totally possible to use XSLT and XPath and other technologies to do exactly what I’m describing in terms of text merging and manipulating. Unfortunately, I don’t know XML. While I do have some basic experience encoding manuscripts with TEI parameters, I wouldn’t know what to do with it from there. Instead, I’d use my old fall-back, the classic PHP/MySQL combo that drives the breviary.

Text-wise, it’s a toss-up and would really depend on the driving needs of the project. I could begin with the Missal of Robert of Jumiege and accompany it with the Loefric Missal. While the Leofric Missal is a mess in terms of being a very composite text, it’s got incipts for the minor propers and lectionary entries; as I know of no modern edition of the Oxford Winchester Troper that I can get my hands/eyes on, the Leofric Missal is the next best thing. Alternatively, the Sarum material is already gathered and—thanks to the work of our Victorian Sarum Revival friends—could be presented in both Latin and English translation. Lastly, text files of Herbert’s Antiphoner are floating around the Internet. While there are no English materials included, San Gall materials are meaning that a big chunk of transcription work would already be done.

That’s how I’d conceive and tackle this kind of a project.

 

* IIRC, the earliest ordines we have from Anglo-Saxon England are those of the Romano-German Pontifical which we normal slot around 1050. That’s a little late, so Ordo I is used as a general guess. Again—more could be entered as time and research went on…

Catechism Resurrection–What’s Needed?

I noted with interest this recent post from Fr. Bryan Owen which refers to another post from Fr. Tony Clavier on lifting up the prayer book catechism. I’m personally a fan of the prayer book catechism and have used it a fair amount in my writing and teaching including this piece on its view of the sacraments.

So—what would be helpful here? What kind of resources would help resurrect the catechism as a useful tool for reference and instruction?

I’m a former Lutheran; I have at least a cubit of space on one of my shelves dedicated to “catechetical helps” that assist in the teaching of Luther’s Small Catechism to bored and distracted middle-schoolers. I haven’t reviewed them all in some time but a standard feature of this genre is Scripture citations. I’d think something that connected Scripture to our catechism would be helpful. Some of the Lutheran materials offer a list of proof-texts—while some might be helpful, I’m thinking that a more clear connection with narratives or certain biblical arguments might work better than a simple listing of verses.

Furthermore, we aren’t and don’t pretend to be a sola scriptura church; we acknowledge the place of Tradition. Does this suggest that links to patristic writings and syntheses of the Scriptural witness would be helpful as well?

I also noticed that when I was writing the piece linked to above, I jumped around a certain amount , then provided my own discursive connection-of-the-dots. To what degree is this helpful—to what degree does it represent my own impositions onto the catechism?

Thoughts? Ramblings? Whatever…?

A Pleasant Sunday Experience

The girls and I normally head down to M’s church on the first Sunday of the month to show our support for her ministry there. This past Sunday, however—being Labor Day weekend and there being no education—she had the day off and we had the opportunity to indulge ourselves as we liked. As a result, we headed into the city and went up to the parish of a good friend and mentor who presides over the finest example of an English Rite parish I’ve ever experienced. We knew that he might be away as he travels in the summer and, upon walking in the door and seeing a bulletin for Mattins, surmised that he was not, in fact, present.

What followed, however, was a testament to his parish and his devotion. A full altar party entered, complete with two blue-scarfed readers who were the senior and junior wardens. One led the service with the able assistance of a cantor, the other presented the message. The psalm was read responsively; the canticles were sung in Anglican chant by the congregation; the Creed was intoned; the Suffrages were sung. The message was a good, solid exposition of the Gospel text verbally tying the text back to and reinforcing Christ’s Summary of the Law. Its clarity and orthodoxy were evident, and surpassed several clergy sermons I’ve heard recently on both counts.  In short, the service was everything that I had expected from the rector and congregation—traditional, reverent worship in the Classical Anglican tradition—only without the rector.

At the notices, the junior warden thanked the congregation for bearing with them over the summer even though Mattins was not the favorite service of all. It had, however, enabled them to conduct services on their own without the need for supply clergy. He noted that he was proud of the parish; having three licensed lay preachers they could rotate the efforts without it being overly burdensome. I found myself nodding in agreement when he reminded them that not many other parishes could pull off something like that.

To manifest this kind of devotion requires a parish culture that is committed to doing church in a particular kind of way. It didn’t just require a few people having the knowledge of how to put together a well-done Sunday Mattins, it also required the collective will to accomplish it. I would imagine that it’s easier to turn it over to supply clergy.

It’s also more expensive.

I do believe that the day of full-time clergy in the vast majority of our parishes is coming to a close. In some locations (especially those not near urban centers), it’s a matter of finding priests; in most others, it’s a matter of shrinking budgets. We lay people will need to step up. But will we be ready when the time comes? Are our clergy mentors giving us the tools to do so when we need to?

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.