A Thinking Reed

Month: November 2006

  • Evangelism in the mainline and the loss of transcendence

    Chris at Even the Devils Believe has a good post on birth rates and evangelism in mainline Protestantism, jumping off from the recent comments from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori about how Episcopalians aren’t incresing their numbers due to the low birth rates among “better-educated” people who care about preserving the earth.

    Leaving aside the condescending tone of those remarks toward our Catholic and Mormon friends, Chris correctly points out the whistling-past-the-graveyard nature of this attitude. He also notes that Christianity is not exclusively, or even primarily, a religion that propagates itself by inheritance, but by evangelism, which is where mainline Protestantism has been falling down on the job. And it needn’t be a matter of “liberalism,” narrowly defined as churches who have centrist-to-liberal stances on the usual litany of issues.

    While I try to resist sweeping generalization about “postmodernism” or what “postmodern” people are supposedly like, I think that one thing that can be said is that postmodern people, outside of a relatively small band of committed secularists, are open to an experience of the transcendent. The closed clockwork universe of high modernism probably never had much of a hold on most people’s minds, but it’s also lost much of whatever intellectual justification it once had. I’ve argued before that “supernaturalism” is not what keeps people away from religion. When theologians decry rampant “secularism” I sometimes think that’s because they are taking their academic colleagues as representative of the population as a whole.

    But, however important it may be to engage secularist or hard-core “naturalist” thought, that’s simply not where most people are coming from (the same might be said of “postmodern” thought, which is still largely confined to the academy, but that’s a topic for another day). So, if there is a “liberalism” (or maybe “modernism” is a better word) that’s at fault here, I think it might be the variety which downplays the transcendent, or “vertical,” aspect of faith in an attempt to appeal to “modern” people.

  • PETA priorities

    I’m at least somewhat sympathetic to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; if nothing else, they raise issues that many, many people would just as soon never think about. But this case strikes me as a misallocation of what one can only assume are limited resources.

    Apparently they were chastising a pastor in Alaska because his church’s website advertised a “live Nativity scene.” The PETA-ites took this to mean that live animals were being used, but it turns out they were people dressed as animals.

    But, even supposing live animals were being used, wouldn’t this be a comparatively minor concern? Why expend precious time and resources on something so trivial? (Not to mention the negative publicity.)

    Far and away the greatest amount of animal suffering, quantitatively speaking, has to be that of animals raised for food. In fact, I read somewhere recently that something like 99% of the animals that human beings come in contact with are those raised for food. So, wouldn’t it make sense for PETA to expend nearly all its resources on that?

    Maybe if there’s a little left over they could concern themselves with other forms of what they consider to be animal cruelty (fur, hunting, animal testing, etc.), but I would think live Nativity scenes would be somewhere way down toward the bottom of any reasonable list of priorities.

  • A simple order of prayer to carry with you

    Recently I’ve been using David Adam’s The Rhythm of Life: Celtic Daily Prayer for, er, daily prayer. It’s a nice little easy-to-use office with certain “celtic” themes. But, unlike some attempts at celtic Christian spirituality it’s thoroughly grounded in Scripture and orthodox theology.

    There are four offices for each day of the week and each day has a particular theme, such as “Resurrection” for Sunday, “Crucifixion,” for Friday, etc. This has the added benefit of enabling you to use a particular day’s office(s) for the appropriate church seasons (e.g. the Sunday offices for Easter). In addition to the usual Psalms, readings, etc. there are celtic-inflected litanies and prayers composed by Adam, who is the vicar of St. Mary Anglican Church on the island of Lindisfarne off the coast of England, a location long associated with celtic Christianity.

    There is also an appendix with common Christian prayers, but what I discovered almost by accident is that the appendix by itself makes for a brief but rich order of prayer. Here are its contents in order:

    Gloria Patri

    Kyrie

    Prayer of Confession [e.g. from the Book of Common Prayer morning office]

    Gloria in Excelsis

    Apostle’s Creed

    Lord’s Prayer [my addition]

    Final blessing [e.g. “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us always.”]

    One of the benefits of this is that these are all prayers that many Christians will already have memorized, or are easily memorizable, and yet they cover all the bases, so to speak. It could therefore be prayed anywhere and anytime. You could also insert personal intercessions or other extemporaneous prayers at various points (between the creed and Lord’s Prayer, say).

  • Let us now praise Starbucks, Borders, Target…

    Speaking of the blessings of a consumer society, Virginia Postrel, who is basically the anti-Crunchy Con, has an article in defense of chain stores (link will decay).

    As someone who grew up in a small town, I have come to appreciate chain stores. The much ballyhooed “mom and pop” stores in my home town were frequently understocked and overpriced. There was no decent place to buy (just to mention a few things) books, comic books, music, and other staples of adolescent life. The closest “good” bookstore was a Waldenbooks twenty miles away. It’s easy for people who have lived their whole lives in a city dense with hip independent bookstores to sneer at Borders or Barnes & Nobel, but the first time I walked into one I thought I was in heaven.

    The access that suburban and small-town Americans now have to a good selection of books, decent coffee, music of every conceivable genre, and so on thanks to chain stores (not to mention online retailing) has to be unprecedented. Not that there aren’t costs too, but let’s not pretend there aren’t perks.

  • The Jeffersonian impulse

    Jeff Taylor, author of the interesting-sounding new book on the Democratic Party Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy, has an essay adapted from the book on Imperialism and Isolationism: Contrasting Approaches to Foreign Policy.

    Taylor tries to dispel some myths about isolationism:

    To some, isolationism may imply ostrich-like, willful ignorance of the rest of the world, but this was never the case with its most famous practitioners. The isolation is not one of intellect, trade, or travel, but one of entangling alliances, military conflict, and imperial domination. For isolationists, national self-determination for colonies and national sovereignty for America are closely-related principles emanating from a common source: a commitment to democracy, freedom, and decentralization. Isolationism is the foreign policy of traditional liberals.

    We also get this great quote from Jefferson: “I know but one code of morality for men, whether acting singly or collectively. He who says I will be a rogue when I act in company with a hundred others, but an honest man when I act alone, will be believed in the former assertion but not in the latter.”

    The Jeffersonian-Hamilton divide that Taylor identifies is a perennial one in American politics that extends to both foreign and domestic questions and doesn’t track the left-right divide. In other words, it’s possible to be a right- or left-wing Jeffersonian or a right- or left-wing Hamiltonian. While Jeffersonian ideals of freedom and decentralization might seem to lead in a (right-wing) libertarian direction, they can also manifest themselves in a distrust of big business and moneyed interests, a suspicion of technological progress, and a devotion to the ideals of agrarianism and communitarianism (Wendell Berry could probably be described as a left-wing Jeffersonian, as could someone like Kirkpatrick Sale).

    Likewise, “national greatness” liberals and neoconservatives are both species of Hamiltonian (John McCain, subject of the previous post, would be an arch-Hamiltonian). They emphasize a untiy of national purpose which is to be concentrated and expressed through the federal government and have largely made peace with the “bigness” of modern society (big business, big government, etc.). They also want the US to take a very activist role in foreign affairs, whether to promote American commercial interests (which isn’t the same thing as laissez-faire) and/or to promote loftier ideals like democracy and human rights.

    Personally, I have strong sympathies with the Jeffersonian vision, but not without a sneaking suspicion that it would be impossible, and maybe undesirable, to put it into practice. A nation of small craftsmen and yeoman farmers has a certain romantic appeal, but I think this can easily be over-romanticized and the benefits of a society of “mass affluence” overlooked. As I mentioned in my review of Bill Kauffman’s Jeffersonian manifesto, the tight-knit small community is not necessarily or in any straightforward way a “solution” to the alleged problem of urban (or suburban) anomie. Rural, small-town, suburban and urban life all have their unique blessings and problems. And decentralization is not a magic bullet solution to political problems, however desirable it might be in some ways. For one thing, the nation-state is currently the only existing political unit capable of addressing some of the inequities generated by a global economy.

    Nevertheless, in our current situation it sure looks like we could use a little more of the Jeffersonian impulse if that means a certain level of government restraint, especially in foreign affairs. Not to mention that a renewal of federalism might help defuse some of our more hotly contested social issues. Like pacifism and other “radical” views, Jeffersonianism isn’t in any danger of sweeping the nation, but may provide a useful counterpoint to the existing consensus within the political class.

  • The problem with John McCain

    John McCain seems like an admirable person in many ways, but he’s never been someone I’d particularly want to see in the Oval Office. Here’s a good op-ed on why. For some reason, McCain’s actual views frequently get obscured in all the media fawning over his straight-talkin’ maverick persona. There is also the any-stick-to-beat-Bush-with phenomenon: whenever McCain departs from the White House he’s almost invariably referred to as a “moderate,” which in media-speak is invariably a term of praise. But on GWOT and general national security issues McCain is, if anything, to the “right” of Bush.

  • Moral diversity in the church

    I recently picked up a collection of essays from the library called Gays and the Future of Anglicanism, edited by Andrew Linzey and Richard Kirker. The essays cover a broad range of topics responding to the Church of England’s Windsor Report, which censured the American Episcopal Church and a diocese within the Canadian Anglican church for proceeding with the consecration of an openly gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions respectively.

    Among the essays that I found most helpful were those addressing the question of what constitutes legitimate diversity in the church on moral issues, in particular, essays by Keith Ward, Rowan Greer, and Linzey himself.

    Ward argues that Anglicanism, unlike, say, Roman Catholicism, doesn’t have a mechanism for pronouncing definitively on contested moral questions. He then takes the Fourth Commandment (Sabbath observance) as an example of where the church has allowed widely divergent interpretations to exist side-by-side. What constitutes adherence to the Fourth Commandment is determined by context as well as reading the intention of “spirit” of the law. Hardly anyone would insist that Christians not “work, leave home, gather wood, or light a fire” on the Sabbath. Alternatively, one could follow Calvin and (arguably) St. Paul and say that for Christians there is no specially mandated day for observing it, since the law has been abrogated for them. However, Ward says, what you often end up with in practice is a kind of hodge-podge or halfway observance, where Christians are discouraged from working but not required to fulfill the other parts of the commandment. At the end of the day, he says, how we observe the Sabbath should be determined by the intent of the commandment, namely, to honor and remember God in all we do.

    Analogously, Ward contends that the apparent biblical prohibitions on sexual relations between members of the same sex likewise have to be judged both in their original context and in light of the fact that Christ is “the end of the law.” Appealing to the OT prohibitions, for instance, is undermined by the fact that Christians (and Jews) routinely mitigate or outright ignore parts of the law. Likewise, he argues, for some of St. Paul’s statements. To take them as legalistic commands is to misunderstand the teaching of the gospel. “If Paul teaches that the whole law has been set aside by Christ, then appeal to the law to back up a moral view has been rendered impossible. To appeal to the moral beliefs of Paul, who taught that we should not be bound by any written words, would hardly make sense” (p. 25).

    But lest this lead to relativism, Ward says that we have been given a way of testing our actions: “That criterion is love of neighbor, concern for their wellbeing. Such neighbor-love is to be modelled on the example of Jesus, which asks for self-giving, humble, unreserved and unlimited concern for the good of others” (p. 25). Ward concludes, then, that “when safeguarded by a stress on the need for loyalty and total commitment in relationships, and by an insistence that sexual practice should express and be subordinated to mutual personal love, a sexual relation between two people of the same sex who are by nature attracted to one another is acceptable and natural” (p. 26).

    Nevertheless, Ward allows that Christians can in good faith disagree about this. Interpreting and applying the Bible is a complex matter over which sincere and well-informed Christans can and will disagree. He proposes that a diverstiy of viewpoints existing in one church has been, and should continue to be, a hallmark of Anglicanism. He suggests that one way of embodying that diversity is the existence of inclusive churches “whose vision of human relationships as related in Christ includes those living in same-sex partnerships” (p. 29), and that there is no reason that pastors or bishops likewise situated shouldn’t minister to such churches.

    Rowan Greer looks at the diversity of viewpoints in light of traditional Anglican views on the authority of the Bible and church polity. He begins his essay by noting two opinions he holds with confidence:

    First, what could be called the traditional view [of sexuality] no longer compels widespread assent, not only with respect to homosexuality, but also in reference to issues such as the remarriage of divorced persons, heterosexual cohabitation outside marriage, and childless marriages of those capable of bearing children. It does not seem to me reasonable to treat the gay issue in isolation of other aspects of human sexuality. Second, granted that moral norms should not be severed from doctrinal considerations, I find it difficult to think of them as quite the same, and remain unconvinced that a particular view of human sexuality must be held necessary to salvation. (p. 101)

    Greer goes on to consider how the appeal to “scriptural authority” can be misleading because Anglicanism at least has never had a settled view of how scriptural authority functions. He canvasses the views of early Anglican divines like Richard Hooker, Joseph Hall, and William Chillingworth and notes that “even in early Anglicanism it is impossible any one clear understanding of biblical authority” (p. 105). Similarly with the other two legs of what he calls “that shibboleth of contemporary Anglicanism, ‘scripture, tradition, and reason” (p. 105).

    He then discusses what he considers to be a fairly persuasive view of biblical authority – that of an inspired witness or response to revelation – which he associates with figures like S.T. Coleridge, F.D. Maurice, Charles Gore, and William Temple. The upshot is that “the repudiation of infallibility is characteristic of Anglicanism and that this carries with it the conclusion that all human authority is fallible” (p. 109). Consequently, Greer argues that proposals to create a more centralized Anglican communion with quasi-legal mechanisms for enforcing unanimity on controversial issues is a mistake and constitutes taking the easy way out.

    Andrew Linzey’s essay “In Defense of Diversity” makes the point that it’s inconsistent to demand uniformity on one moral issue like homosexuality, while allowing for wide diversity on issues of at least as great, if not greater, moral import:

    Like many church reports, [the Windsor Report] likes to think that there is greater uniformity than acutally exists. It scolds ECUSA and the Diocese of New Westminster for failing to observe the “standard” of Anglican teaching, but omits to mention that it is, like all such “teaching,” based on Lambeth resolutions, wholly advisory at best. Nowhere is this clearer than on the issue of war and violence. Successive Lambeth Conferences of 1930, 1948, 1968, and 1978 declared that “war as a method of settling international disputes is incompatible with the teaching and example of Our Lord Jesus.” But this hasn’t stopped individual churches authorizing priests to serve in the armed forces as chaplains, even though they are required to wear military uniform and are subject to service discipline. And neither has it stopped individual Christians and ordained ministers making up their own minds about the rights and wrongs of particular wars, and participating in the ones they believe to be just. (pp. 176-7)

    Linzey’s point is not that any moral position is as good as any other, but rather that sincere Christians can legitimately reach different conclusions on particular issues in good faith. “We must give up as infantile the notion that all Christians have to morally agree on every issue. … Unity and communion would have been better served by a frank and honest recognition that disagreement is not in itself a sign of infidelity to Christ, or the demands of truth, or the fellowship that Anglicans can, at best, have within the church” (p. 178).

    Indeed, Linzey says, though some may dream of a “pure” church where everyone agrees on all moral issues of importance, such a church would in fact be a sect. And, whatever the value of sects, that isn’t historically what Anglican churches have tried to be. The “Elizabethan settlement” that gave rise to Anglicanism as we know it was in part a reaction against the sectarianism of the Puritans, who sought just such a “pure” church.

    I’m not sure how persuasive these arguments would be to someone who wasn’t already at least sympathetic to the “liberal” view on same-sex relationships in the church (though I think a case could be made that it’s also a deeply “conservative” view, but that’s a topic for another post…). However, it seems to me that a diversity of opinion on important issues isn’t going away and I’m convinced that it’s a mistake to make one’s position on this particular issue the litmus test for “genuine” Christianity.

    For better or worse, there is no unified Christian view on many of the perplexing issues of the day. One unfortunate tendency of Protestantism has been to splinter in the face of disagreement, whereas Catholicism has tended to try and enforce unity from the top down. But, as Keith Ward puts it, “If there is to be any hope of Christian unity in the world, Christians will have to learn to embrace diversity of interpretations, doctrines and ways of life, while always seeking to relate those diverse patterns to the disclosure of the divine nature in the biblical records of the person of Jesus, and in the creative power of the Holy Spirit” (p. 29).

    There are other essays in this volume worth discussing, which I may get to in future posts, but as a whole I think it’s a worthwhile read for Christians, not just Anglicans or pseudo-Anglicans like me, concerned with the splintering of our churches.

  • Hagel on exiting Iraq

    I said before that one of my hopes from the election was that some of the few GOP senators who haven’t entirely drunk the administration kool-aid might start to put pressure on the White House for a change of course in Iraq. Here’s Chuck Hagel in the Washington Post arguing for just that. What he’ll do in his capacity as US Senator to actually bring about a changed state of affairs remains to be seen.

  • C.S. Lewis, scholar and spiritual writer

    Unbeknownst to me until this morning, today the Episcopal Church calendar commemorates C.S. Lewis. As is traditional, we remember “saints” on the day of their death, or their birth into eternal life. (As it happens, Lewis died on November 22, 1963, the very same day as JFK and Aldous Huxley.)

    Here’s the collect (via fellow Boston-area blogger Until Translucent):

    O God of searing truth and surpassing beauty, we give you thanks for Clive Staples Lewis whose sanctified imagination lights fires of faith in young and old alike; Surprise us also with your joy and draw us into that new and abundant life which is ours in Christ Jesus, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

    Here’s Lewis himself from his marvelous sermon “The Weight of Glory” [PDF]:

    Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

  • Death, where is thy sting?

    Thomas at Without Authority writes on death and whether we should consider it natural and/or evil in itself. I think he’s on the right track there (and I’m not just saying that because he had nice things to say about a few of my posts).

    I’m intrigued by his last paragraph where he says:

    So, in my estimation, the evolutionary biologists are right when they say that death is a necessary part of nature. But are they also correct in concluding that the world is not good, as the book of Genesis would have us believe? I think the answer depends on how one interprets the biblical statements concering the goodness of creation. Are these meant to imply that the world is intrinsically good, that is, good in-and-of-itself? Or do they mean that creation is only good when it’s in communion with its Creator? I think the latter answer is correct, which means that only a redeemed creation is truly “good”. We should never draw too sharp a distinction between God’s roles as Creator and Redeemer, as if He first made a supposedly good creation and then had to save it when all hell broke loose. Creation always involves redemption, and redemption always involves a new creation. Thus, it’s not surprising that a purely atheistic worldview like neo-Darwinism is incapable of seeing the inherent goodness of creation, since it cuts itself off from the salvation that redeems and restores this fractured world.

    I take this to mean that creation is always in “process” toward the final consummation. This seems at odds with the traditional notion that creation “at the beginning” was finished and perfect as it was, and only later fell into sin and disharmony. Maybe this is more consonant with the somewhat popular “Irenaean” (after Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons and scourge of gnostics) account of the fall that sees creation and humanity as progressing from a state of relative immaturity to one of perfect communion with God. On this view, the fall was more like a detour from this intended path than a cataclysmic rupture from a state of perfect bliss.