Rite I please...

I'm using Rite I and the Decalogue in Lent. If you are an Episcopalian, you know exactly what this means...Victorian language, heavy emphasis on human sinfulness and need for repentance. If you are not an Episcopalian, you probably don't care and can stop reading here!

My choice for using Rite I and the Decalogue during Lent has nothing to do with whether I prefer one to another, or whether I believe one to be more or less holy than another. My choice for using them is far more pragmatic and has a lot to do relationships.

Now I can already hear some of you say, “what does Rite I or Rite II have to do relationships?” Since I started supplying for a church in January, they have one combined Sunday service rather than two, and the format has been mainly that of the former 10:30am service. Some of the 8 o’clock folks have felt a tad disengaged with this. As a result, some have chosen to stay home rather than attend Mass. As a way to reach out to them, I chose to use a simpler service during Lent…a few less hymns, traditional language and more moments of reflection in the service.

Over the years, I can easily say that the two of the most important lessons I have learned are these; (1) Knowing that I can’t always have it my way; (2) Knowing that successfully working with others often requires compromise. These are lessons that come when you commit to being in relationship with others, and these lessons can only be appreciated when those relationships are allowed to mature.

They are good lessons, and fantastic ones to practice during a time like Lent when we are encourage to allow God to take us out of our comfort zones and into a deeper fellowship with Him through self-examination, prayer and fasting.

So I hope people appreciate a little change in the Sunday morning worship. Because even though change can be scary, it can often bring us into a closer relationship with God, our neighbors and ourselves.

Culture, culture, culture....

Here are some interesting ideas from Peggy Nonnan's recent column in The Wall Street Journal...

America is good at making practical compromises, and one of the compromises we've made in the area of arts and entertainment is captured in the words, "We don't care what you do in New York." That was said to me years ago by a social conservative who was explaining that he and his friends don't wish to impose their cultural sensibilities on a city that is uninterested in them, and that the city, in turn, shouldn't impose its cultural sensibilities on them. He was speaking metaphorically; "New York" meant "wherever the cultural left happily lives."

....This was behind the resentment at the Adam Lambert incident on ABC in November. The compromise was breached. It was a broadcast network, it was prime time, it was the American Music Awards featuring singers your 11-year-old wants to see, and your 8-year-old. And Mr. Lambert came on and—again, in front of your children, in the living room, in the middle of your peaceful evening—uncorked an act in which he, in the words of various news reports the next day, performed "faux oral sex" featuring "S&M play," "bondage gear," "same-sex makeouts" and "walking a man and woman around the stage on a leash."

....I don't mean to make too much of it. In the great scheme of things a creepy musical act doesn't matter much. But increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it....

Read the entire article here...

A favorite of the Season

Just enjoy it. Take a moment, close your eyes and imagine the press of life to disappear.

Must Read Alert...

Here is a recent column in the Anglican Journal, the national newspaper for the Anglican Church in Canada.

Read this...its worth the time. Here is a just a piece...

If the makers of Coca-Cola can sell a billion cans of sugar water every 48 hours, surely the Anglican Church of Canada can add value to people’s lives, insists Nicolosi. After all, he says, index finger stabbing the air above his head, “We’ve got Jesus!”

Read it here.

A good read of the holidays...

Here's a review of a new book about church music...just in time for the Christmas.

When Samuel Sebastian Wesley was appointed organist of Hereford cathedral in 1832, he found that the eight adult members of the choir were all clergymen aged between 49 and 78. Five were in poor health, two were deemed to be sub-standard and the 78‑year-old was exempt from attending services.

This was the crisis in which cathedral music found itself, at a time of clamour to take away revenues from the Established Church. That music survived at all in the Church of England at the Reformation had been touch and go.

Cathedrals had precentors, responsible for choral services. But at St Paul's in the 1830s, the Precentor (a canon, on a fat £2,000 a year) appeared so infrequently that when he did once turn up for a service, the dean's verger did not recognise him, and refused him entry to his stall. The wit Sydney Smith, a fellow canon, referred to this precentor as the "Absenter".

How this sorry state of affairs was transformed by the end of the 19th century, when cathedrals enjoyed a weekly round of well-attended choral services, is a theme of "In Tuneful Accord," (Canterbury Press, £19.99), a study of church musicians of the past two centuries by Trevor Beeson.

You can read the entire review here...

When were you saved?

When were you saved? This is a question that is often asked of Episcopalians who live and work in my part of the country. I have often tried to help my parishioners with an answer to the question...This YouTube video is spot on, and presents in a video format what I have repeated time and again. I hope it helps...

Vatican holds poor folks hostage

I can't believe this...The Roman Church has lost its mind...

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Read the entire story here.

Read the Episcopal Cafe reaction here.

I'm tired of their self righteous nastiness towards The Episcopal Church. They are the ones that have gone to far....using charity as a club...shameful!

One of the many reasons why I am part of the Ecclesia Anglicana

This is also one of the reasons why I think the psalms should always be sung in divine worship...

Thanks to The Topmost Apple for this post.

Brother Christopher makes a good point...

We have been too nice.

Imagine that the Archbishop of Canterbury or our Presiding Bishop offered an ordinariate for Roman Catholics who wanted to practice the Tridentine or Novus Ordo but be Anglican. Rome would be infuriated, accuse us of sheep stealing and the rest. Expect us to back down to maintain good relations and the rest. This has too often been too much a one-way conversation. There are reasons why the Orthodox are wary of Rome in these matters. We shall see how much Anglican, these Anglicans will be allowed to continue being. The Roman model of ecumenical has been absorb and conform. It has too often been the model of the Ecumenical Movement. Bland down our distinctives until we're all the same. That model is now coming, happily, to an end. A new generation of ecumenical existence should not be afraid to tell the Pope "no," to be just as willing to pick up our sticks and leave the playground as the Roman Church at the official level has been since JPII and now Benedict XVI. Don't get me wrong, I love my Roman Catholic friends, but I won't pretend their tradition is somehow less troubled than my own.

Read the whole article here.

Creating an Anglican Uniat body in the Roman Church

The following is the response from the Rev'd. Canon Gordon Reid, Rector of St. Clements, Philadelphia, on the recent announcement by the Vatican concerning it's relation with the Anglican Communion.

[Tuesday's] announcement of the new arrangements for receiving disaffected Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church have been hailed in some quarters as though the Archangel Gabriel had blown his trumpet and ushered in the Kingdom of God.

But the euphoria will soon bite the dust. It is presumably Anglo-Catholics who are expected to go over to Rome, and yet I have grave doubts if the encouragement of an Anglican Rite within the RC Church will attract many. The Society of the Holy Cross and forward in Faith in the UK, for example, consist mostly of priests whose views on the Anglican Liturgy vary from “Quite a nice little Tudor Communion Service” to “nasty Protestant invention”. Most of these priests use the modern Roman Catholic Mass in their parishes, and would be horrified if told they had to use the Prayer Book (of any vintage). And even among convinced Anglo-Catholics there are still many who love the Church of England and its claim to be the Catholic Church of the country. The old jibe that the RC’s in England were “the Italian mission to the Irish” covers the fact that however close in doctrine Anglo-Catholics are to Roman Catholics, there is often a great gulf between them in that undefinable thing called culture or ambiance or just basic ways of living the church’s life.

In the USA, on the other hand, the problems are quite different. Many Anglo-Catholics have already left the Episcopal Church for a variety of reasons, usually very conservative ones, such as a gut-dislike of the modern Mass or women priests or gay Bishops and priests.

Those who left mainly over the Prayer Book tend to be the least Catholic-minded of this group. Many are positively Low Church (not to be confused with Evangelicals) and still regard Rome with distaste. So although they would be happy to have an Anglican-Rite, they see no reason to have it authorised by Rome.

The ones who have left on what might be called “moral” grounds might feel more at home in the Roman Catholic Church. But they are led by Bishops who have committed Holy Matrimony and who will therefore not be allowed to be bishops in the new Anglican Rite (as the latest document states clearly). And, worse than that, some of these bishops have been divorced and remarried, as have many of the priests. And I am sure that almost all of them do not consider contraception a mortal sin, as they would be required to do after conversion. So I give it only a few days before we hear such ex-Episcopalian leaders explaining why the Roman Catholic Anglican Rite might not be Right for them!

And as for those who have left because of gay Anglican priests and bishops, they are going to have a nasty awakening when it dawns on them why celibacy for many Roman Catholic priests and bishops is no problem at all!

Our special calling?

I knew the church was called to something special but never thought it involved ninjas...This one's for you P.J. Harris!

Small town life

I have to admit small town life has been a little wearisome lately and made me yearn for the big city (which rarely happens).

Recently there has been lots of political infighting leading up to a hotly contested Mayoral race, Kiwanis Club playground controversy, local Hospital shutting down the Pediatric unit and the Mayor saying some pretty nasty things about a local blogger who seems to hate Portsmouth and never believes anything good can come from it (the latter even made national headlines in the Huffington Post). By the way...follow the above links at your own risk!

But tonight, I happened across a fantastic story about the small remnant of our once prominent Jewish community here in Portsmouth. The story is about the gift of a Torah scroll...a very special scroll...and its eventual restoration.

“Teaching and learning is extremely important in Judaism,” explained Auster, “and that requires study of the texts and the Torah.”

Or HaTzafon’s Torah was donated in 1991 by Congregation B’nai Abraham of Portsmouth, Ohio, and it comprises the Five Books of Moses — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Torahs are made traditionally, from the skins of kosher animals — calf, sheep, goats or deer. Sofer Yerman said Or HaTzafon’s Torah is of Russian origin and estimates it is about 100 years old.

Read the whole story here...you will not regret it. And thank you Congregation B'nai Abraham for reminding me how God's ways are not always our ways.

It is a good reminder...There is good and bad in everything, whether you are in a big city or a small town. The trick is remembering that it is in giving that we receive, in loving others that we have our own needs met, and that in service to others where true leadership is found.

And that is where the Mayor and the professor both missed the mark.

Anglo-Catholics????

If you know me, you know I self-identify with the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church. But what does that mean? Here is a great essay by Derek Olson. And thanks to the folks at Episcopal Cafe for it's original post...

Thinking and arguing about Anglican identity is new territory for some. Not me. Every since I’ve become an Anglican almost a decade ago, the question of identity has been intertwined with my Anglicanism. And with good reason—I identify with the most fractious and tribal of the great Anglican traditions, Anglo-Catholicism.

Since the beginning of the Twentieth century, Anglicanism has been described as a threefold cord consisting of three distinct parties, the Evangelicals, the Broad-Church, and the Anglo-Catholics. As if negotiating these positions weren’t difficult enough, Anglo-Catholicism has been in a tough spot since the ‘60s. The theological and liturgical changes of Vatican II combined with the movement for women’s ordination were a one-two punch that rocked the movement. The emergence of women’s ordination brought the matter to a head in the early 70’s in the Episcopal Church, calving the movement into several major branches, some remaining within the Episcopal Church, others leaving for the Anglican Continuum consisting of other Anglican entities not in The Episcopal Church.

At the root of the problem is identity: what does it mean to be a catholic Anglican? For some outside the movement or on its fringes the answer seems simple, it’s about liturgical ceremonial. If you wear a chasuble, know what a cope is, swing around incense, and chant, you must be Anglo-Catholic.

Trust me, it’s not that simple.

As any Anglo-Catholic in good standing will tell you, it’s not about the externals. Or, rather, the externals are driven by the internals. As I’ve said before, we don’t do a solemn high mass or use incense because we like it (though we do, of course…) but because of what it communicates about who and what God is and who we are in light of that reality. It’s about theology. And our theological commitments come with liturgical implications. Defining that theology is what drives us crazy.

One simplistic definition is that catholic Anglicans hold the doctrine of the Undivided Church (those things that the Orthodox East and the Catholic West agree about) but hold different discipline. That is, our faith is the same but our principles of church order are different. But defining what is doctrine and what is discipline, and deciding who gets to be the final arbiter is what’s been giving us fits since the ‘60s.

I’ve said in jest that the true definition of an Anglo-Catholic is a person who knows three other people who think they’re catholic Anglicans but who aren’t because they’re either not “catholic” or not “Anglican” enough.

The most obvious and polarizing argument is over women’s ordination—is it doctrine or discipline? The major divisions in the party have been over this issue, but a host of others complicate even agreements on that point. Which way to lean in matters of faith and morals: towards the Orthodoxen or towards Rome? What liturgy to use: the ’28 BCP, the ’79 BCP, or the (Anglican or American or English) Missal? What ceremonial to use: pre- or post-Vatican II? And so I say, matters of Anglican identity have never been far from my mind lo these years.As I survey the current squabbling and bickering amongst the worldwide Anglican Communion and especially here in the Episcopal Church, I find myself in familiar territory. Out of that familiarity, I return to one of the positions that I’ve found the most helpful. It’s not strictly about doctrine or about discipline but about practice. The most succinct expression that I’ve found comes not from a committee or report, but a book on spirituality written by the English Anglo-Catholic Martin Thornton. In writing about the monastic father St. Benedict and his impact upon English spirituality he says...

The greatest Benedictine achievement (from this point of view) is the final consolidation of the threefold Rule of prayer which is absolutely fundamental to all Catholic spirituality: the common Office (opus dei) supporting private prayer (orationes peculiares) both of which are allied to, and consummated by, the Mass. . . . Here is the basic Rule of the Church which, varying in detail, is common to East and West, monastic and secular, to all the individual schools without exception, and which forms the over-all structure of the Book of Common Prayer. Amongst all the tests of Catholicity or orthodoxy, it is curious that this infallible and living test is so seldom applied. We write and argue endlessly about the apostolic tradition, about episcopacy, sacramentalism, creeds, doctrine, the Bible—all very important things—yet we fail to see that no group of Christians is true to orthodoxy if it fails to live by this Rule of trinity-in-unity: Mass-Office-devotion. (Martin Thornton, English Spirituality, 76)

It’s a position that certainly doesn’t answer all problems or arguments—and Thornton admits as much—but in this statement, I find the heart of the matter expressed more simply and clearly than in any bishops’ statement.

At the end of the day the question isn’t whether we are “authentic” Anglo-Catholics or Anglicans. The question is whether we are authentic Christians seeking to pattern our lives according to an Anglican shape that proceeds from catholic and orthodox roots. Yes, we do need to argue whether women are valid sacramental matter for the priesthood (and I argue they are); yes, we need to argue whether queer folk in relationships are appropriate leaders for our church communities (and I argue that it’s about the relationships not the folk and applies equally to us straight people…); yes, we need to argue about how to interpret and apply the Scriptures (and I argue without a formal or de facto magisterium). More fundamental than these, however, we need to agree and be united in a common Anglican way of life.

It used to be said—and I’ve heard it many times both before and after my move to the Episcopal Church—that rather than confessional documents we have the Book of Common Prayer. Despite the history and legacy of colonialism and its aftermath, the one thing that all Anglicans hold is a Book of Common Prayer—none identical across the provinces, but all rooted in common precedents, all embodying the fundamental principles of Eucharist, the Daily Office, and personal prayer.

Can we live up to, is there any point in, a new Anglican Covenant if we don’t bother to live up to or have regard for the more basic Anglican covenant that sits in our pews? On the other hand, it’s terrific to call ourselves Anglicans or Episcopalians, but do our daily and weekly habits reflect that reality—or display some other truth?

Yes, let’s navel-gaze. But more important, let’s pray. And let’s live our praying. Don’t just argue about being an Anglican; act like one.

Bishop reflects on life...

The following is from a recent Church Times article about the Rt. Rev'd. Dr. Kenneth Stevenson. He will retire this month after serving 14 years as Bishop of Portsmouth...

WHEN I went to my first meeting of the House of Bishops as a member in October 1995, I sat at the back (like a good Anglican) and watched.

This provoked me into playing two games. The first, an easy one, was to identify who were the prefects and who were the rogues. I soon came to the conclusion that the system — the Church — produced too many of the former, and too few of the latter.

The second game was to spot the defining job that someone held be­fore he became a bishop, and how this affected the way he was ap­proaching the discussion. Some bishops are manifestly former parish priests; others were theological teachers; some were involved in lay training; others worked a great deal with ordinands. Some ran cath­edrals, often giving them a convinc­ing civic awareness, while others were arch­deacons, who seemed to know the ropes better than the others.

The more I looked back on that meeting, and the persisting oddity of its being an all-male gathering, the more convinced I became that when people are made bishops, they need to be aware of those shaping min­istries.

This can help them to grow into their new role, and not remain what they once were. Otherwise, they will get in the way of colleagues per­forming those tasks — for example, the director of ordinands.

Bishops need to take the breadth of their diaconal and priestly ministries with them into their episcopate. But sooner or later they will encounter three aspects of the job, which may initially come across as limitations, but can, in the end, become real points of liberation.
THE FIRST is rootlessness. However welcome the bishop is in his cathed­ral (not all are, but I have been lucky to be one who is), and however wedded he may be to his chapel (and I certainly am), there is an inbuilt rootlessness about the job. It stems not just from being in a different church every Sunday, and all those confirmations and institution services, but from being regularly on the move, making con­tact with local authorities, schools, and commercial companies. That mobility is a very apostolic ministry, and is a sign that the bishop is a missioner, an evangelist for the Church.

The second aspect is isolation. Bishops have to learn to cope with making that final, difficult decision, and to learn to live with it, especially when there may well be a clamour of opinion to the contrary, complete with accusations of “not really listening”. It may be about a priest who has got into some kind of trouble, and is in denial about it. It may be about a dysfunctional parish, where relation­ships have broken down.

In my early years as a bishop, when I went to a naval dinner and found myself sitting opposite an admiral, the subject of the loneliness of com­mand came up. For me, this was timely, as rather more people were telling me my job than was good for them — or for me. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but I went back home after­wards aware of somehow having been sorted out. I realised that this isolation was about being a pastor for the whole Church.

The third aspect is about di­gestion. A bishop has to spend quite a proportion of his time immersed in focused church work. It may be a concentrated round of public litur­gies, all of which have to go well. It may be a pile of correspondence, most of it urgent rather than im­portant. Or it may be one of those intractable disputes with legal resonances, where process rather than justice is paramount.

There is a saying in my household: “Kenneth, you’re all churched out!” And this is a sign that diversionary action is needed. Hobbies help enorm­ously in refreshing the mind and body. Outside interests can help me return to base with a less narrowly ecclesiastical frame of reality. All of this can release a bishop to be a prophet for the Church.

IN ONE of John Mortimer’s Rum­pole stories, the Lord Chancellor has a red judge in for a good talking to, accusing him of “judge-itis”, the symptoms of which are “pomposity and self-regard”. These are certainly part of what Charles Wesley de­scribes as a “calling’s snare”, in a verse from “Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go” which is all too frequently omitted.

To be fair, from my recollections of some of those interminable General Synod speeches about nothing in particular, it is by no means confined to the episcopate. Yes, bishops have to learn to watch what they say (although preferably not all the time), and not shoot their mouths off publicly at every oppor­tunity. But there is a difference between being carefully prepared and believing that everything you say is going to be of earth-shattering importance.

“Bishop-itis” can get out of hand, and resemble what Clement Attlee once condemned in leaders as “the continual beating of the breast and airing of agonies in public”. This is what a fellow-bishop once described to me as “the high apophatic angst”, a dynamic that can ensure that discussions go round in circles, just in case a decision might be reached.

Bishops perhaps need to take themselves — and the Church — less seriously than they often do, because, in the end, it is God’s Church, not ours, and he is the one continually re-shaping it. Perhaps that is why bishoping is such a huge privilege, especially when assisted by good colleagues, as I have been.

For all the tight corners I have known in 14 years in post, I can still leave it profoundly thankful. A Bishop of Portsmouth can appro­priately sum all this up from the poem “Ulysses”, written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who lived on the Isle of Wight: “I am a part of all that I have met.”

Another must read...

I really dislike the fact that I have taken so little time to tend to my blog as of late. I am also a little disappointed that this entry is another copying of the blogger from St. Clement's...but you need to read this...

The Anglican Communion is a myth.

When I was growing up in the Scottish Episcopal Church, we were taught very clearly that we were not the Church of England even though English immigration into Scotland had given us many English members, leading many Scots to refer to the Episcopal church as “The English Church” (or, more likely, “the English Kirk”). We Episcopalians knew that we were the old Catholic Church of Scotland, who had cast off Rome at the Reformation, but had retained Bishops and the Sacraments and a Catholic Liturgy. Our present small size was due to our faithfulness to the Jacobite cause, and when that cause was lost, the new Hanoverian succession established the Presbyterians in the ancient churches and Cathedrals and made them the national Church.

I begin with this summary because not only were we sure that we were not the Church of England, but we also knew that it was members of the Church of England, the Redcoat soldiers, who had enforced the penal laws against the Episcopal Church. It was this persecution which had left our Church what Sir Walter Scott called “The shadow of a shade”.

I also grew up, knowing that the Bishops of my little Church had actually defied the Church of England by consecrating Samuel Seabury in Aberdeen to be the first Bishop for Anglicans in America, since the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, who had jurisdiction in America, had refused to provide Bishops.

In all of this, I had never heard of the Anglican Communion. This is not surprising, since there was no such thing in the 18th century, when all these events were taking place. It was not until the British Empire had spread the Church of England all over the world and then seen national Churches grow up in the various nations of the Empire and declare their independence from the Church of England, that a nostalgic sentiment (or a sentimental nostalgia) caused Anglican Bishops to come together in the Lambeth Conference every ten years or so.

But today, the British Empire is no more than a weird collection of countries calling themselves “the Commonwealth” – though the one thing they do not have in common is “wealth”! And the mighty Church of England, which persecuted Protestants and Roman Catholics with fine impartiality for four hundred years, is reduced to one denomination among many in England. The so-called tolerance of the Church of England not only burned Roman Catholics but also discriminated against Protestants to such an extent that they invented the Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist and many other Churches, not to mention the Quakers, Brethren, Salvation Army and other groups. And they all came to America seeking freedom from the Church of England.

The irony of the present situation is that some members of the American Episcopal Church are trying to reverse this by treating the Archbishop of Canterbury as a substitute Pope. They are allying themselves with those who say they want an “Anglican Covenant” which will define the beliefs of the Anglican Communion and will contain the legal means to expel any constituent Province which departs from these beliefs.

So out will go tolerance for a wide variety of beliefs within the one Church and we will be back in the good old days of expelling the Methodists for enthusiasm, expelling the Papists for clinging to the Western Patriarchate, expelling the Quakers for pacifism. And all this will be done by Bishop-centered bodies such as the Lambeth Conference and the Primates’ Council. No matter that the priests and laity of the Episcopal Church have embraced the same democracy as their country and have voted for developments which other Churches dislike.

I can live happily without an Anglican Communion and will happily see it disappear if it means that I can disown the Archbishop of Sydney who denounces the Mass as a blasphemous fable, or the Archbishop of Nigeria who says that homosexuals are lower than swine, and supports laws punishing them by imprisonment. Not to mention the hypocritical Bishops, clergy and laity of our own Episcopal Church who are divorced and remarried, but say that they oppose women priests and our one (honest) gay Bishop because such things are contrary to the Word of God – by which they mean the Bible, not the real Word of God who was made flesh and dwelt among us, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Read the original post here...

A little food for thought.

A voice from St. Clement's

Another good reflection, post-General Convention, this one from the Rev'd. Canon Gordon Reid, Rector of St. Clement's, Philadelphia....


Our Church has been having a busy time, with General Convention having stirred up as many controversies as usual. Although I certainly do not agree with all the conclusions they came to, nevertheless I was impressed by the civility and candour with which weighty matters were discussed and decided on. This is in marked contrast with much of the hysteria and sheer unpleasantness of many of the opponents of the Episcopal Church.

I must say that the people who amuse me the most for sheer illogicality are those who accept the ordination of women, but who then react violently against the ordination of openly gay priests and Bishops. Talk about “straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel”!

Such people claim to believe every word of the Bible, but there is less in the Bible against homosexuality than there is about women being decidedly inferior to men and having no part at all to play in conducting the Church’s worship. If they really believed the Bible, no woman would be allowed to read a lesson in church, much less be a priest.

In the same way, Jesus is not recorded as saying anything against homosexuality, but he had a good deal to say against divorce. Yet many of the priests and bishops who have left the Episcopal Church over its many liberal stands have themselves been divorced and remarried, sometimes more than once. I find it hard to believe them when they say they are against homosexuality because the Bible forbids it. They don’t really believe what the Bible says at all.

Well, neither do I – at least not in the way that fundamentalists, both Catholic and Protestant, claim to believe the Bible. I am an Anglican because I believe that along with the Bible, we have to take into consideration both tradition and reason. And as far as tradition is concerned, it can be changed, and often has been changed through the centuries. For example, it used to be a cause of excommunication for a Christian to serve in the military. And Roman Catholics ought to remind themselves how short a time ago it was that they could be excommunicated for reading eh Bible in English, and how many martyrs were burned at the stake in England and Europe for this “crime”.

These traditions were changed because of the third leg of our doctrinal stool – Reason. As cultures change, so the Church has changed with them, while always maintaining the same Good News of Jesus Christ, his life, death and resurrection. All else is secondary and can be changed. The Church has done this boldly from the beginning: even in Scripture it is recorded that the apostles in Jerusalem decided that Gentiles could be admitted to the Church without circumcision – now there’s a revolution for you if you are a Jew!

So although I wish that the Churches could act together and that the Anglican Church did not have to go its own way on certain things, nevertheless I cannot rationally oppose this – after all we certainly had no hesitation in going our own way in the 16th century when we broke away from Rome because of the corruptions of the medieval Papacy. I am quite content to remain an Epicopalian, because I am sure that schism and the self-righteousness that comes of thinking that only I am right and everybody else is wrong, so that I cannot worship our Father with them, is far worse than the mess and muddle which has always been one of the consequences of the Anglican insistence on Reason as well as Scripture and Tradition. Some would say more strongly that this is indeed one of the glories of Anglicanism. I used to dislike the phrase used by Episcopalians in the 60’s and 70’s about our Church as “the thinking man’s Catholicism”, but it had some truth in it (as long as we are willing to add “the thinking man’s Evangelicalism” too!)

If you want certainties, the Episcopal Church is not for you. But we walk in faith, not sight, and the only certainty we need is that our Lord Jesus Christ was sent by a loving Father to live, die and rise for us, and that we now walk with him in his Spirit till we come to that heavenly Kingdom where we shall “know as we are known”, face to face with reality.

Analyzing Rowan

The sun is out today. Finally! Recently, the Archbishop of Canterbury published a reflection on the actions of the 2009 General Convention. Here are but a few words from the larger writing found here....

1. No-one could be in any doubt about the eagerness of the Bishops and Deputies of the Episcopal Church at the General Convention to affirm their concern about the wider Anglican Communion. Their generous welcome to guests from elsewhere, including myself, the manifest engagement with the crushing problems of the developing world and even the wording of one of the more controversial resolutions all make plain the fact that the Episcopal Church does not wish to cut its moorings from other parts of the Anglican family. There has been an insistence at the highest level that the two most strongly debated resolutions (DO25 and CO56) do not have the automatic effect of overturning the requested moratoria, if the wording is studied carefully. There is a clear commitment to seek counsel from elsewhere in the Communion about certain issues and an eloquent resolution in support of the 'Covenant for a Communion in Mission' as commended by ACC13. All of this merits grateful acknowledgement. The relationship between the Episcopal Church and the wider Communion is a reality which needs continued engagement and encouragement.

2. However, a realistic assessment of what Convention has resolved does not suggest that it will repair the broken bridges into the life of other Anglican provinces; very serious anxieties have already been expressed. The repeated request for moratoria on the election of partnered gay clergy as bishops and on liturgical recognition of same-sex partnerships has clearly not found universal favour, although a significant minority of bishops has just as clearly expressed its intention to remain with the consensus of the Communion. The statement that the Resolutions are essentially 'descriptive' is helpful, but unlikely to allay anxieties.

3. There are two points which I believe need to be reiterated and thought through further, and it seems to fall to the Archbishop of Canterbury to try and articulate them. To some extent they echo part of what I wrote after the last General Convention, as well as things said at the Lambeth Conference and the ACC, but they still have some pertinence.

Archbishop Williams then goes onto say some very disturbing things about how gays and lesbians ought to be treated in the Church. Things that contradict in very harsh terms the positive statements he has made about the place of gays and lesbians in the Church in the years before he became Archbishop. I will not try to argue or explain the changes he has made--he must do that on his own--but I would like to reprint part of an analysis about +Rowan's statement...

Now again, Williams is a smart man. If he fails to nuance any of this, he does so willingly and willfully. It is not choice that bothers, but what Williams leaves unsaid (the nuance) and what he then goes on to say (the consequences) in drawing his conclusions. No, if he fails to nuance, he does so purposely. I can only conclude that he chooses to tell half-truths about us and our lives. And to justify his own behavior toward us. And that his pitch is meant to denigrate even to lie about us (for that is finally what half-truths do—they lie), throwing about as he does tired themes about gay and lesbian persons that do not fit either the evidence, nor the stereotypes (or even his own former writings and their recognition of such nuance, including that marriage is no guarantor of Christian virtue). That is all to say, Rowan Williams knows better. He knows this is not how we understand ourselves, and neither does the best dispassionate research findings or those who get to know us as persons in relationships. And that makes his words morally culpable, indeed, guilty of Christ's flesh by taking swipes at the lgbt members of His Body--members who are quite vulnerable in most parts of the world, including in Williams' own corner, the United Kingdom, where hate crimes against lgbt persons are a regular feature in lgbt news feeds there. And knowing better, Williams is morally culpable. To use the Lord’s Name to justify all of this, indeed, to suggest that God is on his side in treating lgbt persons like this in the Body, is damnable.

This is a must read if you are interested in what has gone on at General Convention and global reaction to it. Christopher's reflection is a powerful piece 0f writing, and it can be read in its entirety here...

Thoughts on a rainy day

What are the essential, the absolutely essential features of the Anglican position? When it is proposed to make Anglicanism the basis of a Church of Reconciliation, it is above all things necessary to determine what Anglicanism pure and simply is. The word brings up before the eyes of some a flutter of surplices, a vision of village spires and cathedral towers, a somewhat stiff and stately company of deans, prebendaries, and choristers, and that is about all. But we are greatly mistaken if we imagine that the Anglican principle has no substantial existence apart from the accessories. Indeed, it is only when we have stripped Anglicanism of the picturesque costume which English life has thrown around it, that we can fairly study its anatomy, or understand its possibilities of power and adaptation....

If our whole ambition as Anglicans in America be to continue a small, but eminently respectable body of Christians, and to offer a refuge to people of refinement and sensibility, who are shocked by the irreverences they are apt to encounter elsewhere; in a word, if we care to be only a countercheck and not a force in society; then let us say as much in plain terms, and frankly renounce any and all claim to catholicity. We have only, in such a case to wrap the robe of our dignity about us, and walk quietly along in a seclusion no one will take much trouble to disturb. Thus may we be a church in name, a sect in deed.

But if we aim at something nobler than this. If we would have our Communion become national in very truth--in other words, if we would bring the Church of Christ into the closest possible sympathy with the throbbing, sorrowing, sinning, repenting, aspiring heart of this great people--then let us press our reasonable claims to be the reconciler of a divided household, not in a spirit of arrogance (which ill befits those whose best possessions have come to them by inheritance), but with affectionate earnestness and intelligent zeal...

...I've pondered these words as something that might have been said at the recent General Convention, but in truth they are words penned more than a century ago by William Reed Huntington, whose commemoration we observed on July 27th.

Humility and our common life

The Right Rev Geoffrey Rowell, Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, has an interesting piece in The Times about humility being at the foundation of community life...it is a good read for an increasingly divided society...

Behold how good and joyful a thing it is when brethren dwell together in unity” — so the psalmist sang, comparing it to the precious perfumed anointing oil that set aside the priests of the Old Testament.

How the human community lives together as a family, a school, a church, a city, a nation, a continent or the whole world, is indeed demanding and challenging. Both in microcosm and in macrocosm the challenge is real. Claims and counter-claims about territory; different histories and human stories; different ways of looking on the world; extroverts and introverts, thinking people and feeling people — all are challenged to find how the good and joyful dwelling together in unity can be realised.


Jesus taught that there were two overriding and shaping commandments: the love of God with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength; and the love of our neighbour as ourselves. The two are inseparably linked, and St John reminds us that it is impossible to love God whom we have not seen if we do not love our neighbour whom we have seen. St Anthony, generally regarded as the first Christian monk, withdrew to live a solitary life in the desert east of the Nile, where you can still find his monastery, and the cave in which he lived. Despite that solitary life, pilgrims came to seek him and to ask his advice, and one of the pieces of advice he would give is “that your life and your death is with your neighbour”. For all his commitment to the solitary life of prayer, and his wrestling with the temptations of distorted desire, Anthony knew that human flourishing and growth in the likeness of Christ was never a narcissistic cultivation of the soul.

His contemporary Pachomius was not, as Anthony was, a hermit of the desert, but was one who saw monastic community life as that which enabled the shaping of souls. The rule that Pachomius gave was one which sought for what we might call today a life-work or life-style balance, seeking a middle way between conformity and excess. He told his brethren: “If you cannot get along alone, join another who is living according to the Gospel of Christ, and you will make progress with him. Either listen, or submit to one who listens.”


Some two centuries after Pachomius St Benedict, whom the Church commemorated last Saturday, composed a rule of life for his monks. It is one of the shaping documents of the Western Church, and a guide not only for monks but for all who seek to live the Christian life. Benedict called it “a school for the Lord’s service”. The abbot, the father of the monastery, has a key role. He must have a wise discernment, for he has to serve a variety of temperaments, “coaxing, reproving and encouraging them as appropriate”. The abbot, although he has authority, is not an autocrat, he has to consult. Listening is important, and not just to the older and more senior for, Benedict tells us, “the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger”. “The love of Christ must come before all else. You are not to act in anger or nurse a grudge. Rid your heart of all deceit. Never give a hollow greeting of peace or turn away when someone needs your love.” Benedict’s brothers are told that they are never to lose hope in God’s mercy. When guests arrive at the monastery they are to be welcomed as Christ himself.

If there is a duty of obedience to the abbot this obedience is also to be shown in relation to each other: “It is by the way of obedience that we go to God.” At the heart of the common life is the learning of humility, and that is sustained by the praise and worship of the community, which is expressed in the psalms and praise of the divine office and in prayer that is “short and pure”.

The rule of common life is an imitation of Christ. So Benedict concludes with words summing up his rule, telling his monastic brethren that they are to “prefer nothing whatever to Christ”. The rule, Benedict insists, is a rule for beginners. The practice of the presence of God is not something in a separate religious compartment from “the rest of life”, it is simply the whole of life lived towards the God of love who is the source of all life. What Benedict offers us is indeed a “school for the Lord’s service”.

GENCON up and running

Hi all! After a week of fun in sunny California with the family it is now time for business. As Convention gets up and running, I wanted to post a link for info about what is going on out here...

Click here for any up-to-the-minute info on General Convention 2009. From time to time I will be updating as my schedule allows. Say a prayer and light a candle for me...Peace.