Tag Archives: Episcopal Church

The Personal in the Trinity

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a Homily for Trinity Sunday C

Listen to the audio here

Heresy

A mentor of mine had a tongue-in-cheek name for today: “Heresy Sunday.” All over the world, preachers will unintentionally slip into speaking things about GOD that are not “orthodox.” I am certain that you know these words if you are not necessarily comfortable defining them.

  • Orthodox—literally “right belief” is our way of describing the accepted boundaries of our faith tradition.
  • Heresy—we might describe as an honest attempt to describe the nature of GOD that is determined to be outside those boundaries.

The trouble we have, then, in describing GOD is that we fail, time and again to satisfyingly describe GOD in orthodox terms.

A second trouble we have is that describing GOD’s character doesn’t get us into trouble, really. We know GOD. We can relate to GOD’s actions. The problem is when we describe the substance of GOD. When we quantify GOD. Our post-Enlightenment minds think scientifically, so wrestling with the physics of GOD are essential for us. And it is there we get in trouble.

That is also the place people on the outside ask the question. People that don’t have a personal experience or relationship with GOD ask about the substance of GOD. They are not asking who GOD is, but what GOD is. Is GOD the wind? Is GOD like us? How might I scientifically observe GOD and test GOD’s existence?

 The Trinity

Today is the church’s attempt to deal with two things: what we know about GOD and what it means to know about GOD.

The doctrine of the trinity is an imperfect and unsatisfying answer to the mystery of GOD if you are a scientist. GOD can’t be three distinct persons and one singular person at the same time and still be the same. Physics doesn’t work that way.

But if we take the doctrine, not as science, or even logic, but as the imperfect expression of relationship, then we start to get somewhere.

Our tradition also gives us three tools to deal with the nature of GOD: scripture, tradition, and reason. I like a fourth: experience. In my own life, in my study of scripture, in my understanding of our tradition, I am able to recognize, not some metaphysical doctrine that we must all claim to believe, but an ongoing relationship between GOD and the people. A relationship that is merciful and forgiving. A relationship expressed, sometimes in big, showy, Pentecost-like events and in subtle, quiet, breeze-like moments.

This morning, I’d like us to turn to the person near us and talk about times we’ve noticed GOD in our lives. What was happening. How we felt. And what we think it says about GOD’s relationship with us. And if we dare, how that fits into the wider story of GOD’s relationship with humanity.

Another Trinity

A Ridiculously Basic Introduction to Emergence Christianity

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Before I begin, I need to give a whole bunch of caveats. First, this is not only ridiculously basic, but inappropriately basic. The subject is too big to cast in just a few sentences. Second, you should probably just go out and buy Phyllis Tickle’s book of the same name and read it yourself. Third, I have not actually finished the book, but will do so this week. This introduction is to the subject and based on a set of lectures and the conference from this past weekend. Fourth, I am writing this post with my congregation in mind, rather than my regular readership. You are warned!

Phyllis Tickle speaking at Emergence Christianity 2013 in Memphis, Tennessee

Phyllis Tickle speaking at Emergence Christianity 2013 in Memphis, Tennessee

We are currently living in an age of Christianity that many have begin calling an age of emergence. Here are my primary words on the subject and then some of my writings about emergence.

  • Every 500 years or so, the world (not just the Christian world) goes through a great upheaval. The last one was the Great Reformation that coincided with the Enlightenment. We are in another, called the Great Emergence.
  • The era seems to have begun on September 11, 2001.
  • In each upheaval, half of our time is spent figuring out what is going on and the other half is spent living into it. We are in the heated former moment, in which we are rejecting what no longer works and discovering what will.
  • In each upheaval, there is a grand restructuring of all of Christianity, that takes about a century. This is our phase. Last time, Protestantism was born. This time, Emergence is being born.
  • Like Protestantism, Emergence isn’t itself a denomination, but a collection of unaffiliated expressions of a common/similar faith. Therefore, there are many different ways of expressing Emergence. From the emerging church to neo-monasticism to the artist collectives like Ikon, Emergence Christianity is being expressed in a variety of places, including existing churches, such as the Episcopal Church.
  • Emergence Christianity is a new strain of religious expression, and therefore is not just a means of appealing to young people or an excuse to play contemporary music, though these might be reasonable parts of that expression. Emergence brings with it different sets of expectations and ideas about scripture, theology, tradition, worship, etc. that are entirely compatible with the existing institutions. However, the existing church has operated with different priorities.
  • North American Christians are the last ones to this party. The rest of the world has been dealing with Emergence for much longer.
  • And way more than this.

As I wrote on Friday night during the conference, something has changed. We used to call this stuff “emerging church”, which caused people to think of it as a particular church or way of doing church. Then we began to describe this as the “emerging conversation” because it was more about the dialogue and figuring out of what was happening. Now, we are beginning to speak of the subject as “Emergence Christianity” because the focus has shifted a bit from practice and dialogue and toward the understanding of the Emergence as a movement.

The direct impact on our churches locally is as significant as we want it to be. But we are increasingly being forced to deal with a way of being Christian that increasingly matches the sensibilities of the people and existing ways that are increasingly mismatching with people; even people that have spent the last 60+ years in our church.

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Our Transition Process

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We recently celebrated a renewal of ministry as we welcomed the Bishop back in our midst. It was a fun service, geared toward the ministry we all do together: proclaiming the Good News, serving the poor, working for justice in our context, and much more.

Some found the timing curious. Some were interested in what this meant for the relationship between St. Paul’s and me. Some have wondered on the back end of the process what could have happened on the front end. That’s all reasonable. I want to share with you something that might make it easier to understand our process and how that might differ from one’s personal experience.

From it’s founding in the 18th Century, the Episcopal Church has striven to live in and separate from two worlds. We wanted to take the best of a hierarchical structure and the best from a democratic one and leave behind the nasty parts of each. We’re going over this in Basics this week and next, actually, so you should join us on Wednesday night at 6:30 pm! Because our origin is not directly from the Church of England, which is very hierarchical, but from the Scottish Episcopal Church, which is much more democratic, we have a blend of both.

In the Episcopal Church we have a polity (organization) that is based around bishops and congregations. We serve our bishop but operate with much autonomy. The clergy serve the bishop and congregations help determine who best to partner with in ministry. This is in stark contrast to our Roman Catholic friends who operate under the total prerogative of the Bishop and our Baptist friends whose clergy is entirely chosen by the local congregation. There are upsides and downsides to both. Our process tries to maximize the upside and minimize the downside. In fact, all three parties get a say in this arrangement: the bishop, the congregation, and the clergy. This is a pretty unique process in the global church and even within the Anglican Communion.

This means that we don’t operate in a democracy. Nor do we live in a banana republic. And there are many cases in which our tendency to lean toward congregationalism prevents us from benefiting from the wisdom an outside presence can offer. As the bishop said to us, his judgment was that a “normal” transition process wasn’t going to work here. My personal experience says that a new “normal” is forming around this as we speak. I’ve seen churches refuse to grieve the departure of a rector, bury their faults as deeply as possible, refuse to do the visioning work necessary to make a successful call, or who reject the interim process all together. All these actions have led to serious conflicts in many churches as unresolved issues spring up shortly after the new rector is called. Many churches are having a hard time with this process and want a different one to replace it.

For the last eight months we’ve been operating in one such alternative process. A process that has allowed us to do some difficult transition work together while also getting started on a more natural vision process. A process that isn’t putting an airbrushed picture of who we wished we were, but honestly wrestling with who we are so that we can learn who we want to be. This is a process that I’m committed to and a process that has been open to all from day one. On that first Sunday, I invited everyone to name their talents, to say what our gifts are and how we might share them, so that we might all take part.

This brings me back to that service from a week ago. A service that used to be called an “installation” service. A service that once had the tone of a Superman swooping in to save a congregation or of a vanquishing hero coming to lead an army. This service was adapted a few years ago to be about the ministry we are sharing. The ministry that we are doing together. A ministry we were called to do when we were baptized. A ministry we all committed to again. A ministry confirmed by the sprinkling of water as the Bishop and I doused the congregation.

A ministry we are being called to do together right now.

For All the Saints

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We often refer to two different strains of Christian faith: Catholic and Protestant. These two traditions have very different understandings of saints. To Catholicism (such as Roman Catholics), saints are our intermediaries. They have been elevated by humanity for their godly and miraculous works. Protestantism (such as Presbyterians, Lutherans Baptists, etc.) has downplayed the role of saints in the church and in private devotion. To many, praying to saints is too “Roman”. Personally, I’m fond of the Reformation Era word “papish” but I digress!

Episcopalians believe both. Or, better, neither. We are part of a third tradition that is another strain of Christianity, known as Anglicanism. There are two other traditions (Orthodox and Pentecostalism) which have a similar “other” status in global Christianity. Phyllis Tickle postulates that a 6th strain is forming, currently called Emergence.

As Anglicans and Episcopalians, we have saints. But we don’t ordinarily pray that they intercede for us. We feel as if we can pray directly to GOD, thank you very much. However, saints aren’t nobodies. They are guides, leaders, and role models. They show us how to live a godly life.

In recent years, The Episcopal Church has expanded our list of saints greatly. Our list, now called Holy Women, Holy Men, is a broad and diverse collection of people.that have gone before, which includes many women, minorities, and figures from under-served countries and provinces. Our list represents the diversity found in our faith and is now much closer to embodying the beauty of Anglicanism than ever.

We often make All Saints’ Day about our personal saints–those people we’ve known personally that live a godly life no longer. Perhaps this year we take time to get to know all the saints. Then in January, we will celebrate the feast of our patron saint, Paul.

Saints aren’t remembered for their having died. For their friendliness. For their being a good coworker or friend. What makes a saint is that by looking at them, you can see GOD.

This week, let us remember all of those saints we have known and will know.

A Holy Spirit Sighting

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Driving home from Convention this year, I had the blessing of talking over the experience with one of our delegates. We both talked about our own responses to the many parts and our past experiences. It probably wasn’t equal though. Poor Michelle learned how chatty I get in the car when I’m driving!

This morning, I had a new understanding of what we just did. Like Sunday’s gospel, which could be easily misunderstood when seen as a collection of parts, was a profoundly evocative moment for a still relatively young diocese.

The theme, Abundance in the Midst of Scarcity, colored every moment. We focused on our companion relationship with Iglesia Episcopal Dominicana, and received a delegation from the Dominican Episcopal Church, including its bishop, the Rt. Rev. Julio C. Holguin, His key note address was a stirring testimony of how the Holy Spirit changed his life and how he has partnered with the Spirit to transform his diocese through mission. His call to us to take up the common cause of mission in the form of the 5 Marks of Mission was a prophetic moment that I trust will inspire us to adopt them and serve GOD fervently.

That sense of abundance, that GOD continues to bless us, despite our hardships was present throughout. The financial report was full of hope. And two of our mission groups gave inspired reports: our mission partners in Eagle Butte, South Dakota and our own Camp Chickagami. And we concluded with a packed St. Paul’s, Flint with an ordination Eucharist.

The whole convention was inspired. Yet it might be far too easy to miss what we are doing. We are used to two-day conventions. Several of our elected positions lacked the minimum number of people standing for election. The changing role of the convocations is still up in the air. Each of these pieces could easily be seen as scarcity: as symbolic of decline or weakness.

What I saw instead was a people being changed without their knowing or understanding. We are in the middle. It isn’t finished. A process that was formally introduced a year ago and couldn’t hope to be completed in one year, will continue to change the very way we interact with the diocese and other congregations. Here is where the ever-present sense of death and resurrection comes in. The very recent loss of one of our priests, Terry Parsons; our friend, The Most Reverend Patrick Cooney, Roman Catholic Bishop of Gaylord; and our bishop’s father, John Ousley was always weighing on us. All of this pain, confusion, loss was there. But it didn’t kill us. It was our witness for transformation.

Every moment of this convention spoke to this sense of abundance and transformation; this sense of mission and activity in our world; this sense of pushing on, even when it looks hard. The staff or Standing Committee could not have scripted this. It was authored by the Holy Spirit to show us the way forward; that we’re on the right track; that we are loved. That this Diocese is forming into something truly new, unique, and fully-engaged with our ministry in our region and throughout the world.

time to ditch the old church language

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One need not pray in another person’s language  The language of the King James Bible and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is not ours, it is theirs. It doesn’t define church for me; it defines 17th Century English church. And it is alien to the 21st Century North American church.

I have a devoted Rite I group at St. Paul’s that loves to worship in this alien language. I love them and support them by leading worship in an alien language. Yet, these aren’t our words. And that is significant.

Krapp, as portrayed by Harold Pinter at the Ro...

Krapp, as portrayed by Harold Pinter at the Royal Court Theatre in October 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When we worship, we are lifting up our thoughts and prayers to GOD. When we do so in community, we do so in a common language. For many this is the very reason why old church language is essential. I get that. I’ve even made that argument myself. But not any more. I don’t treat our common prayers as if it were Shakespeare and our common worship as if we were reciting Shakespeare. That is placing the style of communication before the substance—while I often find the style to be a barrier to the substance. Instead of recognizing the majesty of Shakespeare’s work in itself, we are imposing something about the style of communication upon the play-going audience. Imagine if we demanded every playwright and poet would mimic his style. Tony Kushner, August Wilson, and Harold Pinter would have rebelled from such an expectation anyway! Many of the greatest plays of the last century would have moved to the streets and low-rent theaters where (gasp) people interested in plays would actually go experience them. In many ways, this is what is actually happening all over the church world. People are leaving stuck institutions and finding places in which “real” worship can happen.

If language is a heavy part of our means of communicating the Good News, why obstruct that communication with out-dated language, or worse, communicate our stylistic desires for comfort and familiarity over the challenging, transforming Good News shared creatively and passionately from within?

A Pastor’s Response to General Convention #77

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We aren’t the Rotary. We aren’t a country club. We aren’t civil society. We aren’t a local government. We aren’t a Lodge or an Order or anything like that. We are the church and the church is different.

We forget that sometimes. And in many ways. When we get together to set up the altar for Sunday, we often forget to pray before and after. When we gather to discuss the state of our campus and building, we neglect the theology of how and why we gather. When we have quiet moments at home, we neglect our reading of Scripture or devotionals. This isn’t always the case. But often it is.

All of those small things we miss add up to something important.

Those small things: extemporaneous prayer, theological discovery, scripture reading: are all part of what it means to be a devoted Christian. This isn’t the stuff of personal piety. This isn’t whether or not you cross yourself or bow or genuflect. This is the basics. This is the definition of participating in faith. You can’t very well be Christian if you don’t pray, wrestle with GOD, and read the Bible. And we can’t be a Christian community if we don’t do that, either.

What separates the General Convention of the Episcopal Church from any other gathering is that nothing is done without prayer, reflection, and Scripture reading. Nothing. The Episcopal Church is unique in this. We don’t rely on Robert’s Rules of Order to create winners and losers. We don’t follow current trends or quickly dash off in any direction. We don’t follow the orders of a dictator or a self-interested board of directors. This is what we do:

  • We gather every three years, with equal numbers of lay and clergy deputies in one chamber called the House of Deputies.
  • We also gather all of the bishops, active and retired, into one chamber called the House of Bishops.
  • And bishops and deputies serve on the various committees that gather to deal with the proposed legislation.
  • Legislation is most often proposed by a diocese or standing committee of the church and has been vigorously covered in that venue before coming to General Convention.
  • When the committees gather, they pray, listen, and deal with what people are saying.
  • If the legislation comes out of committee, it has already been prayed for and gone through rigorous theological conversation. It then must past through both Houses to become anything.

Final vote tallies and national headlines obscure all of the work that goes into it before the vote. All of the work meant to deal with what this might mean for the church and what it might mean for each diocese, congregation, and Episcopalian.

Nothing gets a simple up or down vote. And nothing is taken lightly. It is not subject to the whim of the few or current trends. It is all prayerful and deliberate.

It is what church is supposed to look like.

You’ll find attached to this an article from the Episcopal News Service describing all of the work of General Convention. In it, you may be surprised to discover they talked about a lot of things that isn’t related to sex. We dealt with growing concerns about structure, budget, and investment. We called for more conversation about what it means to be Anglican and that we are unable to sign onto the Anglican Covenant. We said that we need to study marriage. We committed to focusing on poverty and justice when and wherever we gather. We created a means of dealing with any dysfunctional relationships between a bishop and a diocese, we dealt with issues regarding the Sudan, Cuba, women and other underrepresented groups. And much more.

As for the matters of sex, the church affirmed the work of the Standing Commission of Liturgy and Music, which was asked at the last General Convention in 2009 to gather resources from around the country to develop a rite for the blessing of same-sex unions. They approved the rite for trial use over the next three years, under the authority of each diocesan bishop. In our diocese, this will mean that during the trial period, a couple must be contributing members of the congregation, be supported by the priest and the congregation, the vestry must approve, and then the bishop must approve. Lastly, this approval does not deal with matters of marriage.

Also, General convention determined that the church guarantees full equality in all aspects of the church to transgendered individuals, including ordination.

General Convention really is different. And this General Convention was particularly so. There was much discussion over the last year about needing to restructure the church, and many prominent voices throughout the church, including the CFO spoke to this need, giving their two cents about how it could be improved. In unanimously supporting one piece of legislation that was crafted out of 90 different proposals out of committee, then unanimously supporting it out of the Houses of Deputies and Bishops, The Episcopal Church has publicly declared with one voice that much of what we’ve been doing needs to change. A task force will be created and its work will be completed by November 2014. And come July 2015 at the next General Convention, we’ll have a pretty good idea of what our church will look like for the foreseeable future. And this is something we can applaud.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to let me know and I would gladly hear them. You may also wish to speak with a deputy from our convocation, the Rev. Tracie Loffhagen or our Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Todd Ousley.

I have never been more proud of my church and more excited for its future.

Best Response to Doubters Yet

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Tom Ehrich has written the best response yet to the anti-mainline and doom-and-gloom forecasts.

Conservative commentators like Rupert Murdoch’s stable and Ross Douthat of The New York Times are feasting on what they perceive as the “death” of “liberal Christianity.”
They add two and two and get eight. They see decisions they don’t like — such as the Episcopal Church’s recent endorsement of a rite for blessing same-sex unions. They see declines in church membership. They pounce.

 

Such “liberal” decisions are destroying the church, they say, and alienating young adults they must reach in order to survive.

 

Never mind that surveys of young adults in America show attitudes toward sexuality that are far more liberal than those of older generations. Never mind that conservative denominations are also in decline. Continue Reading…

Bad Coverage of Good News

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After a week of incredible, humbling work, the 77th General Convention of The Episcopal Church closed last week with a flurry of activity. A week of prayer, worship, discernment, and decision found the church wrestling with serious and substantive questions. More importantly, it appears, finding its voice. A new group of people I deeply respect have gathered under the name Acts 8 Moment, which gives me hope for the direction and future of the church. The Rev. Canon Frank Logue has put together some great videos describing what this means.

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You wouldn’t know this if you read two of our most prominent papers of record. In the religion section of the Wall Street Journal and the opinion page of the New York Times, journalists with little familiarity with the governance of The Episcopal Church, and armed only with the political baggage of “the culture war” penned thinly-veiled screeds about the direction of The Episcopal Church. The first, written by Jay Akasie, was so full of errors and outside speculation, that it is nearly impossible to find any element of truth within it. Its premise was so deeply dependent on false and easily refuted claims, that none of his conclusions carry any weight. It is deeply disturbing to see such filth in such a formerly august newspaper as the WSJ.

The second, and much more clever of the two, was written by Ross Douthat, and published in the Sunday Review, the opinion page of the New York Times. This one, more “think piece” than straight editorial, failed the basic sniff test because everything about it sounded familiar. So familiar, in fact, that Diana Butler Bass was easily able to diagnose its problem: he was simply restating ideas from the 1970s about the decline of the mainline. The pernicious problem with his piece is that he hides the similar issues conservative Christians have had over the same time while falsely attributing current trends with past statistics. Then he makes the gravest sin of all in suggesting The Episcopal Church is operating without theological foundation: a charge so clearly mistaken and demonstrates an incredible level of ignorance of his subject.

I have chosen not to link to these pieces directly, but encourage you to read these two thoughtful responses from people with much greater knowledge of the subject matter, Scott Gunn and Diana Butler Bass. I also encourage you to read this one, written by a known conservative who finds the former article as hackish as the rest of us.

All of this reminded me of a report I heard about five or six years ago. I was listening to NPR’s On the Media and they interviewed two researchers who looked at how the media used “the religious perspective” on a topic. I went searching for the study online, but couldn’t find it. The two researchers looked at who was invited to speak on behalf of Christianity on TV with regards to big issues like war, sex, and the like.

I was floored at the time by two shocking measurements. The first found that more than 60% of the time, conservative evangelicals were invited to speak for all Christians, followed by Roman Catholics at >20%, and the remaining 10-20% was everybody else. As conservative evangelicals make up about 1/4 of all Christians, this was a shocking overrepresentation and a criminal under-representation of all other denominational groups.

The second thing they found was that the most commonly invited conservative evangelicals were big names, drawn from a small pool, with the same few high-profile pastors invited well more than anyone else. Those speaking for the many non-conservative evangelical positions were spread out with few prominent representatives of any one group getting much consistent TV time.

I did come across a much more recent study of how the media covers homosexuality which produces an example of a similar bias in the news for antagonism on the subject, but not to the level we saw back in 2006 of the much wider research group of all ethical subjects.

Much has been written already by my colleagues in response to these two mean-spirited pieces, and I certainly encourage you to read them, particularly Diana Butler Bass’s. Personally, my question is why did these two men write these pieces in the first place? And why did these two newspapers with lofty reputations print them, particularly as they are examples of poor journalism and are so deeply flawed?

Or to ask a different question. Why have they published such a nakedly partisan response to the General Convention? Are they implying a) that the results of Convention are inherently liberal and b) they can speak for themselves? If this is the case, then why has the beauty, theological adventure, and harmony of this Convention not been reported, so that the Convention can actually speak for itself? And isn’t it poor journalism to make such presuppositions to begin with?

Perhaps the biggest problem for the news media in understanding what has been happening at General Convention this decade is that The Episcopal Church is becoming driven less by secular notions and impositions and more by Biblical and theological ones. That the nature of a Convention in which both clergy and laity have a voice, that business is not done until all of the proposals have been prayed over and a way forward has been thoroughly discerned by broad groups of diverse people. That nothing is done by fiat or from a top-down, authoritarian model. That little is done in secret, back rooms by the Illuminati. They literally do not understand what we are doing. Or why. Especially the why. How this structure embodies the Baptismal Covenant and is focused on representing Jesus’s call to total ministry of the people.

This is why we don’t get called to talk about our own church. We are living a rebelious notion that the governing order of Western Democracy has as much to lose from a full-throated Gospel of Jesus as anyone else. That the intensity of the bright light of scrutiny shined on our own institutions in the U.S. might reveal that so many of them run counter to our Biblical, theological, and even traditional mandate to follow Jesus as Messiah. That our common, simplistic understanding of GOD’s blessing has no real relation to the Gospel. That the gospel is much more than belief and much more than adherence, but about practicing love in a way that makes the powerful uncomfortable.

So appropriate, then, that the late Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday came upon us. He preached a dangerous message of unity and rebellion so very much like Jesus’s. As he wrote:

ALL YOU FASCISTS

I’m gonna tell you fascists
You may be surprised
The people in this world
Are getting organized
You’re bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose

Race hatred cannot stop us
This one thing we know
Your poll tax and Jim Crow
And greed has got to go
You’re bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose.

All of you fascists bound to lose:
I said, all of you fascists bound to lose:
Yes sir, all of you fascists bound to lose:
You’re bound to lose! You fascists:
Bound to lose!

People of every color
Marching side to side
Marching ‘cross these fields
Where a million fascists dies
You’re bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose!

I’m going into this battle
And take my union gun
We’ll end this world of slavery
Before this battle’s won
You’re bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose!