An Open Letter to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church 2012

I ask the forgiveness of those readers who usually come to this blog because of its standard avoidance of “politics” and the “news” as such.  However, things are happening which compel me to say something, however small and insignificant my station and influence may be.

Feast of St. Philip and St. James 2012

“For this put on sackcloth, lament and wail…” – Jeremiah 4:8

“Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar.  Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God!” – Joel 1:3

Bishops, Priest, Deacons, Venerable Monastics, Deputies, and all those appointed to serve at General Convention,

Christ is Risen!

It is not long before you all gather to take council on behalf of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion in this country, and such is the reason for my letter.  I am a convert to the Episcopal Church, and my love for this Church and the Anglican Tradition is of immense proportions, but the path we are treading seems to be leading suspiciously away from beliefs and practices that have shaped, defined, and refined the Church of Jesus since the time of the Apostles.  For the sake of Christ’s Church and the Gospel of Jesus, I beg you to reconsider.

We have been in a steady, and now precipitous, decline for nearly 50 years.  Rather than pull back the reins, pause, reflect, and consider, we have dug in the spurs and whipped it up.  I have almost no doubt that we can expect more “prophetic actions” forthcoming, though the prophecy they speak to the world may be, “Do not go this way.  It leads to death.”

According to The Barna Group, nearly one in three Episcopalian marriages ends in divorce.  We aren’t taking care of the marriages we’ve got, and yet we are preparing (very controversially)  to redefine and reconfigure the ancient custom.

We are barely able to get one in three of our baptized members to communion on any given Sunday (probably lower if you took out Easter and Christmas), and yet we are going to consider making communion available to those who have never been baptized in contravention of nearly two millennia of unbroken, uninterrupted Church teaching.  We, apparently, can’t even get our baptized membership to take the Eucharist more seriously than soccer, spring break, fishing, and football!

In a so-called spirit of hospitality, clergy in almost every diocese flaunt the canons of this Church and their ordination vows by offering communion to the unbaptized.  The bishops are either ignorant of the conditions in their own diocese, unwilling to do anything to bring integrity and order to the parishes, or are sympathetic to this disregard for the established and agreed upon regulations by which we order our common life.  Any of those three would be a tragedy, and we’ve probably got all three going on in some measure.

We seem unable to get our own children to go to church and grow into faithful, mature Christians in any meaningful numbers, yet we have the audacity to issue a resolution to the President of the United States regarding the Middle East Peace Process or a resolution calling for statehood of the District of Columbia.  The hubris of this would almost be laughable if I weren’t already on the verge of tears.

We are spending millions of dollars a year to sue other Christians in direct contradiction of the clear teaching of Holy Scripture under the guise of “fiduciary responsibility.”  Since when did fiduciary responsibilities take precedence over issues of faithfulness, love, forgiveness, and mercy?  I suppose Jesus’ words, “If anyone would take your tunic, give them your cloak as well” were obviously for a different cultural context, and could hardly be expected to have any bearing on our present difficulties.

In the meantime, very little is spent on missionary work to the unreached peoples of the earth, and we are reducing or cutting programs aimed at poverty, illiteracy, and environmental care.  Dozens of parishes are closed every year for lack of monetary resources, yet there seems to be an endless supply of those resources for litigation.  And as far the planting of new parishes in this country?  Virtually non-existent.

I grow weary when stories about what “neat” or “outside-the-box” ministry St. Such-and-such parish is doing in light of all this are predictably trotted out.  While I applaud their individual efforts they are far from paradigmatic, and are simply exceptions that prove the rule.  If sincere worship, constant prayer, meaningful evangelism, and life-long discipleship were actually the facts on the ground, we would not be in this position.

What we do seem to have is a bumper crop of bishops and priests who want to be prophets, but do not want to be bishops and priests (except that it helps them to be prophetic).   We have clergy and laity who love to tinker with the liturgy, but are woefully or willfully ignorant of Scripture, Patristics, and the Anglican Reformers… the very wellsprings and sources of our Faith and Tradition.  We have hundreds of parishes with interfaith services and not a few with the actual prayer services to other deities or from other faith traditions, but precious few that offer the daily offices on a daily basis.

And what has all this gotten us?  We have succeeded in very little other than bringing great disrepute upon the Gospel of our Lord and we are shrinking at a calamitous rate and spending millions of dollars a year in the effort.  We have effectively collapsed our Ecumenical Dialogs and put them on tenuous ground for the rest of the communion.  There was a time when the world thought the Anglicans would lead the charge in the reunification of the Church catholic.  That time has passed.  We are a byword among the nations, and a laughingstock among the peoples.  If you we haven’t realized that, it is because we only spend time with other self-congratulating Episcopalians.  We are shrinking at a rate of roughly a diocese per year.  And rather than saying, “Whoa there!  Something is wrong.  This road doesn’t lead where we thought it did.”  We seem to be saying instead, “ONWARD!”  Again, such silliness and poor decision making would be funny if it weren’t so expensive and if it weren’t wreaking such havoc on this Church, the Gospel of Jesus, and the spiritual life of its members.

I am begging you simply to stop!  STOP!  Don’t do anything.  We are on the verge of committing spiritual and institutional suicide, and further alienating our brothers and sisters in Christ of every sort… Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant.  Don’t do it.  Nothing would please me more than if the 2012 General Convention went down in history as the “Do Nothing Convention.”  As a matter of fact, for probably the next three General Conventions we should do nothing but gather together (as cheaply as possible), fast, and pray for mercy and guidance.  That’s it.  No resolutions.  No lobbying.  No “prophetic voice.”   No covenant.  No restructuring.  Simply repentance and prayer for the dismal state of our church.

If General Convention 2012 continues down our presently disordering, divisive, and destructive path and then proceeds to issue irrationally celebratory press releases with the attendant back–slapping and high-fiving, I will almost certainly be reduced to tears.

“Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations.  Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” – Joel 2:17

With all sincerity,

Jason Ballard — Austin, TX

10 Things To Do Before the End of Lent

1. Pray seriously that the Lord would grant you to see your sins, and grant you true repentance and amendment of heart.

2. Make a confession to your priest or spiritual director.

3. Begin to say Morning and Evening prayers in full, or at least increase your prayer rule a bit; or resolve to pray with greater attention than usual

4. Read the passion narratives in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; or pick and read at least one.

5. Tie up loose ends and clear your schedule so that you will be completely free on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter (Pascha), and attend all the offered services of worship at your parish.

6. Visit your friends and family, especially those you haven’t seen lately and need to.  Be without haste and listen lovingly.

7. Ask forgiveness and be reconciled with whomever you have offended, either long ago or recently.

8. Take part in some act of charity.  Volunteer at a soup kitchen.  Give to someone you know is in financial need.  Visit the lonely.

9. Fast on Good Friday.

10. Gather food and drink and get ready to celebrate on Easter Sunday.

 

Daily Office Part I: The Life of a Prayer

Daily Offices Part I with Bishop Anthony Burton

EXAMEN: Episode 1

A series of videos for Lent is being put together by the Church of the Incarnation.  I will post them here each week as they are released.  This week, Fr. Greg offers insights on examining our day, following, as a template of sorts, the prayer by Ignatius of Loyala entitled, “Examen”.

Ash Wednesday by John Keble

“Yes–deep within and deeper yet The rankling shaft of conscience hide, Quick let the swelling eye forget The tears that in the heart abide. Calm be the voice, the aspect bold, No shuddering pass o’er lip or brow, For why should Innocence be told The pangs that guilty spirits bow? “The loving eye that watches thine Close as the air that wraps thee round - Why in thy sorrow should it pine, Since never of thy sin it found? And wherefore should the heathen see What chains of darkness thee enslave, And mocking say, ‘Lo, this is he Who owned a God that could not save’?” Thus oft the mourner’s wayward heart Tempts him to hide his grief and die, Too feeble for Confession’s smart, Too proud to bear a pitying eye; How sweet, in that dark hour, to fall On bosoms waiting to receive Our sighs, and gently whisper all! They love us–will not God forgive? Else let us keep our fast within, Till Heaven and we are quite alone, Then let the grief, the shame, the sin, Before the mercy-seat be thrown. Between the porch and altar weep, Unworthy of the holiest place, Yet hoping near the shrine to keep One lowly cell in sight of grace. Nor fear lest sympathy should fail - Hast thou not seen, in night hours drear, When racking thoughts the heart assail, The glimmering stars by turns appear, And from the eternal house above With silent news of mercy steal? So Angels pause on tasks of love, To look where sorrowing sinners kneel. Or if no Angel pass that way, He who in secret sees, perchance May bid His own heart-warming ray Toward thee stream with kindlier glance, As when upon His drooping head His Father’s light was poured from Heaven, What time, unsheltered and unfed, Far in the wild His steps were driven. High thoughts were with Him in that hour, Untold, unspeakable on earth - And who can stay the soaring power Of spirits weaned from worldly mirth, While far beyond the sound of praise With upward eye they float serene, And learn to bear their Saviour’s blaze When Judgment shall undraw the screen?

All Things Necessary to Salvation

Haligweorc recently posted one of the best articles about the reading of Holy Scripture that I have read in quite a while.  His larger intent is to ask questions of how and why we read the Bible.  Specifically, he is comparing an “academic” reading of the bible with a “devotional” one.

He defines “academic reading” this way:

The academic of Scripture study focuses on a circumscribed set of questions: what were the circumstances around the writing of these books and their collection into one document? What do these texts teach us about what the people who wrote them thought? What do these texts reveal about the history and organization of the communities that created them? The bottom line is that the academic study of Scripture is securely located within the History of Ideas. It wants to know what things were thought by which people at which time and what would have been intended by what they wrote. The way that we typically wrap this up is to talk about the “literal” or “literary” meaning of the text and to make statements about “authorial intent.”

He never exactly defines devotional reading, but he uses medieval monastic readings as an example of devotional reading:

I look at how preachers, monks, ascetics, and liturgies have interpreted, re-used, or re-purposed biblical texts to further their own reading strategies and goals. What I found in my intensive study of early medieval monastic reading practices is that they had a very clear purpose in mind: how do we enact the text in order to become saints?

That question… How do we enact the text in order to become saints?… captured almost perfectly something I have been feeling for quite some time, and that I believe Anglicanism has been trying to say to the world for quite some time: What is at stake in the reading of scripture is not information, it is salvation… it is not merely about knowing something (although there are many important things to know), it is most importantly about becoming something.

Article 6 of the 39 Articles puts it as simply as it can be put:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation

 

Dr. Olsen continues in his post:

It’s not enough for us to read the Scriptures. Our work has not been completed until we have been transformed by them. And when I say “we” I mean “we,” not “you and me”—the whole community, the whole body of Christ, needs to be about the work of growing into the mind of Christ.

This is what the church needs to be about. This is the kind of reading that we have to be doing [before] the good results of well done academic scholarship are useful to us—but they cannot do our work for us. They are fundamentally not asking the same questions that we’re interested in; they are not finding the answers that will ultimately transform us.

He finishes his article by commending a type of reading that is informed by both patristics and by modern scholarship, but that has as its goal the salvation and sanctification of the reader.

This, I think, Anglicanism is uniquely qualified to do very well.  Interestingly enough, this sets Anglicanism over and against both protestant evangelical readings of scripture and modern liberal readings which are allied in the position that the dominant reading should be one informed by authorial intent & a scholarly understanding of the text.  Their methods are the same, they just disagree about the conclusions.  Dr. Olsen, and I believe Anglicanism, points us in another direction:

The literal meaning or the authorial intent is not necessarily the dominant reading. While it usually is one of the dominant meanings, there are times and places where it must give way in the face of more primary meanings.

Primary meanings being those given to us by the church catholic in her long life with the text in worship and formation.  I’ll give Dr. Olsen the last word:

The Scriptures are the Church’s book to be read paradigmatically within the Church’s liturgy that bring us into a deeper relationship with the God embodied, celebrated, and proclaimed within the Church.

Evensong & Compline: An Anglican Gift to the World

In the provocatively titled article ‘Do Not Touch Me’: The Wisdom of Anglican Thresholds at The Telegraph, Steven Hough remarks:

The Church of England’s evening service, adapted after the Reformation from the monastic hour of Vespers, is a wondrous phenomenon. Even the word ‘Evensong’ is poetic, and it seems to chime in perfect harmony with England’s seasons: Autumn’s melancholy, early evening light; the merry crackle of Winter frost; Spring’s awakening, or the lazy, protracted sun strained through the warmed windows of a Summer afternoon.

Evensong hangs on the wall of English life like a old, familiar cloak passed through the generations. Rich with prayer and Scripture, it is nevertheless totally nonthreatening. It is a service into which all can stumble without censure – a rambling old house where everyone can find some corner to sit and think, to listen with half-attention, trailing a few absentminded fingers of faith or doubt in its passing stream…

Most religious celebrations gather us around a table of some sort. They hand us a book, or a plate, or speak a word demanding a response. They want to ‘touch’ us. Choral Evensong is a liturgical expression of Christ’s Nolle me tangere – ‘Do not touch me. I have not yet ascended to my Father’ (St. John 20: 17). It reminds us that thresholds can be powerful places of contemplation; and that leaving someone alone with their thoughts is not always denying them hospitality or welcome.

Last December, Catholicity and Covenant made a similar point in a blog about “reclaimers” and the renewed interest in choral compline and evensong:

Choral compline or evensong provide an accessible and non-threatening space within which young people can think about their lives and become accustomed to the idea of worship — to the possibility that worship might actually make sense.

In some ways, the Anglican choral tradition may well be entering a golden age — not necessarily a fresh, but certainly a refreshed and refresh­ing expression of Christian worship, fit for purpose in the 21st century.

That may appear counterintui­tive, although recent research from the United States, which seeks to identify characteristic types of reli­gious engagement among the young, suggests that a significant proportion of those becoming involved in Chris­tian worship can be described as “Reclaimers”. Like many others, they seek religious experience rather than instruction or dogma, but, unlike some, they reject most of the elements of contemporary worship, seeking instead to reclaim estab­lished traditions, finding within them a refuge from the super­ficiality of much popular culture, and the onslaught of the commercial world.

This thesis finds strong support in the increased engagement with Anglican choral worship, where young people can reconnect with the depths of human experience, in a context that allows, indeed en­courages, them to think things through for themselves. Unsurpris­ingly, under such conditions, many find an intelligent, imaginatively engaged Christian faith compelling.

Yes, the social context of Oxford and Cambridge is somewhat exclusive and Oxbridge college chapels are not parish churches.  But there are points here worth considering – the place of non-eucharistic worship in giving space to meaningfully reflect on the  Christian story; the counter-cultural nature of traditional liturgy, challenging the hegemony of the market and its culture; the phenomenon of the ‘Reclaimers’, suggestive of the extent to which in a post-Christendom society the Christian narrative can be authentically radical.  And all of this, of course, is given expression through the Anglican tradition, which surely speaks of the potential of this tradition even in the midst of our debates and divisions.

And I’ll give Derek Olsen the last word, from a similar vein a few months ago at the Episcopal Cafe:

In and amongst the photos of silver and smoke, we are invited to a mystery. Not so it can be explained away or talked to death—but that we can dive within it and find at the center of the mystery the key to our longing.