Rio Day 1

August 20, 2008

Richard hall and I arrive in Rio bright and early to be met by Ian Benedict an English speaker born in Argentina and naturalized Brazilian. He was accompanied by Bishop Filadelfo Oliveira Neto, soon to be installed as Bishop of Rio and formerly Suffragan of Reciffe. They dropped us at our hotel but we met up again for lunch with them, Ann Benedict and Filadlefo’s wife Duci at Ian and Ann’s flat in the Gavea section of town.

Our first conversation was wide ranging. My conclusions: The diocese is virtually bankrupt. Clergy have not been paid for a while. Reporting and accounting has been ‘flexible’. Ian is a retired accountant and together with the bishop I am confident they will get that sorted out and audits will become a regular part of life. No one is paying much attention to growing the church or any other strategic thinking about the future. Most of the clergy have taken second jobs to keep food on the table and so are rapidly becoming ‘Sunday only’ priests in some quarters. (Remember these are impressions and my not be accurate.)

I emphasized that it was All Saints’ hope to find a way to be in relationship that could excite our interest and allow friendships to develop. I said (as I usually do) that we believe that gifts flow from relationship and that it is hard for us to enter real relationship when it is structured around hopes and expectations about our providing financial support. I told the bishop that we have plenty of work to do at home that has claims on our money and that every penny is important. At the same time, when mission has ‘a face and name’ and friendship begins to be real then anything is possible. Richard and I are in Rio to see if there is any project of the church that might qualify for MDG funding that could become a focus for our being in relationship with some part of the diocese of Rio. He said that bishop Alexander and he had talked of wanting to develop ‘parish to parish’ relationships.

It is pretty clear from this conversation that we are unlikely to find what we are seeking. Most of the schools are being closed as is their home fro troubled boys called Boystown that has been in existence for over fifty years and which so touched our teenage pilgrims three years ago

It is not clear how many people would call themselves Anglican in this geographically large diocese, or how many people would know that they are served by Anglicans. They do have a plan to ask the Diocese of Atlanta for one year of support for the bishop which they believe would allow them to get on top of a lot of this kind of information and formulate a plan. I doubt that one year is enough to scratch the surface of them becoming self sustaining, but think they could have a viable plan for growth within a year if they choose.

Our global relationship s at All Saints’ do not have to be identical to each other. Our premise is that by relating to Christians in different cultures and circumstance than our own that we will find our faith challenged and deepened. We will have much to receive and possibly find that we have something to offer. Having (or being perceived to have) resources is both a challenge and a blessing: a challenge to make the relationships real rather than utilitarian, and a blessing in that relationship is possible in the first place.

If we are to be or stay in a relationship with this diocese or some part of it, we will be really challenged to consider what is of real importance and what is real good news for our own faith. Thus far I have not heard a story that suggests why anyone should want to be part of a struggling, tiny, hardly noticeable and ‘foreign’ church. Can we inspire the telling of stories by sharing ours? I’m not yet sure.

War Stories

August 19, 2006

My visit to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford near Cambridge this summer, combined with a book club choice called Peace by Richard Bausch (Knopf, 2008) inspired me to read or re-read some war memoirs. Both were written as diaries during WWII and both authors were killed before the war ended. Guy Gibson was a bomber pilot who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the famous raid known as ‘the dam busters’ using the bouncing bomb against targets in the Ruhr Valley. (Enemy Coast Ahead, Pan 1955). The other was a fighter pilot called David Crook (Spitfire Pilot, Grub Street, 2008). What struck me in contrast to the extraordinary novel by Bausch was how far from introspective these young airmen seemed to be. They report the deaths of their friends in the same breath as assuring us that this had little or no effect on the morale of the chaps. They talked of air battles as ‘glorious encounters’. They both married during the war and saw their wives infrequently but with much anticipation expressed as affection. They know without any doubt that ‘the Hun’ were evil and needed to be defeated. There was no moral ambiguity about any of it.

This is all quite a contrast to the novel in which there is great introspection and moral ambiguity among fictional American infantrymen in Italy towards the end of the war. I wonder what we will read from those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq in due course.

Rio

August 18, 2008

I will be traveling to Rio de Janiero on Tuesday night, returning the following Tuesday morning. I will be preaching at the Church of the Redemptor next Sunday and meeting a number of leaders including the new bishop as we further our companion relationship with that diocese. (Our parish relationship actually slightly predates and parallels the relationship between our diocese and that one.) I will be looking at various projects that might provide a particular focus for that relationship as we continue life together in some sense and which might be a point of engagement for us and also a recipient of funds offered in support pf the millennium development goals. I will report on my return.

Al Farook Masjid of Atlanta

August 18, 2008

Yesterday I enjoyed the privilege of attending the opening ceremonies for Al-Farook Masjid of Atlanta, formerly the Atlanta Mosque on 14^th Street. Our own Louisa Merchant who oversees our refugee ministries formerly ran the day school associated with the mosque. A number of Charlie Ogburn’s partners have been instrumental in seeing the new mosque built and bit by bit we are establishing a network of relationships there that will help our goal of not only ‘learning about Islam’ but making Muslim friends.

The speakers stayed well on point each addressing their goals of being an Atlantan and loyally American institution. On speaker articulated a dream of seeing America move from being a Judao-Christian society to becoming a Judao-Christian-Islamic society. There was much talk of the respect paid in the Koran to the other faiths of the book, without much of the triumphalism that is often associated with that by Muslims. They see their role as helping Americans that American citizens like many of them follow their faith as patriotic Americans.

There is much that is attractive about Islam as they present it. They make the case that women are not oppressed as much as appears to be the case in American society. Many majority Islamic countries have had women as Presidents and Premiers and they point out that women successfully enter all societal professions. One prayer from an honored member asked that “every single man may find a wife and every single woman may find a husband in order that they may be complete.” Another speaker making a presentation on Islam stressed the Prophet’s emphasis on modesty and talked of how in his marriage his wife was a full partner and he did all his own laundry. The role and place of women in modern American Islam is something I’m hoping Louisa can help me understand more as it is clearly a) different than what I have assumed and b) subtle and complex.

Yesterday in church we asked God’s blessing on “our friends of the Al-Farook Masjid as they celebrate the opening of their new building.” Everything about the celebration and their hospitality suggests that the prayer (which raised a couple of eyebrows) was not misplaced.

Bits and Pieces

August 10, 2008

The ordination of Penny Nash as a priest was a happy and joyful occasion. Our assisting bishop offered a homily that reflected a very ‘high’ view of orders. He emphasized his belief that the conferring of priesthood was a ‘new creation’ conferring the privilege of a mediating role between God and God’s people. Priesthood, he said, is not ‘just a job’. While I agree that priesthood cannot be limited to a set of functions, I don’t find this high catholic articulation of what is going on the most helpful way of understanding what it is I do. I think there is the interweaving of role and function over a lifetime of service that makes the doctrine coherent rather than some ‘extra grace’ that somehow makes us either ’more than’ or ‘other than’ those we serve. Either way, Penny will have a job to do and in the doing of it, grace will abound.

The day before I finished reading Andrew Krivak’s spiritual memoir A Long Retreat in which he leaves the Jesuit order after seven years of formation and discernment in order to marry. This departure and new beginning took place before he was ordained a priest. He writes briefly and in an affecting way about his realization that he would never be a priest but that he was still called and had “a place in our collective earthly pilgrimage”. That call contained both work and prayer. (p.320) Nicely put.

Another book I have enjoyed is From Stone to Living Word by Debbie Blue. This is the kind of reflection on scripture that those of you who enjoy Martha Sterne’s writing (Alive and Loose in the Ordinary) or Tracey Lind (Interrupted by God) will enjoy this book. Blue is pastor of what is sometimes called ‘an emergent church’. They meet in St. Paul, MN on Sunday afternoons and are not unlike some of the ideas/visions that have been floating around our conversations for some time and which are explicitly part of the conversation of h=our ‘strategic thinking group’. You can learn about them here: http://www.houseofmercy.org/

The aftermath of the Lambeth Conference keeps on with the publication of some correspondence between Rowan Williams and an evangelical psychiatrist called Dr. Pitt from eight years ago. Much is made in some quarters about the timing of Ruth Gledhill’s publication of this correspondence in The Times. She says that it was in unopened mail awaiting her return to the office after being in Canterbury for three weeks. In any event there is nothing new here. The ABC thinks ‘as a theologian’ that scripture may not be being read correctly by the church and that there may be moral equivalency between certain homosexual relationships and marriage. He sees scriptural interpretation and a living discipline that allows for change and he distinguishes his personal (private?) positions ‘as a theologian’ from his public role as a bishop of the church. I wonder if a high doctrine of orders might not allow him to discover a greater merging of the role of bishop with his ‘personal views’ rather than this ‘I don’t really think that but it is the mind of the church and therefore my job to proclaim’ position he seems to be in. Could he not say ‘The mind of the church is this or that and I find myself holding a minority position here’? And is it possible that such a position would be helpful to him and so to the rest of us?

Bottom line on Lambeth: At official institutional levels there is not much (if any) change. Archbishop Venables of the Southern Cone says division is inevitable. He is quoted in The times saying: “This is more evidence of the unravelling of Anglicanism. Without a clearly agreed biblical foundation, all the goodwill in the world cannot stop the inevitable break-up. Unity without truth is disunity.” As he is among those fomenting division, he can speak with some authority on the matter! At the same time there has been significant movement on a relational basis between bishops from widely different cultures moving to a place of greater willingness to each see what the other might have to offer. I don’t know what institutional form will emerge from all this, but have faith that we are all being led to right relationship rather than to new rules.

Colonialism and the Church

August 8, 2008

In the course of our internecine struggles within Anglicanism we have heard a fair bit of (largely, but not exclusively) African triumphalism over against ‘the West that brought us Christianity’, ‘American (but, interestingly, not Canadian) arrogance and occasionally ‘colonialism’. Recently Archbishop Orombi of Uganda accused Archbishop Williams of ‘betrayal’ by inviting American bishops who approved the consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire to the Lambeth Conference. In the same article he said that having the Archbishop of Canterbury as the de facto primus inter pares was something he had come to see as a vestige of colonialism. (Read it here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4438729.ece)

A teacher of post colonial studies at Cambridge University called Priyamvada Gopal wrote a fascinating opinion piece in the Guardian in which she points out that Archbishop Orombi himself is a product of and representative of a colonial institution. She talks, at least as I read it, of how the rhetoric of anti-colonialism is a remnant of the very colonial arrogance that is purportedly being denounced and which is serving to generate extreme intolerance among the faithful in the Archbishop’s charge. You can read it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/05/anglicanism.religion

I had not previously thought of mixing in the colonial heritage of some African Churches along with the consequences of high doctrines of authority promulgated by missionaries of many a theological stripe and married to the assumptions about power and privilege that go with traditional African tribal leadership transposed into the episcopate. I do not believe that any of these things are or were necessarily or self-evidently ‘bad’, but they have left us a potent and (to me) deeply unattractive intolerant form of arrogant and probably totalitarian fundamentalism.

Lambeth (5)

August 4, 2008

So Lambeth comes to an end and we will have to see what it all means as the Anglican Communion limps forward toward the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). The ACC is, significantly, the only ‘instrument of communion that includes lay people in its councils.

As best I can tell at this point the Bishops have enjoyed working together but that to the degree there is consensus about how to move forward it looks very like the solution of the Windsor Report. ‘Generous actions’ are required by those who believe in the inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the form of declining to consecrate any more bishops who are honest about their homosexuality and declining to bless (or actually carry our any liturgical expression of ‘pastoral support’ for)gay and lesbian unions. At the same a moratorium on ‘border crossings’ is invited by those who cannot abide being in the same communion with those who would include and affirm gay and lesbian people and their relationships as such.

From the Archbishop of Canterbury’s final sermon:

The Church in its wider life can’t be committed definitively by the judgment of some; but when a new thing is enshrined, in whatever way, in public order and ministry, it will look like a definitive commitment. The theological ground for a plea for moratoria is the need to avoid this confusion so that discernment continues together. The Resolution of Lambeth ’98 was an attempt to say both ‘We need understanding and shared discernment on a hugely complex topic,’ and ‘We as the bishops in council together are not persuaded that the new thoughts offered to us can be reconciled with our shared loyalty to Scripture.’

It looks like an attempt to put toothpaste back in the tube and I won’t hold my breath on it happening. No one wants to be considered schismatic. No one apparently wants to ‘leave’ the Anglican Communion. Those behind GAFCON and FOCA (the new Fellowship Of Confessing Anglicans) are following the American conservative playbook and trying what will be some kind of ‘takeover’. Archbishop Orombi of Uganda was given space in The Times to rant about how Rowan Williams has betrayed the church by expecting Canterbury to have some degree of primacy among equals when he was appointed by a secular government. It looks to me as though he and his American friends have already made their decision to separate themselves. And it looks as though the bishops of the communion gathered in conference (which occasionally gets elevated to ‘council’ as in the sermon quoted above) have still not learned the lesson of Virginia and elsewhere that there is no placating an Anglican conservative and nothing that will trump their sense of being convicted by the scriptures to a position that is most clearly that of God Almighty. (I am equally convicted by the scriptures as to what Jesus would do confronted with the reality of gay and lesbian people. I’m less inclined to believe I know how this conviction will be treated at the final judgment.)

As far as what we will do at All Saints’ in the near term is consider whether to continue to invest in relationship with Christians in very different circumstances than those in which we find ourselves. This means, in effect, ensuring that our partners are willing either to suspend judgment on our actions and commitments which they find difficult for a variety of reasons, and being willing to do so ourselves. In effect we would be in partnership with those who are willing to live as though our interpretation of scripture might be a legitimate and godly reading in our time and place even if they can’t see how at the moment, and so be willing to live as though our decisions regarding the proper place of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church is not something that is of the essence of the faith once delivered to the saints (adiaphora). For our part, we would be acknowledging that in the great scheme of things we could yet be shown to be wrong. Until such time however we need to continue to affirm all of God’s people. As Jim Naughton of Episcopal Café (www.episcopalcafe.com) has written of one bishop:

Anis, who is a medical doctor, believes gay people can change their sexual orientation under reparative therapy. The American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Counseling Association, American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychological Association, American School Health Association, National Association of School Psychologists and the National Association of Social Workers, disagree.

This of course raises the question as to whether the church is following ‘the culture’ at this point or whether the church has played and is still playing a role in leading and shaping the culture toward a greater manifestation of divine justice (the second alternative being my position.)