Interdependence

February 9, 2010


I am using a weekend off to lead something styled “A Workshop in Christian Community” for members of three parishes in Eastern North Carolina. I will offer three presentations along with exercises and Q and A on Friday and Saturday and will preach in one of those churches (yet to be revealed, but probably a parish in Morehead NC) on Sunday before coming home for a ‘Valentine’s Day Dinner’. How this came about is a long story, but with all such stories has to do with personal relationships and old friends. A group of people there has been reading Raymond Brown’s The Beloved Community about the Christian Community of John’s Gospel and its relationships with others around them. They have also read Dietrich Bonheoffer’s Life Together, theological reflections on the practices of Christian Community.

I have fairly free rein given that and intend to follow a trajectory looking at some of the bases for (or assumptions I make) about our communal nature as people made in the image of God revealed as Triune. This will be a kind of anthropological effort that is intended to get us thinking about who we are, what makes us a ‘self’ in relation to others and so on. We will look at how we like to be treated by others in light of how God treats us and in light of the reality of differences in power in many of our important relationships. The second section will focus more on the practices of community especially what is going on when we gather around the Lord’s Table (with Bonheoffer as the subtext or context for a discussion of worship.) Last we will look at the community’s relation to other Christian communities, other communities of faith and people who claim no faith (with Raymond Brown as subtext or context) and the assumption that God’s hope or end is that we find ourselves in common humanity beyond, but with full appreciation for our particularities. I have some ideas for a sermon coming out of this with texts for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany in which we hear the story of Transfiguration, but am going to let the conversations we have shape the final form of the sermon for Sunday.

I’m looking forward to seeing what unfolds and the preparation has been fun. Where I am stuck however is in thinking about the other subtext that will shape our conversation even if we never make it explicit and that is the reality of tensions within the Anglican Communion. I’m not planning to take this head on in any presentations but will probably address the issues in terms of Christian Practice in community. We sometimes hear that the proposed Anglican Covenant is about strengthening ‘interdependence’ over ‘provincial autonomy’. A newish English Suffragan Bishop called Graham Kings is also leader of the group called Fulcrum. Has recently suggested that this is his view of things going so far as to say that if TEC moves forward with confirming the election of Mary Glasspool as Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles, and if our Presiding Bishop participates in the consecration, she will have made it impossible for herself to serve on this new animal called the ‘Anglican Standing Committee’ with any integrity as a result of her actions. You can read his comments here.

Regular readers of my opinions on this will not be surprised that I disagree with Bishop King’s (and the proposed Covenant’s—much of which is simply a well thought out expression of Anglican Ecclesiology and no problem--) assumption that interdependence means ‘gracious restraint’ in the living out of principles of the gospel which have become clear to this province but are matters of debate in others and simply ‘beyond the pale’ and not even worthy of discussion in yet others. Restraint sounds very reasonable when discussed as a theory and simply wrong when thought about in terms of sisters and brothers in the pew who have by presence and conversation over a long period of time have helped the Church gathered around the Table and under the Holy Spirit to come to a new assessment of what it means to be human. (Obviously this sentence can be debated and in itself does not constitute an argument). Why can ‘interdependence’ not mean recognizing, understanding and even appreciating difference? And why can Episcopal leadership, especially in those parts of the Church who grant bishops ‘high’ and even ‘autonomous’ privilege, not mean insisting that such decisions as that made by TEC with regard to the full humanity as such of lesbian and gay people be ‘respected’ or ‘given room to develop’ or ‘be one more manifestation of cultural difference’ rather as we live with differences over the status of women in the Communion? Instead we have brothers and sisters (and a pride of male bishops—lions of the Church?) who see interdependence as essentially expressed in ‘majority rule’. Is that really the proper consequence of the ecclesiology of the ofrst three sections of the proposed Covenant?

The C of E and ACNA

February 5, 2010


Those interested in understanding what has been going on in the Episcopal Church regarding the status of clergy and property will find a splendid summary written by Simon Samiento, an Englishman, for the education of their General Synod. You can read it here. This is in response to a briefing paper offered by the sponsor of a private member’s motion that the Church of England express desire to be in communion with the Anglican Communion in North America (ACNA) which contains a number of inaccuracies of fact. You can read that one here There is a parallel paper submitted from the Anglican Church of Canada which you can read about here I am encouraged that our friends are stepping up. I hope that we too desire to be in communion with ACNA, some of whose are former colleagues of mine, but they have chosen (for whatever reason) to leave The Episcopal Church and start their own community of faith in the Anglican tradition in many ways, muddled about the validity and desirability of women in Holy Orders and clear that whatever one’s opinion of the idea of ‘sexual orientation’, any ‘same sex activity’ is sinful.

Politics

February 3, 2010


With all of the talk of the dreadful lack of results from Obama’s first year as President, I was both heartened and disheartened by recent news reports.

I was disheartened by a piece in the New York Times by Charles Blow naming the widespread and pretty basic political illiteracy in this country. Less than a third of us know that no republican senators voted in favor of the health bill that eventually came to the floor of the senate. Blow says that people don’t care about the process as much as the results. It is certainly hard for me to understand how the democrats, with a supermajority in the senate were unable to sort through the admittedly complex interests that have to be balance in any reform of any system while at the same time taking on the fog created by republican opposition to any reform.

I was heartened by Obama sharing the lowest approval rating of any President since records were kept in the Eisenhower days. He enjoys approval rtes lower than Nixon and Carter after one year. He shares this low number with the Gipper who also inherited a mess and could not get things turned around in a year. According to a recent Newsweek they both come in with about 57% approval at the end of their first year.

There is certainly a lot of handwringing and punditry going on. Timid democrats and obstructionist republicans need to hear that their stance is not working for the country and won’t work for them either. Leaders in congress need to get serious about helping move forward the agenda for which the President was elected. He might have to stop being so reasonable and incorporating republican ideas. He doesn’t get credit when he does. He gets slammed by his friends for being ‘ineffective’. The spin game is keeping us from moving forward even as the economy is showing the faintest signs of survival. I know we need healthcare reform and that paying for insuring more people is a burden that must be shared fairly. (Isn’t it great that corporations are people too?). I don’t’ know about regulating banks, but I do know that de regulation was the change that made the current mess possible (while making some people extremely rich). I am glad that we are getting out of Iraq and have every expectation that we will fail to make real and permanent friends in Afghanistan while we continue to hammer at Al Qaida and the rest. I generally approve of drones in that fight and soldiers living with the people they are serving and protecting. I’m simply not a person of faith when it comes to military action in that part of the world. I can be persuaded that it is the lesser of two evils but I cannot get excited about war as a good thing.

Up to now I have not really come across populist rage in person. Now I seem to be experiencing it in my own person.

The Archbishop in New York

January 28, 2010


The Archbishop of Canterbury was in New York last week for some work related to the Anglican Observer at the United Nations and to serve as a major presenter on economic issues for the Trinity Institute. I was present for some of the early part of the week. The Trustees of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale were led through a strategic review process by Barbara Wheeler of Auburn Seminary. While the realities of reductions in the value of endowments and our requirement that our budgets be balanced provide the usual level of angst and challenge, it seems that among institutions of theology, Berkeley and Yale divinity Schools together are among the strongest and best positioned on the landscape. One day we met at the Tutu Center of the General Theological Seminary in Chelsea and heard from Dean Ewing that they have made great strides in stabilizing their financial situation through the development of the Tutu Center as a hotel and conference site as well as the development of condominiums and shops in the library buildings through the mechanism of a land lease. (This continues to be an interesting model for us at All Saints’ but for the fact that there is still a lot of ‘available’ land in midtown.)

The Berkeley Board sponsored a dinner in support of the Anglican Observer’s office. Over the years a number of clergy and now some of the laity involved in supporting that office have had Berkeley connections. Rowan Williams was the speaker. I had attended the last such dinner about ten years ago or whenever Dr. Williams was newish in his position, and he has come along way in finding the right balance of how to say something of substance in an engaging way after a dinner.

Among other things, he spoke of relationship, and how relationship is not best handled as a juridical matter. I wasn’t sure I had heard correctly as I had shared from the pulpit on the previous Sunday my concern that the last section of the proposed Anglican Covenant was exactly that: a juridical or disciplinary way to handle anxiety in relationship. Others heard the same thing that I did. While he was addressing international relationships that make for justice in the world, he must have realized the connection with what he was saying and tensions in the Communion. His preferred process for dealing with those tensions is currently all about stopping The Episcopal Church moving forward with the confirmation of the election of Mary Glasspool as a Suffragan Bishop for Los Angeles. The fourth section of the proposed Covenant outlines the discipline and consequence for provinces of the church who act in ways of which others do not approve. However much he wishes that this was not ‘juridical’, and however much he recognizes that juridical solutions to tension in relationship are not the way to go, he must also recognize that is exactly what he is proposing and exactly how the fourth section will be used in the name of ‘unity’, however much handwringing and expressions of regret go along with it.

Creation in Wisdom Literature

January 25, 2010


David H. Kelsey is the Luther A. Weigle Professor of Theology Emeritus at Yale Divinity School. Last year he published a book in two volumes that represents something of a ‘Life Work’. It is a systematic, densely argued, “theological anthropology” called Eccentric Existence (WJK, 2009). He intersperses theological reflection with the inevitable methodological justification. (These days most serious theological books seem to have 100 pages of methodology for every 10 pages of theology.) The book is slow going but worth it with nuggets on every page.

I have just enjoyed a section (Chapter 4A) arguing that a good basis for a theology of creation is found in Wisdom Literature (Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes,--many would include Psalms in the list as well.). He points out that while creation theology is implicit except for Proverbs 8:21-32 and Job, and while it is interested more in God’s providential governance of the world, it is a theology that is entirely governed by the logic of God’s creative activity. This is in contrast to the stories of Genesis 1-3 or sections of Isaiah that tend to be governed by stories of reconciliation or the end of history. In Wisdom creation is our “proximate context but our ultimate context as creatures is the active creativity of God.” (Vol. 1 p. 162) He concludes the section by asking again how we shall characterize the triune Creator’s active relating to creation. His answer is a kind of dense shorthand that has been developed in the preceding chapter. “As a free relating that in attentive delight constitutes creatures in being, each and all—as delighting in each and all, a delighting in which Gods commits Godself to creation and its well-being in orderly proximate contexts. This is the ultimate context in to which we are born: God’s hospitable generosity, creatively relating, to us, free of creatures in creating and attentively delighting in them in their otherness to God, self-committed to that which is created.”

What I like and respond to in this is a kind of givenness that does not reduce creation or our purpose in life to one story in particular. We are not defined as fundamentally fallen sinners in need of some kind of redemption. While that may be true, the Wisdom theology of creation neither requires nor limits us to that story. Kelsey has written a difficult book but rich.

A Private Member’s Motion

January 20, 2010


Ms. Lorna Ashworth is a member of the General Synod of the Church of England who has proposed a Private Member’s motion “That this Synod express the desire that the Church of England be in communion with the Anglican Church in North America”. She has published a background paper filled with misinformation, and the Secretary General of the Communion has published a background note that appears to be supportive of the motion but is predictably ‘careful’. Simon Samiento has reported on Thinking Anglicans that the House of Bishops has both prepared and amendment and not seen fit to contact the Houses of Bishops of the three Anglican Churches of North America (Mexico, Canada and the US with some former missionary dioceses including Haiti among others). Unless someone mounts a campaign to put a stop to this, observers from many perspectives seem to think it will pass. However many agenda there are at play here, we must not forget that the ‘offense’ behind all this maneuvering is the full recognition and inclusion of gay and lesbian people as such in the life of the church, without hedging, playing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, making noises about pastoral care while declining to support our brothers and sisters as children of God etc. etc. It is all hate and fear and power dressed up in reasoned clothing. The marginalization of The Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion is likely to continue under the leadership of the current Archbishop of Canterbury whether this motion passes or not. I pray that our friends in the C of E will make some noise.

General David Petraeus

January 20, 2010


I had the privilege of being a guest of the Atlanta Press Club to hear General Petraeus speak in a largely q and a format. He made no new policy statements and said nothing previously unreported. He addressed how our forces are doing in relation to Al Qaida, recognizing that there are a number of other extremist groups in the picture as well. He was mostly positive about our progress but acknowledged that such progress is not a straight line to victory. He addressed the ethics of the use of drones and was, at the same time, very clear about how our current engagements are “manpower intensive”. He referred to the importance of LPCs or ‘Leather Personnel Carriers’, viz. ‘boots on the ground’. He praised American allies quoting Winston Churchill’s famous adage that ‘the only thing worse than having allies is not having allies.’ He was positive without being effusive about the review process that led President Obama to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. He addressed the need for troops to be living with the forces they are training and the people they are protecting, recognizing that any such action is a long term exercise in building trust and not a simple ‘military-only’ operation.

It is this last area that most interests me in that I am skeptical that a force that can be characterized as ‘invaders’ (however much there is a consequent government in place who wants us to stay) will ever be a ‘trusted partner’.

The General was quite wordy as a consequence of his broad and deep grasp of his subject matter and an intuitive sense of how so much of what he said was interconnected. He made all the right nods to our troops and to political realities. On the whole I came away with the sense that given we are engaging in military conflict in many parts of the world, mostly in the Central Command of over twenty countries under General Petraeus, that we are in good, thoughtful and sensible hands.