Graham Kings: A Poem for Pentecost
By Graham Kings | May 11, 2008
THE IMAGE OF HER FATHER
For many years in Israel’s womb
The embryo grows, the Church of Christ:
First the Head, then the Body,
The Son of Man includes the many.
For hours upon a Roman cross
The Church’s birth begins in blood:
Crucified with Christ her Head,
Constricted by the love of God.
The third day, from a gaping tomb,
The Church emerges urgently:
Risen again with Christ her life,
Released, relieved, the joy of God.
The fiftieth day, with tongues of flame,
She breathes the Spirit, cries the word:
Conceived, inspired with Christ, she grows,
The heir of all, the child of God.
Graham Kings
First published in The International Review of Mission
LXXX no 317 January 1991.
Topics: Anglican Communion | No Comments »
A Pentecost Reflection
By Greg Jones | May 11, 2008
Pentecost was already a special day in Jerusalem before the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father, through the Son, and into the disciples of Jesus. Pentecost was a Jewish harvest celebration, when the first fruits of the harvest were consecrated to God. But, on the fiftieth day after Jesus’ death on the cross, the ancient feast of Pentecost became all new.
We call it the Church’s birthday, because it’s the day when the Holy Spirit poured out upon flesh and blood people like you and me who had decided to follow Jesus, as his own. On that day when God’s life, breath, wisdom and binding love came pouring out on the disciples of Jesus, a new thing was done. God did a new thing. A new thing different than anything that’d gone before. A new age was born, a new era begun, an era of God’s salvation. And we are still in that age.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Did You Know?
By Craig Uffman | May 8, 2008
Topics: Anglican Communion | 3 Comments »
Julian of Norwich
By Dr Jean Meade | May 8, 2008
Her confident assertion that, “All shall be well, and all manner of things be well” is what we think first of when we think of Julian of Norwich, a 14th century English anchoress, whose “Revelations of Divine Love” is a spiritual classic, revived in the 20th century by T. S. Eliot among others.
This May 8 as we remember the Lady Julian, we are also approaching the celebration of Pentecost and the Coming of the Holy Spirit, when we contemplate the mystery of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In recent years the traditional “formula” has grated on some ears, and some have sought to substitute philosophical categories in order to avoid the “sexist” terms “Father” and “Son,” found in Scripture. Since the Hebrew for Spirit is ruach, a grammatically feminine noun, it also seemed logical as the locus of the feminine principle in the Trinity. But that can seem to divide up the Holy and Undivided Trinity into different “sexes.” So we end up with Gnostic benedictions in the name of the ‘Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier,” or, worse yet, adoptionist benedictions, “Glory to God… glory to Jesus… glory to the Holy Spirit…” as if the latter two were not God.
Topics: Anglican Communion | 1 Comment »
On Hermeneutics and the Rev’d Wright’s theology
By Craig Uffman | May 7, 2008
J. Kameron Carter, a Duke theologian whose work I have often cited on this blog, was recently interviewed by USAToday as part of its coverage of the Obama/Wright controversy.
I found this interesting as a commentary on the controversy, but also as a point of reflection on our own differences across the Communion. Surely this is why Archbishop Rowan has called for a hermeneutics project in parallel with our effort to create a covenant?
“Someone reading the Exodus story who was a slave would read it differently than the white master on that same plantation,” says J. Kameron Carter, associate professor of Theology and Black Church Studies at Duke University Divinity School. “Hermeneutics isn’t whether you have the Scripture right or wrong, it’s the sunglasses you’re wearing when you read it and when you look out at the world,”
Part of that viewpoint is a communal sense of faith. At the National Press Club, Wright cast all criticism of himself as an “attack on the black church” because, historically and culturally, black people have not thought of their religious life in individualistic ways, Carter says.
“The afflictions of Miss Jones down the street or a sanitation worker or a middle-class person are all bound together by history and experiences across time. Attacking Wright is seen as attacking that tradition,” Carter says. This view defies any kind of inward, individualized piety or spirituality, he says.
“Black liberation theology, at its root, was an attempt to bring a Christian answer forward with intellectual force and coherence,” says Carter. “This theology says Jesus, as God’s representative in the world, was about deliverance, uplift and liberation of the downtrodden. God is working out the uplift of his people and freeing the captors as well as the captives from the structures of oppression.”
Says Carter: “He is harkening back to the prophets of ancient Israel, charged by God to call Israel back to its mission, identity and purpose. They often had to use such harsh words that Jeremiah was thrown in a dungeon for his gloom-and-doom declarations. The prophet’s job is speaking truth to power, not on their own authority but on God’s.”
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Key GAFCON leaders to attend Lambeth Conference
By Craig Uffman | May 7, 2008
Good news to report regarding the Lambeth Conference….
Yesterday, Bishop Bob Duncan announced that the bishops of the diocese of Pittsburgh will be attending Lambeth 2008, as well as the GAFCON.
This follows similar announcements that Archbishop Venables and Bishop Iker will be doing the same.
Topics: Anglican Communion | 1 Comment »
Prayer
By Craig Uffman | May 7, 2008
“A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening.”
Søren Kierkegaard
Christian Discourses
Jesus told his disciples always to pray and not give up. Many people use the monthly Cycle of Prayer, as a way of praying methodically for the work of our parishes, chaplaincies and our brothers and sisters around the world.
The Anglican Cycle of Prayer can be used as part of the ‘ daily offices’ of the Church universal- the daily services of preparation for the day ahead and reflection for the day past. Choose either the Book of Common Prayer or the Common Worship versions below.
Click here to go to Morning Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.
Alternatively, the Daily Prayer feed below is provided by the Church of England.
Daily Prayer
Daily Prayer is provided by the official Church of England web site,
© The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England, 2002-2004.
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/services/
Morning Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
Today Tomorrow
Evening Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
Today Tomorrow
Night Prayer
(Traditional)
Today Tomorrow
Topics: Anglican Communion | 4 Comments »
Isolationism
By Fr. Tony Clavier | May 6, 2008
One of the sure signs that a dominant group in the church is suffering from hardening of the arteries is when it gets defensive and perhaps isolationist. A movement which was full of vigor, freshness and hope, breaking out of the proverbial box, and stretching minds and hearts gradually becomes narrow, legalistic and defensive of its turf.
Such a development is as much a part of our Anglican history as the “golden ages” some love to re-visit for strength and solace. One of the tasks of a historian is to dig into golden ages to reveal, as best one may, that they were perhaps not as golden as they seemed, as well as to examine so called “dead” periods to see just how lifeless they really were. When I was much younger the popular historical view was that the 18th Century church was as dead as the proverbial Dodo until the Evangelicals came along and woke it up. Today a perhaps more measured description is available.
Topics: Anglican Communion | 1 Comment »
Addendum in light of the Presiding Bishop’s April 30, 2008 Letter to the House of Bishops
By Craig Uffman | May 6, 2008
The ACI has just published an addendum to the memorandum for presentment of the Presiding Bishop. The source is confidential to the ACI. The link to the addendum is here, but the full text is published below for your convenience.
A defense now proffered by the Presiding Bishop and her supporters is that the same procedures were followed in the recent cases of Bishops Davies and Moreno. Past violations of the canon’s clear provisions are said to justify current ones. In considering this defense, it is necessary to distinguish three senses of “precedent” in legal usage. One is the well-known sense of precedent as a formal ruling on a legal issue by a competent juridical body. This is clearly not the case here as no one has suggested that the prior cases were determined to be canonical by any body reviewing the canonical issues. These cases are not offered as reasoned legal rulings, but as a fait accompli.
Topics: Anglican Communion | 2 Comments »
Scientific American: Buried Prejudice - The Bigot in Your Brain
By Craig Uffman | May 6, 2008
Subliminal Stereotyping* All of us hold unconscious clichéd beliefs about social groups: black and white, female and male, elderly and young, gay and straight, fat and thin.
* Such implicit bias is far more prevalent than the more overt, or explicit, prejudice that we associate with, for instance, the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis.
* Certain social scenarios can automatically activate implicit stereotypes and attitudes, which then can affect our perceptions, judgments and behavior, including the choice of whom to befriend, whom to hire and, in the case of doctors, what treatment to deliver.
* Recent research suggests we can reshape our implicit attitudes and beliefs—or at least curb their effects on our behavior.
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Archbishop of Canterbury Visits Benedict XVI
By Craig Uffman | May 6, 2008
Vatican Radio noted that some people consider the current relationship between the Holy See and the Anglican Communion to be in its most difficult moment since the Second Vatican Council.“It depends where you’re looking from,” Williams responded. “I think that in terms of the conflicts within the Anglican Communion then yes, it’s an unprecedentedly difficult time, no two ways about that.”
The Anglican Communion is facing a fracture because parts of the group, notably the Episcopal Church in the United States, have approved the ordination of women and homosexuals as bishops.
However, Williams noted that partially through the work of the Anglican Center in Rome, “tremendously deep foundations have been laid” in the Anglican-Catholic relationship.
Topics: Anglican Communion | 1 Comment »
Methodists Vote To Retain Policies on Homosexuality
By Craig Uffman | May 6, 2008
The United Methodist Church held to its traditional rules on homosexuality Wednesday (April 30), refusing to support or celebrate same-sex unions and maintaining language that calls homosexual activity “incompatible with Christian teaching.”While many Methodists gathered here acknowledged sharp disagreement within their church on sexuality and biblical interpretation, delegates voted down efforts that would reflect that division in church rules or social policies.
Topics: Anglican Communion | No Comments »
Our Emerging Tribal Identities
By Craig Uffman | May 6, 2008
David Brooks, an Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, penned this essay last week. I’ve been chewing on his thesis, captivated by his suggestion that our demographic differences point to emerging tribal identities, based no longer on bloodlines or race, but rather on the quality and nature of our education. If he’s correct, I wonder about the implications for the church, and also about his thesis’ explanatory power when applied to the Anglican Communion….
It’s more accurate to say that the country has simply drifted apart into different subcultures. There’s no great hostility between the cultures. Americans have a fuzzy sense of where the boundaries lie. But people in different niches have developed different unconscious maps of reality. They have developed different communal understandings of what constitutes a good leader, of what sort of world they live in. They have developed different communal definitions, which they can’t even articulate, of what they mean by liberty, security and virtue. Demographic groups have begun to function like tribes or cultures.
The core message is that even if you take away the ideological differences between the parties, you are still left with profound social gulfs within the parties. There’s poignancy to that. The upscale liberals who revere Obama have spent their lives championing equality and opposing privilege. But they’ve smashed the old WASP social hierarchy only to create a new educational one.
Topics: Anglican Communion | No Comments »
A Radically Redacted Anglican Covenant
By Nathan Humphrey | May 3, 2008
I propose the following redaction to the St. Andrew’s Draft, derived from my series on the Draft at Communion in Conflict.
[The original placement of text lifted from the St. Andrew’s Draft may be found in brackets.]
(1.0) By our participation in Baptism and Eucharist, we are incorporated into the one Body of the Church of Jesus Christ, and called by Christ to pursue all things that make for peace and build up our common life. [3.1.1]
(2.0) Therefore, each church of the Communion commits itself: [1.2b and parallels]
Topics: Anglican Communion | 9 Comments »
Philip Turner: The Presiding Bishop of TEC: Does She Know What She Is Doing?
By Craig Uffman | May 1, 2008
From Anglican Communion Institute Vice President, Rev. Dr. Philip Turner…..
Three events in the recent past have posed a serious question. Does the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church (TEC) know what she is doing? The possible answers to this question have raised even greater concern than the question itself. For, I have concluded, if, on the one hand, she does not know what she is doing then TEC is without effective leadership at perhaps the most crucial time in its history. If, on the other hand, she does know what she is doing, she is leading TEC in directions for which she has no warrant.To be specific, her decline of an invitation to greet the Pope on his present visit calls into question her understanding of the office of Presiding Bishop. The canonical irregularities surrounding the specially called convention in the Diocese of San Joaquin and the actions to depose Bishops Cox, Schofield and Duncan raise questions about the way in which she understands and deploys the Constitution and Canons of TEC. Finally, her Easter Message to TEC raises a question about the adequacy of her grasp of the Christian Gospel.
Topics: Anglican Communion | 17 Comments »
Philip Turner: A Self-Defining Moment for the Anglican Communion
By Craig Uffman | May 1, 2008
Rev. Dr. Philip Turner, Vice President of the Anglican Communion Institute, weighs in with commentary on the St. Andrew’s draft of the proposed covenant.
A Comment on the St. Andrew’s Draft of the Anglican Covenant
I
A second iteration of a draft covenant for the Anglican Communion (the St. Andrew’s Draft) is now circulating; and it is likely that some version thereof will be presented to the Bishops of the Communion when they meet in Canterbury this summer. At some point after this gathering, a covenant proposal will be circulated among the provinces of the Communion for ratification. There is no doubt that most (though perhaps not all) of the member provinces of the Communion will ratify a covenant within the next few years. The question is really not so much ratification of the Covenant, but (1) the sort of covenant that will be ratified; (2) the way in which the provinces of the Communion comport themselves during the period leading up to ratification; and (3) how the Communion might best respond to a situation in which a province rejects the covenant but there are dioceses and parishes within that province that do not.
Topics: Anglican Communion | 2 Comments »
Presentment Memorandum
By Craig Uffman | May 1, 2008
From the Anglican Communion Institute site. The source is confidential to the ACI.
MEMORANDUM TO: Working Group April 21, 2008
FROM: [Redacted]
RE: Canonical Violations
This memorandum evaluates whether the Presiding Bishop has violated the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church and what procedures would be applicable for charging her with a presentable offense. This memorandum identifies at least eleven violations of TEC’s constitution and canons by the Presiding Bishop in her dealings with Bishops Cox, Schofield and Duncan and the Diocese of San Joaquin. Taken together, these actions demonstrate willful violation of the canons, an intention to repeat the violations and a pattern of concealment and lack of candor. In the case of DSJ, the fundamental polity of TEC as a “fellowship of duly constituted dioceses” under the ecclesiastical authority of the diocesan bishop has been subverted. The memorandum then addresses the procedural requirements for filing charges against the Presiding Bishop.
I. Canonical Violations By the Presiding Bishop
This memorandum does not address the possibility of charges against the Presiding Bishop for “[h]olding and teaching publicly or privately, and advisedly, any doctrine contrary to that held by this Church” under Canon IV.1(c) or the “open renunciation” of the discipline of the Church under Canon IV.9.1, both of which have different procedures than those discussed below. This memorandum is limited to whether the Presiding Bishop has violated the constitution and canons of TEC in recent actions she has taken against Bishops Cox, Schofield and Duncan and the Diocese of San Joaquin.
Topics: Anglican Communion | 1 Comment »
Graham Kings: ‘Faith and Fellowship in Crisis’
By Craig Uffman | May 1, 2008
Now online as Fulcrum Newsletter for April 2008
Topics: Anglican Communion | 2 Comments »
The Gospel of Life and the Economy of Desire
By FrMatthewOlver | April 30, 2008
In Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men (recently and excellently adapted for the screen by the Cohen Brothers), the sheriff describes meeting a woman at a conference in Corpus Christi, who tells him:
“I don’t like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion.”
And I said, “Well, ma’am, I don’t think you got any worries about the way this country is headed…I’m goin’ to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she’ll be able to have you put to sleep.”
Which pretty much ended the conversation.
The Gospel is a call to live by grace in union with the Father, by grace to share in that bond of love between the eternal Father and his coeternal Son. The Gospel beckons us into Life itself. Near the very end of Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness, God puts the choice starkly before them: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live” (Deut 30:19).
Jesus’ summary of his redemptive mission is straightforward: “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). This life is the fulfillment of how the Blessed Trinity created us, “in our [God’s] image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). The power of sin’s infection in all creation is profound: it obscures, but does not obliterate, God’s image in us. This tension is where Christians begin in their understanding of the human person.
Topics: political theology, Theology, holiness, ecumenism & mission | 2 Comments »
Fr. Neuhaus on Benedict and Beauty
By Sam Keyes | April 26, 2008
There have been a few instances in the comments sections of this blog where we’ve had some provocative discussions on liturgy and aesthetics. Did you watch the big papal masses in Washington and New York last week? I found myself glued to the television when I probably should have been writing papers. I’d be especially curious if our readers here watched these liturgies, and if so what they thought of them. These are not idle curiosities for esoteric liturgical scholars.
Over at First Things, Fr. Neuhaus has followed up on his live commentary with a somewhat more meaty description of why the DC Mass was so problematic:
The matter of taste—or, if you will, aesthetics—enters into it, no doubt. But the problem with the way the liturgy and music was handled is that it focused attention on the gathered people and the performers rather than on what Christ is doing in the Eucharist. It was a display of preening multiculturalism that proclaimed, “Look at us wonderfully diverse people exhibiting our wonderfully diverse talents!” I should add that this was the impression more powerfully conveyed on television, which was what I saw from the broadcast studio. Some people who were in the stadium and participating in the Mass tell me they hardly noticed the sundry musical performances, except as a vague background noise. They were the fortunate ones.
The liturgical reforms of Vatican II have been much in my mind of late as I have studied the formation of the liturgy in the 4th and 5th centuries. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Roman Catholicism, Theology, liturgy, ecumenism & mission | 38 Comments »
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