Advent and Apocalypse: The Church at Ephesus

I usually try to undertake a project for Advent. I thought it might be apposite, in this time of Ecclesiological upheaval, to reflect upon the seven churches which appear in the Apocalypse. So here is the first of seven.

Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write ; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne , and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured , and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen , and repent , and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent . But this thou hast , that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate . He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Ephesus was a major city, home to the famous temple of Artemis and of course where Paul caused a little fracas in the acts of the Apostles. If you recall, he challenges the Ephesian idolatry and starts a riot with the cry of "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!"

The Ephesian Church clearly has much to worry about. It exists in the midst of a culture of idolatry and materialism. So it has a choice, either resist the prevailing tide of popular opinion or incorporate them into its Christian worship. Some Christians decide to do just that. They begin to eat food sacrificed to idols and practice certain immoralities, making up defences for doing so. These are the Nicolaitans whose practices Christ loathes.

So the Ephesian Church is very careful about the teaching that it hears. Any hint of heresy and idolatry is purged and the false apostles thrown out, all to preserve the Holiness of a Church that Christ holds very dear, as St Paul demonstrates in that wonderful opening to his letter to this Church. Christ Himself announces his presence to the Ephesians as the one in control of the Churches, who holds their spirits in His hand and who ensures that His Light still burns in the Church.

What has gone wrong? How has the Ephesian Church lost its first love? It is praised for its endurance, for hating detestable things, for not putting up with evil, but there is no mention of a desire to reach out and proclaim the Gospel by Holy living. This seems to be a Church which has barricaded itself in against the world and refuses to engage with anyone outside it. Perhaps it has transferred the hatred of the practices of the Nicolaitans to the hatred of the Nicolaitans themselves,. It is this that Christ contests by emphasising that it is the practices we must hate, not the people.

It is very easy for us to start to tar people with their own failings. We live in very similar circumstances now, and so it is easy to bind people to their misdeeds and to see no further than that which gives us grief. We have to endure this tendency of humanity to be misled along paths which are foolish. While we must necessarily separate our religion from that of idolatry, we must still integrate with idolaters in order to proclaim the Good News of Christ, though perhaps without causing the riots.

Prayer

Almighty God who hast called Thy people out from the World, and yet ordained them to live in the World, that through them the World may hear of its Salvation in Christ Jesus, Thy Son, Our Lord; Grant us, we beseech Thee, the gift of Love to separate a man from his deeds, that, detesting those deeds which are detestable, we may show him the same Love that Thou hast shown in the same Christ Who with Thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, One God World without end, Amen.

Conversion and Criticism

It seems to me that conversion or secession or however one refers to moving between ecclesial bodies has a very nasty side effect.

There are several correspondents from all over the blogosphere and in the press (particularly one very nasty evangelical convert to the RCC who is very clearly anti-Anglican) who turn on their former jurisdictions with a ferocity that is at best uncharitable and at worst Hellish. The reason is quite obvious.

One decides to leave a jurisdiction on the grounds of a divergence of one's personal belief from the prevailing understanding. In order to justify one's decision to oneself in a time ofr great emotional turbulence, upheaval and confusion, some folk seem to find it easy to demonise their former home accentuating the faults and playing down the strengths - this does not make for good critical decision-making and leads to a lack of charity.

Of course, if one leaves one's jurisdiction because of the heresy of that jusridiction it is correct to say why, but that doesn't mean that every member or every clergyman (whether they subscribe to the heresy or not) or every piece of headed notepaper in that jursdiction is suddenly affected with spiritual leprosy.

Personally, I do not trust the rantings of folk who, having converted, appoint themselves the arbiters of orthodoxy and do so in a manner which turns fallen human beings into the minions of Old Nick. Those who readily bring in the name of the prince of this world to describe their fellow are playing into his hands by doing precisely what he wants them to do - hate.

Intellectual Pride on the Beach

From Sermon 18: Ignorance of Evil

We know two things of the Angels—that they cry Holy, Holy, Holy, and that they do God's bidding. Worship and service make up their blessedness; and such is our blessedness in proportion as we approach them. But all exercises of mind which lead us to reflect upon and ascertain our state; to know what worship is, and why we worship; what service is, and why we serve; what our feelings imply, and what our words mean, tend to divert our minds from the one thing needful, unless we are practised and expert in using them. All proofs of religion, evidences, proofs of particular doctrines, scripture proofs, and the like,—these certainly furnish scope for the exercise of great and admirable powers of mind, and it would be fanatical to disparage or disown them; but it requires a mind rooted and grounded in love not to be dissipated by them. As for truly religious minds, they, when so engaged, instead of mere disputing, are sure to turn inquiry into meditation, exhortation into worship, and argument into teaching.

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, volume 8

I shouldn't have much to add to this, mainly because the blessed cardinal shows up in me the very thing which he demonstrates to be unhelpful to faith. However, it does make me think of the way that things are.

The Anglican world is, it is fair to say, in turmoil. We have proposed ordinariates, societies, and covenants all designed to make situations very clear. The same texts are being scrutinised and used to argue for and against movements which are labelled "Traditional" or "Liberal" or "Catholic" or "Orthodox" or "Heretical". There seem to be many using the phrase "In Christ... there is no male or female" to argue for the ordained ministry of women who are missing the context and point of St Paul's discourse. Likewise there are those that use Leviticus xxii to advocate Christian hatred against homosexuals forgetting that there is no such thing as Christian hatred of another human being, only the hatred of the substance of evil. Notice that in both of these cases these is an unhealthy focus on one particular part of scripture. Rather than seeing these as part of an integrated whole, there seems to be a desire to slice and dice the word of God, to see Holy Scripture only in a historical context, or only as mystical, only as allegorical, or only as moral.

In truth, by spending too much time in focus, we stilt the Gospel. As Augustine of Dacia writes:

Lettera gesta docet,
quid credas allegoria,
moralis quid agas,
quo tendas anagogia.

The Letter teaches what's been done,
Allegory what you should believe,
Morality what you should do,
Anagogy where your life is heading.

There are probably other ways of approaching scripture, but to have all these four senses in one's mind as we read Scripture is no bad thing, as long as we read it humbly and understand that, on our own, we simply do not have the acumen to understand the Word of God. It is only in the context of the Church as a whole and her local expression in our lives, that we understand the word of God.

Here we are in this seething mass of argument, confusion, conversion and barricading. The Church is in a mess, but then it comprises of human beings, so it's quite obvious that it should be so. The blogosphere is full of self-proclaimed prophets putting forward their own divisive definitions of what it means to be Christian, or Catholic, or Protestant or Anglican, et c, and it does no good.

At the heart of any Christian theological study should be the love and respect of the other, no matter how different they are from us. St Peter, St Paul and St John remind us that we cannot walk in the same direction with those who are determined to go their own way through life and walk by their own interpretations, but we can at least keep open the possibility that in some aspects they are quite right.

It is like driving on the motorway. We could close the black-tinted side windows of our car so as to blot out the sight of those who disagree with us, who indeed may be truly heretical, and just drive straight on. Of course we will get to the Great Destination but, because we closed the window, have we missed out on those whom we thought to be travelling the wrong way, but have been driving parallel with us all the way? Have we allowed ourselves to be blinded to those travelling in the wrong direction but beating on the windows to be set free and perhaps join our caravan? Have we closed ourselves off to the possibility that with mutual consideration and gentle understanding of the other, we have helped tow someone floundering on the hard-shoulder?

I do not believe in the doctrine of taint, primarily because it leads inevitably to more and more schism. Of course, there is already a walking-apart happening in the CofE which is going to get more pronounced. This is fine, this is walking apart, a form of excommunication - so be it. However, what must not happen is for the tears and wounds that will arise from this walking apart to fester and produce the bitterness that seems endemic to the Continuum (particularly in the U.S., though ECUSA seems to be the main agent of that bitterness). We wave a tearful good-bye to our colleagues as they swim for the Ordinariates and we pray that they succeed for if so, then we have firm friends who understand each other and can at least attempt to pull two divergent ecclesial bodies together. Likewise, we pray for the Society of SS Hilda and Wilfrid that they may indeed keep the drive going to fight for a catholic identity in the CofE. But the windows must be kept open, contacts must be made stronger.

Of course, this is all up in the realms of theory and doctrine. What about at the parish level? The upheaval is bound to affect those who hear their Sunday Mass regularly and wonder about all the hoo-ha in the news. The intellectually proud are in deep danger of losing their parish if their theology does not involve the pastoral side, the day-by-day breaking of bread as well as the solemn Breaking of Bread.

And you may ask, am I Ordinariate, or am I SWASH? Well as Alan Bennet says, "Might as well ask a man dying of thirst in the desert about whether he prefers Evian or Perrier." Of course he was talking about his sexuality, I am talking about the isolation that has resulted from these schisms. In many respects I have lost my parish, and one may say that this is due to my intellectual pride. Perhaps I ought to concede that point.

Replacing the indicator light.

The bus had just arrived outside the bus garage and the drivers had just changed over ready to continue what is, for me, another hour bus journey. As a matter of protocol, the incoming bus driver went through a process of checking the bus. It was a well-drilled process which he had obviously done many times before. The trouble was that this process seemed to be taking longer than usual. After about five minutes, the driver got out, returned and got onto his cell-phone. The right-rear indicator was not working.

Clearly, it was impossible for the bus to proceed with such a vital little light out of action. Fortunately within 15 minutes and engineer had returned with a new indicator light and within 5 minutes we were off again - late, but away.

Rather an insignificant an event, you might think - a frustration for bus passengers, but on the cosmological scale, merely a blip in the eternal bus-timetable.

It did set me thinking though. That careful ritual that the driver performs means that the bus he drives is as safe as could reasonably be. The driver, fully aware that he has a duty of care for his passengers knows the importance for checking all the little lights and gadgets to ensure full safety, and that safety ranks higher on his list of priorities than getting the bus around the route on time.

It also means that this assiduous and thoroughly professional chap earned the trust of his passengers. Though we might be 20 minutes late, we were assured that we would arrive in one piece. Perhaps that's a lesson for us in our impatience with public transport. I know that I can be terribly impatient when the train does not arrive on time, but the duty of care (whether genuine or forced by legal pressure) of employees gives them better priorities. While one or two might be on the indolent side, I feel that I can trust the system the public transport has in place for ensuring my safety.

Now what of Cof E Bishops and Priests with the care of my soul?

Ah...

Disarray or datarray?

From the Forward in Faith Assembly

Resolution 2010/01
This Assembly, recognising the variety and sincerely-held convictions amongst the Members of Forward in Faith, commits itself to the prayerful support in every way both of those who are exploring the
generous provision of Anglicanorum Coetibus as well as those who are committed to remaining in the Church of England and achieving proper and adequate arrangements for all those who in conscience dissent from the ordination of women as bishops and priests.

If I'm honest, I haven't much to say on the current developments within the CofE. My own situation is rather solitary, and not through choice, though I am of course responsible for my movements within and without Anglicanism.

I am however relieved about this commitment by Forward in Faith to look after Anglo-Catholics who want to stay, and Anglo-Papalists who wish to take up the challenge of building the Ordinariates. This is just what is needed - acceptance of two different integrities in amidst great upheaval. Of course, there needs to be a final commitment made by each Anglo-Catholic according to his conscience, but he needs support from some organisation with his interests at heart, and while it isn't perfect, Forward in Faith seems at least committed to help its members find their own stability.

As for me? Well, semper incipiemus, I have made a commitment which I intend to see through to the bitter end. I've yet to understand what it means for my commitment to be at an end but if the feeling in my heart is right then end is not too far away.

I pray for the vanguard who will leave to set up the Ordinariates that God would make them stout of heart and resolute of mind to build an edifice in communion with the Holy Father of true Anglican proportions. I pray for those who remain that they may have the strength and energy to continue to provide the rest of the Anglican Communion with the salt that it needs to reconsider its actions in the Love of God.

Gyrovagues in the key of G

Bless, O Lord, us Thy servants,who minister in Thy temple.Grant that what we sing with our lips,we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts,we may show forth in our lives.Through Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen.

The RSCM chorister's prayer.

If you've sung in choirs since you were small, you may well have prayed this prayer. It's a right and proper prayer for a chorister to pray. I find, however, that it is that very prayer that, these days, keeps me out of church choirs. Why should someone who loves singing be forced out of church choirs for praying this prayer?

The Anglican Church has a wonderful Choral Tradition which, to all intents and purposes, is still alive. Regularly in Anglican Cathedrals one can hear Choral Evensong and Mattins executed very well. The excellence of the Anglican Choral tradition has lasted longer than Rome's by several centuries. One can compare the music as sung for the funeral of His Holiness Pope John-Paul II and the recent services in Westminster Abbey and Cathedral at which the current Holy Father was present.

Until recently, I was, for many years, part of a Parish Church Choir which was of a cathedral standard. We would regularly sing Evensong in the Parish and frequently elsewhere in cathedrals and abbeys and the like. However, what used to be weekly was, by the time I was asked to leave, monthly but the standard remained.

These days I sing in the school choir which, although brilliant in standard, is not a Church choir. When I do go to Church, I very rarely sing. Why?

I used to pray the prayer above assiduously. Reading it carefully, you can see that we are asking to believe the words that we sing and live them out in our lives. The problem begins if the words that a Christian is being required to sing are not those that the Christian should be believing. If the words of a hymn are pretty but actually say nothing at all, then by virtue of the Chorister's Prayer, what substance is there for me to believe, and subsequently, what substance is there for the way that I live life?

The chorister, as the prayer intimates, is a Church minister. The orders may be at best minor, but it is still an important ministry to fulfill for it is how the chorister leads the congregation in song that helps reinforce the belief of the Church in the faithful in attendance. The chorister must be disciplined to obey the direction of the choirmaster at all times. When the choirmaster says sing, we must sing. As he waves his hands, so must we keep time with him so that our song is excellent in its execution and clear in its promulgation of the message. The choirmaster is under the direction of the Parish priest, and the music chosen is at the whim of the priest under the advice of the choirmaster, though the former will usually devolve much of the choice to the latter, and whatever music is put in front of the chorister, that is what the chorister is bound to sing.

This, then, is where the Christian Chorister comes unstuck. How can one who believes in the Orthodox faith be obedient to a choirmaster when what is put in front of him is something that actually contains nothing for him to believe and thus practice, or worse goes against what the Church teaches? Further, what is the effect on a congregation of a choir singing a hymn that is riddled with vapidity and nonsense? It can be the most beautiful sound imaginable with stirring chords from the organ, sixteen-part harmonies executed by a choir that would make Kings College Cambridge sound like a box of angry cats and a fox, but if it is not singing the words of Truth which are the words of love, then St Paul's words in the first letter to the Corinthians come into play: their speech is as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal.

There is also the danger that Anglican Choirs become too "good" and then go professional. Why is this bad? Well...

Quartum vero genus est monachorum quod nominatur gyrovagum, qui tota vita sua per diversas provincias ternis aut quaternis diebus per diversorum cellas hospitantur, semper vagi et numquam stabiles, et propriis voluntatibus et gulae illecebris servientes, et per omnia deteriores sarabaitis. De quorum omnium horum miserrima conversatione melius est silere quam loqui.


The fourth kind of monks are those called Gyrovagues.These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province, staying as guests in different monasteries for three or four days at a time. Always on the move, with no stability, they indulge their own wills and succumb to the allurements of gluttony, and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites. Of the miserable conduct of all such it is better to be silent than to speak.

As St Benedict intimates in his description of the gyrovague, the choir that destabilises itself by ceasing to provide a vehicle for worship in a Church service and by becoming "performers" of Church music to be heard for their beauty rather than point to the greater Glory of God are damaging the faith of those who hear them. The Mass is not a concert platform, neither are Mattins and Evensong which are solemn offerings of prayer to God.

A good voice is necessary but simply not sufficient reason to be entered into a Church choir. A good tune is necessary but simply not sufficient reason for a song to be sung in Church. The Chorister must be committed to personal discipline and growth: as a minister of the Church he must work hard to improve the mastery of his instrument and of his personal subscription to the Faith that the music should express. All church choirs should seek the best in execution and belief. The choir should see itself in the role of a group of educators (literally ones-who-draw-out) by allowing the congregation to have their worship drawn from them and directed Godward.

As St Thomas Aquinas says:

Hymnus est laus Dei cum cantico; canticum autem exultatio mentis de aeternis habita, prorumpens in vocem.

The hymn is the Praise of God with song; but a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on Eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.

Demanding? Yes. But then, isn't the life of a Christian necessarily sacrificial in nature? Why should a choir be any less sacrificial?

Sacraments: Magic or Mystery?

In a Scientific age, we are presented with the notion that all that there is can be observed or at least inferred through observation and measurement and that the existence for an unobservable reality is entirely redundant via Ockham’s razor. God is unobservable and therefore scientifically useless. Science has no need and because he does not need to exist, he does not exist, since by Norman Malcolm’s interpretation of The Ontological argument by St Anselm, the existence of God is either necessary or his nonexistence is unnecessary.

As a Christian, I do not know that God exists. Formally, I suppose that this makes me an agnostic, but then there is something in what Keith Ward (Why there almost certainly is a God) says when he argues that Personal Experience can give us a good reason for accepting the existence of God. However, my problem is that I cannot give voice to what I can only perceive as some giant wandering about in my soul. When I peer into the darkness of my interior, putting aside all thought and worry, going deeper than words, trying to make as little of myself as possible, there is still something there, or rather someone. And that someone, I somehow know to be God.

As a rational man that is somewhat disconcerting to be unable to find a language to describe it, and “I just know” is not an argument that I can really get away with unless you know me personally and trust me.

So where is all this leading? Well, I got round to thinking about sacraments and Magic following my criticism of Fr Clatworthy’s argument about magic. Often I’m presented with the notion that sacraments are like magic spells, that you just wave your hands and say the magic words and – poof – something happens. Now Sacramental theology is quite a deep area and one can plunge into it via history, or metaphysics or by mysticism or even by ecclesiology. Of course being both Anglican and Papal I come at it from both viewpoints and neither. Actually, there isn’t that great a difference. Anyway, let’s see how good my understanding of sacraments is.

As far as I can make out a Sacrament is simply an expression of Divine Love impinging on our observable reality through the Community of the Church. As the Anglican Catechism would say, an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace. The Roman Catholic Catechism says something similar that a sacraments are “perceptible signs accessible to human nature” and “by the action of Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit make present efficaciously the grace they signify”. The Role of the Church is vital here since this forms as St Paul would say the “Royal Priesthood” namely that the Church as a a united body of Christians (male and female) transmits the grace of God to the world through acts of Divine Love.

So what makes a Sacrament like magic? Well, this really comes from a misunderstanding of how a sacrament appears to be effected. A sacrament needs matter, form, a minister and a recipient; it will then bestow a certain grace onto that recipient which has a specific effect.

The Holy Eucharist is one of the obvious Sacraments. The matter comprises of the bread and wine – visible elements – and the minister presents them to God with the form of (i.e. the intention) of re-presenting the Sacrifice of Christ Himself during the Last supper which is utterly inseparable from His death upon the Cross. In John chapter 6, Christ Himself demonstrates the intention of the Eucharist that we are to consume Him and thus allow Him to become part of us and thus obversely we become part of Him.

What the unaffected observer sees is the ritual of the sign of the cross being made over the elements and the words of the anamnesis – the (more than) calling to mind the events of the last supper. It looks like this is all there is.

If you think about it, it really differs from magic, doesn’t it? If a magician pulled an invisible rabbit out of a hat, you wouldn’t be particularly impressed, much in the same way as Lisa Simpson wasn’t impressed by the mathemagician who used a “magic” seven to divide into 28 three times. Perhaps then it is even more tempting to suggest that, because it is all words and bread and wine, that’s all it is.

But you see it has to be more than that.

If we honestly believe in a Transcendent God, then clearly this presents communication problems. How does a temporal being communicate with One for Whom Time is not even meaningful? If human beings exist to a Transcendent being then they exist in some kind of entirety much like a reel of film in which past present and future exist all at once. Of course, God decides that He wants to communicate and, in the glorious paradox of the incarnation, presents Himself as Christ in order to present us with the Truth. Is there any other way that God can do this? If you concede that He exists as a living being who is responsible in some way for all that exists and why it continues to be, then this is a question that needs an answer.

For the Christian, the answer is the Incarnation. So powerful is the Incarnation that it casts ripples back in Time which we see as things that “prefigure” such as the Passover as well as the effects into history. What evidence is there for this? Well there is no evidence – I’m trying to demonstrate why Sacraments are happening a priori as a reasonable hypothesis. If you think I can be absolute about things like this, then I suggest you watch me try to hold the tide in. We read the words of Christ and, in St John’s Gospel in particular, we are met with the extraordinary promise that we will become like God, that we will become Transcendent. Christians already believe in the existence of the soul, so the concept of human beings being more than observable is no problem. If we believe ourselves only to be a biological machine and our consciousness as nothing more than some electro-chemical interactions in the brain, then this seems ridiculous.

So Christ presents us with the way to become Transcendent – to be like Him by consuming Him, taking Him inside ourselves so we can become like Him. No, of course this is unobservable – we are becoming Transcendent.

Then of course, you have to realise that this consumption of God can only come about because of Christ’s sacrifice. The sacrificial system has already been prefigured in the Jewish system as an atonement (at-one-ment) for sins –i.e. those ways in which we fail to be like Him – another set of future echoes? We have to participate in the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. Now there was only one sacrifice which means that we who are 2000 years after the event are going to have difficulty sharing in that one sacrifice unless there is something to bind us with that sacrifice. Well, this is the Grace of Transcendent God. The Sacrament of the Eucharist provides us with the means to participate in that one sacrifice provided that we meet it in the same manner in which He showed us. Jesus does command us to “do this in remembrance of” Him. Thus we are given the form, i.e. intention, the matter, i.e bread and wine, and the minister a priest chosen by Christ to re-present the sacrifice and effectively become Christ Himself at the Last Supper. Olivier Clément writing in On Human Being describes the celebrating priest as “the image of Christ, and Christ, while undoubtedly possessing human nature in its fullness, is a man and not a woman and not a hermaphrodite”. Likewise St Paul himself describes man as the image of God and the woman as bearing the image of man.

Obedience to the pattern set by Christ, leads us to the conclusion that provided that the priest is valid, i.e. integrated “into the orders…which permit the exercise of “sacred powers”… which comes only from Christ through the Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1538)

If a sacrament is not validly performed then the grace cannot be conferred (or at least there is reason for grave doubt that it has been conferred). If one receives the flu-jab from the nurse, clearly one does not receive the effect if she fills the syringe with water and injects you (wrong matter) or injects you into your blazer pocket (wrong praxis) or waves the needle at you chanting “inoculate, inoculate” (wrong form). God of course is merciful and who can tell what He does: no-one, not even Stephen Hawking, can know the mind of God.

Thus I present what I hope can be seen as a reasonable worldview on the nature of Sacraments from what I perceive from my study of the Catholic Faith to which I subscribe, though I suspect that I have made some glaring errors and omissions. I hope that I have shown that validity is important, why sacraments are not valid and given at least some reasonable, if not entirely convincing thoughts as to why things are the way they are. I hope that you’ll let me know where my faults lie – but be gentle, I’m not a proper spokesman for the Catholic Church.

Struggling with struggling

Homily preached on 21st September 2010 at Eltham College based on Genesis xxxii.19-30

Jubilation!

Nick, Martyn, Jo and Gabby
are dancing around,
clapping and cheering,
the like of which has not been seen
since the invention of the McFlurry.

Gerrard, of course,
is sitting grumbling into his coffee,
whilst trying to handle the disappointment
and the ribbing from the others.

Jon watches on,
completely bemused by this behaviour.

Of course,
it helps to know that the date
is 12th September 2005
and Gerrard is an Australian.

How many of you can explain this?

[PAUSE]

Jon turns to Nick.

“So what’s happened, then?”

Silence falls suddenly,
like a dropped bowl of porridge.

A cold breeze whirls around the office;
a tumbleweed rolls abjectly by.

In the distance, a bell tolls sullenly.

“Where have you been
for the last 3 months?

England have just won the Ashes!”

“Ah,” says Jon,
“is that better than or worse
than the wooden spoon?”

“What?”

“Well, we obviously didn’t get
gold, silver or bronze.

So we were in the bottom two, yes?”

“What are you talking about?

Do you even know what sport this is?”

“I assume Rugby since Gerrard isn’t looking too happy.”

There follow some interesting words and phrases
designed to demonstrate to Jon that
perhaps he ought to pay a little more attention
to the folk chasing
a hard, leather object
around a field in front of
two little wooden edifices
resembling structures
one would usually find in a prehistoric henge.

[PAUSE]

It’s a strange life when you simply
don’t understand the fuss about sport.

Why is it that people get cross
when you don’t know
how many runs there are in a wicket;
or why baseball is not the same as rounders;
or why the referee in a football match
never gets snogged after a goal is scored?

For the non-sportsman,
the exultation and elation of a win
and the misery
and almost physical pain of a defeat
can seem as relevant as
an acute accent in physics.

If Manchester United lose
to Bishop Stortford at bowls,
it’s just hard to care.

Heresy, you may say!

Is there any common ground
for the Athlete and the non-Athlete?

[PAUSE]

Of course there’s plenty of common ground:
music,
school,
the fear that you’ll end up
like one of the contestants
in “Young, Dumb and Living off Mum”

However there is a common ground
that runs deeper than that.

Indeed it is common
not just to humanity
but to all forms of life.

For every form of life,
there are three certainties:
Life, Death and Competition.



All life is in competition with itself
for some resource:
usually dinner,
trying not to be dinner
and sex.

The vast majority of animals
die in their virginity
usually by suffocation
complicated by digestion
–they get eaten when they’re young.

There is not a day in the life of any organism
without some titanic battle just to stay alive.

All this seems a far cry from the hockey court,
doesn’t it?

Does this really apply to human beings?

[PAUSE]

Well, of course and you know that.

But how aware are you
of the struggles that you are facing each day?

We’re not talking about
realising that you have the ball
and the larger lads in the rugby squad
are thundering towards you
like belligerent wasps
to a discarded Curly-Wurly.

If you think about it,
we’re engaged in a struggle
with every other human being we meet
– not all the time –
but at some point.

If we’re all different people - individuals,
then at some point
we’re going to disagree somewhere.

The struggle then is
how do we live peaceably alongside people
who differ from us in many ways?

If we take a purely sporting view,
then we can attribute
win, lose or draw to every struggle.

Trouble is,
in so doing, we miss vital information
about ourselves and whom we are opposing.

Rudyard Kipling reminds us
that “winning” and “losing”
are imposters,
merely superficial labels
that we stick on the outcomes
of our struggles.

In the grand scheme of things
there are no such things
as win, lose or draw.

[PAUSE]

Christians believe that a careful review of
what it means “to win”
is of paramount importance.

If we win,
we need to interpret that win
in the light of what we have struggled to do,
and consider its impact
on the people around us.

A win that does not
take the wellbeing of others into account
is selfish and,
in the long-run,
likely to prove to be a loss.


If we lose,
then we need only
to regard it as a true defeat
if our struggle has given us
something of less worth
than what we have struggled for.

Often,
what we gain from “losing” is bigger
and better than what we are trying to win.

The cross of Christ may be seen as a defeat
in the eyes of the world.

To the Christian, it is more than a victory.

It is how we struggle
and compete that makes us truly human beings,
not what we achieve
or fail to achieve.

To the Christian,
“winning” is about finding the meaning
of our lives in the context of living with God.

The non-Christians too must reflect on
what goals they have set for their lives.

These are struggles which
we meet day to day,
and we deal with them
according to our religion.

[PAUSE]

All of you will see struggles this year.

You all have public exams to take
which will make big influences
in your lives to come.

You may see this as a worry;
you may not even know
which goals you are aiming for;
but, your experiences in sport
have taught you that
there is a bigger picture.

You have a team to support you,
coaches to guide you
and the lessons in life
that you have already learned.

Your struggles are not worth nothing,
indeed, whatever difficulties you face in life,
it is how you approach them
which will show who you really are.

You have already achieved much of worth,
and you have many more brilliant achievements
ahead of you,
but what system of scoring are you using?

The Tyranny of Equality: The Second Story

An important man holds a dinner and invites lots of guests.

"I shall be glad to see you," reads the invitation, "please be yourselves."

Eric says: "This is a fancy dress party - I'll come as Dame Edna Everage."

Kevin says: "This is a karaoke party - I'll sing Bohemian Rhapsody."

Sheila says: "I'll bring my rock-band with me."

Clarence says: "this is a formal dinner - I'll wear my robes of state and bring my entourage."

Moira says: "This is a nudist party - I won't wear anything at all."

Alice says: "This is a drinking party - I'll bring lots of barrels of beer."

Michelle says: "What a lovely invitation. I'll bring a gift."

And so the dinner happens. It's a shambles. There are arguments between Sheila and Kevin, who then try to do their thing at the same time. Clarence is clearly upset with both Moira and Eric (who, incidentally, cannot stop staring at Moira) and Alice is busy throwing up in the pot plants while the other guests get louder and rowdier on booze. Michelle is sitting there quietly and, looking at the tears in their host's eyes as he sits there wanting to talk to his guests, wanting to share with them, she puts down her knife and fork and waits for calm to be restored.

How long will she have to wait?

The Tyranny of Equality: The first Story.

John and Joyce have been attending a rally for Equality at the local council offices. In the past few minutes, John has proclaimed, wearing his chains of office, that anyone who does not accept that all human beings are equal, that all viewpoints are equal, and who proclaim one belief over others, is denying human rights and ought to be locked up. He has decried all religious folk as being enemies of peace. He has called the Catholic Church a misogynist, homophobic organisation fuelled by bitter old men whose mindset lies in the past. He has spoken loudly that Science proclaims that there is no difference between human beings and that the rights of all to be what they want to be should be respected.

Now they are in the car on the way home. John is feeling really happy, delighted with how his speech has gone down. Joyce smiles at him, "John, you were brilliant tonight. I'm so proud of you. You've shown those chauvinists that we women are just the same as men. You've shown those bigots that homosexual relationships are just the same as heterosexual relationships. You've shown that twentieth century thought is so much better than anything that has gone before. I feel so liberated! Let's have a lovely evening together."

And so when they get home, John and Joyce do have a lovely evening together with the most passionate night they've had since the were married. As he falls asleep, John looks happily at the beautiful naked body of his girlfriend and passes a quiet night.

The alarm goes off the next day, and before he even opens his eyes, he reaches out for Joyce. His arm brushes her cheek, but it feels different - it's stubbly. Confused he opens his eyes and sees something which shocks him to the core. There next to him in bed, stark naked, is a man. He looks very much like Joyce's elder brother, but subtly different. John cries out. The man awakes.

"Who the Hell are you?" asks John, somewhat conscious of his nudity. "John, what's the matter?" says the man, "it's me, Joyce!" "No, you're not. Don't be a fool!" The man looks confused and reaches for the mirror. As he does so, John notices on the man's back the same little birthmark that Joyce had, the same birthmark that John had kissed so passionately the night before. The man-Joyce cries out as he catches sight of his face in the mirror. "John, I'm a man!"

So what now for John and Joyce? Does it matter to John that his girlfriend is now male? Why should it? Men and women are equal. Can he continue to live with him-her? Well of course, homosexual relationships are the same as heterosexual relationships. Will John's modern thought allow him to continue like this, or will the instinct of ages drive him away from Joyce?

Knock, knock

Behold , I stand at the door, and knock : if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Apoc. iii.20

The questions is why there is a door there in the first place. There can only be one answer. This door is the barrier thrown up by Original Sin, what else would stand between our Lord and God? Notice that this isn't the gateway blocking us from Eden with an angelic guard standing with flaming sword. No, this is our door and it stands because of Man's first rebellion. We slammed the door, and it shuts Our Saviour out.

And He knocks, and knocks, and knocks...

Perhaps we do not think that we have the ability to open the door. We may think it heavy, a large iron gateway that will take teams of Egyptian slaves centuries to open even a tiny crack. But we forget that doors, however rusty, or large, or stiff, or weighty are designed to be opened.

The key to the door is one of the Keys that belong to the Church. The Church possesses the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven and one of these keys precisely fits the doors of anyone and everyone. It is the Key of Baptism. This is the key that renders the door from being unopenable - unlocking the door is not a problem. One may think that the lock is immovable, but the waters of Baptism are able to free the lock here and render the door less of a barrier. It remains for us now to open this door. On the other side, the Saviour waits to be admitted.

By what process is the door opened? I would venture that this door is opened by the combined efforts of ourselves and Christ. If we both push at the door from both sides, then we get nowhere - we have to go in the way directed by Christ. The effort of opening the door is our daily conversion through prayer and repentance, for only by cooperating with Christ will we overcome the stiffness of the hinges and the hardness of our hearts. The more that we open the door, the more are we able to engage in dialogue with Christ, to hear Him speak the words that will give us ways to open the door wider still.

If we are lukewarm like the Laodicians then it is clear that we have not got the commitment to persevere at opening ourselves up to Christ. If we turn away with the door barely open, then how can we entertain God within us? Only a constant effort will ensure that we answer the insistent knocking from the other side.

But yet, if we reflect further, when we get the door open, we have this promise that Christ will come in and make His home with us. The Eucharist has its full effect when our door is fully open. I suspect that, for me, the door is never fully open - never quite wide enough until the last day. Purgatory will certainly open any door that has begun to be opened, and then the feasting will begin. A door that is open now allows movement in both directions, and with God, one can never be quite sure whether we were truly inside at the beginning or in fact outside. Enstasy has a habit of turning into ecstasy.

Knock, knock.

Who's there?...

The Wideness of God's Mercy

I've been reflecting on this hymn lately:

There's a wideness in God's mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there's a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.

There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment given.

There is grace enough for thousands
of new worlds as great as this.
There is room for fresh creations
in that upper room of bliss.

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of man's mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.

But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own;
and we magnify his strictness
with a zeal he will not own.

There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.

'Tis not all we owe to Jesus;
it is something more than all;
Greater Good because of evil
Larger Mercy through the fall.

If our love were but more faithful,
we should take Him at His word;
and our life would be all sunshine
for the sweetness of Our Lord.

F.W.Faber

Was Fr Faber's hymn written to open the mind or stretch the heart?

It seems we have failed to integrate head and heart sufficiently. We are certainly not supposed to be hard-hearted as Ezekiel reminds us when he reminds of the need to have a heart of flesh, but St Paul and St James remind us that we should remain firm in our belief and our reasons for believing what we do lest we be blown about by winds of doctrine. Does this mean that Biblically we should be hard of mind and soft of heart?

The trouble with being hard of mind, as St Paul reminds us, is that we become conceited with intellectual pride. Now, it is one thing to say extra ecclesiam nulla salus, but quite another to condemn someone to Hell with the coolness of the intellect. It is true to say that there is no salvation outside the Christian Church. Does this mean to say that I have now condemned all Moslems, Sikhs, and Atheists to Hell? Believe it or not, this does bother me greatly. Hell is such a terrible place that I wouldn't wish anybody at all, no matter who they are or what they've done, to even spend a moment there. I still hope that Hell will be empty.

However, there's a wideness to God's mercy, and thankfully it is not any one of us who will be the one who makes that decision. Those who wilfully reject God are destined to spend Eternity without Him, and they will find out just how unpleasant that is, for that is Hell indeed. My hope is that, by living our faith as best we can and praying fervently for the salvation of those who appear to be outside the Church, they will be able to see what we see and find their Salvation with us. We should certainly pray for those who do not believe, but first let us pray that the light of God should shine in our lives and work to that end, so that our brethren without the Church may see something of the Truth which we profess to seek.

Sacramental Validity: a response to the Rev Mr Clatworthy

I ought to stop reading the Thinking Anglicans blog as it raises my blood pressure too high. I just don't see how if they claim to be "Thinking" Anglicans they can't seem to think rationally from both sides of an argument. They will of course accuse us conservatives of doing the same but, hey, we're not the ones who are claiming to be able to "think". If by "thinking" they mean posting venomous and unChristian comments in comment boxes, then I think they'll find a happy home among the more crotchety Anglo-Catholic blogs.

That which has particularly caught my attention is this article by the Reverend Jonathan Clatworthy, lecturer in Ethics, and General Secretary to Modern Church.

It's a very carefully reasoned article claiming that Anglo-Catholic concerns about Sacramental Validity are unfounded and that the Anglo-Catholic worldview needs to be challenged and shown to be untenable.

Actually, I found it rather interesting to read, Fr Clatworthy writes rather well. But he's so very wrong. I had hoped that a theological brain vastly more superior than mine would have made a response to him, but I've not yet seen it. I thought then that I'd better have a go in the hope that if I make a pig's ear of it, one of my more capable readers would be inspired to address these arguments more coherently.

Fr Clatworthy’s argument runs as follows:

1. The concept of Sacramental Validity is a construct of a 19th Century answer to the atheistic Rationalism of the Enlightenment.


2. The 19th Century answer establishes the reality of the spiritual realm without physical evidence.


3. Since Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, there is no need to separate physical from spiritual.

Conclusion 1: Therefore the 19th century idea of sacramental validity in the context of a separate self-contained spiritual world is pointless.

1. God does not need our rituals and gives His grace freely.


2. There is no traditional theology which leads us to expect that God would withhold His grace if the minister was a woman.

Conclusion 2: Any notion of Sacramental Validity does not depend on the sex of the minister.

1. Natural phenomena are open to scientific investigation.


2. If God created everything so that the effects of a Sacrament were the natural results of the Sacrament were being performed correctly then Science would be required to justify this.


3. There are no observed effects of valid or invalid sacraments.

Conclusion 3. The Validity of Sacraments cannot be understood in a naturalistic framework.

Main conclusion: We cannot understand the Validity of Sacraments either naturally (which would require scientific justification) or spiritually (which is a pointless 19th century invention), thus it doesn’t matter if the minister of a sacrament be male or female.

I hope I’ve got that right.

So here goes…

As I say, I find the argument rather lovely. The problem lies in Fr. Clatworthy’s premises.

Although Fr Clatworthy does actually demonstrate that there should be some reasonable conditions that a sacrament to be ministered faithfully: “a room with a visual focus and minimum of distractions…”, “suitable music at the right moments”, something for the children…, his arguments against validity, however, seem to make it possible for a trained parrot to produce a valid sacrament. This is decidedly worrying to say the least. What if, in 500 year’s time, a convincing android ministers the sacraments? Would people be untroubled by this? No? Is it then the personal faith of the one who receives? So then the one who does not receive because it’s an android is a heretic and not to be associated with? Rather un-Anglican, methinks. Nonetheless, it’s produced a question of validity, hasn’t it?

To reject the natural view of sacraments and the spiritual world of the 19th Century on the grounds of lack of evidence seems rather to follow the line of Dawkins. Indeed doesn’t Dawkins’ argument for the non-existence of God follow Fr. Clatworthy’s worldview?

Fr. Clatworthy does say that “our host society has a worldview in which Christianity can sit comfortably.” Of course, Scripture says that it can’t in several places (St Mark viii.36, St John viii.23, St John xiv.20, xv.19, xvii.16, xviii.38, I Cor i.17-end, …) Christians are called to be in the world not of it. If Christianity is sitting comfortably with the world and not challenging its science, then it has lost its saltiness. The Bible is filled with references to an unobservable part of reality, why else with the Bible end with an Apocaylpse – an unveiling of the spiritual realms. That’s not 19th century, that’s always been.

Fr Clatworthy does not believe in a “picky” God who chooses one person over another. He clearly does not believe in the God who appears in the Bible, a God who demonstrates His personality (or personalities?) and even His humanity by selecting people for tasks, not to belittle the unselected, but rather for the edification of all. Does one need a worldview to see that in Scripture? I notice that there is no reference to scripture in his arguments.

He does, however, believe that modern worldviews of science and reality trump those of the folk who have gone before. What happens when the aforementioned android priest shows him to be wrong and thus denounces all his understanding as “old-fashioned” and “out-of-date”? If there is a figment of Eternal Truth, where is it in Fr. Clatworthy’s argument that will stop it from becoming out of date? If it is an Eternal Truth, where is the argument for women priests before the 20th century?

So where does Sacramental Validity come from? Fr Clatworthy seems to think it an invention of the 19th Century. However, the question must naturally appear in the History of Christianity in regard to any schism. Of course the Schism that he will be most interested with is the 16th Century Schism whence sprang the XXXIX articles. Before any schism, there was no need to question the validity of the sacraments because everyone could be sure that they were being correctly ministered.

As soon as there is a substantial change in praxis, people are going to wonder about why the change was necessary. (Fr. Clatworthy, like most liberals has not demonstrated why the change is necessary outside their own worldview). Some will accept the change, others won’t. The peculiar aspect of the Anglican Church was that it tried to hold together two opposing view points, and the XXXIX articles came about to try and bind Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Puritan together. All the more reason then why Anglo-Catholics want to stay in the Church of England in honour of that aspect of Anglicanism. Of course, other Anglicans opposing Fr Clatworthy are leaving the CofE for the Continuum or for Rome. Will Fr Clatworthy not bless any of them? Those Anglo-Catholics who wish to remain in the CofE recognise that their opponents are at least sharing some common heritage with them. We are trying to continue in fellowship, even if that doesn’t make logical sense.

In order to ascertain the conditions for Validity, it is necessary to look into Church History and see what was established before the Schism. Folk on either side of the Schism will justify their arguments therefrom. The probability is more likely that only one is right, though in God the possibilities remains that both are wrong or (less likely but possible) both are right. Thus, there needs to be a Christian generosity and accommodation from both sides.

Further in discussing the notion of “contract”, Fr. Clatworthy seems to fall into the same trap as those who say “God does not need our worship”. God needs not our rituals, nor our prayers, nor our worship, but we do. The rituals, prayers and worship affect us and help us to be ready to receive the grace of God fully. Fr. Clatworthy will want me to demonstrate the evidence for this because it is essentially a naturalistic view of sacrament. All I can offer is from what I believe from Scripture that in performing the ritual I am being “transformed by the renewing of [my] mind, that [I] may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans xii.2). That is, after all, what Communion is supposed (in part) to achieve.

I hope that I, as a confused and largely uneducated Anglican Papalist, have done justice to this argument. I would welcome your thoughts.

Ecclesiastical Evolution IV: Reformation

I am used to describing myself as an Anglican Papalist. I wonder how accurate a term that is in me. I've said before that being an Anglican Papalist necessarily involves living in a confused ecclesiology: holding the Supremacy of the Pope yet remaining out of communion in order to hold on to an Anglican Integrity which is despised by the Roman Canon Law. We know that Anglican Identity is hard to define and it is our faith that it is right that makes Communion with the Pope something of a existential anomaly. I've already said that some believe to be Anglicanism to be that which is expressed within the pages of the Prayer-Book, others believe Anglicanism to be that which has grown from an English Heritage stemming back way before the Synod of Whitby. There are others still...

However, I am not an Anglican Papalist, because I am a human being and "Anglican Papalist" is just some description of how I express myself in terms of relationships with the Church of England, the Anglican Continuum and the Holy See. If I define myself by being "Anglican Papalist" then I am not being a human being.

I am happy to admit to having a confused ecclesiology. I don't understand how I can hold to Catholic Doctrine as expressed by the Roman Magisterium and yet remain out of Communion with the very person whom I regard to be the man appointed by God to guide the Church. I try to see that as the state I'm in now and trust in the Grace of God to bring me in line with the Truth. This is part of my own personal Evolution: I have the core idea, i.e. that God exists and loves me as evidenced by the Lord Jesus Christ, and my life evolves according to how the love of God grows within me. Perhaps one day I shall be entirely consistent.

So far this is terribly personal - not very Catholic - and I suppose one may take me to task over a pick-and-mix attitude to the way I approach religion. Romans tend to regard that as being Protestant - whatever that word means.

The key to understanding (if it's possible) Anglican Papalism is to look at the Reformations of Christian life in Great Britain. Below, I have tried to argue that the litmus test of any development within the Church has to be Love.

Well, it doesn't take very much digging to see the level of hatred within the 16th century between Reformers and Romans, but is it fair to judge the sentiments of those times with the 21st Century morality of "live and let live"? A lot of people from both sides lost their lives horribly, standing up for what they believed in. Why then did they lose their lives? For the reason that the other side saw them as dangerous corrupters of the True Faith. What of the Reformers wishing death on the Pope in their hymns?

Martin Luther writes:

Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort
Und steur des Papsts und Türken Mord,
Die Jesum Christum, deinen Sohn,
Wollen stürzen von deinem Thron!

However this gets translated today as:

Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy Word;
Curb those who fain by craft and sword
Would wrest the Kingdom from Thy Son
And set at naught all He hath done.

The second line isn't correctly translated, is it?

What of the Bull of Pope Pius V who, in excommunicating Elizabeth I also said:

Praecipimusque et interdicimus universis et singulis proceribus, subditis, populis, et aliis praedictis, ne illi eiusve monitis, mandatis et legibus audeant obedire. Qui secus egerint, eos simili anathematis sententia innodamus.

We charge and command all and singular the nobles, subjects, peoples and others afore said that they do not dare obey her orders, mandates and laws. Those who shall act to the contrary we include in the like sentence of excommunication.

So the erstwhile Pope is inciting at best civil disobedience and at worst regicide.

Of course, we can easily try playing the blame-game. Just whose fault was the first Reformation? Leo X? Luther? Henry VIII? pre-Reformation "heretics"? Anne Bullen? Cranmer?

Utterly irrelevant - we can't change a thing!

The only relevant thing is the Elephant in the Room, not the keeper who brought it in.

Were the Reformations born out of love? That is the question that we are tempted to demand be asked and answered honestly. I disagree on the grounds that this brings us back to the who-did-what-to-whom rather than focus on the true issue: groups of Christians do not regard each other as being truly Christian.

I suppose the real question is: How do I hold on to the expression of the Christian Faith which I believe to be fundamentally true and yet express Christian Love as fully as I can to someone else who claims to be Christian but who holds a radically different set of Doctrines?

The Reformers were concerned with the purity of the Faith and seeking the ease of others' souls by demonstrating to them their errors to the point of saving their souls by destroying their bodies through fire. That may be the way they understood the Love of God in their time, but it doesn't sit right ith our consciences in this day and age and one can reasonably doubt that it would ever sit right on a Christian man's conscience.

As an Anglican Papalist, I see myself engaged in a similar struggle. The Church of England is riven with diverse doctrines which are slowly tearing Christians apart. There is spiritual and therefore moral confusion coming about from a ghastly inconsistent set of beliefs. They cannot all be right. Adult baptism has always been sufficient in the Christian Church, but some groups in the CofE say that it is necessary. Others say that it is not necessary. They cannot both be right. And there are other issues too.

Where do we turn to find the pure Faith? Lots of people will go the Bible and then realise that the same passages that are being used to support the issue are being used against the issue. There is no consistency in just reading the Bible for ourselves. So then one must choose whom to believe, which authority, which pastor, priest, professor, prelate or Pope? This only works if pastor, priest, professor, prelate or Pope are acting in the True Faith themselves. If they are acting for their own devices as Pope Leo X was when trying to collect money for his building projects (but was his motivation the love of God?), then there are problems.

We can see this coming out in the Child Abuse Scandals rocking the Church with the clergy closing ranks, effectively creating the barrier between them and their flocks. Now that's not Love, that's trying to protect appearances. Obviously it is only the tiny majority of priests who are actually guilty of abuse, but the clericalism has exacerpated the situation (as has, admittedly a sensationalist press). Yet, what of pastors inventing their own religions in order to denounce Roman Catholicism as the expression of the Antichrist, or to finance their own over-indulgences (pardon the pun).

Nonetheless, one should seek refuge in the Church that has always sought to preserve the Truth, humbly accepting that it is by God's good grace that it holds that Truth. In reflecting on the Lord's parable of Pharisee and Tax-collector, St John Chrysostom says that it is better to be a sinner and yet humble than virtuous and yet proud. Love breeds humility and it is a mark of the Church to be humble because it is made up from sinful men. Humility seeks obedience to the Faith as laid down from the first and faithfully transmitted through the Fathers.

Were the Reformations born out of love? If I have to answer an irrelevant question, I would say "no" in that it has separated Christians contrary to the uniting principle of Love. I maintain that the Reformations were born out of a fear of loss of control, but I do not care if this is the wrong answer. This is not the issue, especially since the Christian Faith has still grown in the various post-Reformation bodies which have sought to preserve the organic growth evidenced by Tradition. However, any parish that calls itself Christian has to provide evidence of Love in order to do justice to the name. How does it do that? Well, if it's Christian, it should know!

The English Catholic

I'd like, if I may, to draw your attention to a new blog - The English Catholic run by Fr Anthony Chadwick. If you have read his Reflections from Normandy, then you'll know that Fr Chadwick is interested in exploring the nature of English Patrimony and the ethos evoked by the Sarum rite.

Elmore 2010: Last orders please

My last visit to Elmore Abbey! Things have run their course and the four monks have now sold the Abbey (to whom I know not) and are preparing the move to Salisbury. This is certainly a stressful time for them, so please pray for Prior Simon and Dom Kenneth, Dom Francis and Dom Bruce as they have to gather things together and downsize to pastures new.

Of course, they'll still be constituting a monastic community and that's the important thing. Size does not matter in the Church, though the CofE at times seems to be more inclined to put bottoms on pews than the Love of God into the hearts of folk. Four monks, no matter how old still constitute a community and their prayerful diligence in observing the Opus Dei means that the concerns of the world are still being presented before Almighty God at the hands of this little Anglican Community. There is also a sizable community of Oblates all under the Rule and spiritually based with the Elmore Quartet. Apparently, having made my life Oblation last Thursday, I was told I was to be the last. I'm sure that they could squeeze in one or two more before they go. I don't like the though of being the last, though the CofE does make me feel a relic.

We still need more monks and nuns, and we must examine our vocations in life very carefully. I do recommend reading Touched by God edited by Laurentia Johns OSB (Burns and Oates) in which ten Religious folk (all Roman Catholics) tell their stories of the call to live a life of prayer in a community. I still ask myself why I'm not one of them, but my calling to education has not yet ended.

However, one should not enter an Abbey just to "get away from it all" - that's the last thing that happens! One thing of which I'm acutely aware during my retreat is that the real world is very much part of the lives of the four monks, and they do have a tender and deep concern for all that happens. Intercessory prayers are offered daily, intensively and comprehensively as part of the personal work in the community. I know from bitter experience just how difficult prayer can be, and yet to make a life of it is a great undertaking, a noble and effective endeavour, and desperately needed by a World that is teetering over an abyss.

The challenge that these monks offer us is that we should "not despise the day of small things." While wishing otherwise, it is unlikely that these gentlemen will ever be formally canonised as saints, and yet they are trying to live the life of God not by big, obvious acts and miracles, but rather by doing little things for the Love of God.

And this is something that we perhaps all should be looking for. We should not seek to be the next Moses, Augustine, Aquinas, Andrewes or Pusey, but rather to order our lives in baptising all our little, apparently insignificant actions into the Love of God. Now that is what St Peter meant by our Royal Priesthood. If we're honestly not called to the monastic life, then this is still a discipline that we adapt for our own commitment to God.

If you're worried about doing that, don't worry - there are at least four gentlemen praying for you.

Ecclesiastical Evolution III: Truth and Love

I still need to make some headway into clarifying the Object and Rule of Christian Doctrine which I have not yet done. Perhaps, what needs to be done is to see what does not constitute an acceptable Evolution, and also to identify what remains constant under Evolution. The danger, as Canon Jerome Lloyd puts it, is that everything in the Christian faith comes up for review if we assume the wrong rule of Evolution.

First of all, can a legitimate teaching of the Church be withdrawn? If we look carefully at mathematics which makes a study of logical truths and is well aware that it has limitations as to deciding the truth, we cannot undo a result. If 1+1=2, 1+2=3 and 1+3=4, and addition is associative (i.e. (a+b)+c=a+(b+c) where the brackets tell you what to do first) then 2+2=4 and there is no way of changing that result when it has been discovered. In this sense, Mathematics is entirely self-consistent because logic is infallible. Of course, Mathematics is not complete and therefore not infallible in matters beyond its capacity - it just cannot reach all Truth, indeed it is very limited in what truth it can say and the Truth of our reality is a matter of faith.

However, if we believe in an Eternal God, i.e. a God beyond Time who is not affected by Time, then He doesn't change or evolve in any way. Our encounter with Him evolves because we are changing, being temporal beings. If then we are in any way to say that we worship the same God as the chap next-door, as the lady on the other side of the world from us, as the child in the slum, as the Queen in her castle, as St Peter, as Our Blessed Lady, as St Maximilian Kolbe, as a peasant sitting in Carthage in 432AD or the man operating an interstellar craft in 6310AD, there has to be some constancy. God is faithful, that is our belief as Christians, and if He is the only God, and He tells us so, then there must be consistency in our encounter with Him.

The consistency embraces both Truth and Love. Indeed if we follow St Paul, then we have, of course Faith Hope and Love as the three Eternal things, and you know what the greatest of them is. Truth does fit in here because our knowledge of the Truth is based on Faith and carried into the future on Hope. If there are statements which are grown, or Evolve from Truth, then they cannot be withdrawn or change in Time. The Rule for Evolution is therefore continuous and accumulative, like the trunk of a tree.

Most important of all is this thing called Love. Now think of this, the very, very basic tenets of the Christian Faith are these:

1) Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

2) Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Everything hangs on these. Everything!

The matter and the process of Evolution. The Doctrine of Christ is fundamentally built on Love and anything that goes against this Love is not from God - it is not Christian.

And we're not talking about some mawkish, weak or impotent stirring of the emotions here. This is a love that can say "NO!" as well as "Yes". It is a force that will break down as well as build up, that can slam doors as well as open them. This is not some namby-pamby feeling but the driving force of the entire Universe. All Christian Doctrine must pass the test of Love as we have seen expressed initially in the faith of the Jews, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the writers of the Holy Scriptures, in the aedifice of the Holy Church.

We cannot define Love, we just know it because it is part of our make-up, deeper than genetic, at a smaller scale than the sub-atomic, yet encompassing the largest supercluster of galaxies. Its attributes are set forth quite plainly in the Scriptures and the growth occurs in Holy Tradition. It is organic and therefore continuous and accumulative. Furthermore, it is paramount and trumps all things. For example, our first priority is not our own salvation, our first priority is the Love of God and obedience to Him as He requires and not on our terms. Our salvation becomes then just as much a by-product as the first genuine smile on the face of our baby. The issue of Salvation then is an example of something that evolves naturally from Love.

I did mention in my first musing on this topic on Friday that this "one step at a time" which I described as being akin to the differential equation in mathematics poses problems for the mathematician in that some evolution equations are solved (integrated) by use of a numerical method such as the predictor-corrector method. This involves some approximations on the parameters. This is often okay as long as one sticks to within the levels of tolerance of the system; take too big a leap and you find yourself whizzing away from where you should be.

While it seems that both defining the Object and Rule of Ecclesiastical Evolution is an impossible task, we do find ourselves back to something where we can relate: Love.

More to think about here, methinks.

Ecclesiastical Evolution II: What is the rule?

Yesterday, I tried to consider the principle of Evolution and how it applies to the Church. I stated that we require an initial object to do the evolving and a rule by which it evolves.

I would like to examine this in a little more detail as this seems to be rather an important point. For Christian Unity to occur, we need to be clear as to what the Object of Evolution is, and what the Rule of Evolution is. I am sure that this has been thrashed out by many an eminent theologian and by each ecclesial body, but I think it bears the scrutiny.

What is the Object that should evolve? I think I was a bit glib about this yesterday. We have the added danger that we are arguing from within the system which presents us with very strong limits to what we can and cannot decide. Clearly from a universal perspective, the Word of God does not evolve. It has to be the same for all people be they living in prehistory or the End of Days. Salvation has to be the same for everyone, because there is only one God doing the saving, and He is outside the system therefore not subject to Evolution.

So what does Evolve? Cardinal Newman says Christian Doctrine, the teaching of the Church. Is this reasonable?

Well, human beings evolve, their technologies evolve, their philosophies evolve and their understandings evolve. This means that different questions must present themselves at particular times, and it is the job of Christian Doctrine to provide some answer to those questions even if the answer to those questions is not only unknown, but unknowable. Such things exist, and Kurt Gödel has shown us how but only within the past century! Thus Christian Doctrine has to evolve.

Christian praxis depends very much on Christian doctrine: it should therefore be subordinate to Christian doctrine in that we do as we are taught in concordance with Christian Verity. I suspect though that there are occasions where the practice of Christians has wormed its way into Christian Doctrine - could this be something like, for example, the end of the obligation to fast on Friday in the Roman Catholic Church?

If we agree that the Object of Evolution is Christian Doctrine, then how must it evolve? What is the rule?

To understand this, we must understand what drives Evolution. If this is to be in any way compatible with Christianity, then the ultimate driving force for any evolution must be the procession of the Holy Ghost in History acting in response to human activity. This is clear because the whole issue of Christian Doctrine is the interaction of Humanity with Divinity. This principle underlies the rule, but still doesn't tell us how Doctrine should develop.

Yesterday, I described three methods of evolution. Seeing as we are within the system, we do not have an overall understanding of the rule, therefore we have to rely on a rule that changes step-by-step. It makes sense that the Rule ought to be "keep travelling in this direction until God says stop." This however needs further articulation and better precision. Holy Scripture itself helps us to see when God tells us to stop and change direction, but did Holy Scripture evolve according to the rule? Does it hold the key as to how the rule should be applied? Most Christians should say "yes" but it is then finding this out, a question of interpretation as it were.

It's clear that the Rule is the generator of Holy Tradition. Once we have some awareness of that we have some clarity as how to proceed further.

More on this when I have more time, and have unaddled my brain.

Developing Doctrine and Ecclesiastical Evolution

There must surely be peace among Christians, so why doesn’t that harmony exist? Our biggest problem is dissent and heresy, namely what constitutes lawful dissent and what constitutes heresy. In 2000 years of development, why isn’t there a single Church? Well actually there is, if we subscribe to the Creeds – One Holy Catholic and Apostolic et c.Well then which is it? Rome? Constantinople? The inhabitants of one little building in Texas?

How can we tell? Well, time has passed and this means there needs to have been some evolution of the Church to bring us here. If I may move back to my mathematical heritage here, Evolution requires and Object to Evolve and rules by which it evolves. Change the rule and you change the way the Object evolves in time. Mathematically this would take place using a set of initial conditions for the Object and a function of time, recurrence relation, differential equation, as the Rule.

To illustrate these methods, we’re going to Evolve some numbers. Think of them as a population of some animal if you wish.

We could simply define the size of the population at time t as a function of time, for example f(t)= t+1, which means that whatever t is, f(t) is what you get just add one to t. The number f(t) is the size of the population at time t (seconds, years, millennia whatever you like) when we start measure. So initially, when we start measuring, t=0 and the size of the population is f(0)=0+1=1. So the initial population is 1. If we’re measuring time in years, then after 100 years, the population is f(100)=100+1=101, i.e. the size of the population after 100 years is 101. Still with me? The point is that in this situation when the rule (in this case the rule f) is given for all time, right from the start and all sizes of population are obviously determined, in this case very easily.

We could use a recurrence relation. Start with the numbers 0 and 1 and then use the rule “add the two previous numbers to get the new number” In this case we get the sequence

0, 1, 0+1=1, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8

generating 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,... – the famous Fibonacci sequence.

It’s more difficult for us to work out what the 100th number will be but we can still see how the thing is eveolving.

Mathematically, the evolution of physical systems is described by differential equations. This is a bit difficult to describe to non-mathematical readers, and if you’ve borne with me so far, thank you and well done. A differential equation only tells you how fast to travel and in which direction. For example, if I tell someone keep turning left at 3 feet a second, then he’s going to spend his time walking in circles. Yet this is how many physical systems act: we will know their velocity at any position and time, and have to work out where they will go. This makes for very complicated mathematics and leads to chaos theory. For examples of this we can look at the Lorentz equations which produce some remarkably complex behaviour.

The differential equation style evolution requires only knowledge of the speed and direction in which we are moving at any point. If we’re actually in the system that’s evolving, then this is the best that we can do. If we’re in the system, then we do not have knowledge of the whole system, but rather only local information. Slight changes to a differential equation make big changes in the long term, so constant readjustment needs to be made in order for the system to compare well with reality. If the differential equations are particularly complicated, mathematicians have to resort to numerical methods to analyse the solutions which aren’t always well behaved.

All this mathematical jargon brings me to the main question. In 2000 years since the Lord walked with us before His Ascension, what rule of Evolution did He leave us? St Paul gives us a rule in that what we receive from one generation we pass on to the next. Of course, how we pass it on becomes important especially with the change in time. How the rule adapts to the change in time needs careful thought. It’s clear that what must not change is the Word of God, the message of Salvation and Love of God, of the promise of Eternal Life and a Relationship with the Divine Author.

What we now have after 2000 years is a fragmented Christianity where people refuse to recognise the results of others’ evolution. Cardinal Newman in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine says that the Development of Doctrine should not be a mathematical process, or at least does not have a mathematical sense of continuity. A properly mathematical sense of continuity really means that small changes have small effects in the short term. If I change the function f(t)= t+1 to f(t)= t+1.5, then the change is small in the long term. However, if I change the function, f(t)= 10 x t to f(t)= 11 x t, then in the short term we have a tiny difference 10 versus 11, 20 versus 22. By the time we’ve got to 2,000, we have 20,000 versus 22,000 – a big difference.

Of course, the best thing to do is to check out that point in time where the change was made in Christian doctrine. Again, if we’re in the system, we’ve got a problem in that we cannot travel backwards in time and see precisely what that change is, we have to rely on the interpretation of historical documents which is no easy thing when there are so many factors here.

Now this is the mess that Christianity faces: fragmented by all kinds of different rules of evolution. Do all people who claim to be Christian share a common teaching? Is there truly a prescribed method of Doctrinal Evolution? Cardinal Newman’s has been both a method for conservative and liberal Roman Catholics – how can that be? So what do we do to unite Christianity?

Of course, it is an expression of Faith that we hold to the system that we do, and we should hold to that Faith strongly. However, how should we be treating those whose system need only be slightly different in order to produce very different effects? Dare we leave them or try to live with them?

The trouble with knocking at the door.

And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die , it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. Now is my soul troubled ; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this
hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die. The people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man? Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest
darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.

There's a knock at the door. Standing there are two Greeks, quite smartly dressed asking to see Jesus. Philip wonders whether these two gentlemen are in fact Jehovah's witnesses - there's still a lot of suspicion about these Greeks who "believe" in God. Nonetheless, Philip has seen Jesus talk with Samaritan women, prostitutes, tax-collectors so he knows that Jesus might actually want to let them in. He goes to Andrew who always seems to act as the bouncer in the Gospels - no-one sees Jesus without getting past Andrew - and together they approach Jesus, half-expecting "yes, let them in and we'll talk" followed by more profound teaching about the relationship between Jews and the "unclean" or "not-quite" Jews.

Instead the reaction seems quite extraordinary - IT'S NOW! Now is the hour. Now is the time! What a contrast to the wedding in Cana - "Madam, my hour is not yet come"! And then we hear nothing more about these Greeks or what was said to them. Who they are or what was said to them is not recorded in the Fourth Gospel. Whatever it is, their presence in St John's Gospel acts as some sign to Jesus about His ministry, and it causes Him great upheaval - He knows that He is going to die soon. And so He runs away!

Well, not really running away, preparations need to be made. This Friday, we have the Feast of the Transfiguration where Jesus is given news of His fate by Elijah and Moses. This episode in John's Gospel is another of great emotional strain on a Messiah who is introverted and seeking solitude, yet is devoted to an outward ministry to bring the good news of what He is going to achieve through His Life and Death and Resurrection.

In St John's Gospel, the clues to this ministry have been set in place very soundly. If you think about it, the main cause of Jesus' arrest and trial are because he raised Lazarus from the dead. This is the event that drove the crowds out to see Jesus on "Palm Sunday" and thus caused the consternation among the Jewish authorities that Jesus had corrupted the people away from the "True Faith".

Jesus knows all this. He knows that His ministry has set Him in direct opposition with the Spiritual leaders of the day. It has upset Him deeply. St John paints a picture of Jesus being deeply affected by humanity. We see him weep, angry, "sore troubled" - this is not an indifferent God who will go to the Cross in some stoic and pious silence. The silence He offers to His accusers will be brimming with wordless power unable to make them understand because their minds are closed, ears unlistening, eyes turned from the Truth. This is God Omnipotent impotent - the greatest of paradoxes - and Jesus is aware of this.

And aware of this paradox Jesus presents another. Death to those who love their life, life to those who hate their life. However, the paradox is lifted by the theme that has run throughout this Gospel - the only life that is worth having is the life of Christ. Lazarus is the sign that Jesus offers life. It is deeply offensive to those of the world; it goes against the received Science; it goes against the Epicurean idea of "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die"; it goes against the idea of being in complete control of our own existence and wills.

Our hope in life is to surrender complete control to God, to recognise that the way we live our lives is unsatisfactory. This means that we do have to search our own selves to see just how poor we really are. We can be satisfied with who we are - that means we don't get upset with ourselves, there's no emotional strain, and we can live our lives unaffected by any idea of shortcoming. Trouble is, then we cannot see the life of Christ. It is He who gives life, and self-satisfaction is a ghastly parody of that life. So if we opt for that life, we render God impotent to help us. Scandalous!

If however we opt for the hard route, the route of emotional upheaval, of distaste of what we have made ourselves, walk into the confusion in our souls and wrangle with our wills, then we see how much better the life of Christ is, and we submit to it joyfully. If we come to Christ, we have true life. It doesn't come cheaply, but Jesus is there with us and that is all that we need.

Sometimes it is we who have to come to the door and knock, just like those Greeks seeking Jesus. The results are not always what we think they will be. They will, of course, turn out to be more splendid than that.