Responding to a Comment on "Rather than forward it on..."

Nick, a friend of mine from Warwick University, was kind enough to post his objections to the previous post below. They are good objections, and I thought it would be best to answer them in the main blog rather than squirrel them away in the com boxes.

Here's his comment:

Some thoughts, which ended up being a little more vehement than I'd intended, the further I got through Stein's rant:

* Atheists don't like getting pushed around for being atheists either. Is it right to force atheist or agnostic children to swear allegiance to 'one nation under God', to pray, or to read the Bible? It seems to me that this would be about as reasonable as forcing Jewish children to attend Holy Communion, or forcing Christian children to pray to Allah five times a day.

* The terrible human disaster (the deaths, the homelessness, the disease, the poverty) of Hurricane Katrina could have been largely averted, or at least greatly reduced if the politicians had listened to the experts, strengthening the flood defences and starting the evacuations sooner, rather than pretending the whole thing wasn't going to happen, and then leaving everyone to fend for themselves when it did. To paint the disaster as a judgement from God, rather than the result of gross governmental incompetence, is to demonstrate the same level of almost criminal wrongheadedness that was responsible for the disaster in the first place.

* To judge all atheists on the example of Madalyn Murray O'Hair is roughly analogous to judging all Christians on the example of the Spanish Inquisition. She happened to have a valid point that children should not be subjected to religious indoctrination in publicly-funded schools, but her methods and rhetoric went so far beyond what
mainstream atheists and agnostics believe and consider reasonable that she made Richard Dawkins look like a new-age, tree-hugging, crystal-therapist. At the time of her murder, her American Atheists organisation consisted of a handful of people - she'd been deserted and disowned by everyone else who doesn't believe in God, not to mention most of her family and former friends.

* To lay the blame for terrorist attacks and school shootings at the door of atheism is so ridiculous that it's almost not worthy of response. Does the writer of this screed honestly believe in a God who would kill innocent people in a fit of pique at a number of other people who don't happen to believe in Him? The dreadful terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 were a response to decades of US
foreign policy, not the removal of mandatory prayer from primary schools. The terrible spate of school shootings, similarly, can be far more rationally explained by non-supernatural means.

* I'm not sure what relevance Dr Benjamin Spock's son's suicide has to the rest of the argument, so I won't comment any further on that except to note that it's not actually true: Spock had two sons,
Michael and John, both of whom are still alive. His grandson Peter did commit suicide, but I think we can probably attribute that to the severe schizophrenia he suffered from (and was hospitalised for), rather than God being angry at America.

* This article, full as it is of logical fallacies, shoddy reasoning, and biased and inaccurate reporting, is exactly why these people, George W Bush's 'faith-based community', should be kept away from government (and, for that matter, scissors and other sharp implements). I've got nothing against rational, intelligent Christians, indeed I'm pleased to say that I'm friends with many such people (yourself included), I just have a problem with credulous idiots.

* I'd not heard of Stein before, but it turns out he's a leading light of
the creationist movement. He recently cowrote an 'intelligent design' propaganda film (which has the rather apt title of 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed') which amongst other things attempts (with some extremely shaky reasoning) to draw links between the theory of evolution and the rise of Nazism.

Summary: To borrow Jeremy Bentham's excellent phrase, it's not just nonsense, it's nonsense upon stilts.

I posted this article because it does make folk think. It will certainly generate some reaction - that's good! However, we do need to think about these issues with due care and scrutiny, and perhaps on some level, that is what Stein is trying to make us do.


To reply to each of Nick's points:

• I don't want anyone to be pushed around by anyone. Both Judaism and Christianity are founded on the issue that true love generates freedom from oppression. If the gospel is that of a proper love for all human beings, then the beloved must be free to make their own choice.
  
  
• This all depends on what is meant by "judgment from God". If I say, "don't put your hand in the fire" and you do and get burned then I am allowed to make the judgement that a) you don't trust me and b) you have no understanding of fire. As Stein says (quoting the Bible), we reap what we sow, and that is the judgement of God - a predetermined law on which God has established the universe. In some sense, that very judgement has always been there.
  
  We do things and we have no idea what the consequences will be. If God says no, and we fail to listen and come a cropper, then perhaps we ought to look and see if that was the very reason why God said no in the first place.
  
  
• Synecdoche is a brilliant poetic device, but a very dangerous method of argument, so I cannot rwally defend Stein’s methods. Remember, he is going for effect in the short amount of time allotted to him in his broadcast. The point he is raising is that people are confusing secularism and humanism. I live a secular life in that I am not always in Church, or in the company of my fellow believers. While I do have aspirations to the monastery, I am at the moment called to live a life outside the cloister. That’s good, and I have to be respectful of everyone’s beliefs without being forced to adopt them.
  
  However, the false assumption peddled by the atheists is that secular society must also be humanist, i.e. cannot reference belief in any religious system for fear of upsetting others. I am not in the least bit offended by Stein’s Judaism (and Creationism), by a Moslem’s following of Islam, or an Evangelical’s following of Christianity. Being a Catholic, I believe that they are wrong, some being more wrong than others. I also believe in another’s right to make a mistake, and if different faiths are to live together then they too must respect this right.
  
  A humanist society says that my faith cannot be used to make important decisions, such as how I am to raise my children or how I am to vote, and gives no worth to what I say because it is religious in its nature despite the fact that it has practical value. If there were no organised religion, then the question of abortion would still be raised because of the question: is a foetus a human being? Yet if I object to abortion on religious grounds (and I am not sure that it is possible to remove the religious argument from the abortion issue), the humanist society fails to hear me because I am a Catholic. See also the furore over adoption by homosexual couples.
  
  Where Stein and I agree is that our religious belief should not disqualify our remarks, nor should it absolve us of the duty to speak out on issues of moral concern. We speak out because our faith bids us do so, and too many "religious" people do not do so on the grounds that they will look like idiots rather than stand up for something that they believe in.
  
  
• I don't think that Stein is actually saying that Atheism is responsible for terrorist attacks. If he is, then he's wrong. As G.K. Chesterton said in a short letter to a newspaper : "Dear Sir: Regarding your article 'What's Wrong with the World?' I am. Yours truly, G. K. Chesterton."
  
  What does appear to be a contributing factor to those attacks is the complacency of the West to what was happening in the Middle East. I do not even blame Islam for the terrorist attacks. I blame whatever power is putting the idea into people's heads that terrorism is a good mathod of political statement and negotiation.
  
  
• With regard to Dr Spock’s grandson’s suicide, I think we are agreed. Authors ought to check facts first before publishing. Clearly as a blogger, it seems that I am not free from stain in that one.
  
  
• Whatever we read, we should ask, “what is the text doing?” This was a broadcast message, designed for people to hear in an age when they are bombarded with lots of information, most of which is more appealing to listen to, so I have sympathy for Stein’s case. Shortly, I shall have 10 minutes to speak to 120 sixth-formers on how Evolution does not prevent me from being a Christian. I doubt if my arguments will be any better than Stein’s.
  
  The fact is that I am biased and prejudiced: I have a religious faith and a personal relationship with God, so naturally my argument will mention Him a lot and in support of my belief. We all have a bias somewhere, and it's important that we realise that. It’s difficult to be accurate about the application of theory to reality, since by nature of theory there already inaccuracies, and I am far from perfect. You may have noticed that.
  
  What does concern me more are Governments who seek some form of purity in their composition. There are princes, presidents, popes and patriarchs that have tried to force people around to their belief system with disastrous results. The ideal for this country always used to be that Parliament, Church and Crown would regulate each other. Now of course, we appear to be regulated by a parliament who cannot be held to account. There is no perfect system of government, though some forms are clearly better than others.
  
  A major reality of this World is: "people disagree with us." Each government has to deal with the issue: “how do we deal with the folk who have voted against us?” Suppression, dismissal, restrictive practice and “squeezing out” are not acceptable, yet occur in each governmental system to some level.
  
  
• I suppose, technically, Nick has made an ad hominem argument here. I know that in debate, one ought to refrain from these, and rather concentrate on what is being said. However, they do bring an extra dimension into the debate if (and only if) the ad hominem statements are accurate and factual.
  
  As a Christian I believe that God created the Earth – that’s one of the tenets of the creed to which I subscribe. However, the Bible doesn’t answer the question “how?”, it rather gives an explanation for why we exist. For me, answering the “how?” question is the fun bit of science that God allows us to do. However, Creationism goes further than just believing that God created the universe. I don’t object to people holding Creationist beliefs, after all, Bertrand Russell did demonstrate that it was philosophically coherent to believe that the universe came into existence five minutes ago together with the appearance of having the past of millions of years. Yet, given the circumstances and the laws that nature appears to follow and I observe, both Russell’s hypothesis and, subsequently, Creationist belief seem contrary to what I observe, though I cannot prove that it is false.
  

To comment on Nick's summary: much of what Stein has written may be nonsense, but I cannot dismiss all of what Stein says as nonsense. Perhaps what is more dangerous than the “credulous idiots” are the intelligent Christians who prefer to live their lives without thinking about the consequences of their actions and what they are affirming, and not putting their intelligence to good use. Now there are plenty of those about particularly in the Episcopal Church of the USA and the C of E.

Rather than forward it on...

My friend, Jim Ryland, sent this to me. I think the idea is that I should forward it to as many people as I know. Unfortunately, I'm not the most sociable of people and my address book isn't brimming over with names. I thought that this piece deserved to be viewed by more people than I actually know, so I publish it here, well aware that others have done the same, in the hope that my countrymen will read it and realise where this country is going.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too... But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking. Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards,

Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

Dare you email this post to your friends, or are you really as unsociable as I am?

Does it really matter?

Let's face it, proper Anglo-Catholics (i.e. not Aff-Caths, who are High Church in their ritual and nothing more) get a bad press for holding onto their "outdated and restrictive beliefs". The World and the liberal churches view us as splitting the Church over things that do not matter. Does it really matter who waves their hands over bread and wine and says "Hocus Pocus"?


This same issue was raised in the BBC television series The Vicar of Dibley when the female "vicar" when addressing opponents to the ordination of women states that people who worry about women's ordination ought to be worrying about bigger things. This is what the British public have seen broadcast about the issue, and seems to be a sentiment that is shared, not only with the secular society, but also the C of E as well. I heard in a sermon yesterday that the roles of women in the Church, or of the ordination of practising homosexuals are not issues that would only bother the Lord because they damage "inclusivity".


Essentially, we have to look at what the secular world (and an increasingly secular denomination) regards as an issue that it considers more important than what is splitting the Church. A quick straw poll among the folk around me reveals that battling injustice, poverty, global warming, needless suffering and disease are more important.


Of course they are important.

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? (Isaiah lviii.6-7)

Clearly we are to work for a society that is free from the powers of darkness, to show love to all human beings. Yet,

[God] has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah vi.8)

Both passages are in complete agreement: a human being cannot truly be called a follower of God if he does not act in a way that is fair, loving, merciful and humble. Indeed, St John says that we can never have known God if we fail to love. As Christians, it is imperative that we work at doing something to bring the freedom and light of God into the world, so the "big issues" are very much at the heart of what Christians ought to do.


However, if we look at the "big issues" carefully, we see that they have always been with us as the Lord Himself predicted they would be. Is this solely the fault of the Church concentrating on God? Well, no.


Certainly, it is the fault of some elements of the Church for choosing to seek power and to exercise their power through oppression, but other elements have been steadfast in doing just as God commands, with some success but not reaching all the people. Oppression still exists, and why? Because humanity is fallen - utterly so. Altruistic efforts on the part of the secular society, nor on the part of the Church will not be enough to end this oppression because somewhere, somehow, someone just starts it all up again. There is nothing new under the Sun.

If we truly walk humbly with God, then this means not only recognising, but also accepting our limitations and failures as well as our capabilities and successes. Humility is an honest appraisal of ourselves as individuals and or ourselves as a Church in the light of God. We cannot operate without God. None of our altruistic schemes have any relevance - indeed cannot even be truly altruistic - without God.

So God comes first, because He points to a way in which suffering is ended like the travails of childbirth. The relief from suffering is eschatological. We do not understand why now such suffering exists save for a vague notion of what it means to have free-will. We certainly know that much human suffering is caused by humanity itself which only heightens our need for God.

If then we put God first, then there must be a process where we act as if we put God first. Is there such a process? Yes, it's called worship.

So how are we to worship? We could just do our own thing, but it is clear from scripture that there has to be an element of coming together, of commonality as the Jews and Christians gather together. In the twelfth chapter of Acts we read that the Christian community worshipped God together in an act referred to as leitourgia whence the word "liturgy". From its earliest beginnings, the Church has used liturgy to worship God so that we follow the way that God Himself wants to be worshipped. The relationship between God and Humanity hasn't changed, and neither has the pattern of worship.

Two thousand years have elapsed since the first Eucharist, and, in creating the Eucharist, the Lord Himself has instituted a pattern and a priesthood for the Universal (i.e. Catholic) Church to follow throughout history. This guarantees that we receive the same Communion with God, as did the first disciples, and worship Him in the way that He considers to be worship, and are fed by Him with food that truly sustains and equips us for serving God and our brethren. The Eucharist is not a little issue. It is not some trivial issue, but has a significance beyond the visible scientific world.

So, yes, the Eucharist does matter and matters more than the problems of this world because it points to Godly ways in which the problems of this world are to be relieved if we receive it properly, meditate on its effects and engage with God in a Communion that He desires to have with us. The problems of this world, though severe, are nonetheless fleeting, and if we see these issues only as important then we are forgetting about the spiritual welfare of those around us.

The West languishes in a spiritual famine, the like of which has not been seen for some time because it has systematically rejected its spiritual existence in favour of the material. In making ourselves fat on food and possessions, we have become spiritually thin and emaciated. Our relationship with God is feeble, the worship in the C of E becoming mere lip-service, and indeed mere ritualistic "Hocus pocus" (where of course ritual is being observed). We do not take our Opus Dei seriously and as a consequence we are in danger of losing our very selves.

The "big issues" and the Mass are inextricably linked in Communion with God, and only He can put us on the path to see His Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.

New blog

I've just found Alana's blog. She's always been kind enough to read this bloglet and make comments, and I've always found her Orthodox beliefs very refreshing. So, in the best tradition of reciprocation, do check out what she has to say - it really is worth hearing.

Contemporary Christ?

A couple of pictures by surrealist photographer David LaChapelle.

What do you think? Worthy or woeful?

Soul Music: aspiration versus affectation

Striggio's Ecce Beatam Lucem.

Tallis' Spem in Alium

I have just spent a very pleasant half an hour listening to, in my opinion, three of the most uplifting pieces of music written: Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, Ecce Beatam Lucem by Alessandro Striggio and O Bone Jesu by Robert Carver which I'm yet to find on YouTube, but I thoroughly recommend that you purchase the recordings properly as they sound much more glorious than these rather grainy videos.

I'll readily admit that I am a big fan of polychoral motets - pieces of music which involve more than one choir of voices. On a much feebler scale I write my own which come nowhere near to the sheer genius of these highly talented and gifted musicians. I find that writing such pieces puts an enormous strain on my grasp of music, trying to get the noises in my head into some sensible and orderly form to express some form of my worship of God. It is a vast effort on my part, but then I am not a trained composer and have very little knowledge of form, structure or texture. I also doubt that I will ever hear my compositions performed other than by the munchkin chorus that inhabits my computer. That doesn't worry me too much - I don't write for performance because I worry that I might become conceited from any adulation and dispirited by any criticism.

However, the point is that I try to do something that pushes against the everyday tendency to ignore God. Music requires effort if it is to be done well and inspire people and worship God. The blood of the composer must be spilt into the manuscript page, and likewise the blood of the performer must be drawn if the music has any chance of lifting the soul from this veil of suffering and to touch the Divine who in His great act of humility permits us to touch Him.

Tomorrow, I shall go into Church and I shall hear songs half-sung, words half-read and prayers barely prayed. The angelic voices to which I have recently just listened will be replaced by songs that are easy to sing, that speak of the comfort of our position and how nice that chap Jesus is. There will be no aspirations, there will be no desire to move forward, there will be no wish to upset the status quo. All will be done to maintain a nice atmosphere while we watch the Rector putting on his performance at the altar, and it will mean absolutely nothing. And then we shall all get up and receive the Body and Blood of Christ, ignorant in our bloodless existence of the sheer and titanic effort that He made in order that we might receive that Communion.

It doesn't matter which parish I'm talking about - it's the face of Sunday worship in the C of E, with its modern take on things and its desire to make it easy for people to come through the door. to understand what's going on, to enjoy oneself.

Church Music is one single aspect and barometer of the spiritual state of the Church. I am not saying that every church needs to sing Striggio's 40/60 part Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno as its weekly Mass setting. The dear monks at Elmore Abbey do their level best at singing the simple chants in their hard Office. I don't think they are trained singers, but their simple effort and hard work make that music special even though it's a single unison line of music. If they can do it, then we should be thus able. We just need to get rid of the gimmicks, the affectations such as tambourines, guitars, drums and Clavinovas with their helicopter sound effects and put some effort into singing hymns of worship that are directed God-ward and not "Here am I Lord, look at me, Lord" which the majority of these ridiculous and offensive worship songs are, both from a theological and aesthetic point of view.

Sing to the Lord a new song? Yes, but one that we've actually made an effort to compose well.

A Fine Romance: the Mills and Boon Christ

It seems that there is a war between different loves raging in this world, setting church against society and, indeed, Church against itself. The issue is clearly how it is appropriate to behave when one is "in love" - whatever that means.

I think that one of the contributing factors has to be this idea of Romance taken out of context.

There seems to be something terribly noble about the star-crossed lovers pledging their love in spite of apparently insurmountable odds. One can read Pride and Prejudice and see how Elizabeth Bennett finally navigates the obstacles of society and finally bags the dashing Mr Darcy. Apparently a box of tissues is a requirement when one watches Love Story or Titanic. There is the quandary over which woman to love in Dr Zhivago. How many women fantasise about their boyfriend in white uniform a la Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman? Some classics, some not so, but they have this picture of love against the odds sometimes with tragic endings.

In these days of readily available media, many folk are presented with this notion of love against the odds, disobeying antagonistic parents, avoiding crowds of unwelcome suitors and ill-chosen subjects for an arranged marriage, or the disapproval of an oppressive regime in order for the couple to engage in the great embrace in the final reel, or suffer painful lingering deaths.

Is it possible, then, that people look on these as a generic component of falling in love, that there has to be some battle against an oppressive regime for there to be this frisson of Romance?

One looks at the modern acceptability of sex outside marriage. Society turns a blind eye, saying that this is now a reasonable and normal activity. Yet this was never the case in the past when unmarried sex was called fornication and seen as shameful. I suspect that what has happened is that Romance came on the scene.

What was taboo became suddenly terribly noble - the young couple expressing their love despite the tyrannical disapproval of a strict society bent on crushing any expression of tenderness by forcing them to commit themselves in that evil and binding notion of marriage. How wonderful to see this young couple overcome all the odds!

Similarly, homosexual relationships thrive because of the Romantic imperative. Two young men struggle against social and moral taboos in order to come to terms with the feelings burning within them. It's seen as beautiful, noble and thus completely acceptable to a society which equates the superficial expression of love with the true depth into which true love expands.

These folk also romanticise the life of Christ. His sacrifice against all the odds seems to give license to the view that Love can be expressed in any way that society permits. It is Mills and Boon Christ permits homosexual relationships because the love is true, and it struggles against the disapproval of the world. This superficial love needs to be seen for what it is - it permeates only to the level of feelings, not to the good of society as a whole. Everything may be permissible, but not everything is beneficial, and the Mills and Boon Christ seeks only to scratch an emotional itch, rather than seek to build up families and communities in a deeper and truly selfless action.

Looking at the lives of the saints, it is here in which we see the struggle to love against the odds to satisfy the desire that all folk should realise that they are loved by a personable, yet utterly transcendent God who wills their good and loves them more deeply than any rather falsified notion of affection spawned from some idea on the Big Screen.

If Romance truly exists then it is in the more cosmic story of a God and His Creation overcoming the oppression of free-will to be together in Eternity.

Ciborium or fancy tin mug?

I haven't really had much time to post on this poor little blog lately, though I do intend to keep it alive.

I thought I ought to relate an incident today which I believe sums up the attitude of a sizable part of the CofE.

Our Parish Church building is under renovation at the moment while the heating is being put in. This has meant the removal of the floorboards, and the covering of many of the precious items in the Church. It also means that our Aumbrey in the Lady Chapel is now inaccessible.

I came into church this morning to lead Mattins and sure enough saw that the sanctuary light (a ghastly 1960's electrical thing with a flickering flame "effect") was off. Of course, this would make one curious as to where the Reserved Sacrament was now being stored. It is of course of a vital importance to a rabid little Anglican Papalist like myself. So I looked around the church ("seek and ye shall find") and eventually found the ciborium stuck in the corner of an old disused sacrarium (only just prevented from falling in the sink) at the back of the church surrounded by a pile of old chairs, chest of draws, a filing cabinet filled with our modern "liturgies". There was no attempt at reverence, no thought for what this receptacle contains even if some folk in the C of E see it (wrongly) as merely symbolic. The attitude speaks volumes.

While I can understand that the Aumbrey had to be rendered inaccessible, the fact that there was no plan to accommodate the Sacramental Presence of the Lord seems incredible. I often come into the church to find the Aumbrey obscured by a display of flowers, or a chair, making the practice of kneeling before the Lord very tricky and usually I have to do some furniture removal if I want to venerate the sacrament.

How typical this seems to be of many a C of E parish. It has become just a Rotary club with ritual (which thus technically means nothing). The Peace is a shambolic free-for-all, the Creed altered, bits of the canon of the Mass missing.

I still wonder why I am a member of the C of E. I've nowhere to run, but I still have some work to do here albeit in a peripatetic and peripheral nature. My vocation in this church, indeed this parish is clear to me, though there are times when I wish there were a credible alternative. I have now not received the Sacrament in my own parish for a year, preferring to go to a neighbouring parish to do so (like this morning), but even the the superficiality and lack of thought and care seems to be infiltrating. It must be a spiritual version of the second law of thermodynamics - religious entropy is increasing.

The limits of forgiveness

I've already posted this on the Anglican Diaspora, but I thought this was important enough to warrant a copy here.



We live in a very difficult climate and the Church has to play several contradictory roles. We are all sinners, but some of our sins contravene human law. Some of these sins effect the way that society views us. In this particular climate of concern over sex and, in particular, protecting our young folk from predation and molestation, there is a very important issue that needs to be addressed.





A good friend asked me a few questions which I'd like to pose here.





a)You are a priest of a small church. A new individual shows up at Mass. After the second Sunday, he schedules an appointment with you. When you get together, the newcomer asks if he can become part of the parish, but discloses a problem: he is an ex-felon, on the sex offender registry for acts done twenty years ago. He served his required prison time, is off parole, successfully completed a sex offender program while in prison, had many years of formal group counselling, and participates in a Christian programme for people with sexual issues. What do you tell him? As parish priest what do you do?





b) It's been a number of years since that encounter. The decision made was that it was to be a pastoral situation between you as priest and the individual. Other people would be informed on a need-to-know basis, but no general disclosure was necessary. The person has become an active and contributing member of the parish.An individual in the parish, a member of the PCC (vestry in the states, I believe), happens to find this person's name and picture on line in the sex offender registry. Prior to that he had no knowledge. Upon discovering this information, he begins agitating to have this person expelled from the parish.





As the parish priest, you know the ex-offender has done nothing to canonically warrant expulsion. However you know if this person stays certain individuals will make your job more difficult, others have promised to leave, and others have threatened to inform the Bishop. What do you do? What pastoral advice do you give?



Join in the discussion on the Board.

Elmore 2008: Commonality and Community

I've just returned from my annual pilgrimage to Elmore Abbey. I always feel welcome when I arrive, and though numbers are down to four monks, they keep going with resolution that would have defied Rabelaisean efforts. Again I return feeling more on top of things than I have been used to in the past twelve months. There were even moments of pure joy which I don't seem to have recognised in my life lately.

Elmore has moved a long way from its Anglican Papalist roots, indeed three of the four brothers accept women's "ordination". The other, like myself, is an unrepentant Anglican Papalist, so you can imagine we spent some time fretting about the imminent problems within the Anglican Communion in between prayers for the Vicar of Christ and prayers to Pope St Pius X.

However there is an issue that we can miss in our reaction to global news in the Anglican Communion as it slides further into what orthodox Anglicans regard as being apostacy. This issue is what is happening at the local level: how does women's "ordination" affect the local parish? Well, unless you have a female incumbent it doesn't on a day-to-day basis. It does have a major impact when parishes try to express themselves as members of the same church, and appeal to the governance of a fully orthodox bishop whom the parish priest represents at each Mass.

For my papalist colleague, leaving the order is simply not an option. It is in direct contradiction to his vows as a Benedictine Religious and to the close relationships and community he has forged over his long profession. His vow of stability is a vital part of being who he is. For him to leave would create not only instability for him, but also to the community, more so than if there had been ten times as many monks. He remains faithful, though deeply concerned about what is happening to the Church of England.

In one of my earlier posts, I stipulated five reasons an Anglican would stay in the Lambeth Communion, to wit:

1. Those complicit in the heresy;
2. Those who are elderly or infirm;
3. Those who are too frightened or tired to undergo such upheaval;
4. Those who intend to fight from within;
5. Those who intend to honour a commitment despite the heresy.

I'm coming to the opinion as I read around the various pieces of literature, that there are far more priests falling into category five than the rest. Cynics might disagree with me, but speaking from the experience of my own (rather muted and restricted) ministry as parish Reader, I still have a community to whom to minister and I do that as best as I can along traditional lines, with the traditional office and traditional teaching from the Scriptures. My community needs me, and, to be honest, even in this period in which my relationship with my relativistic Parish Priest is at rock bottom, and in which there is no commonality of purpose, I still need the community of my parish. It isn't going anywhere, I don't see how I can until it gets really problematic, i.e. when we cannot tell whether a priests orders are valid. Imagine the genealogies that C of E priests will have to produce in 50 years time in order to prove their validity to Catholics.

This may sound rather ostrich-like - the burying of one's head in the liturgical sand - but it seems the best way to weather a storm. I'm told that when a surfer encounters a large wave about to wash over him, he keeps his head down and lets the wave rush over him. We cannot forget the person in the pew. The C of E seems to have done so. Ironically, there are now fewer young women than ever attending church, so perhaps the "priest"hood of women may be a short-lived aberration. The Gamaliel principle may be encouragement for all Catholics within the Church of England. Again, this would certainly bear out the surfer analogy.

I have my ministry. I also have my friends in the Lambeth Communion and within the Orthodox Continuum who will ensure that I stick to the straight and narrow. I have also the person of the Holy Father to rely on in these times of difficulty, and perhaps I should be thankful that I am still a layman so that I do not have the cure of souls and that I am largely inconsequential in the Church in that my words are not weighed with any doctrinal import, unlike the words of a Parish Priest.

There is the comfort that all valid Masses throughout time are inextricably linked with the Mass in Eternity, even if we cannot perceive whether they are. This is also a sobering thought as well. Can we truly justify our separation and mutual excommunication in this light? The liberals have left the church because they have "changed the rules" - the rest of us must pull together!

A taste for Christianity

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. St Matthew v.13


This tongue map is apparently wrong!

However, it does put forward a rather interesting analogy. Recieved science says that there are five types of taste bud - sweet, sour, salt , bitter and savoury (or umami). This latter has only recently been discovered as a separate taste bud, presumably because the Germans in the early 1900s hadn't had much experience with the cuisine of the far east.

Taste makes eating an enjoyable experience. A good sweet and sour dish is simply gorgeous to taste with a myriad of flavours. I'm told that a pint of bitter is truly refreshing despite the fact that it is indeed bitter. If you eat chocolate in the right way (i.e. putting a little bit on the tip of the tongue and allowing it to melt) you get another kalaidoscope of subtle flavours which understandably makes chocolate a very enjoyable dish.

The Lord likens Christians to salt, which, in the first century, was largely used as a preservative, as an improvement of taste, as a purgative and disinfectant and as a currency (hence salary from the latin for salt). It is clearly distinctive, as well as being necessary for the human body containing both sodium and chlorine which are vital for the way the body grows.

But salt is only one of the flavours of life. What of the sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and savory flavours in life?

Life can be very sweet, filled with lots of things to enjoy. Sweets make us happy and give us energy, likewise the sweetness of life is finding our own happiness, indulging ourselves in life's riches and pleasurable experiences. But too much sweet and we become spiritually fat. We become addicted and lethargic, becoming spiritually cumbersome and uninterested in healthy activity.

Life is full of bitter experiences too. People are hurt by people and institutions that they love, their work is disregarded or derided, they feel unappreciated and unloved. This is a necessary part of life, and God gives us experiences like this to fill out our lives rather than allowing them to become bland, and unappetising. However, if we become inured to our bitterness and allow it to rule us, then we die a little inside and become unaware of the fact that life can be good and enjoyable despite bitterness.

Life is also full of sour experiences, the mistakes that we make, the way we fail ourselves and others, the taste of something "on the turn", slightly rotten. We are sinners, and sourness is an taste that we receive from the fruit, the apple in the Garden of Eden. Too much sourness, and we moulder away.

There are savoury experiences in life. Since this has only recently been discovered as a separate taste detected on the tongue, so do our lives have sensations of an exotic nature. We are tempted by new, interesting and different experiences which colour our lives and make it gorgeous. However, too much savoury and we wander off into exotic (and dodgy areas) of spirituality, away from God and worshipping Him in the way that He chooses for us.

Our Saviour therefore puts us on the road to perhaps the least developed taste bud of being salty- a preservative which adds taste. It is the Christian living a Christian life in the world who can bring out the good sensations of the tastes of the world. A Christian can show that God put good things on this earth for us to enjoy, thus enhancing the sweetness. Likewise during hard and bitter times, the Christian life shows that we can cope in God's love with all the rot and cruelty that the passing world throws at us. When we sin, the Christian shows that the sour taste has no lasting effect by demonstrating forgiveness and unconditional love. The Christian life has plenty of savoury and exotic experiences without leaving the path of righteousness.

So then, the Christian is indeed the salt of the earth, bringing out and enhancing all these flavours. As a preservative, the Christian preserves the word of God; as a disinfectant, the Christian stands up to sin whilst ensuring that the sinner is loved, cleansing souls through care and the sacraments.

But.

Too much salt and we become dry and thirsty.

Why else, then, would the Lord give to the Christian Living water to prevent us from dessication? He makes sense!

How tasty is your life at the moment?

The non-Theory of Relativity

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended , what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

Ephesians iv.1-16

What's your opinion on the tax rates in this country? Do you think them to be too high and that we're being taxed to the hilt? Do you think that high taxes are necessary in order to provide good public services and to fund important community building projects? Of course your opinion matters, and we all have a social duty to express our opinions at the ballot box.

What's your opinion of 4+5? Is it always 9? Or do you think that it should be something else?

Well, no matter how hard you hold your opinion, if you hold to the standard rules of arithmetic that we are taught at primary school, 4+5=9, and there is no argument. Indeed we can say this absolutely infallibly that within the numbering system that we use, 4+5=9: to say otherwise is incorrect.

Now this is the content of the troubles that are affecting the Anglican Church: what is fixed and what is opinion? St Paul tells us that we have one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all. Now is Paul expressing an opinion, or is he telling us the truth? Well, if we are Christian then we hold to the infallibility of Scripture - it is not opinion. The big problem is how to interpret it.

It would be easy for us to use scripture to prove anything. The Bible says:"there is no God." That would cheer up the Atheists wouldn't it? However, Scripture would also disprove it pretty quickly, especially if we complete the verse: the fool has said in his heart "there is no God". The Moslems read our scriptures and when they read that Jesus said "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. " (Matthew 5:18) then they read St Paul saying that the law no longer requires men to be circumcised, and all they see is contradiction. So to a Moslem, our scriptures cannot be true because they contradict each other. However, as Christians we know that Moslem interpretations cannot be true reflections as to what is being said by Holy Writ. So how can we be sure that we are being given the right teaching from scripture?

Well, this is the problem. If we glibly regard all religious differences as being merely differences of opinion, then we enter a world of relativity and nothing is certain. If it were based only on opinion, then would the Church ever have got going? Highly unlikely! Even the phrase "Jesus is Lord" can be interpreted according to different opinions as the Arians, Apollinarians and Nestorians demonstrated. In seeing everything as opinion, we become, as St Paul says, blown about by any wind of teaching. One person's words influence us one week, but the next week the opposite opinion prevails. St James asks how can we hope for anything if we cannot be sure about the Faith that we have received from God?

In the world of the relativist, it's easy for any church leader to get up into the pulpit and proclaim his own interpretation of Scripture one minute and then change his mind the next. Just because it suits him, such a leader chooses his own patterns of worship to force onto the people rather than follow the pattern that Church has used for centuries: these patterns can change from week to week under a relativist. Words of hymns don't matter to the relativistic leader because all hymns are equal in their standing: they have only a relative value and that is to keep the congregation happy. The result is doctrinal instability because the people hear one message one week, and the opposite message the next. The people lack stability and thus cease to care about anything because it doesn't matter. Result: lack of substance, lack of growth, lack of mission.

Furthermore, relativists actually destroy unity, since "all views are equally valid" they choose their own way independently from everyone else, and we can see these effects in Africa where the African Anglicans are holding to the traditional doctrine unlike the West in which each priest is encouraged to take his own interpretation and force it upon their congregations. No wonder the Anglican Church is breaking up. As we see from the vote at General Synod, it is the relativists who force Traditionals out of the Communion because they block the channels along which Traditionals travel. The Relativist will accuse the Traditional of "throwing his toys out of the pram" but the Traditional cannot operate in that culture. It's like blocking the "earth" hole in a plug-socket and then telling a three prong plug to fit into it. The irony is that the relativist is more dogmatic than the Traditional because he follows his own personal dogma as true. The Traditional has no choice but to check everything up against the standard of the Catholic Faith, the relativist listens to either side of an argument and chooses the side he likes best.

It is also the relativists who accuse people who hold firm beliefs as being oppressive, fundamentalist, narrow-minded, dogmatic or intransigent. The Pope is seen an oppressor because he says that contraception is a sin. However, notice that relativists do not understand the issue properly. It isn't the Pope that says that contraception is a sin, it's the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church! In this instance the Pope is merely acting as a voice box declaring the truth of the Church. Whilst the Roman Catholic Church may not be united as it thinks it is, it still presents its doctrine carefully using liturgy, catechism, and community. The same is true with the Orthodox Churches, as well as the Traditional (Continuing) Anglican Churches of all persuasion.

In his last sermon as Cardinal Ratzinger, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI said

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by very wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.

If we believe in a Catholic Church, as we say we do in the Nicene Creed (if your parish ever says that properly and doesn't replace it with some watered-down "Affirmation of Faith"), and we believe that we are part of that Catholic Church, then we have to be Catholic, i.e. conforming to the whole Church not according to the vision of the Church that we might hold in our heads.

If we say "I believe that 4+5=8", well that's fine. We can accept that as an opinion - it is a perfectly valid opinion and everyone has the right to believe that 4+5=8. However, would you trust an accountant who held that belief?

We can be absolutely sure that we are right when we conform to the Catholic Faith - how the relativists would hate for this to be true if they understood it. This requires much work, and no-one, not even the Pope speaks the Catholic Faith all the time. However, we have the Catholic Canon which will always correct us if we are willing to be corrected. Our required humility is that we recognise this and continue to study God's words as revealed in Scripture and Tradition with the judicious use of Right Reason.

Doctrine: Oppressor or Limitation?

I'm rather pleased to have found (or rather been introduced to) Fr. Greg's blog Missional Anglican Discipleship. Fr. Greg is a welcome contributor to the Anglican Diaspora board and so it makes sense to promulgate decent connections.

I did notice this wonderful quote from St. Francis of Assisi on Fr. Greg's blog:

We have been called to heal wounds, reunite what has fallen apart, and bring home those who have lost their way.

The same St Francis also exhorts us to preach the gospel to all people using words if we have to.

This begs the question which a lot of liberals seem to be demanding of the Traditional (and traditionalist) churches: why are we bothering with the minutiae of doctrine when we should be actively helping those in need?

It is after all a good point, and St Francis would certainly give short shrift to anyone who walks the Jerusalem-Jericho road with his nose in a book wandering past the battered form of one robbed of all he possesses. Then again, the Lord Himself would give shorter shrift.

However, it is the Anglo-Catholic, and Anglo-Papalist Churches of the early 19th Century who had some of the greatest effects amid the poor of London. Fr. Ignatius of Llantony did his best (albeit somewhat ideosyncratically) to bring back some notion of community amid some remarkable instances of preaching. The Anglo-Catholic movement has demonstrated itself not only to be an intellectual, but also deeply passionate part of the Church.

Yet the Dean of Salisbury on St Osmund's day suggested that we can be too hung up on doctrine when we should be helping people. This depends what she means, and seeing that she was quoting from Katherine Jefferts-Schori not renowned for her theological rigour, her remarks do have to be put into a better context.

Doctrine does affect the Christian's daily life. It is the Doctrine of the Church that helps us examine our consciences carefully and accurately, advises us on the Will of God in certain matters and directs us when we are lost. For the Benedictine, Doctrine provides the magnetising effect necessary to bring the unruly soul back into alignment with Christ, and with other folk. It is the subscription to the same doctrine that keeps Christians together, for in that doctrine, they can be sure they are following the authority of Christ when He bids us pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven."

However, the C of E has lost that integrity and is splitting up, though there are many orthodox and right-believing Anglicans within the Lambeth Communion as the votes against women "bishops" indicate. In not listening to the African Churches and ploughing with the ordination of homosexual bishops, ECUSA has put the African Church into an awkward position especially when it has to minister among many Moslem communities. ECUSA has damaged the missions of its brothers and sisters in Africa by not adhering to doctrine.

This is the problem: doctrine gives the Christian parameters within which to work, and to flout what the Church teaches, preferring one's own interpretation or reinvention means that not only will one's actions be questionable, but may well scandalise another set of Christians in a remote area. This demonstrates the crucial need for Christians to be Catholic - kath-holos.

On the other hand, Christians must take great care to ensure that Doctrine never becomes too narrow, or cease to be the liberating form that it should be. Bearing in mind that Christian Doctrine must be able to free us from the oppression of the world, as soon as it becomes a case of battering folk over the head with a rule-book, then it misses the point.

Doctrine certainly provides boundaries, but limitation is not the same as oppression. The wasp banging its head repeatedly up against the window pane cries out "Oppression! Oppression! I'm being oppressed!" It however fails to realise that if only it were to fly a foot higher, it could squeeze through the fan-light. Likewise, we are limited by our sexes. Although we may try to change them, either psychologically or surgically, we can never escape from what God created us to be. He created us to be free as we are, not as we want to be, and to choose otherwise is a lack of trust in Him. Sure, it is difficult to trust God sometimes, particularly when His will departs from ours (and that ought to be vice versa, folks) but we have to accept that, just as the wasp has to accept the "oppression" of being "imprisoned" by a glass and a piece of card before it is released into the sunlight of a better world.

So St Francis says that we need to minister to all folk in their oppression. That is where true love lies, and to yoke oneself with the oppressed is an act of charity which will not go ignored by the Divine Christ. However, we need to make sure, and pray for grace, that we might discern between those who are truly oprressed and those who are railing against their limitations.

GAFCON: How Christian is it?

I've just been watching a programme by the BBC entitled Battle of the Bishops detailing the whole GAFCON situation and following Archbishop Akinola in his mission to Jerusalem. Of course, one always has to take such programmes with a pinch of salt as their nuances can be misleading; however, I was deeply disturbed by Archbishop Akinola and many of his followers at their inability to separate homosexuals from homosexual practice. It appeared that they were equating an inherent quality of a persons make-up with what is clearly described as a sin in Scripture, Tradition and natural law.

The GAFCON statements contain much with which I agree, and much with which as an Anglican Papalist I do not agree. These statements also contain statements with which I disagree as a Christian.

1. We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.
   
2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
   [Of course, Scripture must be interpreted in the light of Holy Tradition of the Church which carries the "DNA" of Christianity through all ages. One must also not forget the Anglican appeal to Right Reason. My main concern here is that this statement appears to be largely Evangelical in its statement.]
   
3. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
   [As an Anglican Papalist, I recognise all of the Ecumenical Councils, though I must confess to wrestling with the contents of the 20th and 21st. Nonetheless, conformity to the Church of Rome bids me seek reconciliation of these councils to my Anglican understanding]
   
4. We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.
   [I recognise the Thirty-nine articles as playing an important part of Anglican History. I recognise them as describing the position of the Anglican Church as it was as a result of the Reformation. However, I do not recognise them as having any doctrinal authority over the position of the Anglican Church before the Reformation.]
   
5. We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.
   
6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.
   [True, but not authoritative]
   
7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.
   [What is the "classic Anglican Ordinal"?]
   
8. We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family.
   We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
   
9. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.
   [Provided that we ensure that we preach and live our lives in such a way as to present those ignorant of Christ with a well-informed and free choice as whether to accept Him or not.]
   
10. We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.
    
11. We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.
    [I worry here about the "pick-and-choose" nature of this statement. Although it does not explicitly say so, the way it is worded seems to imply that signatories to this statement would not recognise the orders of heterodox bishops. There is a problem with this approach: Katherine Jefferts-Schori is not a bishop because she is not the appropriate recipient of Holy Orders. Bishop Robinson, although heretical and sinful, must nonetheless be recognised as a bishop. However, his ministry is deficient until he repents of his heresy and his lifestyle. We still have to remember that we are all sinners and must always bear this in mind in this whole sorry affair.]
    
12. We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.
    
13. We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.
    [I see here a problem with rejecting authority. If this just presents as with another reason why we listen only to one person and not another just because they do not hold the orthodox faith, then we do close our ears to the voices of our brothers and sisters. If a heterodox bishop says that homosexual relationships may be physically expressed with the blessing of God, then he is wrong. If he says that we must worship Jesus Christ as Lord and God, then he is right. The Anglican way is to make careful and prayerful considerations of anything any bishop says, cutting out that which is clearly wrong, and affirming that which is clearly right. A heterodox bishop will speak much of which will be excised by an orthodox Anglican. A bishop has the right to be heard: he does not, however, have the right to have his word regarded as the word of God unless he be fully consonant with the Catholic Faith and fully submitted to orthodox belief. As an Anglican-Papalist, I believe that only the Pope enjoys this property under certain and specific conditions as laid down by the First Vatican Council. Other Anglicans cannot hold this doctrine, in which case they must make the decision themselves. Which bishops can be trusted to speak authoritatively?]
    
14. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.

Some of these statements I have not commented on at all because I am in agreement with their spirit. But having watched Akinola set himself up as an Evangelical Pope and expressing his loathing of homosexuals in no uncertain manner, I worry that these statements were not drawn up in a spirit of love. Yes, there needs to be a clear separation between heterodox and orthodox. This needs to be done in a spirit of hope for future reconciliation. It must also happen in the light of the parable of the wheat and the tares. Wheat and tares cannot be separated without damage to the Church. There will be heterodox Christians within an orthodox church, and there will be orthodox Christians within an apostate church.

We are told that love does not insist on its own way. God loves us, therefore He permits us to make our own decisions and choices for which we must answer for ourselves. If we love Him then our way must always be subject to Him and to our neighbours. In 1998, the Lambeth Conference insisted on its own way and refused to hear the call of the African churches. Is it any wonder that now the Africans are doing the same thing now? The loss of love, the lack of desire to sit down and talk together and the breaking of Communion is a serious matter. If separation must occur, then it must occur with a view to ending that separation.

The Anglican Communion has created the case for Akinola and his followers by its own agenda and feebleness to attend to Christian precepts. It has no option but to address this issue itself, and it will not be easy. And Akinola himself must look very carefully at what he considers evil - he is in danger of cutting off a leg to treat an infected toe.

The Beginning of the End?

It's been several days since the vote at General Synod, and I suppose I ought to say something.

Well, the news is not good is it? Though I expect WATCH is thoroughly pleased with itself. The worst thing about it is that the British Government threatened to enforce "anti-discrimination" measures against the church if it didn't vote the way that it wanted. In my eyes it is the Erastianism inherent within the Church of England that is responsible for this breach of Catholic order. That the British Government with its legalising of human-animal hybrids, acceptance of the blasphemy of abortion and the attempt to put homosexual relationships on a par with normal matrimony is trying to impose its morals on the church would be laughable if it weren't an abandonment of right moral judgment.

Now it is very necessary to take stock of things, especially from the Anglican Papalist point of view. It appears that the Bishop of Ebbsfleet is planning on leading the exodus to Rome, and it is this action that needs to be looked at carefully. There are two real possibilities:

1) That the Pope will allow the Ebbsfleet Exiles as a single body to form an Anglican Community within the Roman Catholic Church;

2) That the Ebbsfleet Exiles will be required to make individual submissions to Rome.

The second option is not Anglican Papalist which states clearly that Anglican-Roman reunion must be corporate, not individual. Anglicanism has an identity and valid orders which must be recognised by Rome. The pronouncement on the nullity of Anglican Orders by Pope Leo XIII was neither infallible nor well-informed, but Anglicanism needs Rome to stop the continued fragmentation into smaller and smaller divisions amid accusations of "purple fever".

As Fr David Straw remarked:

What you are looking for doesn't exist. Doesn't mean you should stop looking for it. After all...There's God's time and our time. The two are very different...As I have found from experience.

He is quite right. What Anglican Papalists want does not exist - yet! We certainly do not want Rome to fall into the ways of Liberal Protestantism which seems to infect the Church of England.

But, Anglicanism extends futher than the crumbling edifice of the C of E. The Anglican Continuum has the potential to take over the mantle as the centre of proper orthodox Anglicanism. It has the theologians, the orders and the potential to exercise the Anglican character for toleration of different expressions of that theology. Rather than decamp to Rome, I believe that Anglicans forced out by the heresy of sexual homogeneity should first look to unify the Anglican Continuum and start the ARCIC process from there.

I, Dawkins (or not)

I found this rather clever invention on the Philosophy of Dawkins at Wry Mouth's blog.

Since I work(ed) with hypercomplex numbers (quaternions) I suspect Dawkins would have the same argument about my other "holy" trinity.

Which Halo do you want?

Homily preached at Eltham College on 18th June based on St Matthew vi.19

It’s your best game of Halo ever.

You’ve destroyed
an entire battalion of Grunts
and their commanding Elites
through careful use of fragmentation grenades
and a Scorpion tank.

A few plasma grenades
have wiped out an attack
by The Flood.

You’ve retrieved the Index,
and set Pillar of Autumn
onto self-destruct
finally escaping
within the 15 minute countdown
before it destroys the Halo.

And then you’re done.

That’s it.

You’ve won.

You’ve beaten the computer.

You’re the champion,
the best,
the bees knees…

But what now?

Well, yes 343 Guilty Spark
does survive the attack,
but that just sets you up for Halo 2.

How are you going to keep hold
of this feeling of victory?

[PAUSE]

Computer games
have come a long way from Pong or Pac-Man,
where if you reached level 8
the thing would flip round
back to level 1 again.

If all you do is guide
a little yellow eating machine
around a maze for hours on end,
then what’s the point?

What’s the end result?


Whatever your victory may be,
there’s the fact that
at the end of the game,
you’ve got to switch the console off.

Your victory
as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
over the Covenant
is obliterated in the flick of the switch
as if it never happened.

In the course of a second,
you’ve gone from the king of the world
to just you.

You have desire
to try and preserve that stupendous victory
on the screen for ever,
immortalised as a testament
for future generations
that you beat the Covenant.

Your family would object if you graffittied it
to the television screen.

But no.

It’s dinner time
and the Xbox must be switched off.

So what’s the point of reaching
for victories that disappear
at the flick of a switch?

[PAUSE]

What is it that truly lasts in this world?

Fame?

Fortune?

Well, how many of you have heard
of Larry, Curly and Moe?

Of Wilson, Kepple and Betty?

Of W.C. Fields and Mae West?

Of Lon Chaney Sr or Bela Lugosi?

Of Les Dawson or Dick Emery?

Of Peter Beardsley or Gareth Southgate?

What about Chantelle?

All famous in their time,
but now, even within a few decades
(or 5 minutes for Chantelle),
their memory is fading.


Rockerfeller and Howard Hughes
are no longer exactly household names.

Their fame has been replaced
by the likes of Roman Abramovich
and Bill Gates.

But who says that their fame
will last the test of time?

[PAUSE]

The human race is very good
at depressing itself with its own mortality.

Channel 4 rejoices
in its quest to make us miserable
by showing us in gory detail

images of Big Ben standing
corroded and stopped;

the Eiffel Tower,
rusted and overgrown with climbing plants,
collapsing into a pile of mangled metal

statues of famous people
broken and fallen


all human books,
records and computer discs
corrupted and rotting in a pile of mildew.


All human construction and achievement
seems to fade away.

Of course when the Sun dies,
it will be as if humanity never had existed.

Depressing, eh?

[PAUSE]

That’s how we can choose to look at our lives
– see it as a struggle to hold on to bits of life
that crumble and fall through our fingers
like the packet of biscuits
that someone has dropped several times,
run over with their trolley
and put back on
the supermarket shelf.

We can hoard up wealth,
or possessions,
or certificates,
but they aren’t going to last forever.


Wealth is always stolen,
certificates always get destroyed.

Achievements always get forgotten.

What will remain of you in a million years time?

[PAUSE]

Now that you are thoroughly miserable,
take a look at yourself.

Isn’t there something more to your self
beyond your ability to out-run,
or out-think every one?

Isn’t there something beyond
your ability to remember useless facts?

Isn’t there
something within you
that says, “yes, I am!”?
something that screams out against Time,
against change,
against decay?
something that objects to being forgotten?

It’s difficult to think of
our own existence
beyond our own lifetimes.

Some people believe
that we no longer exist after we are gone.



Others believe that we always exist,
that within you there is the flavour of eternity,
that you matter eternally.

Certainly, Christians fall into the latter category.

Jesus says:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust destroy,
and where thieves break in and steal.

Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where moth and rust do not destroy,
and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also.”

What He is saying to us is that
each human being has an existence and a worth
beyond the world where our achievements
can be switched off as easily as an Xbox.


We have to become aware
of those things that really matter
and that cannot be taken away from us
no matter
how poor, ill or miserable we are.

[PAUSE]

So what is the stuff that lasts for ever,
that doesn’t decay?

Love?

Generosity of spirit?

Kindness?

Won’t the actions
to which they are attached
still be forgotten?

The fact that you helped an old lady
across the road in 2007
is not going to be remembered in 2057,
but the effects of that kindness
may well linger on
- not through fame or honour.


Kindness,
like hatred,
grows and grows forever.

An act of charity may be
unnoticed in the ages to come,
but its worth to the future
is incalculable
and its place in the fabric of the universe
indestructible.

What are you storing up
for yourself?

Mapping the Truth

Let’s start with Pilate.

What is Truth?

As far as I can ascertain, Truth is the correspondence between what really is and what is held in thought. It’s not the only definition of Truth but it seems the best definition that fits my thought and experience of mapping reality as accurately as possible. We look at the world around us and try to replicate what we experience in our heads. Why? Why do we need to make the correspondence? To be honest, I don’t know but it seems utterly programmed into our brains to ask that question – “Why?” We have what appears to be a natural and universal need to make this correspondence between object and its idea in order to make sense of our lives.

In mathematical parlance, Truth has the aspect of a manifold – a mathematical space of manifold dimensions (perhaps even infinitely many) which can be described by a collection of maps, charts and maximal atlases. (Be grateful, my other mathematical encounters with God have involved modelling the Truth as an operad or a quiver. I might explain those later.)

Each human being seems to have a way of mapping out the Truth – there is only one Truth as there is only on Reality – and that mapping will be faithful but only up to a point, and some mappings are more faithful than others. Some mappings will lack the true dimensionality of what is. One cannot make a map of the earth by charting every line of longitude. We just get an uncountable collection of lines with no idea as to how they fit together. Clearly the Earth’s surface is bigger, and that is why our charts have to be 2-dimensional to include longitude and latitude. If we need to take into account of the three dimensional aspect of the earth, then we need to build three dimensional models (quite why we would try and construct an accurate replica of the Earth is another matter). We reserve charts to mean maps of the right dimensionality. Charts of the Earth’s surface.

We get an accurate picture of the Earth by a collection of charts – an atlas. Each chart has the fullness of the aspect of the Earth, however it still has limits, and in order to get a better picture of the Earth we have to turn the page and note that the charts overlap at the edges so as we know how the previous chart relates to the new.

The question is, do there exist charts for the Truth? Well yes, for me, the Atlas is Christianity, the charts the fragments into which the Religion has fallen. Some aspects of Christianity are not full enough and fail to be proper charts. Others have certain fullness, but are too small in their scope – all charts get distorted towards the edges. Notice that it is mathematically impossible to get the whole of the Earth’s surface onto one chart. The chart always breaks down into a singularity or cannot extend beyond a certain point. Likewise, the charts of the Truth fail to encompass the whole Truth – singularities arise, boundaries are thrown up. But the Truth exists as an object.

Even as a mathematician, I believe that Truth is God and I believe in His Son, Jesus Christ when He said “I am the Truth” and that the Holy Ghost completes the Triune Godhead.

Why?

Because.

It’s complicated. I have no rational reason to be a Christian – indeed as a rational man (allegedly) I have every reason not to be a Christian. But belief in God is not irrational, I accept that there are things that exist and are unempirical – love, hatred, beauty, truth. The existence of God is an assumption that I have made in order to make sense of my life. One rather weak argument is that because the Universe is more complicated than human thought, either Truth does not exist or there exists a mind big enough to hold the idea of the Universe as it really is. It’s a weak argument because it assumes that Truth cannot be partial. However, if the Truth is partial, then scientists have no hope ever of finding a theory of everything!

The only way that I can prove that God does not exist is to assume that He does exist in show that this leads to a logical contradiction. However, I have subjective reasons to believe that He does, and that is enough to convince me that He exists and that He wants me to exist as well. For me this is enough to convince me that I am loved by God.

In wanting me to exist, God wants me also to know that He exists and in order to do that, He must reveal Himself to me, but also to all people, since He has decided that He wants other people to exist too. What is the nature of His revelation? How does He tell us about Himself?

Well, He tells us about Himself by talking to us. However, there’s a problem in that we have been given some freedom. If God loves us by wanting us to be in the first place, then He could just be in absolute control over us. We human beings are witness to activity within our species that some human beings do not want other human beings to be. Has God wanted some people to be only for them to have their existence taken away again? Well, yes, that is possible, but it does not seem consistent to me, and if I am to believe in God, then I must also believe that He is consistent. If God wants all humans that are to be, and some humans do not want other humans to be, then it must be that human beings are free to choose whether to follow God, or not to follow God.

So we then have a choice, to hear God or not to hear God. However, we now have the ability and propensity to be deceived by others. Even in our own selves do we have conflicting voices in our heads, to the extent that, ab initio, we cannot tell the voice of God from the other voices in our world.

So human beings need a reliable revelation that comes from God – a revelation that does not err or change in Time because God does not change in Time. Where is this revelation? We have the Holy Scriptures, but these Scriptures have been written at a particular point in the past. Nowhere in the Bible will we find explicit reference to the internet, to women priests, to the Holy Trinity (amendments to I John v notwithstanding). Thus there is a need for the Scriptures to be interpreted reliably. Also the revelation of God in Christ existed before the Scriptures were written down, so it is not enough to assume that all the revelation of God is contained in Holy Writ.

So here we are. We’ve arrived at the notion of Infallibility – the need for the revelation of God, His Truth and His teaching about Himself to humanity to be taught reliably, without error and without the possibility of error. If God wants all human beings to be, and we have this strange mysterious phenomenon call Time whereby human beings appear and disappear from sight in the space of a century or less, then there has to be a reliable transmission of that teaching from the beginning to the end, there has to be Infallibility.

Is it possible for human beings to be infallible? Well, Holy Scripture was written by human beings. We know that St Paul was a sinner, yet he wrote the letters which have been incorporated into Holy Scripture. What St Paul wrote must have been Infallible. Likewise St Peter, who was wrong in what he practised when he refused to sit down and eat with Gentiles, nonetheless wrote letters and preached sermons which have been preserved into Holy Writ. Despite the fact that he acted in error, and spoke in error, the teaching that he broadcast in Scripture is infallible, and this infallibility existed before the Scriptures were written down.

It is clear then that the teaching of the Church is infallible; it has to be, otherwise there is no revelation of God from the beginning. It is also clear that our own understanding of the Truth has developed in Time. The Holy Trinity has always existed, but our interaction with that Holy Trinity has not because we have not always existed. How is it that the strange mountain god of the Israelites develops into the more convoluted and transcendent Being of the Three-in-One? Well, He doesn’t develop, we do! This development cannot stop because the Truth is infinite in extent. The Church possesses the fullness of Truth. What does this mean?

It means that, although we never have the entirety of the Truth accessible to us at any one moment in Time, the Church will continue to teach the Truth as it is revealed to us in Time until that Truth is completed as predicted in I Corinthians xiii. This teaching is necessarily infallible even though individual human teachers do err. However, as we have seen, there are conditions in which human beings accurately and infallibly communicate the Truth. The Church has decided which books of the Bible are infallible and which are not, which contain true teaching and which do not. That decision itself must have been made infallibly otherwise humanity has no hope of knowing what the Truth is about God and His love for us.

If human understanding about God develops, how can we be sure that our development is correct? We do have the Vincentian Canon – quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus – i.e. that we are to believe whatever has been believed everywhere, always and by everyone. The trouble with the Vincentian Canon is that we cannot say what is the Truth about the humanity and divinity of Christ, because some folk in the past have held the teaching Creed of Nicaea a priori, and other have wandered into what we now understand as the heresies of Arianism, Apollinarianism, Nestorianism and Patripassionism to name but a few. Isn’t it a bit convenient to say that those who are heretics do not contribute to the Vincentian Canon?

However, the Truth has always been held infallibly by the Church. Thus, in Time we can be assured that the Truth will be apparent in times of doctrinal disorder. That Arianism, et c. have failed to prosper is an application of the testimony of Gamaliel to the Church. Thus in following the teaching of the Church from the Creeds, we can be absolutely certain that we follow the Christian Verity.

In this time of plurality of Christian Doctrine, and without the benefit of hindsight how can we be sure that the teaching to we hold now is not heretical? Considering that there were large numbers of powerful bishops and priests and even Popes who were Arian in their belief, the weight of numbers, nor the office of individuals is not sufficient to determine orthodoxy.

Looking at the Creeds, it is clear that, although not all the credal statements appear specifically in Scripture, they have their seeds in Scripture, and they have a clear development in Tradition from those seeds. This is precisely why I believe that women cannot be priests – there is no scriptural seed, and no traditional development. The doctrine of female orders has no basis in history. It is not a singularity of the chart, it is a discontinuity from the chart of Truth, and a chart fails to be a chart if it is discontinuous.

But still the question remains, to whom do I listen over a point of more complicated debate? The Roman Catholics would say that it is from the infallible statements of the Holy Father. But does the Holy Father possess infallibility ex officio?

The seed, we are told is, Matthew xvi:18b-19: Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my Church. The implication is that the Lord’s metaphorical rock implies that the teaching of St Peter cannot err. However, are we told that is a property that will be transferred to all of St Peter’s successors in the See of Rome? Nonetheless, this is just a tiny seed, and lo and behold it has indeed developed into the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility that we see defined formally at the first Vatican Council in 1870. The seed exist, and the organic growth exists with all the glitches, snags and underhand machinations that dogged the development of the Nicene Creed. One might recall the parable of the mustard seed and apply it to this tiny little piece of scriptural evidence. However the problem is that not all the Church affirms the doctrine.

The Roman Catholic Church has the fullness of truth meaning that as humanity grows and extends its relationship with God, the chart of Truth grows in its extent with the correct dimensionality – it does not lose its scope. However, it is limited by Time. Within its chart is Papal Infallibility which may be true, but appears not to be true in Orthodoxy nor Prayer-book Anglicanism because these do not have that in the overlap between the charts. You can’t turn the page of Truth’s atlas from the Roman Catholic Chart to the Prayer-book Anglican Chart and find Papal Infallibility on both pages. You would find more overlap with the Anglican Papalist pages, but again the charts distort at their edges. That doesn’t mean that they cease to be true but rather they give a false impression – like the North Pole in a stereographic projection.

I wish I could believe Papal Infallibility to be true, though it's difficult to see how the conditions for infallibility could ever be met - how can you show that the Pope is the teacher of all Christians without saying that you're only Christian if you believe in Papal Infallibility? I believe that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, the Head of the Church on Earth, but "supreme" is meaningless if that supremacy is recognised by everyone. However, this does not rule out the possibility that the Pope is infallible, nor that he is Supreme Head of the Church - they are not proven and only accessible in a certain chart.

I hold Anglicanism to be a valid and fully coherent expression of Christianity, though I do not subscribe to the full XXXIX articles because I do not see that they follow the Vincentian Canon and some are downright false (if they aren’t, then why are there Roman Catholic in England thus violating XXXVII?), nor do I believe that they define Anglicanism as it existed before they were written. However, others do and with good reason which does fit in with the Vincentian Canon. The same is true for the Orthodox, the Old Catholics (who have remained true to Catholicism).

The key issue is Time, and sometimes we act as if we should have all the answers to our disagreements here and now. If we keep pushing at the boundaries of the extent of our charts, may be they’ll move, and maybe they won’t but the act of trying means that we encounter a better view of the Truth as an objective reality. This growth can only come with God’s grace and our humility. We have to accept the limitations of the Temporal Church’s understanding of the Truth but hold to Our Faith and Hope that the Church does have the full Truth. We just have to submit to her teaching in the Chart in which we have found ourselves born and brought up.