It's all doom and gloom at the moment, isn't it?
The Pope speaks about the terrible loss of life in Italy through the Earthquake.
The Archbishop of Canterbury speaks of the need to use the recession as a lesson in anti-materialism. The first item of News in Blighty is about the Labour Party Spin Doctor attempting to slur the Conservative Party leaders.
So what's different from this age from the time of the Resurrection?
It seems mainly to be the technology we use, and the breadth of our ability to communicate our ideas. We are certainly no more enlightened than those who have gone before us. Our political and economic situations don't hold up much hope for the future; the crumbling fabric of our society in a culture of "grab what you can" certainly doesn't fill us up with hope; and the militant atheists seek to drum up more support with their happy and uplifting slogan of "dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return" - it's such a comforting thought that will win many a person over(!)
And into this hot-pot of Pharisaism and Sadducaism, political unrest, hedonism, barbarity and sadness, one little man does something amazing - He rises from the dead. Not ostentatiously, no big bang that shakes Jerusalem and Rome to their very foundations, no rout of the foreign power, He just appears to those who love Him to show them that their faith is not misplaced.
And suddenly, we realise that life is worth living, even though depressions do assail us and that there is something more. Sure, we have nothing to show for it, nothing that will prove that our hope is well-placed, we just have that hope, and our faith and our love that will confound the philosophers and scientists and the cynics of this day and age, just as it always had confounded them in ages past. The problem is that Truth is bigger than the Human Mind and always will be. Only the Church possesses the fulness of Truth and even then I'm not convinced that she possesses it fully in any one particular instant of Time, but cumulatively the truth discovered in each age piling up upon that discovered previously.
But there is work to be done, for I do not believe that the Church is living out her hope as well she might, for many of her congregations are getting choked by the cares of this world. So what is it that we have to do? Pray! Yes, then what?
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Who's Authority?
How about I state the obvious?
Anglicanism is in a wee bit of a pickle!
Recent events among my friends in the Continuum highlight one thing: that the divisions are getting worse and are having a detrimental effect on Christians of all stripes.
A priestly friend has followed his bishop into an Anglican jurisdiction which some hold to have a question mark over aspects of their belief. I trust my friend and his bishop to be acting according to their consciences and their belief in God for the good of their congregations and for the faithful promulgation of the faith. I also know nothing about the jurisdiction into which they have moved, so I remain rather disinterested (not uninterested) in their situation. They have my prayers.
It does strike me as terribly odd that such a move was necessary in the first place. It is nothing less than a scandal that Anglicanism is deteriorating into divisions and factions according to subtle nuances. It seems that no-one seems to want to do anything together these days.
To be honest, I am the last person to be preaching about not joining in with others, seeing that I refuse to play a full part in my own parish on account of the nature of the ἀτάκτως. But then I refuse to be so disorderly. Am I right to go with my own conscience in this matter, or should I submit myself to the authority whom God has set over me?
This isn't just at the heart of Anglicanism, it's present in Roman Catholicism where goodness knows how many thousands are ignoring our Pope's teaching on contraception, or the orthodox monks who are not exactly averse to giving each other a punch up the bracket! This division is a spirit in society itself. Look at how in this country there is no respect for any form of authority. Eggs are thrown at deputy Prime Ministers, Lords are covered in custard, priests are heckled in their pulpits, teachers verbally abused and ignored by students.
Of course, it all stems from the fact that our leaders have let us down in the past. Popes have been corrupt, Kings despotic, priests failing to practise what they preach, governments failing to listen to the people. It seems then that there is no possible way that the Truth of God's existence can have been authoritatively passed from generation to generation.
The Roman Catholic Church says that she is One True Church that possesses the fullness of Truth, so do the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates, but they are not united. Anglicans have always claimed to be part of the One True Church, yet do not agree on the source of authority, and the Protestants who rely solely on their Bibles (allegedly) cannot agree on the correct interpretation. It's a shambles!
So how can Anglicanism ever be united if some want to do just what the world wants it to do, others stick to the BCP and various interpretations of that and still others wish to be reunited with the Pope? What is Unity in these circumstances?
So what marks should there be for unity? I doubt that I can ever produce a definitive list that is even remotely philosophically or theologically sensible., but I try in the hope that my feeble mutterings may inspire greater minds to make it clear (assuming that they read this!):
1) That Holy Scripture, Orthodox Catholic Tradition and Right Reason are at the heart of the Christian Faith and are authoritative;
2) That at least the first Seven Oecumencial Councils are authoritative;
3) That the Seven Sacraments are ordered according to Catholic and Orthodox Tradition, that their efficacy is recognised and their importance promoted.
4) That there is recognition of others' adherence to other formularies which do not contradict any of (1) or (2).
5) That all conversation between those of different jurisdictions is conducted with the sole view of standing together in the Presence of Christ and seeking nothing that would scandalise the other, but rather that a mutual exploration of the Truth may be achieved.
6) That all attempts must be made for communio in sacris and that all dialogue to this end should never cease.
For me, these represent a start and a hope that there would be some common ground for building a Church that will give society what it needs.
Society has lost its sense of the sacramental. If we cannot venerate Our Lord in Sacramental form in Church, then how would we teach others to venerate Him in their secular lives? If we cannot live together without trying to tear ourselves apart, how can we show the Body of Christ as a united entity?
One of the reasons I stay Anglican is because I have a trust and respect for my Anglican Prayer-book critics. I cannot hold to the Prayer Book as being definitive of Anglicanism, but they do and admittedly that Prayer-Book has been part of Anglicanism for four-and-a-half centuries. That I believe that Anglican Catholicism stems from the pre-Reformation Church in England is a sticking point that affects the relationships between Anglican Papalists and the Prayer-Book Catholics.
It would be a help for unity if either side here did recognise the various intentions behind the other. The Anglican Papalists do seek corporate Unity with Rome and accept the primacy of the Holy Father (though sometimes, I rather cheekily think that we APs do Rome better than Rome does ;-) ) that we are trying to hold two jurisdictions together, rather than allow them to drift further apart. We seek the impossible and logically contradictory - the reconciliation of the Anglican Identity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nor should we pretend at this stage to know how it should be done.
But then, we APs must stay Anglican for the sake of our Prayer-Book Catholic brethren - after all they have sprung from the same cleft in the Church that we have. Theirs is an integrity that comes from objective criticism and it is in part that they struggle to find the nature of the Anglican Identity, which eludes them as much as Unity eludes us. That Rome needs to hear them is clear, since Rome has not heard the Anglican voice for four-and-a-half centuries, and has not benefited from the scholarship and the Anglican reserve which it needed to hear and has only just begun to hear. But then APs and PBCs must stick together for the sheer sake of a coherent Anglicanism.
It is only in the light of this unity that the Liberals might repent and return. We should not cut these misguided iconoclasts off absolutely either.
Anglicanism is in a wee bit of a pickle!
Recent events among my friends in the Continuum highlight one thing: that the divisions are getting worse and are having a detrimental effect on Christians of all stripes.
A priestly friend has followed his bishop into an Anglican jurisdiction which some hold to have a question mark over aspects of their belief. I trust my friend and his bishop to be acting according to their consciences and their belief in God for the good of their congregations and for the faithful promulgation of the faith. I also know nothing about the jurisdiction into which they have moved, so I remain rather disinterested (not uninterested) in their situation. They have my prayers.
It does strike me as terribly odd that such a move was necessary in the first place. It is nothing less than a scandal that Anglicanism is deteriorating into divisions and factions according to subtle nuances. It seems that no-one seems to want to do anything together these days.
To be honest, I am the last person to be preaching about not joining in with others, seeing that I refuse to play a full part in my own parish on account of the nature of the ἀτάκτως. But then I refuse to be so disorderly. Am I right to go with my own conscience in this matter, or should I submit myself to the authority whom God has set over me?
This isn't just at the heart of Anglicanism, it's present in Roman Catholicism where goodness knows how many thousands are ignoring our Pope's teaching on contraception, or the orthodox monks who are not exactly averse to giving each other a punch up the bracket! This division is a spirit in society itself. Look at how in this country there is no respect for any form of authority. Eggs are thrown at deputy Prime Ministers, Lords are covered in custard, priests are heckled in their pulpits, teachers verbally abused and ignored by students.
Of course, it all stems from the fact that our leaders have let us down in the past. Popes have been corrupt, Kings despotic, priests failing to practise what they preach, governments failing to listen to the people. It seems then that there is no possible way that the Truth of God's existence can have been authoritatively passed from generation to generation.
The Roman Catholic Church says that she is One True Church that possesses the fullness of Truth, so do the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates, but they are not united. Anglicans have always claimed to be part of the One True Church, yet do not agree on the source of authority, and the Protestants who rely solely on their Bibles (allegedly) cannot agree on the correct interpretation. It's a shambles!
So how can Anglicanism ever be united if some want to do just what the world wants it to do, others stick to the BCP and various interpretations of that and still others wish to be reunited with the Pope? What is Unity in these circumstances?
So what marks should there be for unity? I doubt that I can ever produce a definitive list that is even remotely philosophically or theologically sensible., but I try in the hope that my feeble mutterings may inspire greater minds to make it clear (assuming that they read this!):
1) That Holy Scripture, Orthodox Catholic Tradition and Right Reason are at the heart of the Christian Faith and are authoritative;
2) That at least the first Seven Oecumencial Councils are authoritative;
3) That the Seven Sacraments are ordered according to Catholic and Orthodox Tradition, that their efficacy is recognised and their importance promoted.
4) That there is recognition of others' adherence to other formularies which do not contradict any of (1) or (2).
5) That all conversation between those of different jurisdictions is conducted with the sole view of standing together in the Presence of Christ and seeking nothing that would scandalise the other, but rather that a mutual exploration of the Truth may be achieved.
6) That all attempts must be made for communio in sacris and that all dialogue to this end should never cease.
For me, these represent a start and a hope that there would be some common ground for building a Church that will give society what it needs.
Society has lost its sense of the sacramental. If we cannot venerate Our Lord in Sacramental form in Church, then how would we teach others to venerate Him in their secular lives? If we cannot live together without trying to tear ourselves apart, how can we show the Body of Christ as a united entity?
One of the reasons I stay Anglican is because I have a trust and respect for my Anglican Prayer-book critics. I cannot hold to the Prayer Book as being definitive of Anglicanism, but they do and admittedly that Prayer-Book has been part of Anglicanism for four-and-a-half centuries. That I believe that Anglican Catholicism stems from the pre-Reformation Church in England is a sticking point that affects the relationships between Anglican Papalists and the Prayer-Book Catholics.
It would be a help for unity if either side here did recognise the various intentions behind the other. The Anglican Papalists do seek corporate Unity with Rome and accept the primacy of the Holy Father (though sometimes, I rather cheekily think that we APs do Rome better than Rome does ;-) ) that we are trying to hold two jurisdictions together, rather than allow them to drift further apart. We seek the impossible and logically contradictory - the reconciliation of the Anglican Identity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nor should we pretend at this stage to know how it should be done.
But then, we APs must stay Anglican for the sake of our Prayer-Book Catholic brethren - after all they have sprung from the same cleft in the Church that we have. Theirs is an integrity that comes from objective criticism and it is in part that they struggle to find the nature of the Anglican Identity, which eludes them as much as Unity eludes us. That Rome needs to hear them is clear, since Rome has not heard the Anglican voice for four-and-a-half centuries, and has not benefited from the scholarship and the Anglican reserve which it needed to hear and has only just begun to hear. But then APs and PBCs must stick together for the sheer sake of a coherent Anglicanism.
It is only in the light of this unity that the Liberals might repent and return. We should not cut these misguided iconoclasts off absolutely either.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Marah, Meribah and Massah
I've not written for a long time, and I do want to keep up this blog because I find that it at least allows me to set down my thoughts in total so that people can point at the flaws in my thinking. Very useful, especially when I have people who do disagree with me about what the nature of Anglican Catholicism is.
Alas, (Fr.) Marco Vervoorst has given up his blog, largely methinks due to commitment to his growing family and the fact that Third Blog from the Right has run its course. Considering that it started as Traditional Anglo-Papist, shows what a journey he has been through. Perhaps now is the time for him to have a little rest now that he has found some doctrinal stability.
My recent meanderings through the Old Testament have been following the meanderings of the Israelites as they grumble their way across the wilderness for the promised land which the majority never see due to their sheer disobedience to God.
So far for me, the three Ms have occurred in the course of their wanderings: Marah, Meribah and Massah, i.e. bitterness, and (as the Venite puts it) provocation and temptation. The waters of Marah are bitter until Moses throws in a tree that makes the water sweet, whilst Meribah and Massah have the Israelites crying out accusing God and Moses of seeking only to destroy them and showing a complete lack of faith in God. I've always found it rather fun that this occurs in the Wilderness of Sin!
It's very easy to draw parallels with the plight of the Christians in this century and the Israelites way back when. Christianity is no longer the force that it once was in the West, largely because the standards of the Christian Faith have been eroded by Liberalism, materialism and a militant atheism which is largely hedonistic in its expression.
In all walks of Christianity, there are those who move the goalposts just to make life easy for themselves. One only has to look at the outcry about the Holy Father's latest comments about contraception to see that the populace, rather than listen to the message of continence and self-control, are more concerned with the restraint which one needs to show in one's life. We cannot have life all our own way if we are to live together.
So these are the Christians who stay in Egypt and try to build a life for themselves there, and I pray to God that they be saved. Then there are Christians who, acknowledging the Sacrament of the Eucharist as an effective sign of God's nourishment and Salvation, who pass over the waters of the Sea of Reeds into the wilderness.
And here it is that we find ourselves. There is a lot of bitterness in our hearts. Certainly I see it so much in the lives of the many friends that I now have on the Anglican Diaspora Forum, and on the Continuum blog. The trouble is that we know that something is terribly wrong.
It seems to me that the typical Continuer has an enormous strength of character. They have been able to leave the Parishes, Churches and Congregations of their formative years because they have seen something horribly wrong in the way that their same church has been moving. They know what is right and have the Traditions of the Church ingrained in their blood. But that same strength of character is in danger of pushing them away from those who really do care about them, if they carry with them the bitterness that comes from that separation. Who wouldn't carry that bitterness?
The typical Continuer is also American and, from my English perspective, have a larger than life way of committing themselves to a social code. All the Americans that I have met take their religion terribly seriously. They cling to what is right and refuse to concede an inch, because they fear that it was concession that brought them to the wilderness. They feel charged with being disloyal by their erstwhile jurisdictions. One only has to look at Archbishop Coggan referring to the Continuers as disloyal and Archbishop Carey describing opponents of women's "ordination" as heretics. These words sting.
Yet, I don't think I've seen the word "heretic" bandied about so much as in Continuing Circles. Of course, it's true: anyone who departs from the Traditional teaching of the Church is a heretic - that is what the word means.
What the Continuing Church needs is that tree which sweetens all bitterness. If that isn't the tree of life that comes from communio in sacris then I don't really know what it is.
From my point of view, in my peripheral state in the Church of England, the danger for me and those like me is that of Meribah and Massah, the terrible despair that comes from disbelieving that God can and will sustain them in the wilderness. I suspect that my parish have given up on me completely now. I'm not called to do much, but, since quoting II Thessalonians iii.6 at them, I haven't won many friends!
The antidote for this despair is to hope that something will happen which will lift the gloom that surrounds the orthodox Anglican. There is refreshment available and we do have to turn to God together and be reassured that He has said that He would not abandon us.
Continuers and the relics in the Church of England do have to see that Rome is not the enemy, but Rome needs to recognise herself that she has many Egyptians within her hierarchy, and they do need to be recognised.
If Anglicans began to trust each other a little more, then perhaps our Unity may show sufficient light on the world, and on Rome too, to see what needs doing. Why don't we become the example of Unity to all Christians?
Alas, (Fr.) Marco Vervoorst has given up his blog, largely methinks due to commitment to his growing family and the fact that Third Blog from the Right has run its course. Considering that it started as Traditional Anglo-Papist, shows what a journey he has been through. Perhaps now is the time for him to have a little rest now that he has found some doctrinal stability.
My recent meanderings through the Old Testament have been following the meanderings of the Israelites as they grumble their way across the wilderness for the promised land which the majority never see due to their sheer disobedience to God.
So far for me, the three Ms have occurred in the course of their wanderings: Marah, Meribah and Massah, i.e. bitterness, and (as the Venite puts it) provocation and temptation. The waters of Marah are bitter until Moses throws in a tree that makes the water sweet, whilst Meribah and Massah have the Israelites crying out accusing God and Moses of seeking only to destroy them and showing a complete lack of faith in God. I've always found it rather fun that this occurs in the Wilderness of Sin!
It's very easy to draw parallels with the plight of the Christians in this century and the Israelites way back when. Christianity is no longer the force that it once was in the West, largely because the standards of the Christian Faith have been eroded by Liberalism, materialism and a militant atheism which is largely hedonistic in its expression.
In all walks of Christianity, there are those who move the goalposts just to make life easy for themselves. One only has to look at the outcry about the Holy Father's latest comments about contraception to see that the populace, rather than listen to the message of continence and self-control, are more concerned with the restraint which one needs to show in one's life. We cannot have life all our own way if we are to live together.
So these are the Christians who stay in Egypt and try to build a life for themselves there, and I pray to God that they be saved. Then there are Christians who, acknowledging the Sacrament of the Eucharist as an effective sign of God's nourishment and Salvation, who pass over the waters of the Sea of Reeds into the wilderness.
And here it is that we find ourselves. There is a lot of bitterness in our hearts. Certainly I see it so much in the lives of the many friends that I now have on the Anglican Diaspora Forum, and on the Continuum blog. The trouble is that we know that something is terribly wrong.
It seems to me that the typical Continuer has an enormous strength of character. They have been able to leave the Parishes, Churches and Congregations of their formative years because they have seen something horribly wrong in the way that their same church has been moving. They know what is right and have the Traditions of the Church ingrained in their blood. But that same strength of character is in danger of pushing them away from those who really do care about them, if they carry with them the bitterness that comes from that separation. Who wouldn't carry that bitterness?
The typical Continuer is also American and, from my English perspective, have a larger than life way of committing themselves to a social code. All the Americans that I have met take their religion terribly seriously. They cling to what is right and refuse to concede an inch, because they fear that it was concession that brought them to the wilderness. They feel charged with being disloyal by their erstwhile jurisdictions. One only has to look at Archbishop Coggan referring to the Continuers as disloyal and Archbishop Carey describing opponents of women's "ordination" as heretics. These words sting.
Yet, I don't think I've seen the word "heretic" bandied about so much as in Continuing Circles. Of course, it's true: anyone who departs from the Traditional teaching of the Church is a heretic - that is what the word means.
What the Continuing Church needs is that tree which sweetens all bitterness. If that isn't the tree of life that comes from communio in sacris then I don't really know what it is.
From my point of view, in my peripheral state in the Church of England, the danger for me and those like me is that of Meribah and Massah, the terrible despair that comes from disbelieving that God can and will sustain them in the wilderness. I suspect that my parish have given up on me completely now. I'm not called to do much, but, since quoting II Thessalonians iii.6 at them, I haven't won many friends!
The antidote for this despair is to hope that something will happen which will lift the gloom that surrounds the orthodox Anglican. There is refreshment available and we do have to turn to God together and be reassured that He has said that He would not abandon us.
Continuers and the relics in the Church of England do have to see that Rome is not the enemy, but Rome needs to recognise herself that she has many Egyptians within her hierarchy, and they do need to be recognised.
If Anglicans began to trust each other a little more, then perhaps our Unity may show sufficient light on the world, and on Rome too, to see what needs doing. Why don't we become the example of Unity to all Christians?
Monday, March 09, 2009
How much have you been Lent?
Homily preached at Eltham College on 27th February 2009 based on St Matthew iv.1-11
Do you really know who you are?
How would you go about
explaining who you are
to someone who has never met you?
Well chances are,
shortly after you have told them
your name and your age,
you’ll start talking about
your interests and hobbies:
how you enjoy going to parties
and dancing to Lady Gaga,
or sitting at home
reading The Brothers Karamazov;
how you can wield an epee with remarkable skill
or fill in a Sudoku in four minutes flat.
Are you really you because of what you do?
Let’s just say you are not allowed
to explain who you are by your interests
and what you do.
Who are you now?
Well, now perhaps
you’ll try to say something about who you are
by where you live,
where you go to school.
You might start talking about
what you and your family own,
what make of Apple Notebook you own,
what size shoes you take,
the fact that you love kebabs
or a frappuccino
with extra cinnamon.
Are you really you because of what you own?
So now let’s restrict the options further.
You cannot explain who you are
with what you have.
Who are you now?
David’s son,
brother of Phil,
Eric’s friend,
Mia’s boyfriend?
Is that who you are?
That’s sounds like different people.
What about what you remember?
The time you first lost a tooth,
your first words,
your Bar-mitzvah,
that embarrassing incident
with the spoon,
bouncy castle
and tub of mayonnaise?
That’s all in the past, that’s not you.
Let’s say
you are not allowed to explain who you are
using what you own,
what you have done, do,
or what you hope to do,
who your family and friends are,
what you look like
or hope to look like,
or using any memories whatsoever.
Let’s say that you have to say who you are
without using your physical being
or even your thoughts.
Who are you now?
Are you even you
any more without these things?
If you believe that you still exist
even when these things are all gone,
then congratulations,
you cannot be a materialist.
You have just had a glimpse into the wilderness.
In the wilderness,
there’s nothing to define who you are
apart from you yourself.
You come face to face with the person that you are.
It’s like looking in the mirror,
only without the benefit
of hairspray, Clearasil and deodorant.
Is that something that you’d find pleasant,
stuck in the middle of nowhere
with just yourself for company,
warts and all?
And yet some people choose to do just that!
Spend time in a self-inflicted wilderness
trying to discover who on earth they are.
There are people who try to find out
something about who they are
by leaving things behind
which merely distract them from the truth.
In this day and age it’s difficult
to find a modern wilderness,
though Slough and Gravesend
certainly seem to fit the bill.
Indeed for folk who have families
and commitments it is difficult
to just drop everything to find out who we are.
For this purpose,
the three Abrahamic Faiths –
Islam, Judaism and Christianity -
stress the importance of fasting.
In the Christian faith,
the Lord Jesus Himself
chooses to spend time alone in the wilderness
to find out more about Himself.
Later He tells His disciples that
fasting is a necessity in order
to demonstrate to ourselves
that we are not defined
by our needs even for food.
Fasting in former days meant
spending dawn to dusk without eating.
These days,
a fast for a Christian can mean
to give up something we enjoy
to show that what we enjoy
isn’t the centre of our world,
that there is more to us
beyond what we do, say, think
or even fail to do say or think.
However, fasting is easier said than done.
It’s uncomfortable,
and boring,
and you get withdrawal symptoms.
The twinge of hunger
when a chocolate cake is brought into the room,
that feeling of not knowing what to do
since you’ve stopped watching Skins,
the waking in the middle of the night sweating
because you’ve gone without your fix
of swallowing a tube of Smarties in one go.
If it takes the forty days and nights of Lent
giving up console games
or Facebook
for you to realise this about yourself
and also about other people,
then isn’t it worth it?
Of course,
like the Lord Christ,
you will be tempted to give up,
seek out something
to make it more convenient to you
or to make the withdrawal symptoms go away.
Fasting does take strength of character,
and it is precisely that character
that we try to seek in the wilderness
that Lent provides for us.
You see, you exist.
You exist with a dignity,
a humanity and a personality
that can never be taken away from you.
Though you’re not exactly prepared to admit it,
you are actually worth knowing,
each single one of you.
You cannot be defined by things,
or words,
or actions or even ideas.
You are you
and you have every reason to be proud
of being who you are
– no exceptions.
What will it take for you to give up
before you find out more about how wonderful you really are?
Do you really know who you are?
How would you go about
explaining who you are
to someone who has never met you?
Well chances are,
shortly after you have told them
your name and your age,
you’ll start talking about
your interests and hobbies:
how you enjoy going to parties
and dancing to Lady Gaga,
or sitting at home
reading The Brothers Karamazov;
how you can wield an epee with remarkable skill
or fill in a Sudoku in four minutes flat.
Are you really you because of what you do?
Let’s just say you are not allowed
to explain who you are by your interests
and what you do.
Who are you now?
Well, now perhaps
you’ll try to say something about who you are
by where you live,
where you go to school.
You might start talking about
what you and your family own,
what make of Apple Notebook you own,
what size shoes you take,
the fact that you love kebabs
or a frappuccino
with extra cinnamon.
Are you really you because of what you own?
So now let’s restrict the options further.
You cannot explain who you are
with what you have.
Who are you now?
David’s son,
brother of Phil,
Eric’s friend,
Mia’s boyfriend?
Is that who you are?
That’s sounds like different people.
What about what you remember?
The time you first lost a tooth,
your first words,
your Bar-mitzvah,
that embarrassing incident
with the spoon,
bouncy castle
and tub of mayonnaise?
That’s all in the past, that’s not you.
Let’s say
you are not allowed to explain who you are
using what you own,
what you have done, do,
or what you hope to do,
who your family and friends are,
what you look like
or hope to look like,
or using any memories whatsoever.
Let’s say that you have to say who you are
without using your physical being
or even your thoughts.
Who are you now?
Are you even you
any more without these things?
If you believe that you still exist
even when these things are all gone,
then congratulations,
you cannot be a materialist.
You have just had a glimpse into the wilderness.
In the wilderness,
there’s nothing to define who you are
apart from you yourself.
You come face to face with the person that you are.
It’s like looking in the mirror,
only without the benefit
of hairspray, Clearasil and deodorant.
Is that something that you’d find pleasant,
stuck in the middle of nowhere
with just yourself for company,
warts and all?
And yet some people choose to do just that!
Spend time in a self-inflicted wilderness
trying to discover who on earth they are.
There are people who try to find out
something about who they are
by leaving things behind
which merely distract them from the truth.
In this day and age it’s difficult
to find a modern wilderness,
though Slough and Gravesend
certainly seem to fit the bill.
Indeed for folk who have families
and commitments it is difficult
to just drop everything to find out who we are.
For this purpose,
the three Abrahamic Faiths –
Islam, Judaism and Christianity -
stress the importance of fasting.
In the Christian faith,
the Lord Jesus Himself
chooses to spend time alone in the wilderness
to find out more about Himself.
Later He tells His disciples that
fasting is a necessity in order
to demonstrate to ourselves
that we are not defined
by our needs even for food.
Fasting in former days meant
spending dawn to dusk without eating.
These days,
a fast for a Christian can mean
to give up something we enjoy
to show that what we enjoy
isn’t the centre of our world,
that there is more to us
beyond what we do, say, think
or even fail to do say or think.
However, fasting is easier said than done.
It’s uncomfortable,
and boring,
and you get withdrawal symptoms.
The twinge of hunger
when a chocolate cake is brought into the room,
that feeling of not knowing what to do
since you’ve stopped watching Skins,
the waking in the middle of the night sweating
because you’ve gone without your fix
of swallowing a tube of Smarties in one go.
If it takes the forty days and nights of Lent
giving up console games
or Facebook
for you to realise this about yourself
and also about other people,
then isn’t it worth it?
Of course,
like the Lord Christ,
you will be tempted to give up,
seek out something
to make it more convenient to you
or to make the withdrawal symptoms go away.
Fasting does take strength of character,
and it is precisely that character
that we try to seek in the wilderness
that Lent provides for us.
You see, you exist.
You exist with a dignity,
a humanity and a personality
that can never be taken away from you.
Though you’re not exactly prepared to admit it,
you are actually worth knowing,
each single one of you.
You cannot be defined by things,
or words,
or actions or even ideas.
You are you
and you have every reason to be proud
of being who you are
– no exceptions.
What will it take for you to give up
before you find out more about how wonderful you really are?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Another by the Babylonian waters.
I am privileged to have among my acquaintances Fr Anthony Chadwick from the TAC who pops in on the Anglican Diaspora forum when he can. In response to comments made about my previous post, he has published the following reflection which I find rather reassuring. The fact that he thinks that I am young means he is my friend for life, especially since I was asked by one of the boys what it was like arguing personally with Martin Luther!
Thank you Fr Chadwick.
Thank you Fr Chadwick.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
By the waters of Babylon
I've recently set Psalm 136 to music for a couple of friends. It's a psalm that speaks to me very much at them moment, and I've been reflecting on the exile of the Jews from Jerusalem into Babylon.
Certainly the proper Anglo-Catholics in the CofE do feel that they are in some form of exile, especially from the repercussions of the last couple of Synods. The Continuum Churches too are refugees from the iconoclasm and exist (in many cases) in a fragile and delicate state in pockets in England and with a little more stability in the US. Since the schism in the '70s, the Continuers have, in the eyes of the Anglican Communion, been tarred with Archbishop Coggan's unwillingness to accept them as proper Anglicans.
The fact of the matter is that Anglo-Catholics have been and are being systematically pushed out of the Established Church in Britain. Until the twentieth Century the different wings of the Church were in a delicate stability. The rise of the Liberal theology and the fact that it has been allowed to promote the removal of Tradition has prevented Anglo-Catholics from being able to help guide Anglicanism and from playing its part in effective ministry from within the historic Church of England and thus in English society.
So now with another split looming as the Established Church seeks to announce its final renunciation of being part of the Apostolic Church in putting a mitre on a female head, the Anglo-Catholics go further into exile: some will go to the Continuum, some will go to Rome and some will disappear into the woodwork.
It's interesting to note that in Ezra and Nehemiah, the Jews are allowed to rebuild Jerusalem, and lead a life with some semblance of normal Jewish life despite continuing to be in subjugation to another authority. Life goes on, all appears well, but there is an undercurrent, a deep knowledge that things are not really okay and that there is still something that needs to be put right.
The same is true for the Anglican Diaspora. Life goes on, the sacraments are administered, the gospel is preached, the Offices are prayed but still there is something not right in the homes that Anglicans have made for themselves. The acrimony between some Anglican jurisdictions is merely a symptom of this unease.
It was somewhat of a cheer for me to hear the Archbishop of Westminster's remarks:
He also says, prior to the above statement but more importantly in my reckoning:
This certainly points to the only way forward - Unity not diversity. Again "how" is the problem. With apparent differences in worldview, doctrine and motives, the Church Catholic - comprising of Romans, Traditional Anglicans (i.e. those who truly embrace the qualifying adjective), and Orthodox folk - seems unlikely to come together in the near future. There are, however, signs that there is movement within the Continuum between the ACC, APCK and UECNA which may provide the largest body in the Continuum. Also, if anything comes from the TAC's work with Rome, then that too will be a marvellous thing.
Using an analogy that I have used before and, I am sure, others have used before me, the Catholic Churches should be singing a beautiful piece of polyphony. The
words have been written by God for us to sing, and each church sings in its own octave to produce the harmonies of human interaction with God. However, it is clear that some people think that we ought to be singing in unison, and that one part is more accurate than the others. This is not true, nor is it true to say that we know all the words to the hymn-sheet that God has given us; we can only keep singing the words in front of us which will occur, as often happens in polyphony, in different times to other folk. Only in the light of Eternity will those words be revealed as complete.
If we date the English Reformation from 1534, then we will reach its 490th anniversary in 2024. Considering that 490 is a significant number, it will provide us with a date by which we can hope for the end of the exile of the traditional Anglicans from each other.
And what of the Anglican Communion of which I am a member, albeit in a state of impairment? The Continuum rails against her, and justifiably so since she is trying to excise the four Credal marks of the church by interpreting those marks differently from their original meaning, or consigning them to History as things irrelevant. Yes, there has to be a distance between the Continuum and the Communion, but there still needs to be dialogue between them. In the eyes of the Continuum, I am a heretic because I remain in order to be in communion with my Monastic Community of which my involvement is happily deepening. In the eyes of the Communion, the Continuum is an irrelevance because it isn't properly Anglican. Both sides need the space to walk apart, but to recognise the need for each other as well as the need for the Catholic Churches around them.
I pray for an end to the bitterness among Traditional Anglicans - a bitterness which gnaws at my own soul, if I am honest - and also for the opening of the eyes of the Communion to the damage that it is causing herself and the Churches around it by pushing out from her midst into Exile those who cannot accept the modern follies which she pursues.
Certainly the proper Anglo-Catholics in the CofE do feel that they are in some form of exile, especially from the repercussions of the last couple of Synods. The Continuum Churches too are refugees from the iconoclasm and exist (in many cases) in a fragile and delicate state in pockets in England and with a little more stability in the US. Since the schism in the '70s, the Continuers have, in the eyes of the Anglican Communion, been tarred with Archbishop Coggan's unwillingness to accept them as proper Anglicans.
The fact of the matter is that Anglo-Catholics have been and are being systematically pushed out of the Established Church in Britain. Until the twentieth Century the different wings of the Church were in a delicate stability. The rise of the Liberal theology and the fact that it has been allowed to promote the removal of Tradition has prevented Anglo-Catholics from being able to help guide Anglicanism and from playing its part in effective ministry from within the historic Church of England and thus in English society.
So now with another split looming as the Established Church seeks to announce its final renunciation of being part of the Apostolic Church in putting a mitre on a female head, the Anglo-Catholics go further into exile: some will go to the Continuum, some will go to Rome and some will disappear into the woodwork.
It's interesting to note that in Ezra and Nehemiah, the Jews are allowed to rebuild Jerusalem, and lead a life with some semblance of normal Jewish life despite continuing to be in subjugation to another authority. Life goes on, all appears well, but there is an undercurrent, a deep knowledge that things are not really okay and that there is still something that needs to be put right.
The same is true for the Anglican Diaspora. Life goes on, the sacraments are administered, the gospel is preached, the Offices are prayed but still there is something not right in the homes that Anglicans have made for themselves. The acrimony between some Anglican jurisdictions is merely a symptom of this unease.
It was somewhat of a cheer for me to hear the Archbishop of Westminster's remarks:
Let me be frank. Your struggles with issues on Communion which deeply affect the unity of the Anglican Communion, affect us all. Divisions within any Church or Ecclesial Community impoverish the communion of the whole Church.
We Roman Catholics cannot be indifferent to what is happening to our friends in the Anglican Communion and, in particular, in the Church of England. All I can say – and I would not want to be misinterpreted - is that it is only in a fuller and deeper unity that the truth and the demands of the Gospel are to be discerned. In this sense, unity is a prerequisite to truth and you should not settle for less – even if it takes time.
He also says, prior to the above statement but more importantly in my reckoning:
And although Catholics believe that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, that very wording implies that the Roman Catholic Church is not totally self-sufficient, and that in the riches and gifts of other Christian churches are elements that would contribute to its fullness.
This certainly points to the only way forward - Unity not diversity. Again "how" is the problem. With apparent differences in worldview, doctrine and motives, the Church Catholic - comprising of Romans, Traditional Anglicans (i.e. those who truly embrace the qualifying adjective), and Orthodox folk - seems unlikely to come together in the near future. There are, however, signs that there is movement within the Continuum between the ACC, APCK and UECNA which may provide the largest body in the Continuum. Also, if anything comes from the TAC's work with Rome, then that too will be a marvellous thing.
Using an analogy that I have used before and, I am sure, others have used before me, the Catholic Churches should be singing a beautiful piece of polyphony. The
words have been written by God for us to sing, and each church sings in its own octave to produce the harmonies of human interaction with God. However, it is clear that some people think that we ought to be singing in unison, and that one part is more accurate than the others. This is not true, nor is it true to say that we know all the words to the hymn-sheet that God has given us; we can only keep singing the words in front of us which will occur, as often happens in polyphony, in different times to other folk. Only in the light of Eternity will those words be revealed as complete.
If we date the English Reformation from 1534, then we will reach its 490th anniversary in 2024. Considering that 490 is a significant number, it will provide us with a date by which we can hope for the end of the exile of the traditional Anglicans from each other.
And what of the Anglican Communion of which I am a member, albeit in a state of impairment? The Continuum rails against her, and justifiably so since she is trying to excise the four Credal marks of the church by interpreting those marks differently from their original meaning, or consigning them to History as things irrelevant. Yes, there has to be a distance between the Continuum and the Communion, but there still needs to be dialogue between them. In the eyes of the Continuum, I am a heretic because I remain in order to be in communion with my Monastic Community of which my involvement is happily deepening. In the eyes of the Communion, the Continuum is an irrelevance because it isn't properly Anglican. Both sides need the space to walk apart, but to recognise the need for each other as well as the need for the Catholic Churches around them.
I pray for an end to the bitterness among Traditional Anglicans - a bitterness which gnaws at my own soul, if I am honest - and also for the opening of the eyes of the Communion to the damage that it is causing herself and the Churches around it by pushing out from her midst into Exile those who cannot accept the modern follies which she pursues.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Yeah but no but yeah but no...
Homily preached at Eltham College, 29th January 2009.
Why is it that all the nice foods
are supposed to be bad for us?
You don’t see people
coming out of the BP garage
with a bag of celery,
a regular cabbage shake
and a bucket of pop-corn style
Brussels sprouts, do you?
Sales of Krispy Kreme doughnuts
made with lentils and chickpea sprinkles
would not raise a great deal of money
for the charities supported by the school.
Or should the question really be:
why is it that we prefer food that tastes nice,
to the food that we know is good for us?
If we are truly intelligent human beings,
then we ought to be going with what we know
rather than what our stomach tells us.
We tend to contradict ourselves.
But this isn’t the only area of our lives
in which we live in contradiction.
Why are we the owners
of a vast number of entertainment systems,
video games,
DVD players, et c.
and yet still find ourselves
the most bored people on the planet,
while Iraqi children have hours
of genuine amusement
playing together with a few stones?
What are the other ways
in which we contradict ourselves?
[PAUSE]
Bill and Sid are at a party
and a Rachel Stevens look-a-like walks past,
causing Bill and Sid’s eyes to pop out
like organ stops.
Bill turns to Sid,
and, after the usual comments
about her appearance,
Sid intimates that he would not mind
going out with her.
Bill asks “well, blud,
you gonna aks her out?”
Of course Sid replies,
“no, bro, I wanna be cool.”
“So you ain’t gonna aks her out?”
“No!”
“So how’s she gonna become your woman,
bro, if you don’t aks her out?”
“Is ’cos I’s cool.”
“Yeah but no but yeah but no but
if she tinks you’s cool,
then she’s like
he’s got a woman already, man.”
“Yeah but I ain’t got no woman.”
“But she don know that, bro.
You gotta aks her out.”
“yeah, but then she’ll know I ain’t cool,
and she’s like
no way, you ain’t comin near me.
You see man?”
“Yeah,” says Bill, “skeen!”
[PAUSE]
In case you’re not street,
like me,
Sid finds that he can’t ask the lady out
because that would show that he isn’t cool.
However,
cool guys have already got girlfriends
so she will never know that
Sid wants to go out with her unless
he asks her.
Got it?
With attitudes like that,
it’s hard to understand how any adolescent male
attracts a member of the opposite sex.
It’s a contradiction
that perhaps many of you will have wrestled with,
not that you’d admit it.
Our experience is full of contradictions.
Our language contradicts itself:
why is it that our legs are the only things
with a bottom at the top?
Our politics contradicts itself:
we have to spend more money
in order to save money.
Christianity contradicts itself:
God is Three and God is One,
perfect Trinity in perfect Unity.
Even the Bible contradicts itself.
The second book of Samuel,
chapter 24 verse 1 states:
Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel,
and He incited David against them,
saying,
"Go and take a census of Israel and Judah."
Compare that with
the very same event described
in the twenty-first chapter
of the first book of Chronicles.
“Satan rose up against Israel
and incited David to take a census of Israel.”
So who put the idea of a census
into King David’s head?
God or Satan?
How are we to cope
with the contradictions all around us?
[PAUSE]
Well, contradictions don’t usually hurt us.
You don’t make a mathematician’s head explode
just by saying
“This statement is false.”
Admittedly,
contradictions do confuse us,
make us feel uncomfortable,
cause us to lose sleep.
However,
a good contradiction provides human beings
with an opportunity to see a deeper truth
or to accept a challenge into finding out
what’s really happening.
A mathematical contradiction
tells us a great deal about our assumptions
and our methods of reasoning,
but there is usually some form of resolution
achieved by thinking carefully
about what is really meant
For Sid,
he must look at his situation more carefully.
Why does he need
to be cool in the first place?
Isn’t his idea of what is cool
an obstacle to going out
with the woman of his dreams?
Or perhaps,
he is using the idea of cool
to hide the fact that deep down
he is actually terrified of rejection.
If that’s the case,
then he should ask himself,
(or aks himself)
what he will honestly lose if she says no?
If a leg has the bottom at the top,
then doesn’t this motivate us to ask
why our posterior is called a bottom
in the first place?
The fact that God is both
Trinity and a Unity
points to God’s uniqueness in Reality.
The fact that the Bible contradicts itself
points to contradictions
that lie within every single human being.
Many Christians believe that the Bible is true
in what it intends to teach us, and it is this intention that we have to work out.
We can deepen our Faith
by entering into the Mystery
of what we truly believe in.
[PAUSE]
Contradictions provide that opening,
and confusion becomes the sign
that we are beginning to understand,
if we put in the effort.
Resolving a contradiction takes patience,
effort and the ability to live contentedly
with confusion
until the clouds that obscure our view
are lifted.
Of course,
there are ways of tackling a contradiction
that are foolish, and deeply damaging.
We only have to look at the situation in Gaza
to see an obscene contradiction:
that of trying to build peace through war.
How many other human beings
have made the same mistake?
[PAUSE]
There are times in which,
as St Paul himself says,
we don’t do the good things we want to do,
but instead do the evil things we don’t want to do.
For Christians,
we have to trust God to bring about
the transformation of our actions.
Contradictions will always
be with each one of us,
and it is in looking at them
that we find out more about ourselves
and the people we are growing to be?
If we are trying to be understood by others,
then we must first try to understand ourselves,
so that our contradiction doesn’t become
another’s confusion.
Where are the contradictions in the way
that you live your life?
How are you going to use them?
Why is it that all the nice foods
are supposed to be bad for us?
You don’t see people
coming out of the BP garage
with a bag of celery,
a regular cabbage shake
and a bucket of pop-corn style
Brussels sprouts, do you?
Sales of Krispy Kreme doughnuts
made with lentils and chickpea sprinkles
would not raise a great deal of money
for the charities supported by the school.
Or should the question really be:
why is it that we prefer food that tastes nice,
to the food that we know is good for us?
If we are truly intelligent human beings,
then we ought to be going with what we know
rather than what our stomach tells us.
We tend to contradict ourselves.
But this isn’t the only area of our lives
in which we live in contradiction.
Why are we the owners
of a vast number of entertainment systems,
video games,
DVD players, et c.
and yet still find ourselves
the most bored people on the planet,
while Iraqi children have hours
of genuine amusement
playing together with a few stones?
What are the other ways
in which we contradict ourselves?
[PAUSE]
Bill and Sid are at a party
and a Rachel Stevens look-a-like walks past,
causing Bill and Sid’s eyes to pop out
like organ stops.
Bill turns to Sid,
and, after the usual comments
about her appearance,
Sid intimates that he would not mind
going out with her.
Bill asks “well, blud,
you gonna aks her out?”
Of course Sid replies,
“no, bro, I wanna be cool.”
“So you ain’t gonna aks her out?”
“No!”
“So how’s she gonna become your woman,
bro, if you don’t aks her out?”
“Is ’cos I’s cool.”
“Yeah but no but yeah but no but
if she tinks you’s cool,
then she’s like
he’s got a woman already, man.”
“Yeah but I ain’t got no woman.”
“But she don know that, bro.
You gotta aks her out.”
“yeah, but then she’ll know I ain’t cool,
and she’s like
no way, you ain’t comin near me.
You see man?”
“Yeah,” says Bill, “skeen!”
[PAUSE]
In case you’re not street,
like me,
Sid finds that he can’t ask the lady out
because that would show that he isn’t cool.
However,
cool guys have already got girlfriends
so she will never know that
Sid wants to go out with her unless
he asks her.
Got it?
With attitudes like that,
it’s hard to understand how any adolescent male
attracts a member of the opposite sex.
It’s a contradiction
that perhaps many of you will have wrestled with,
not that you’d admit it.
Our experience is full of contradictions.
Our language contradicts itself:
why is it that our legs are the only things
with a bottom at the top?
Our politics contradicts itself:
we have to spend more money
in order to save money.
Christianity contradicts itself:
God is Three and God is One,
perfect Trinity in perfect Unity.
Even the Bible contradicts itself.
The second book of Samuel,
chapter 24 verse 1 states:
Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel,
and He incited David against them,
saying,
"Go and take a census of Israel and Judah."
Compare that with
the very same event described
in the twenty-first chapter
of the first book of Chronicles.
“Satan rose up against Israel
and incited David to take a census of Israel.”
So who put the idea of a census
into King David’s head?
God or Satan?
How are we to cope
with the contradictions all around us?
[PAUSE]
Well, contradictions don’t usually hurt us.
You don’t make a mathematician’s head explode
just by saying
“This statement is false.”
Admittedly,
contradictions do confuse us,
make us feel uncomfortable,
cause us to lose sleep.
However,
a good contradiction provides human beings
with an opportunity to see a deeper truth
or to accept a challenge into finding out
what’s really happening.
A mathematical contradiction
tells us a great deal about our assumptions
and our methods of reasoning,
but there is usually some form of resolution
achieved by thinking carefully
about what is really meant
For Sid,
he must look at his situation more carefully.
Why does he need
to be cool in the first place?
Isn’t his idea of what is cool
an obstacle to going out
with the woman of his dreams?
Or perhaps,
he is using the idea of cool
to hide the fact that deep down
he is actually terrified of rejection.
If that’s the case,
then he should ask himself,
(or aks himself)
what he will honestly lose if she says no?
If a leg has the bottom at the top,
then doesn’t this motivate us to ask
why our posterior is called a bottom
in the first place?
The fact that God is both
Trinity and a Unity
points to God’s uniqueness in Reality.
The fact that the Bible contradicts itself
points to contradictions
that lie within every single human being.
Many Christians believe that the Bible is true
in what it intends to teach us, and it is this intention that we have to work out.
We can deepen our Faith
by entering into the Mystery
of what we truly believe in.
[PAUSE]
Contradictions provide that opening,
and confusion becomes the sign
that we are beginning to understand,
if we put in the effort.
Resolving a contradiction takes patience,
effort and the ability to live contentedly
with confusion
until the clouds that obscure our view
are lifted.
Of course,
there are ways of tackling a contradiction
that are foolish, and deeply damaging.
We only have to look at the situation in Gaza
to see an obscene contradiction:
that of trying to build peace through war.
How many other human beings
have made the same mistake?
[PAUSE]
There are times in which,
as St Paul himself says,
we don’t do the good things we want to do,
but instead do the evil things we don’t want to do.
For Christians,
we have to trust God to bring about
the transformation of our actions.
Contradictions will always
be with each one of us,
and it is in looking at them
that we find out more about ourselves
and the people we are growing to be?
If we are trying to be understood by others,
then we must first try to understand ourselves,
so that our contradiction doesn’t become
another’s confusion.
Where are the contradictions in the way
that you live your life?
How are you going to use them?
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Sanctity, Sloth and Secularity
There is none as blind as he who does not wish to see, as the old saying goes.
If you were one of those blind men whom Jesus healed, would that really have been something to wish for. In Monty Python's Life of Brian, we are treated to Michael Palin as the man begging for money as an ex-leper citing loss of earnings as a result of a cruel and callous healing by the Lord.
And what a point he has.
Being blind, you spend your life in a comfortable darkness, used to the fact that people don't exactly treat you especially well, knowing just hunger as you sit there on your mat relying on the kindness of others to lead you, or to drop a coin into your lap with a quiet blessing. It's not a good life, but it's comfortable and it is possible to find contentment in that life. Suddenly, there kerfuffle and confusion, and the next thing you know, someone has spat in your eyes and you are suddenly aware of a painful light where once there was darkness - you can see! An veritable iris of colour and cacophany of sights invades what was once a black and intimate mind. And bang goes your comfortable life!
Of course, there's a detail that's being missed here. By and large the Lord healed only those who wanted to be healed, and although this is not always specifically mentioned by the gospel writers in each healing, it seems to be mentioned sufficiently for us to infer that he would only make see those who wanted to see.
The trouble is that the world is full of people who have no intention of looking, or seeing. As I sat at Mass today, it seemed there was no idea of sanctity. Nothing these days is sacred, which is why probably a lot of people worship it. The Chancel seems to be invaded by all and sundry, conversations started during the Peace continue through to the dismissal, and no-one seems to be aware of the ivory Christ hanging, despised and rejected from the ebony cross above the pulpit.
My Parish is a synecdoche of the world. Christ is there, but no-one really wants to be aware of Him or see the shining light of His radience giving colour and meaning to our existence. If they did, sacred spaces would proliferate, places in which there would be no observable difference from any other part of the world, but in the sight beyond sight it would be a place where the veil of observability was thin.
Look at the numbers of tourists going around Cathedrals in Britain today. They enjoy seeing the intricate masonry, and the majestic construction of stone. They may even stop to listen to the pretty music sung by the choir in the morning or evening. But, will they stop to pray, even if the verger calls them to pray for the world each day from the pulpit at midday? No. They want to see the building, trample across the chancel steps, look under the altar cloth, enjoy the curiosity. Stop and look and see what it all means - never!!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that, although the list of the seven dealy sins has changed much over the last 1500 years, the sin of Sloth has always been there. Of course, the world regards sloth as a fondness to stay in bed, but then "God gives to His beloved sleep".
Sloth really means this terrible sin called accidie in Latin. And it's the sin that St Benedict loathes, not just in his insistance that monks should work with their hands, but also it appears as the last instruction to the neophyte in Chapter 4 of the Rule: Et de Dei misericordia numquam desperare -never despair of the mercy of God.
Accidie comes from the temptation to give up, to accept the blindness which comes upon us all periodically. In accidie, we believe ourselves to be irredeemable, past hope, past caring and past tense.
But the world has despaired. It has given up hope, and abandoned itself to the blindness of its own consideration. No-one seems to care. The modern C of E seems happy only to offer the placebo of "inclusivity" to the disaffected rather than rebuild the doors to the sacred. Should we really be happy to let people in whose purpose it is just to trample on all that we hold dear? Or shall we just give up.
But then, you see, they trampled on Christ. The most sacred being in the universe was tortured to death for daring to sanctify the human condition, and in doing so He did sanctify it. It was through his more-than-humiliation that He gave us the window into the Divine, the perfect Ikon of Salvation.
Perhaps then, I ought to take heart lest I myself find myself suffering from accidie. I find it deeply distressing to see that no-one can see, let alone defend, the gorgeous, indeterminable presence of God in the sacred space of the church. The newcomer finds nothing remarkable because the regulars find nothing remarkable and show it in their manner. The only way to battle this sin is to stay put, pray and dare to hope that things will change. In God all thigs are possible.
If you were one of those blind men whom Jesus healed, would that really have been something to wish for. In Monty Python's Life of Brian, we are treated to Michael Palin as the man begging for money as an ex-leper citing loss of earnings as a result of a cruel and callous healing by the Lord.
And what a point he has.
Being blind, you spend your life in a comfortable darkness, used to the fact that people don't exactly treat you especially well, knowing just hunger as you sit there on your mat relying on the kindness of others to lead you, or to drop a coin into your lap with a quiet blessing. It's not a good life, but it's comfortable and it is possible to find contentment in that life. Suddenly, there kerfuffle and confusion, and the next thing you know, someone has spat in your eyes and you are suddenly aware of a painful light where once there was darkness - you can see! An veritable iris of colour and cacophany of sights invades what was once a black and intimate mind. And bang goes your comfortable life!
Of course, there's a detail that's being missed here. By and large the Lord healed only those who wanted to be healed, and although this is not always specifically mentioned by the gospel writers in each healing, it seems to be mentioned sufficiently for us to infer that he would only make see those who wanted to see.
The trouble is that the world is full of people who have no intention of looking, or seeing. As I sat at Mass today, it seemed there was no idea of sanctity. Nothing these days is sacred, which is why probably a lot of people worship it. The Chancel seems to be invaded by all and sundry, conversations started during the Peace continue through to the dismissal, and no-one seems to be aware of the ivory Christ hanging, despised and rejected from the ebony cross above the pulpit.
My Parish is a synecdoche of the world. Christ is there, but no-one really wants to be aware of Him or see the shining light of His radience giving colour and meaning to our existence. If they did, sacred spaces would proliferate, places in which there would be no observable difference from any other part of the world, but in the sight beyond sight it would be a place where the veil of observability was thin.
Look at the numbers of tourists going around Cathedrals in Britain today. They enjoy seeing the intricate masonry, and the majestic construction of stone. They may even stop to listen to the pretty music sung by the choir in the morning or evening. But, will they stop to pray, even if the verger calls them to pray for the world each day from the pulpit at midday? No. They want to see the building, trample across the chancel steps, look under the altar cloth, enjoy the curiosity. Stop and look and see what it all means - never!!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that, although the list of the seven dealy sins has changed much over the last 1500 years, the sin of Sloth has always been there. Of course, the world regards sloth as a fondness to stay in bed, but then "God gives to His beloved sleep".
Sloth really means this terrible sin called accidie in Latin. And it's the sin that St Benedict loathes, not just in his insistance that monks should work with their hands, but also it appears as the last instruction to the neophyte in Chapter 4 of the Rule: Et de Dei misericordia numquam desperare -never despair of the mercy of God.
Accidie comes from the temptation to give up, to accept the blindness which comes upon us all periodically. In accidie, we believe ourselves to be irredeemable, past hope, past caring and past tense.
But the world has despaired. It has given up hope, and abandoned itself to the blindness of its own consideration. No-one seems to care. The modern C of E seems happy only to offer the placebo of "inclusivity" to the disaffected rather than rebuild the doors to the sacred. Should we really be happy to let people in whose purpose it is just to trample on all that we hold dear? Or shall we just give up.
But then, you see, they trampled on Christ. The most sacred being in the universe was tortured to death for daring to sanctify the human condition, and in doing so He did sanctify it. It was through his more-than-humiliation that He gave us the window into the Divine, the perfect Ikon of Salvation.
Perhaps then, I ought to take heart lest I myself find myself suffering from accidie. I find it deeply distressing to see that no-one can see, let alone defend, the gorgeous, indeterminable presence of God in the sacred space of the church. The newcomer finds nothing remarkable because the regulars find nothing remarkable and show it in their manner. The only way to battle this sin is to stay put, pray and dare to hope that things will change. In God all thigs are possible.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
The Celibate Homosexual
I'd just like to draw your attention to Ed Pacht's fascinating article on the issue of homosexuality and celibacy. It is very much worth a read.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Blogday 2008
Another blogday! My third, as it happens.
I've clearly not written as much as I did last year, when I wrote:
Well, what's changed? Very little on the Parish front. I ceased my sabbatical just after Easter, but I no longer preach in church because there is little point if the liturgy is made up and the Mass lacking direction, and there is no attempt to bring the congregation into the presence of God. Anything I preach is now exclusively at the school.
It's also been a year in which my faith has suffered a bit of a blow at the hands of my rationalism. However, according to the BBC Television series Apparitions, it's good to take one's faith out of the box and give it an airing, though that's the trite way of looking at it. God does not exist just to provide explanations to those who have no intention of believing in Him, nor for those who are unwilling to invest some intellectual effort into understanding this universe. As it is I do feel closer to God at the moment as my exile continues.
Ties with Elmore Abbey have improved. I am now in the process of becoming a novice oblate for which I am thankful. Clearly the monks at the Abbey are the subjects of much prayer in their rather diminished state. The Community has enriched the lives of many folk and, in this day and age, they need to continue for the sake of showing how to live the gospel of Christ rather than bellowing it badly from street-corner megaphones.
As for my rabid Anglican Papalism, well, I haven't had much time to think about it of late, though there appears to be movement happening there. It's hard to call oneself a member of a movement if one is, to all intents and purposes, the only exponent of that movement in one's viewpoint. As Fr Straw points out, what I am looking for as an Anglican Papalist (if indeed that is what I am), does not exist - yet.
I am also pleased to have helped to set up the Anglican Diaspora which has grown steadily since its conception in March. I am grateful to the team of moderators who keep it running well. The Diaspora is just a small attempt to bring together groups of Anglo-Catholics of all hues from around the world in a time when Unity is just not happening, rather the reverse judging from the actions of ECUSA's litigious CEO, GAFCON and Lambeth and the General Synod's declaration that it wants Tradition excised from the C of E by stating that it will not provide episcopal oversight for those who assent to orthodoxy.
One of the areas in which I agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury is that dialogue needs to continue as far as is possible. My question is, how far is he willing to talk with the Continuing Anglicans? He still has ++Coggan's edict to undo before any meaningful conversation can be struck up there, and the C of E needs to hear the Continuing voices as loudly and as clearly as possible as the points that they make are vital to the existence of the Church.
I also pray for greater Unity between jurisdictions of the Continuing Churches. I have seen signs of that in the way that some dioceses have suffragans who are bishops from other jurisdictions. There's a prayer for that to continue to happen.
Study has not been good this year: Latin, Greek and Hebrew have fallen by the side, but musically I've produced a couple of large scale pieces which aren't too bad.
So what of 2009? I hope to get back to studying, though which direction I take is as yet unclear. I also pray for a transformation in attitudes to the Church's worship of God especially in my Parish this year, as it would be nice to preach in the pulpit once more.
Again, my thanks to all readers of this blog and supporters of my online projects. May you all have a God-blessed, fulfilling and thoroughly enthralling 2009.
I've clearly not written as much as I did last year, when I wrote:
At the moment, I appear to be in some self-imposed exile from my parish celebrating only the Morning Office until the Mass is treated with some respect. It's a bit of a bind when the only other parishes within walking distance (and since I don't drive, this is necessary) are an Aff-Cath church where things are done decently but the theology dodgy, and a Roman Catholic Parish which seems to treat the Mass with about as much reverence as the parish I'm trying to leave.So I end this blogyear in some kind of ecclesiastical limbo - certainly not a perfect arrangement, and I hope that this is going to be entirely temporary. Now that I receive communion on a much more sporadic basis, I believe I appreciate the spiritual nourishment better.Whatever state the C of E may be in, I still maintain my links with Elmore Abbey - the only place where I've really felt spiritually uplifted in past years, and it's partly for them that I am loathe to leave the C of E. The Abbey has always represented a weak link between the C of E and the Roman Catholic Church. I find that I need them and on some level they need me, and I find that this is enough for me to remain in a church whose establishment is falling around my ears.
I seem to have spent my year building up my (lack of) understanding of Anglo-Papalism which gets mentioned every other post making me sound like the stuck record of a monomaniacal parrot. It's important because of the confused nature of the discipline. Every Anglo-Papalist is confused on some level and that's because the Church is a confusing place to which to belong. I now have friends like Marco Vervoorst trying to draw me into the Holy See, and others, like my friends from the Continuum trying to call me into a Continuum parish. It just shows what good friends they are, caring about me like that, and it is very much appreciated even if their attempts are not proving successful. However, I pray about the situation nightly, and despite my pressing for a decision, I still feel that I am told to wait for the path to become clear. Perhaps I must wait for the inevitable fragmentation of the C of E - that would make sense (at least to me). I have to be patient, and so must my friends. Intellectual arguments are not enough at the moment.
My Latin is passable, Greek even worse, and Hebrew infinitesimally better, but at least I've settled into the school which is providing spiritual stimulation of an intriguing kind. Having to defend your beliefs to young adults is very bracing and I heartily recommend it.Thanks for reading over the past year. I hope that you will stay with me and pray with me for the Holy Estate of the Church of God, whatever state she's in.
Well, what's changed? Very little on the Parish front. I ceased my sabbatical just after Easter, but I no longer preach in church because there is little point if the liturgy is made up and the Mass lacking direction, and there is no attempt to bring the congregation into the presence of God. Anything I preach is now exclusively at the school.
It's also been a year in which my faith has suffered a bit of a blow at the hands of my rationalism. However, according to the BBC Television series Apparitions, it's good to take one's faith out of the box and give it an airing, though that's the trite way of looking at it. God does not exist just to provide explanations to those who have no intention of believing in Him, nor for those who are unwilling to invest some intellectual effort into understanding this universe. As it is I do feel closer to God at the moment as my exile continues.
Ties with Elmore Abbey have improved. I am now in the process of becoming a novice oblate for which I am thankful. Clearly the monks at the Abbey are the subjects of much prayer in their rather diminished state. The Community has enriched the lives of many folk and, in this day and age, they need to continue for the sake of showing how to live the gospel of Christ rather than bellowing it badly from street-corner megaphones.
As for my rabid Anglican Papalism, well, I haven't had much time to think about it of late, though there appears to be movement happening there. It's hard to call oneself a member of a movement if one is, to all intents and purposes, the only exponent of that movement in one's viewpoint. As Fr Straw points out, what I am looking for as an Anglican Papalist (if indeed that is what I am), does not exist - yet.
I am also pleased to have helped to set up the Anglican Diaspora which has grown steadily since its conception in March. I am grateful to the team of moderators who keep it running well. The Diaspora is just a small attempt to bring together groups of Anglo-Catholics of all hues from around the world in a time when Unity is just not happening, rather the reverse judging from the actions of ECUSA's litigious CEO, GAFCON and Lambeth and the General Synod's declaration that it wants Tradition excised from the C of E by stating that it will not provide episcopal oversight for those who assent to orthodoxy.
One of the areas in which I agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury is that dialogue needs to continue as far as is possible. My question is, how far is he willing to talk with the Continuing Anglicans? He still has ++Coggan's edict to undo before any meaningful conversation can be struck up there, and the C of E needs to hear the Continuing voices as loudly and as clearly as possible as the points that they make are vital to the existence of the Church.
I also pray for greater Unity between jurisdictions of the Continuing Churches. I have seen signs of that in the way that some dioceses have suffragans who are bishops from other jurisdictions. There's a prayer for that to continue to happen.
Study has not been good this year: Latin, Greek and Hebrew have fallen by the side, but musically I've produced a couple of large scale pieces which aren't too bad.
So what of 2009? I hope to get back to studying, though which direction I take is as yet unclear. I also pray for a transformation in attitudes to the Church's worship of God especially in my Parish this year, as it would be nice to preach in the pulpit once more.
Again, my thanks to all readers of this blog and supporters of my online projects. May you all have a God-blessed, fulfilling and thoroughly enthralling 2009.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Feast of the Nativity 2008
When you have sung "Once in Royal David's City" for the 500th time, it begins to lose its appeal, no matter how good the treble soloist who sings the first verse. It's even worse for choristers for whom the whole, rather narrow, gamut of Christmas Carols gets trotted out at each festival service over Advent and Christmastide. It's interesting that the same tunes are always used despite the fact that there are others. "While Shepherds watched their flocks by night" has at least 3 tunes that I know, and I am convinced there are more than that. Yet it's always Winchester Old that seems to be used here in Blighty despite the fact that it goes very well to Cranbrook, better known as "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at".
There are many who want Christmas to be the same each year - the same service of Nine Lessons and Carols, the same Midnight Mass, the same turkey dinner with the same number of cranberries in the sauce, the same amount of wine in the glass and the same television programmes on the box. These are also the same people who claim to be Traditionalists, but they labour under a misapprehension.
As I often find myself saying on this little blogling, Tradition is the life-blood, the DNA of the Church which connects humanity to humanity via the divine humanity and human divinity of Christ. The Church carries the details of God's plan for humanity - the laws that He instigated at the beginning of the universe and thus the consequences of our transgression of these laws, the high standards that He has set for His Creation and thus the dreadful realisation that we miss those standards by miles, the good news that, if we but trust Him, if we do not lose hope and believe that He can, this Universe will be perfected and us with it.
Tradition is nothing to do with stagnation. There are things which will necessarily always remain the same and there are things which will change and develop. The sacraments will not change, their form and function remain immutable to provide the same nourishment, assurance, hope to humanity now and ever more as at the beginning. The interpretation of Holy Scripture will not change or alter, for, like the history of humanity, it is already fast. However, our society changes, and we often perceive it to be for the worst. Humanity does not change in its capacity to sin, but attitudes do change.
The expression of brokenness, of heartbreak, of bitterness, of frustration and misery changes even if its cause does not. The world cries out for its Christ to be born in its midst, but the poor creature is blinded to the fact that that Christ has been born, has suffered, has died, has risen again. All of Creation groans to give birth to the new Creation and despairs because the baby that has been born lies hidden under the veil of 2000 years of history. How can this weary world reclaim its sight of that birth?
The answer is simple - through the Church. That's what the Church is for - to point out what has been, what is and what will be. The Church cannot induce labour to bring about the birth of the new Creation, indeed sometimes the Church behaves as if it were the new Creation with its cry of "We are the One True Church". Yet this is not true.
The Church exists carrying within itself the eye of Tradition which allows the view of Christ born, crucified and risen and points to Christ ascended and in glory. The Church exists to pick up the pieces, to minister to those in pain and to pass on this message of hope that the pain will not last much longer. The Church exists to make the blind see the coming of Christ again in the clouds to make clear the Reality of apotheosis.
And the Church forgets this.
Sometimes the Church believes that it has the Holy Panacea - she doesn't. She can only hold those who are in pain and offer them some Unction in the sacraments. Sometimes the Church tries to force eyes open to witness only a meagre facet of the Truth, a facet which the eye does not recognise to be true. Sometimes the Church tries to lay aside the weight of her Tradition to attract those in pain with distractions but in doing so, distracts the sufferers from the Truth. Sometimes the Church becomes obsessed with doing things the same time and again that she fails to engage with anyone but herself, indeed seeks to separate herself from herself in order that she might be pure.
Yet, this is not Church-bashing, this is honesty and demonstrative of one key fact, that the Church has the characteristics of humanity, gloriously contradictory, paradoxical, infuriating, and yet with the freedom that God gave her in the first place. So glorious is this humanity, that God is pleased, not grudging, to become human Himself, to enjoy life with human beings and to redeem the whole stupid lot of them because, despite their stupidity they are so superb a creation that they are worth saving.
The little baby in a manger that we see year after year is our sign of hope. If we are insisting that our celebrations do not change, then our hope is too small and we point ourselves inwardly and away from the Christ-child. If we loathe Christmas because it has become too materialistic, then how do we expect it to improve if we do not seek how it is supposed to improve. It's our job as a Church to prepare the world for the second coming - however it is supposed to happen. We have to carry the gravitas of the past with our eyes fixed on the future of Christ to come.
O holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
The Reality of Unity?
My good friend Ed has just published this over at The Continuum blog.
It's a very good question - "Is achieving unity merely a matter of convincing one another to believe the same things, or is unity really something deeper?"
Clearly, the former idea of Unity can never really be achieved because our belief is shaped by our individual being. Each of us experiences God in a way that is unique to our personal humanity, yet we all share the experience of being human.
The main issue seems to be that there is no universal language of the soul. One can see this in the differences in which St James and St Paul approach the "faith and works" issue. Do these Church Fathers agree on what Faith is and what place works have in our salvation, or does their agreement appear only after their lifetimes as a result of the work of subsequent Church Fathers?
We can agree with what we mean by a door, but if we take the door off of its hinges and lay it across a stream, is it now a door or a bridge? Now here again we can get disagreement, and I dare say that Ed will disagree with me on that!
As an Anglican Papalist realising just how difficult it is to be an Anglican Papalist at this time, the issue of Unity with the Holy See is still of great importance. I maintain my stance that I am already within the Holy See and that all that needs to be done is for the Holy Father to recognise that I am what I say I am and rescind the excommunication of the Orthodox Anglican Church as well as the excommunication of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and recognising that Anglican Orders are actually very valid.
This would achieve the aim of a visible sacramental unity between the two Churches.
However, this is terribly unlikely because all three expressions of Christianity have one thing in common - they are all equally convinced that they have the Truth. Well, actually, that's true. They are the One True Church, individually not together, but they cannot express that Truth in a way that produces a coherent and unifying statement of the Truth. Atheists might argue that this is grounds for disbanding the Church because she does not agree with herself, causing religious hatred between communities.
I remain convinced that if a validly ordained priest says the prayer of consecration over bread and wine then, regardless of this thing called "denomination," Christ becomes Really present, and it is the same Christ irrespective of whether the priest be Roman, Anglican or Eastern.
The divisions in the Church are largely illusory, and I pray that we see just how illusory they are on this side of the veil before the coming of Christ. Until then, I pray very much that one day I shall see an Anglican Archbishop and Easter Patriarch concelebrating Mass with a Pope.
For some of my readers, that will be utterly abhorrent, particularly if they are of the dogmatic mindset. That's the problem with the Reformation - I wonder if it would ever had happened if the Popes and the Protestants had been Franciscans rather than Augustinians and Dominicans, what if they had all been Benedictines instead? This is the trouble, there is no unity of psychology, hence the differences between the monastic orders and understandings.
I wonder then if we are not already united where it counts, through the Ut unum sint of Our Lord's prayer, and that this unity will be revealed finally when He comes in glory to judge both the quick and the dead. I pray that this realisation may appear before then, so that the Church can truly work as one unit. We need to: if we keep splitting then the Church will cease to be, at least as a credible expression of the existence of the love of God in an increasingly atheistic, materialistic and apathetic world.
It's a very good question - "Is achieving unity merely a matter of convincing one another to believe the same things, or is unity really something deeper?"
Clearly, the former idea of Unity can never really be achieved because our belief is shaped by our individual being. Each of us experiences God in a way that is unique to our personal humanity, yet we all share the experience of being human.
The main issue seems to be that there is no universal language of the soul. One can see this in the differences in which St James and St Paul approach the "faith and works" issue. Do these Church Fathers agree on what Faith is and what place works have in our salvation, or does their agreement appear only after their lifetimes as a result of the work of subsequent Church Fathers?
We can agree with what we mean by a door, but if we take the door off of its hinges and lay it across a stream, is it now a door or a bridge? Now here again we can get disagreement, and I dare say that Ed will disagree with me on that!
As an Anglican Papalist realising just how difficult it is to be an Anglican Papalist at this time, the issue of Unity with the Holy See is still of great importance. I maintain my stance that I am already within the Holy See and that all that needs to be done is for the Holy Father to recognise that I am what I say I am and rescind the excommunication of the Orthodox Anglican Church as well as the excommunication of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and recognising that Anglican Orders are actually very valid.
This would achieve the aim of a visible sacramental unity between the two Churches.
However, this is terribly unlikely because all three expressions of Christianity have one thing in common - they are all equally convinced that they have the Truth. Well, actually, that's true. They are the One True Church, individually not together, but they cannot express that Truth in a way that produces a coherent and unifying statement of the Truth. Atheists might argue that this is grounds for disbanding the Church because she does not agree with herself, causing religious hatred between communities.
I remain convinced that if a validly ordained priest says the prayer of consecration over bread and wine then, regardless of this thing called "denomination," Christ becomes Really present, and it is the same Christ irrespective of whether the priest be Roman, Anglican or Eastern.
The divisions in the Church are largely illusory, and I pray that we see just how illusory they are on this side of the veil before the coming of Christ. Until then, I pray very much that one day I shall see an Anglican Archbishop and Easter Patriarch concelebrating Mass with a Pope.
For some of my readers, that will be utterly abhorrent, particularly if they are of the dogmatic mindset. That's the problem with the Reformation - I wonder if it would ever had happened if the Popes and the Protestants had been Franciscans rather than Augustinians and Dominicans, what if they had all been Benedictines instead? This is the trouble, there is no unity of psychology, hence the differences between the monastic orders and understandings.
I wonder then if we are not already united where it counts, through the Ut unum sint of Our Lord's prayer, and that this unity will be revealed finally when He comes in glory to judge both the quick and the dead. I pray that this realisation may appear before then, so that the Church can truly work as one unit. We need to: if we keep splitting then the Church will cease to be, at least as a credible expression of the existence of the love of God in an increasingly atheistic, materialistic and apathetic world.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
An explanation? I doubt it!
I am in two minds about publishing this since it is so deeply personal. However, if it helps someone out of a dark place then perhaps it is worth the exposure.
I relish my time of prayer on Saturday when I have a little time to disappear into a space within myself and meet with God. Of course I usually nod off, but do so remembering that "He gives to His beloved sleep". However, lately prayer has not been a very pleasant experience.
About a month ago, I sat in my chair trying to bring my latest attempts to demonstrate how wrong Dawkins is to the College, when I first heard a voice that came from my own being say "but really now, there is no God. You're just play-acting, aren't you? You're doing your old trick of taking the standpoint of a minority and argue it, just for the intellectual exercise."
To say that I was deeply worried that such a voice can come from me is an understatement. God has been part of my life since birth - I was Baptised and Anglican and have been attending Mass on Sundays for practically all my life, and here is a voice which is my own, telling me that really it was all play-acting and that God did not exist.
Well of course, I found this occurrence disturbing. When you've put a lot of work into the Church, spent time in training and reading, listening and praying with people and preaching sermons, the last thing you want to hear is that not only have you wasted your time, but you've actually missed out on some of Life's joys such as a lie-in on Sunday morning.
My relationship with God is better (when I haven't fallen into sin and crushed myself with guilt) lately since I've made a little more space for Him during Advent. I still have the little atheistic voice within me, but I'm wondering that it's there because I'm moving into a new way of thinking about God and the old way wasn't good enough. Perhaps that voice has been saying that the idea of "God" that I was holding onto is not God, thus the concept of God that I had been holding in my deeply Thomist/Mathematical fashion was not good enough. In that sense my atheistic voice is right God doesn't exist in the way that I though He exists, and that's actually quite a comfort to me.
I have been tracking the source of this voice, and I believe that I have found whence it comes. If we believe in God because His existence explains things, then we come up against the possibility of other explanations. The way that the Lord walked on water may be explicable through hidden stepping stones, or that due to a very special set of circumstances, the Lord made use of special waves which increased the surface tension of the water - unlikely, but it's an explanation- or that it simply didn't happen and the Bible is wrong in the literal sense of Jesus walking on water.
There are some very convincing explanations as to how the plagues of Egypt followed a pattern resulting from a volcanic eruption which also explains the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. However, the idea is that any Biblical account has a rational explanation and that it always has to be scientific.
Of course, the phrase "scientific explanation" has the unfortunate association with atheism, when in fact Science properly done is neutral, and it is only our worldviews that give science a theistic or atheistic spin. It doesn't actually bother me whether or not there is a scientific explanation for the Miracles of Christ, or for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If some occurrence causes me to wonder, or to be struck with awe, or points me to God in any way, then that is a miracle, at least for me. Miracles, like music, are icons in Time, as opposed to Space, windows into the Reality of God.
I remember sitting on a train and being struck by the presence of a hand-hold on the top of the seat in front of me, which brought me to consider its purpose, and the intention of its design, and that brought me to God. In that sense, that insignificant object was a miracle for me. It wasn't there to be explained, or to explain God's existence, it was just there. And God is just there as well.
Sometimes I wonder if using the existence of God as an explanation for why things are is a form of taking His name in vain. The Church has made mistakes in the past in making dogmatic statements about Reality which are untested and never actually stated as articles of faith within Tradition or Holy Scripture. These dogmatic statements can lead us to a "God of the gaps" whereby God explains that which cannot be explained by Science, and as Science probes deeper, God shrinks. God does not shrink, so our concept of God is too small.
There are many exciting questions about the nature of reality that a neutral Science with its truly open mind can seek to answer. It will not find God, because the existence of God is metaphysical not scientific. I have found philosophical difficulties with the Eternity of God in opposition to our free will and His Omniscience. But seeing that Scientifically we do not know what Time is, let alone why we can only move forward and not backwards, our understanding of Eternity leaves us with an Eternity that is only understandable from within Time, and not from God's perspective. Nor do we know all that is to know, because we know that there is truth that we cannot know scientifically but nonetheless exists as being true thanks to Gödel.
Why do I believe in God, then, if His existence is not to be used as an explanation for why I'm here? I believe in God because He's there and there is no vocabulary in my mind that I can use to produce an any more verifiable assertion than that. I have felt Him move within the fabric of my being, and, like Descartes, I do not believe myself capable of generating the sensations that this movement produces. To the outsider, what I am writing is utterly meaningless, but then I'm not writing to convince anyone that God exists.
So, where does that leave me with this voice of atheism still chirping occasionally when I'm trying to pray? Well, I suppose it leaves me exactly where I always have been, but appreciating that I simply do not believe in the same God that the atheists do not believe in. My image of God has been destroyed, and that's a good thing. I've been deliberately trying not to have an image of God for some time. The God that created this universe does not need to explain Himself or to be used as an explanation for why things are. Things are, because He wants them to be and that's all the explanation that a believer needs. I cannot help the unbeliever to believe by explanation because there will always be as counter-explanation which may be more or less convincing.
It does leave me somewhat blinder in prayer, and I suppose the work of the next coming months will be to find out where He has moved to and how I am better to approach Him this time.
I relish my time of prayer on Saturday when I have a little time to disappear into a space within myself and meet with God. Of course I usually nod off, but do so remembering that "He gives to His beloved sleep". However, lately prayer has not been a very pleasant experience.
About a month ago, I sat in my chair trying to bring my latest attempts to demonstrate how wrong Dawkins is to the College, when I first heard a voice that came from my own being say "but really now, there is no God. You're just play-acting, aren't you? You're doing your old trick of taking the standpoint of a minority and argue it, just for the intellectual exercise."
To say that I was deeply worried that such a voice can come from me is an understatement. God has been part of my life since birth - I was Baptised and Anglican and have been attending Mass on Sundays for practically all my life, and here is a voice which is my own, telling me that really it was all play-acting and that God did not exist.
Well of course, I found this occurrence disturbing. When you've put a lot of work into the Church, spent time in training and reading, listening and praying with people and preaching sermons, the last thing you want to hear is that not only have you wasted your time, but you've actually missed out on some of Life's joys such as a lie-in on Sunday morning.
My relationship with God is better (when I haven't fallen into sin and crushed myself with guilt) lately since I've made a little more space for Him during Advent. I still have the little atheistic voice within me, but I'm wondering that it's there because I'm moving into a new way of thinking about God and the old way wasn't good enough. Perhaps that voice has been saying that the idea of "God" that I was holding onto is not God, thus the concept of God that I had been holding in my deeply Thomist/Mathematical fashion was not good enough. In that sense my atheistic voice is right God doesn't exist in the way that I though He exists, and that's actually quite a comfort to me.
I have been tracking the source of this voice, and I believe that I have found whence it comes. If we believe in God because His existence explains things, then we come up against the possibility of other explanations. The way that the Lord walked on water may be explicable through hidden stepping stones, or that due to a very special set of circumstances, the Lord made use of special waves which increased the surface tension of the water - unlikely, but it's an explanation- or that it simply didn't happen and the Bible is wrong in the literal sense of Jesus walking on water.
There are some very convincing explanations as to how the plagues of Egypt followed a pattern resulting from a volcanic eruption which also explains the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. However, the idea is that any Biblical account has a rational explanation and that it always has to be scientific.
Of course, the phrase "scientific explanation" has the unfortunate association with atheism, when in fact Science properly done is neutral, and it is only our worldviews that give science a theistic or atheistic spin. It doesn't actually bother me whether or not there is a scientific explanation for the Miracles of Christ, or for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If some occurrence causes me to wonder, or to be struck with awe, or points me to God in any way, then that is a miracle, at least for me. Miracles, like music, are icons in Time, as opposed to Space, windows into the Reality of God.
I remember sitting on a train and being struck by the presence of a hand-hold on the top of the seat in front of me, which brought me to consider its purpose, and the intention of its design, and that brought me to God. In that sense, that insignificant object was a miracle for me. It wasn't there to be explained, or to explain God's existence, it was just there. And God is just there as well.
Sometimes I wonder if using the existence of God as an explanation for why things are is a form of taking His name in vain. The Church has made mistakes in the past in making dogmatic statements about Reality which are untested and never actually stated as articles of faith within Tradition or Holy Scripture. These dogmatic statements can lead us to a "God of the gaps" whereby God explains that which cannot be explained by Science, and as Science probes deeper, God shrinks. God does not shrink, so our concept of God is too small.
There are many exciting questions about the nature of reality that a neutral Science with its truly open mind can seek to answer. It will not find God, because the existence of God is metaphysical not scientific. I have found philosophical difficulties with the Eternity of God in opposition to our free will and His Omniscience. But seeing that Scientifically we do not know what Time is, let alone why we can only move forward and not backwards, our understanding of Eternity leaves us with an Eternity that is only understandable from within Time, and not from God's perspective. Nor do we know all that is to know, because we know that there is truth that we cannot know scientifically but nonetheless exists as being true thanks to Gödel.
Why do I believe in God, then, if His existence is not to be used as an explanation for why I'm here? I believe in God because He's there and there is no vocabulary in my mind that I can use to produce an any more verifiable assertion than that. I have felt Him move within the fabric of my being, and, like Descartes, I do not believe myself capable of generating the sensations that this movement produces. To the outsider, what I am writing is utterly meaningless, but then I'm not writing to convince anyone that God exists.
So, where does that leave me with this voice of atheism still chirping occasionally when I'm trying to pray? Well, I suppose it leaves me exactly where I always have been, but appreciating that I simply do not believe in the same God that the atheists do not believe in. My image of God has been destroyed, and that's a good thing. I've been deliberately trying not to have an image of God for some time. The God that created this universe does not need to explain Himself or to be used as an explanation for why things are. Things are, because He wants them to be and that's all the explanation that a believer needs. I cannot help the unbeliever to believe by explanation because there will always be as counter-explanation which may be more or less convincing.
It does leave me somewhat blinder in prayer, and I suppose the work of the next coming months will be to find out where He has moved to and how I am better to approach Him this time.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
A treble dilemma
Having heard Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols being performed by the college trebles, with some outstanding singing by two of my ex-tutees, it seems that Choral singing exemplifies the content of the Book of Ecclesiastes that there is a time for everything - a time to mend and a time to break! I find it rather hard that the beautiful crystal clarity of the voice of the boy has to vanish during the time of deep uncertainty called adolescence. You can spend five years training your voice only for it to succumb to the ravages of the hormonal storm about to break.
I nearly brought in a pair of garden shears the next day, but thought again. For me, the treble voice is suffused with this tragedy: that to continue to exist the boy must undergo an operation that renders him broken just for the sake of the beauty of his voice, or else to lose that glorious voice that inspires and brings tears to the eyes of the faithful in order to live a normal human life, but possibly without the ability to express the worship of God in that voice.
There are some simply ravishing pieces of music for the castrato singer, but is it enough to justify destroying a young man's life just so that he can make such a beautiful sound. Clearly the choirmasters of the renaissance thought so, but we know that it is not the case - we cannot justify such a crippling action. The tragedy is that we cannot have both. But then perhaps we are being greedy and clinging to things of beauty which pass away so that a newer beauty can take its place.
The song of a life well-lived walking humbly with God has a music that can surpass the glories of the human voice, though it takes a person well versed in this music to hear it.
I nearly brought in a pair of garden shears the next day, but thought again. For me, the treble voice is suffused with this tragedy: that to continue to exist the boy must undergo an operation that renders him broken just for the sake of the beauty of his voice, or else to lose that glorious voice that inspires and brings tears to the eyes of the faithful in order to live a normal human life, but possibly without the ability to express the worship of God in that voice.
There are some simply ravishing pieces of music for the castrato singer, but is it enough to justify destroying a young man's life just so that he can make such a beautiful sound. Clearly the choirmasters of the renaissance thought so, but we know that it is not the case - we cannot justify such a crippling action. The tragedy is that we cannot have both. But then perhaps we are being greedy and clinging to things of beauty which pass away so that a newer beauty can take its place.
The song of a life well-lived walking humbly with God has a music that can surpass the glories of the human voice, though it takes a person well versed in this music to hear it.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Existence, Evolution and...
2009 sees Darwin's bicentennary. As part of that, I was asked to contribute to yet another debate between Atheist and Theist accounts of Evolution. I followed my previous colleague, an intelligent disciple of Dawkins who followed the usual idea othat the Universe can only be explained via scientific means. This is my reply with a few details changed to preserve the identities of members of the school.
Homily gave to the sixth form at Eltham College on Wednesday 19th November 2008 as part of the series on Evolution and Darwin.
I have a confession to make.
I’m afraid I have no choice
but to agree with
my esteemed atheistic colleague here.
I believe in Evolution.
Of course,
to Professor Dawkins,
that makes me obscurantist and disingenuous.
What that means is,
Dawkins doesn’t like religious folk
who dare to argue with him.
So let’s be clear.
There is evidence
that the universe was created
in some gargantuan explosion
thirteen thousand million years ago,
expanding and evolving ever since.
More recent evidence
from Saul Perlmutter
shows that the Universe
will continue to expand
until the stars burn out,
matter becomes diverse,
and loses cohesion
Even fundamental particles
will decay into nothingness.
And so to quote my colleague:
"People and planets and stars will become dust.
And the dust will become atoms
and the atoms will become nothing!
…The destruction of reality itself!"
Oh wait, sorry, no that’s Davros.
I do apologise.
[PAUSE]
As a mathematician,
I have no problem with Evolution at all.
I have studied many evolution equations
such as the Lotka-Volterra equations
describing oscillating populations
of foxes and rabbits,
or the Ricci flow equations
describing how the curvature of space
can evolve in time.
To understand Evolution,
we need something to evolve
and a rule by which it evolves.
Mathematics produces several models
which fit the observed data of evolving space-time.
For the large scale,
there is Einsteinian General Relativity;
for the small, quantum mechanics;
for the middle Newtonian mechanics.
The trouble is,
none of them match up
to produce a coherent theory of everything.
You might think that’s okay,
but if the Universe expanded
from something very small
to something very large,
then at some point the Universe
would be described simultaneously by Relativity
and Quantum mechanics.
So what do you do
if your two most favourite theories
refuse to kiss and make up when it counts?
You look for a new theory.
Strings!
[PAUSE]
Replace particles with little wavy strings
and a lot of problems go away!
However you do end up with five
(or six, depending on your reckoning)
different string theories
– type I,
– type IIA,
– type IIB,
– heterotic SO(32)
– and heterotic E8 x E8.
SO(32) is a 496 dimensional Lie Group, E8 is a 248 dimensional Lie Group.
Five string theories – we only want one?
“Ah,” says Ed Witten,
“if you stick them all in 11 dimensional
they all become the same one!”
So, our understanding of Evolution insists
that we become 11-dimensional.
No problem with that,
except that we can’t observe
these extra 7 dimensions.
However,
according to the theory,
there have to be parallel universes.
Parallel universes explain the Big Bang
· two big 10 dimensional
drumskins smash together
creating ripples
that turn into strings
that turn into us
as well as producing
another universe.
Quantum theory allows for this,
producing a universe for each possibility.
So there is a Universe
where my colleague,
clad in dog-collar
argues passionately for shamanism.
a universe
in which Barney the dinosaur
is president of America.
a Universe in which Victor Meldrew
while combing his shoulder length auburn hair,
sings sweet rhapsodies to Billie Piper
in a mellow baritone.
And now there is a problem:
by definition,
Parallel Universes cannot be observed.
String theory puts forward no testable results,
and yet this theory is being touted
to be the theory of the real world.
Multiple universes
in which every possibility can occur
pile up on top of each other.
None of them can be scientifically tested,
yet our present understanding of Evolution
requires them.
But Occam’s razor says
the simple answer is usually the best.
The existence of God?
It’s certainly no less scientifically viable.
[PAUSE]
“Ah,” says Dawkins,
“but God is complex”
at which point
St Thomas Aquinas,
John Lennox
and Keith Ward clout him
from behind with
Summa Theologiae volume I
saying
“you’ve not read this at all have you?
If God were material then you’d be right
but He isn’t made of anything!
Your argument falls down
because you confuse
the philosophical notion of simplicity
with your own view as to what it must mean
to be simple. ”
The truth is, in “the God Delusion”
Dawkins really shows up
that he does not understand
any philosophy at all.
And why should he?
He’s only a scientist
and philosophical questions are not scientific.
You can read the God Delusion if you like.
Personally,
I’d recommend that atheists read Bertrand Russell
- at least he actually thinks before he writes.
You see Dawkins cannot understand
that ideas,
consciousness,
and thoughts exist
and are neither material
nor reducible .
You can divide the brain up
into temporal lobes,
hippocampus, cerebral cortex et c.
You cannot divide a thought into any parts.
Can Science answer the question:
“what is a thought?”?
Can science even isolate a single thought?
If it can, can it determine what that thought is about?
How?
[PAUSE]
There exist questions
that Science cannot answer,
and for all the statements
that Dawkins, Darwin and Evolution
do intelligently demonstrate,
the statement “God does not exist”
is not one of them.
It is a metaphysical question, just like “what is a thought?”
Science can verify
the observable aspects of my being,
but it cannot pick up on the fact
that I am conscious.
To say that humans have evolved consciousness
is not obviously explained
either by Dawkins or any other scientist.
This means that there needs to be
another way of explaining to account for consciousness
– explanation from the point of view
of being a person as a whole,
not reduced to a collection of atoms.
Dawkins cannot accept that,
because he believes every aspect
of humanity to be accounted for by Science.
We need to account for
the existence of matter and consciousness,
science and personal explanation.
Returning to Occam’s razor,
the simplest explanation is that
there is God,
an eternal and non-material consciousness
who did set the evolutionary process
going via the Big Bang
and shares with us
His aspects of consciousness
and personality.
God doesn’t exist
because of the gaps in our knowledge.
Rather,
the existence of God explains
why science is actually to make explanations
in the first place.
On a personal note,
it is God that spurs me on in mathematics
- who allows me to see the wonder
and beauty of His world,
His Creation.
Perhaps one day
He’ll show me precisely how wrong I was,
and how right I am.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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:
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:
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.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
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.
Dare you email this post to your friends, or are you really as unsociable as I am?
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?
Monday, October 27, 2008
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.
Clearly we are to work for a society that is free from the powers of darkness, to show love to all human beings. Yet,
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.
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.
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