The Questioning Christian

Can disbelief be reconciled with worship?

Last week a reader sent me a Facebook message expressing hope that I hadn't discontinued this blog, saying, "Goyim for God, indeed!" I take the liberty of quoting from [his or her] reply to my response:

... I'm a lifelong [denomination member] recently transplanted to a small [location] town where my only church option is St. [XX] Episcopal ....

But talk about culture shock! Worship is a constant barrage of words that I either don't believe or that offend me (it will take some time), and I'm struggling with Book of Common Prayer on the one hand and the apparent absence of any normative common wisdom on the other. I say the first line of the Nicene Creed and am then silent. [Me too - DCT.] ... Yet the people are dear, the rector--rather conservative theologically--is masterful at pastoring, and I am chipping away at a niche for myself. Still longing for the Goyim for God!

... I am deeply concerned about the future of Christianity if all the laity sees is fundamentalism, megachurch me-ism, or 4th century theology. Where is panentheism in the pulpits? Where is there talk of process--or of anything other than Jesus as the biological son of God? We're doing a decent job of whaling away at social issues, but what about theology? What can a layperson do (other than write a highly articulate blog)? I gather you have found a way to be comfortable with worship. How do you do that?

Truth to tell, I've grown increasingly uncomfortable with traditional Christian corporate worship. Except when I have blood-drive duty every eight weeks, I haven't been to church at our parish in over a year.  (My ever-supportive wife and I visited a couple of other nearby parishes, but she decided she didn't want to switch, for reasons I completely understand. So now she goes alone, and I'm not sufficiently motivated to become a regular at another parish on my own.)

Why have I stopped going to church? Because over the past 10 years or so, our parish has become far too Jesus-centered for comfort. As junior clergy have moved on, they've been replaced by evangelicals; all of our parish's recent calls have been products of Nashotah House or Trinity School for Ministry, two bastions of orthodox ideology. The sermons, the hymns, the Sunday school lessons all seemed to focus mainly on Jesus as (supposedly) God become man, who defeated once and for all the sin of the world and who would soon return in triumph — all of which are notions that, in my humble judgment, simply cannot be reconciled with the evidence of what God actually wrought in this world, as opposed to what some people imagine he did.

I remain convinced that belief in a Creator of some kind is eminently defensible, and that the Summary of the Law — paraphrased slightly — is the key to a happy life.  I admire and respect Jesus for his commitment to both, even at the cost of his life. I still love and respect my friends at our parish, many of whom have said they miss me on Sundays. I can't rule out that it's I, not they, who is totally missing the point (but I don't think that's the case). 

Still, I squirm when preachers and laity act as though there's no room in the church for any point of view that doesn't square with what I can only judge to be sheer speculation. In the end, that's what caused me to stay away from church, at least at our parish.

I've toyed with the idea of asking some of my like-minded parishioner friends if they'd be interested in starting a Goyim for God study group that meets somewhere for Morning- or Evening Prayer (minus the Gloria Patri and the Phos Hilaron) and Sunday brunch or dinner, either in lieu of or in addition to the Sunday service at church. Maybe someday we can give that a shot and see how it might work.

Episcopal bishops should shut up about politics, says liberal scholar Walter Russell Mead

Liberal foreign policy scholar Walter Russell Mead, whose father is an Episcopal priest, excoriates the Episcopal Church's hierarchy for dabbling in politics while failing at their basic work:

There’s nothing like Lent for reflecting on the sins of other people; I thought I’d start at the top — with the bishops of my own church.

As the Episcopal church along with the other mainline Protestant denominations diminishes, we don’t have to look far to see bishops and leaders who are largely failing in their core assign­ments: to tend to the health and promote the growth of the congregations in their area.

Yet even as we have fewer and fewer effective and successful leaders, we have no shortage of political, ‘prophetic’ bishops. When they can, they meet with world leaders and jet off to exotic locales to bring peace and fight for justice. When they can’t do that, they sign statements of concern, issue reports and other­wise tug on the skirts of an indifferent public seeking attention for their political views. * * *

. . . Trivial and predictable are not news, and the political stands that the mainline clergy take are almost always both.

A statement by an Episcopal bishop will not change one mind or one vote; at least in all my years in the pews I’ve never met a single Episcopalian who said that the opinion of a bishop does or should have the slightest influence on how Episcopalians vote and if the churchgoers aren’t paying attention to the bishops I can’t imagine anyone else is.

I’m not urging the bishops to change their politics. I’m urging them to shut up. More precisely, I’m urging them to base their ministry on a clearer understanding of their situation and their role.

Let me nail some cyber-theses to the virtual door.

1. Nobody cares what you think while your tiny church is falling apart. * * *

... [W]hy, exactly, would any sane person today pay attention to the political pronouncements of an Episcopal bishop? Episcopalians are a tiny minority of the population and the church long ago lost its social power and cachet. The Episcopal church today is in the worst condition it has been since the aftermath of the Revolution; its clergy has visibly failed to keep the church together or prevent its ongoing decline. I’m afraid that the penchant to make political pronouncements proceeds less from a true prophetic vocation than from a nostalgia for a time when it mattered what Episcopal bishops thought.

In any case, there is nothing more ridiculous than a proprietor of a failing concern who officiously lectures everyone else on how to manage their affairs. Please, for the sake of what remains of the dignity of your office, give it a rest. * * *

3. In the contemporary world the job of the clergy isn’t to provide political leadership. It is to help laypeople grow into better, wiser political leaders. * * *

... The job of a bishop isn’t to make statements about the minimum wage or the Iraq war. It’s to help the clergy in his or her diocese form communities that produce dynamic, committed and intelligent laypeople who will shape political debates on these and many other matters.

A bishop isn’t here to inject Christian values into public policy debates; a bishop is here to inject mature, thoughtful and committed Christians into public life.

The Diocese of Long Island shouldn’t be taking stands on the minimum wage; it should be producing people who transform the life of the region at every level of engagement.

If the bishops were already doing this pretty well I would be much more tolerant of their occasional ventures into public debate. But it’s as plain as day that en masse the American bishops are catastrophically failing at that core task — as indeed are their colleagues in the other mainline denominations.

In the parlous state of today’s Episcopal church, every dime a diocese spends and every minute of a bishop’s working day needs to be focused on local congregations. The church is melting before their eyes and many bishops seem to be passively watching it happen; at most they hope to manage decline as smoothly as possible.

Sunday Jeremiad: Petty Prophets of the Blue Beast, at The American Interest, Feb. 21, 2010 (bold-faced emphasis edited, extra paragraphing added; hat tip: Stand Firm in Faith - I must have signed up for their email updates at some point, because I don't read their blog).

I wonder whether Jesus really meant for our Eucharists to focus on his body and blood as such

I was intrigued by this passage from "Kitchen Communion - From the food pantry to the table," by Sara Miles, in The Christian Century, Feb. 9, 2010, p. 24, at 29:

[After the benefit dinner, we] celebrated Eucharist at midnight in the middle of the [restaurant] dining room .... My feet hurt more than they had in 20 years, and my shirt was slippery with grease.

The waiters and dishwasher came out, curious, as I handed Paul [the parish rector] a loaf of French bread. He held it up, saying the ancient Hebrew prayer. "Blessed be God, ruler of the universe, who brings forth grain from the earth," he chanted.

"Now we share the bread with each other," Paul instructed. He was still wearing the kerchief [to cover his hair while cooking] and his face was shining. "It's Jesus' table, so the bread is for everybody."

* * *

I remember how Deb had told me she didn't think communion was a good idea. "It's not gonna fly," she said. "At the end of a shift everyone just leaves as fast as they can or maybe goes out to get drunk. But nobody wants to hang out in the restaurant."

We passed the bread around, then a plastic glass of wine. ... I was a little embarrassed and unbelievably happy. ...

(Emphasis and extra paragraphing added.)

I was struck by the priest's omission of the traditional words of consecration, "this is my body" and "this is the cup of my blood."

Instead, he said the traditional Hebrew blessing of the bread — quite possibly using the English counterpart of the very words Jesus himself might have spoken at the Last Supper.

I wondered: How necessary were the body-and-blood words of consecration, really?

So I re-read the ancient accounts of the institution of the Eucharist.

• Mark 14, Matthew 26, and Luke 22 all give the impression that Jesus used the bread and wine primarily as stage props, a teaching aid, a visual metaphor to emphasize what he expected was in store for him — which would be followed by the coming of the kingdom of God.
• Of the four gospels, only Luke quotes Jesus as instructing his followers that they should "do this in remembrance of me"; Paul's earlier account in 1 Cor. 11, based on church tradition, does likewise.
• The Fourth Gospel, of course, doesn't mention the institution of the Eucharist at all.
• Apart from the canonical New Testament documents, chapter 9 of the Didache makes no mention of Jesus' body or blood; its emphasis is on thanking God. It twice mentions Jesus simply as God's servant, not as a son of God, much less as God incarnate. (The Didache was an instructional text, thought to have been written by Jewish Christians, sometime near the late first century, for their gentile brethren.)

This makes me think we need to read the command, "do this in remembrance of me," in context with the rest of what Jesus reportedly said on that occasion.

The command appears to be a direction for a simple ritual that will help Jesus' followers stay focused — not so much on Jesus himself, nor even on his death, but on his imminent return and the coming of the kingdom — so that his followers won't lose heart during the times of trouble.

Hmm.

 

Episcopal Church statistics don't look good - "Catholic lite" just doesn't sell as well anymore

See this one-page statistical summary at the Episcopal Church Web site, saying among other things that, over the past five years:

• average Sunday attendance (ASA) is down 16%
• active baptized membership is down 10%
• 55% of parishes have seen their ASAs decline by 10% or more
• 18% of parishes have seen their ASAs increase by 10% or more
• the increases in plate-and-pledge contributions have been less than inflation

(Hat tip: Kendall Harmon.)

Why this trend?  Here's my hunch (and that's all it is):  

1. Americans are constantly reminded to be prudent consumers, to critically assess what they're offered. 
2. What TEC has to offer these days is, mainly:  a questionable Catholic-Lite theology that has some obvious holes in it; a puffed-up pride that we continue to use a variation on a monarchical-bishop model of governance; and a risible claim of universality.
3. To modern consumers, TEC's offering doesn't have quite the same appeal as some of the more streamlined church "packages" out there, with minimal theology and high entertainment value. 
4. Recall that "none of the above" is one of the fastest-growing religious choices in America. 

Would God think less of orthodox Christians for praying with others who didn't share their beliefs?

I seem to be getting some post ideas from an ongoing discussion at TitusOneNine. Here's a thought experiment I posed there in response to a comment from one of that blog's more rigorously-orthodox participants.

THE SETTING: Imagine that:

• A group of Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and doctrinally-orthodox Christians, meet regularly for prayers.
• All are devout, all their beliefs and prayers are sincere.
• When a specifically-Christian prayer is said aloud, the non-Christians mentally ‘translate’ the prayer into their own respective religious idioms. The same is true when a specifically-Hindu prayer is said, etc.

QUESTION 1: In general, does God take a lesser view of, say, Hindus than he does of Christians? How about orthodox Christians versus heretical ones?

QUESTION 2: Does God take a lesser view of Christians when they pray in a theologically-heterogeneous congregation?

QUESTION 3: Do Christians' prayers lose some portion of their effectiveness if they're prayed in a congregation that happens to include non-Christians?

If your answer to any of these is “yes,” then please explain.

Redefining church

Here’s a proposition for debate, inspired by a discussion at TitusOneNine and a posting last week by Nick Knisely:

Resolved, that the members of ‘the church’ are those people — reasserter, reappraiser, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. — who are willing:

1) to pray ‘next to’ one another, even if the prayer of the person next to you is no more than a grudging acknowledgement that maybe a Creator of some sort might indeed exist;

2) to treat each other's prayers with equal dignity, even when there’s grave disagreement over underlying suppositions; and

3) to collaborate in seeking the best for others as for themselves, even if for no other reason than that this seems to give a species a survival advantage over the long term.

Under this definition of ‘church,’ a given individual’s theological beliefs would be of no particular relevance, except of course to the extent those beliefs influenced the individual’s actions.

I know some would object to such a definition of ‘church’; I’m curious how you’d articulate that objection.

"We pray together. And that's enough."

Bravo Nick Knisely!

An illustration of the troubles traditionalists get themselves into by emphasizing doctrinal purity

At TitusOneNine, I read that Robert Duncan has, unusually, has said something with which many moderate- and liberal Episcopalians can agree 100%:

“For those who believe the ordination of women to be a grave error, and for those who believe it scripturally justifiable . . . we should be in mission together until God sorts us out,” said Duncan in last week’s opening address. “It is not perfect, but it is enough.” [Emphasis added.]

Duncan was formerly the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh; he is now being styled “archbishop” by the new church calling itself the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

Duncan was referring specifically to the controversy in his new church over women’s ordination to the priesthood, which some traditionalists steadfastly oppose. In my comment at T19, I said in effect that it was a pity Duncan wouldn’t apply the same standard of mutual tolerance to certain other hotly-contested issues. 

Right on cue (or so it seemed), subsequent commenters promptly provided yet another example of how doctrinal purity so often pushes itself to the forefront of any religious discussion involving traditionalists:

• One commenter, "InChristAlone," wrote that I was failing to distinguish between 'central' issues (presumably including, say, same-sex marriage) and less-important ones like women's ordination:

D.C., you are trying to compare apples and oranges. Women’s ordination is not a central Gospel issue, even those who disagree with W.O. don’t believe that it is, even though it is still an important issue. … [Emphasis added.]

• And then — totally unsurprisingly — another commenter, "stjohnsrector," jumped in to argue just the opposite, namely that women's ordination was indeed a 'central' issue in the church:

I hate to open this can of worms, but many of us Anglicans, and the churches in communion with Rome and Constantinople, believe it is a central issue. …

• A few comments later, "austin" elaborated on why women's ordination was, yes, a central issue:

The ordination of women, for catholics, is of the first order not only because valid sacraments are “generally necessary for salvation,” but also for reasons of authority, tradition, the order of nature, and the reliability of Scripture (in ascending order of importance, perhaps)....

The issue is not going to go away, and it is, in my view, likely to be fatal to the new enterprise if not definitively settled.

[Emphasis added.] 

As it happened, ACNA prudently adopted to a local-option arrangement on the subject of women’s ordination. I stand by my original comment:  What a pity they couldn’t live with the same approach concerning same-sex marriages while they were still in the Episcopal Church. There was no reason we couldn't agree to disagree, and then get back to work, together, to bring more people to God.

Yup, we did indeed ‘steal’ the priestly blessing

At the Episcopal High School baccalaureate service last night, we sat next to longtime friends who are Jewish. Their name is Cohn.  Our bishop coadjutor gave the priestly blessing at the end.  As we were leaving, I turned to the husband and said, “That blessing was your line of work — the family business — right?” He laughed and said “When I heard the blessing, I thought ‘they stole that!’” 

Surprised by joy in liturgy

My liturgical taste could be described as low-church, almost Quaker. I have a fairly strong dislike for pageantry, constant singing, and other fol-de-rol in parish worship. I can't help but think, let's get down to business, get it done, and get back to work. Probably a bad attitude, but that's my reaction.

Last night, though, my wife and I attended our daughter's baccalaureate service at Episcopal High School. The procession — graduates in their caps and gowns, sanctuary party in vestments — was led by a verger. The student choir, also vested, sang much of the liturgy, which was straight-up Evening Prayer right out of the BCP.  (They did a fabulous job.)

To my surprise, I was strangely pleased by the moderately-high-church tone. It wasn't ostentatious, just ... traditional.

Then a possible reason dawned on me. We were sitting next to old friends whose son is also graduating.  They're Jewish. I realized I was glad they were getting to see a traditional Episcopal liturgy, of the kind I'm sure they'd seen before on TV during presidential funerals.  Even more so, I was glad they could participate in much of the service, given that large portions of Evening Prayer are taken straight from the Hebrew Bible a.k.a. the Old Testament.

I very much like that about the Episcopal Church:  Its liturgy asserts the congregation's claim to being an integral part of the people of God, present and past; at the same time, the liturgy serves as the verbal equivalent of the famous street sign, The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.