The Gifts of God

The design could use some work, but I made a quick banner with an image of St Monica on it to start. Please read the welcome post for more.

I'll keep the site up for about a month and then take it down to use the domain for other things. I will redirect the RSS feed to the new place, though, so if you forget to change the settings in your feed reader, you should get switched automatically.

First, one of Mahler resting on the bed. His mother, Nermal, has the same beautiful green eyes:

Next, a video of Tomato sitting at the computer with me. He likes pretending to use the laptop while I type, but in this video, he's just purring (loudly — you can hear it in the video a few times).

Now the blog news. I have been mulling over some changes for the past several months, and I think it's time to finally implement them. I will be moving house to a Wordpress.com site in a few days — I have time blocked out tomorrow to work on the site, but I'm not sure I'll manage that. I'm hoping to bring my writing back to the topics I mention in the last paragraph of my bio page. I feel like I've been dwelling too much on precisely the issues I chose not to dwell on when I started the blog, and the results are clear to see if you compare early posts to recent ones. (I confess that reducing my googlability with respect to the blog is also a concern, so my last name will not appear on the new site.)

I hope to post a link to the new site sometime early next week, probably by Wednesday at the latest. Then I'll leave this blog up for a month or so before pulling the plug and using the domain for personal stuff.

I suspect I will also be writing a little less frequently. Trying to blog almost every weekday has taken its toll on me. At times it's great — I love being able to share the great stuff I find following other blogs or reading theology. But at other times I find myself really struggling to keep up the pace. Hopefully the additional time will let me finish the Office hymnbook I've been working on and get that out to those of you who might find it useful.

Ok, enough blog navel-gazing. Have a great weekend! Oh, and lest you miss Mahler and Tomato in the future, keep in mind you can always find photos of them on my Flickr page.

First, it turns out that the quote "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials [or doubtful matters], liberty; in all things, charity," is in fact from a Lutheran divine during the Thirty Years' War. It's not found anywhere in Augustine's work (though Lutherans are quite Augustinian, so the roots are there). As that article notes, the idea received a boost by being included (without attribution) in an encyclical written by Pope John XXIII.

Second, and more interesting for me, is the quote, "Who sings well, prays twice." It is also falsely attributed to Augustine, though the real quote is more beautiful, in my mind:

For he who sings praise, does not only praise, but also praises joyously; he who sings praise, is not only singing, but also loving Him whom he is singing about/to/for. There is a praise-filled public proclamation in the praise of someone who is confessing/acknowledging (God), in the song of the lover (there is) there is deep love.

Of course, the sentiments are similar, but the full quote is much more interesting!

Anyhow, I've said a few times in this ongoing conversation that while I recognize the need for some of Hauerwas' criticisms, I wish people were reading theologians with a more constructive vision for how Christians might work in the public sphere to change the world. It occurs to me that I haven't talked about who, in my opinion, those better voices are.

The person who comes immediately to mind, especially given the mention in this post about training "new MLKs", is Charles Marsh at UVA. He is a long-time student of both Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the civil rights movement. If you want a quick exploration of how the religious vision behind that movement might translate into a political and moral stance in today's America, read his The Beloved Community. I read his historical work about Freedom Summer, God's Long Summer, during a course in college; I recommend it strongly. Marsh also has a new book out targeting American civil piety, though I haven't read it yet. I wouldn't say he is "training new MLKs" at UVA — I would question that "great men" paradigm of Christian engagement, anyhow — but he is doing great work with his students there.

H. Richard Niebuhr's work also comes to mind, particularly Radical Monotheism and Western Culture. Part of the problem with Hauerwas is that his criticisms are saved from utter cynicism about the world by a vision of the Church that is basically completely unrealistic. Both Niebuhrs (H. Richard and Reinhold), whatever their faults, are clear that religion must relativize not only "the world", but religious people and the Church, lest we fall into idolatry of the self or the Church.

The third person I'd recommend would be Dwight Hopkins, who writes in the tradition of the black church. What it means to be human is a fundamental question to answer before jumping to how human beings can contribute to societies and nation-states. Hopkins has compelling, constructive answers to the question of theological anthropology.

Obviously there are some holes here that reflect my own reading — for instance, I've read plenty of secular feminist ethics, and a fair bit of feminist theology, but very little in the way of feminist theologies of the public sphere. Perhaps Jane or other readers have some suggestions there. But I think all three people above make the same kind of criticisms as Hauerwas of complacency and easy nationalism in Christian religion without slandering whole groups of American Christians and without leaving you high and dry with nothing constructive.

Myers' response — and that of his readers — takes much from the unhinged anti-religious movement of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The idea is that if any religious people do something bad, all religious people should suffer. If any religious person is a bit thoughtless, blame all religious people for being superstitious fundamentalist zealots.

Attacking people, as Myers does, simply because they hold practices and beliefs you don't understand is one of the most poisonous actions one can take against those who are Other, and the body politic itself. It is disruptive to the best traditions of a pluralistic society like ours — just as abuses against the Koran have been in war zones American soldiers have been active in recently. This kind of behavior has absolutely no place in our society. Shame on Myers and his supporters.

As Jane notes, this is a theological matter — a matter of what is true and what is false. For that reason, all of the rhetoric about "giving an honourable place" to those who disagree with WO is rather hard to fathom, because it's being used to mean something rather counterintuitive. (Specifically, it means not practicing what is true so that someone who believes something false can feel better; it has nothing to do with actually honoring the difficult place those who believe the false thing are in.)

If a church discerns that women's ordination is indeed the will of God, it cannot reasonably "make exceptions" from this policy. It must treat dissenters respectfully, but it must nevertheless proceed with living out God's will. Which means women in dioceses with anti-WO bishops should not be kept out of the ordination process. It means that parishes cannot ask for a male "flying bishop" if their ordinary happens to be a woman. When it comes to women bishops especially, anything short of this makes a nonsense of the episcopate. Bishops, after all, are consecrated for the whole Christian Church, not merely for a single diocese (or slices of one). Even for priests, however, there is a danger of fostering sacramental receptionism to suggest that those who oppose WO in a church that believes WO to be the will of God should receive allowances to have only male priests say Mass for them.

It is this recognition that has led some of the churches in the independent sacramental movement into schism with larger churches. And of course all those churches that ordain women stand in schism with the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and some others over this issue (and others). That is a hard, stark reality. But churches that profess WO to be the will of God weaken that profession of faith in the full humanity of women and suggest that the truth they believe is not really very true when they carve out exceptions on these issues. We can be caring, pastoral, and respectful without pretending that the truth is not true.

What is most troubling to me is the sense that the concerns of LGBT persons are tied up so intimately with the Democratic Party and that this is natural and good. And yet, as Sen. Leno noted, such things as same-sex marriage are at heart “conservative”, concerned with family, stability, and morality. But, here precisely, is where interconnection with “family values” is possible, where conversation is possible with "conservatives". That this is not simply about a matter about justice, but this is about a matter of ethics, of how we are to treat one another (including sexually) in light of and in response to Jesus Christ. And here precisely, Bp. Robinson, in my estimation, correctly noted the worries by some “conservatives” that “inclusion” of LGBT persons means “anything goes”, that the family and stability are of no import, and that core doctrines can be thrown out. Their fears are not without grounds in rhetoric that suggests that the family doesn't matter, that God doesn't care about marriage, or that the Incarnation is bunk. By such standards, I am a “conservative” as is Bp. Robinson, as he himself noted. The doctrines of Incarnation and Trinity are non-negotiable; family and stability are indeed important for persons, for children in particular, and for the community and not to be dismissed with impunity; and “anything does not go” for we who are disciples of Jesus Christ.

It bewildered me that folks in the blogosphere whom I saw complaining back in 2004 that Jesus was not a Republican and that the GOP did not have a monopoly on "values voters" suddenly started acting as if Jesus was a Democrat and the Democratic Party did have a monopoly on religious values just two or three years later as the religious left started to take off. The reality is, notions like "conservative" and "liberal" bleed into one another, leaving someone like me, a more-or-less liberal, agreeing frequently with John, who is a dyed-in-the-wool self-identified conservative. (And leaves each of us discouraged and bickering with folks who seem to be allies at times, too.) Thankfully, there are folks right and left who realize that while politics and parties are not insignificant, they are the beginning of the work of building a just society, not the end.

I assume most of you are here because you think you are Christians, but it is not all clear to me that the Christianity that has made you Christians is Christianity. For example: How many of you worship in a church with an American flag? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt. How many of you worship in a church in which the fourth of July is celebrated? I am sorry to tell you that your salvation is in doubt.

Here is a quote from Jim's response:

What Hauerwas has forgotten, or perhaps doesn’t know, is that salvation is by faith, through grace, and not by anything that we do or leave undone. Flying or not flying a flag; sitting in a sanctuary with or without a flag; these are things which have no bearing on salvation at all.

If H. believes that the presence of the flag in a Church is an idol and that it leads to idolatry- which it may well do for some - then he must also insist that every Christian sitting in any Church with any sort of money at all in their pockets must too be an unbeliever, since money is an idol far more frequently worshiped than a flag.

As I've written before, here and elsewhere, Hauerwas makes extreme, emotionally-charged criticisms of American Christianity from what he believes is an Archimedean point; occasionally, these criticisms hit home and are worth heeding. But you cannot construct any kind of positive theology of the public sphere from them. This hasn't stopped legions of seminary students and young theologians from trying, and slandering numerous fellow Christians in the process. Hauerwas' fast-and-loose style may endear him to some, but it strikes me as arrogant and uncharitable. This is all the more frustrating because he turns mealy-mouthed when people ask questions about the core weakness of his thought — his fairly vague stance against the use of "coercive" means.

Speaking to the specifics of the Hauerwas quote above, his condemnations are too broad to be true, I think. Certainly commemorating the Fourth should not replace the observation on a Sunday or regularly-kept feast. (The idea of transferring the Fourth to July 5 or 6 is an amusing one, though…) And no doubt a jingoistic celebration of American exceptionalism against other nations of the world would be sinful. But occasionally focusing on our own nation — both the grace by which we do right and the wrongs we hope to correct — seems appropriate. The BCP appointed this reading from Micah at Vespers — I'll leave you with that.

In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised up above the hills.
Peoples shall stream to it,
and many nations shall come and say:
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid;
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
For all the peoples walk,
each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
for ever and ever.

What the Anglican row is all about. Not bad coverage. Just like the SSPX and the rest of Western Catholic traditionalism are not about Latin this is not about gays and women; the Controversial Issues™ about them are symptoms. The key is universal doctrine and enforcing it; of course the Catholic answer is an infallible church. Even a conservative Protestantism will collapse under its inherent contradictions like Communism did.

I wanted to respond by suggesting that, in fact, it really is only about homosexuality and nothing more. The strange bedfellows being made in order to denounce same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTs — between Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals in the Anglican Communion, between Evangelical Catholics and pietists in the Lutheran churches, between opponents and supporters of women's ordination in just about every church, between pro-life folks and pro-choice folks — proves that this is all about sex and nothing more.

I do not mean that all conservatives are sex-obsessed, nor do I mean to call their integrity into question. There are clearly many folks on all sides who are working out their beliefs with integrity. And there is no doubt that deeper principles are at play. But when it comes to the "Anglican row" or the battles in the ELCA, the United Methodist Church, the PC-USA, etc., conservatives have thrown all those deeper principles aside to unite around issues of sexuality. You can see just how precarious these alliances are in the frustration over GAFCON's silence on abortion, the "oops" moment when Bob Duncan had to clarify to Metropolitan Kiril of Smolensk and Kaliningrad that Pittsburgh ordains women, and the constant tension between various parties (evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, moderate) in the numerous "conservative" alliances that have sprung up.

I've followed these issues from a variety of different angles, as a member of the ELCA, as a campus minister serving UCC, Disciples, and Presbyterian students, and as an outsider to the Anglican "unpleasantness". The historical principles and doctrines John cites are rarely a factor in these arguments — in fact, in my experience, both conservatives and liberals who are actually concerned with such doctrines largely bow out of the culture war nonsense in their churches and get branded as "moderates" by both sides. Funding by the IRD is more of a hallmark of the conservative sides of these debates, in all mainline Protestant denominations, than is any particular doctrine.

So certainly there are deeper values to talk about. We have done so on this blog and elsewhere frequently. But the "Anglican row" as a phenomenon, just like the battles in other Protestant denominations, really is just about sex.

I was looking around in the Humanities section on iTunes U last night and found a few nice resources for continuing education in theology. I thought I would share some of the best ones here. Keep in mind that to use these links, you have to have the iTunes software installed (it's free, available here). If you don't have iTunes installed, you'll probably just get an error when you click the links.

Villanova — Augustinian Institute

Speaking of Faith — Niebuhr: Moral Man and Immoral Society

Stanford — Historical Jesus

Yale — Religion

Speaking of Faith has a lot of these resources on iTunes U, not just the Niebuhr interviews. They seem to include a lot of material edited out of episodes. My younger brother's seminary, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, also has a wealth of material up, and there are a couple of Reformed and evangelical schools with numerous courses on the iTunes U system. So there is something for just about anyone in any corner of the Church. It's well worth checking out.