Communion Matters

As I have been working with Communion Matters in preparation for a gathering in our congregation, I find myself disheartened. Not only is it confused and confusing, but it seems politically-driven, desiring rank-and-file Episcopalians to concur with special pleading being made by this Anglican province which has run foul the rest of the Anglican Communion. It is designed like a questionnaire whose outcome is already predetermined, and the predetermination is that the Episcopal Church at the very best wants to sit loose to the wider Communion.

The Anglican Communion
The Anglican Communion for 150 years has been a loosely knit global fellowship of churches sharing a common spiritual, ecclesiastical, and doctrinal heritage rooted in the English Reformation. We are catholic in the way we are ordered, and reformed in our theological convictions.

It is as much what Communion Matters does not say, as what it does that offends. It wants us to believe that provinces within the Communion are autonomous and independent, free to develop along lines appropriate to particular culture and biases in a region or country. This is an effort to legitimate actions of the General Conventions of 2003 and 2006 that presuppose a different understanding of human sexuality than has hitherto been held by Anglicans or any other body of Christians ever, for that matter.

Communion Matters totally ignores the consensus reached during the early 1960s that the Communion is mutually responsible and interdependent with one another. This had been the cry until the Episcopal Church began functioning differently.

The Anglican Communion asked the Episcopal Church to step back from this schismatic act. If it believes it is right in its convictions, then first it should set about persuading the whole Communion of the rightness of its approach. So far it has not, nor has it even tried. The Windsor Report of October 2004 laid out a process whereby the Episcopal Church could walk with the Communion or decide to “walk apart,” and we are now well down that road, with a deadline approaching on September 30th.

The Episcopal Church, focused particularly in the March 2007 meeting of the House of Bishops, while asserting the value and importance of the Communion has continued along the walking apart course. Words of praise for the Communion have a hollow ring.

The Via Media
Communion Matters makes particular play of “the via media, the middle way between polarities, as a faithful theological method” (page 5), but then misrepresents what the via media is and how it might be attained. The notion of the Middle Way is rooted in the work of Richard Hooker, the leading Anglican mind of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, but Communion Matters has misperceived Hooker.

I can do no better than quote Frank Limehouse, Dean of the Cathedral of the Advent, Birmingham, AL, who wrote, ‘Hooker’s understanding of via media was never meant to guide Anglicanism to a middle way between God’s revealed truth and any other kind of wisdom, leave alone the prevailing wisdom of the world; it was never meant to guide us to a middle way between those who look to Scripture and those who look to experience. For Hooker, even "reason" and "tradition" were absolutely subordinate to Scripture.’

Communion Matters allows human insights to stand either alongside or in judgment over Scripture. Read this carefully: “Ultimately the ‘mind of Christ’ is perceived in community through prayer and dialogue, as Scripture is studied and interpreted and as reason and tradition inform that interpretation” (page 5). For those leading this process the “community” is the starting point, while Scripture is merely a resource the community can use when seeking to grasp truth.

Anglican Christianity has never taught this of Scripture even though there are those who wish it had. The fountainhead of truth is Scripture as it is plainly understood and interpreted, and a task of Scripture is to be the touchstone against which we measure and test ourselves and ideas – much more than an interesting resource. Until recently this is what the Episcopal Church has believed. In the Catechism it states, “We recognize truths to be taught by the Holy Spirit when they are in accord with the Scriptures” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 853).

Anglican Christianity has always strived for comprehensiveness in understanding the Christian faith, recognizing God’s truth will inevitably be fuller than any one group or individual can grasp. But at the same time there are boundaries and parameters to our believing, and these are set by Scripture, the historic Creeds, the Articles of Religion, and the historic Books of Common Prayer.

The course desired by Communion Matters is far from being a Middle Way but is extreme and beyond legitimate boundaries. Any Middle Way must be grounded in the person and nature of the self-revealing God. The plea for tolerance that we find in Communion Matters is not the traditional Anglican desire for generous comprehensiveness, but is asking us to now tolerate what until now had always been beyond the boundaries of catholic faith and behavior.

Conclusion
In vain I have sought to find any redeeming features in Communion Matters. It says one thing – that it respects and values the Anglican Communion – but it seems to prepared to sacrifice the Communion on the horns of its own insights into what God is like, how God reveals himself to us, what it means to be human, and how we humans should live our lives.

As a faithful priest of the Episcopal Church who has spent much of his ministry working within the wider Anglican Communion, I have to caution that the path desired by this provinces leadership is causing great pain, producing terrible disruption, and can only lead to the disintegration of both the Communion and the Episcopal Church of the USA.

We speak a different language

Paul Tillich's Tomb in New Harmony, Indiana

For several days now I have been unpacking in my mind a meeting that I attended whose subject was supposed to be the proposed Anglican Covenant. While my hopes for the gathering had been less than modest, I had expected more than we actually managed to achieve because we spent the whole time speaking past one another. One priest of an orthodox persuasion came up as we broke up scratching his head and said that he hadn't understood much that was being said by so many of the participants.

This wasn't because he is dumb, but rather because it is clear that we are now at a point in the Episcopal Church where we talk a totally different language from each other. Understanding these languages is now crucial because having acted on the progressive insights we have entered uncharted territory.

For a number of years I have been asking those on the left, the progressive wing, or whatever you want to call them to engage with us in theological debate and dialogue over what divides us, but there has been little or no response. It has irritated me no end that we have not talked theologically about what divides us, but now I am reaching the conclusion that we cannot -- because we have little or no common language left, and our mindsets are a thousand miles apart from one another.

I came away from our meeting the other day as frustrated as from anything I have attended in a long time. It seemed as if the Grand Canyon yawned between us, we had been shouting across it at one another, and only hearing the odd word being said by those whose perceptions are different from our own. I am now convinced that it will be impossible to address the presenting issues until we are able to strip back at least three or four different layers of understanding, and can grasp the presuppositional worldviews that undergird our various starting points.

I am not sure that we are capable of doing this, partly because of the preconceptions that we bring to our understanding of what the other people's worldview might (or might not actually be), and then the baggage we bring with it to the table. The left treats the right as if they were six-day creationists and flat-earthers, while the right is of the mind that the left has sold out every distinctive of what it means to be Christian, and are swimming along with the spirit of the age.

When we look at each other as either Neanderthals or Heretics, it is like one team coming onto the field to play the American brand of football, while the other is kitted out for soccer. Such a game might have entertainment value, but it is not going to get very far, there is no way of measuring a result, and ultimately it will probably end with tears.

I spent a good deal of time in my late twenties, in post-graduate study, trying to get my mind around the contributions of both Freidrich Schleiermacher and Paul Tillich. It is no accident that the way I felt at a loss as I scrambled my way through Schleiermacher's massive volume The Christian Faith, and then the three volumes of Tillich's Systematic Theology. Actually, it was akin to the way I felt as I listened to the conversation at our meeting the other day. This should have been no surprise to me because Schleiermacher) and Tillich) are very much the forebears of the movement that has put this wedge between us.

It was no accident that Tillich was actually quoted by the facilitator of the meeting which set me thinking, for it seems that Tillich has in one way or another been the patron saint of Episcopal theological education for the best part of half a century now. The problem when grappling with the likes of Tillich and Schleiermacher is that their presuppositions and subjectivity render it almost impossible to grasp and nail down, as it were, the ideas being expressed.

After our meeting the other day one of my colleagues mentioned the writing of Dr. Robert J. Sanders and what he calls The 'Ecstatic' Heresy, an article that I have found helpful in attempting to describe what has shaped the landscape over which we are now trying to move forward (http://users.iglide.net/rjsanders/theo/ecstatic.htm), although I do think in attempting to explain he sometimes cuts corners. He says, "In the ecstatic view, language applied to God is always symbolic since God is ineffable... the task of theology is to reinterpret the faith as relevant to new cultural contexts. Faith is evolving since culture evolves."

Even if Sanders is only half right, and I think he is more than that, it is clear to see how the orthodoxy and the progressive approach to thinking and believing are at odds with one another. "In the orthodox view, doctrines reveal God. They can be variously understood, they reveal mysteries, but they cannot be reinterpreted in terms of categories that have no objective reference to God," but for the 'ecstatic,' "doctrines do not refer to God but to feelings, the depth of reality, the horizon of being. Therefore doctrines can be radically reinterpreted in terms of categories that have no objective reference to God."

This is very much what I saw happening last week. Speaking personally, the way that I understand God's nature is that although omnipotent, majestic, beyond our fullest comprehension, God has in his grace revealed himself to us and that self-revelation enables us to grasp the principles of the divine nature, our response to them, and the enabling of belief and holiness that are concomitants of this. Those on the other side of the spectrum not only do not think in these terms, but are puzzled by them because to them "God is always beyond concepts and language... Since God is beyond language, every attempt to verbalize God is partial and inadequate, with the result that differing partial truths, even when they contradict, can be harmonized at a higher level in God."

The challenge before us now is to work out if it is even possible for these two approaches to the nature of the divinity to coexist in any way, shape, or form. Can we talk, or are we like someone who speaks only Chinese trying to hold an intimate conversation with someone who only speaks Arabic? Is it possible that there are folks who can act as interpreters? If we cannot interpet to one another, what should be the next step?

Blowing one another off does not work. The consequence of this is the bitter, bitter disputes that are in the process of ripping North American Anglicanism to shreds. But right now we don't seem to be able to do more than blow one another off, talk at cross purposes, get angry, bring lawsuits, walk out in a huff, shout, scream, denigrate, and so on, and so on. There is serious theological and anthropological work that needs to be done, but it will not be done while the major players on the field are not only unwilling to listen to one another, but also unable to communicate with each other.

The great missionary statesman, Canon Max Warren, was one of my mentors. He told me about a year before he died when talking about his son-in-law's work in dialogue with the Hindus in India, that we can never enter into cross-religious discussions honestly until we are prepared to be converted by the other person's viewpoint. Perhaps this is the level of vulnerability that is required by us at this point.

The Jesus Way and the Chaos in the Episcopal Church

A Kind of Applied Review of Eugene Peterson's book, "The Jesus Way" (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2007)

Like many others, during the last several years I have wrestled over what is the appropriate and godly way to respond to the crisis that has enveloped all of us in the Episcopal Church. Like many, I have explored a variety of options in terms of action and attitude, and come away dissatisfied. Sometimes it seems almost impossible to maintain a balanced commitment to revealed truth, countering error, reconciliation, grace, forgiveness, the unity of the church, and biblical moral and ethical values. I can't think how many times I have wished that there were some simple formula that could be readily applied.

For many years I have bought and read everything Eugene Peterson writes, for there are few theologians who marry, as he does, careful scholarship, perceptive pastoral insight and an abiding and tested commitment to catholic values of the faith. So, a couple of months ago I picked up Peterson's latest extended essay on pastoral theology, The Jesus Way.

I started into it thinking it would give me helpful insights into my own personal discipleship, which it has, but it has also given me clues to help me address this thorny ecclesiastical controversy in a manner that is worthy of my Lord. Certainly, Peterson does not come up with those illusive easy answers, but identifies patterns of believing and being from the Scriptures, the life of Christ, and his contemporaries that if taken seriously have the capacity to begin the process of breaking the present impasse.

And impasse it is, with none of the actions of any side within going anywhere other than digging us ever deeper into the mire. While fudging the issues before us is not going to be a solution, neither is the hand-to-hand combat which we are treated to each day. It occurs to me that Eugene Peterson's insights might help us find our way out of this dark jungle of our own making.

On the very first page he forces us to pay attention. "My concern is provoked by the observation that so many who understand themselves to be followers of Jesus, without hesitation, and apparently without thinking, embrace the ways and means of the culture as they go about their daily living 'in Jesus' name'... The whole North American ways and means culture, from assumptions to tactics, is counter to the rich and textured narrative laid out for us in our Scriptures regarding walking in the way of righteousness, running in the way of the commandments, following Jesus" (Pages 1, 3).

Straightaway, Peterson raises all sorts of questions not only about how we are immersed in our culture, but also how our own faith has been shaped as much if not more by the influence of the culture upon us than seeking to follow the mind of Christ. He talks of the eucharistic life to which we are called, which now should shape our whole being "as we give ourselves, Christ in us, to be taken, blessed, broken, and distributed in lives of witness and service, justice and healing."

Then he goes on ominously to point out that this "is not the American way. The great American innovation in congregation is to turn it into a consumer enterprise... We can't gather a God-fearing, God-worshiping congregation by cultivating a consumer-pleasing, commodity-oriented congregation. When we do, the wheels start falling off the wagon. And they are falling off the wagon. We can't suppress the Jesus way in order to sell the Jesus truth" (Page 6), and yet this is what we are trying to do.

That American way of church comes in all sorts of different flavors, liberal or conservative, traditional or progressive, Protestant or Catholic, and so forth, but all of them reflect our consumer mentality, so we pick and choose what we want, as well as our ways and means of being the church. Let's face it, in whatever shape or form it presents itself the American church is uncritically American. (It is probably true that in other parts of the world the church is uncritically British, Kenyan, Australian, French, Chinese, and so forth, but right now the challenge before us is our American blind-spots).

Yet we are called to live in the world by making Christ the King. "If Christ is King, quite literally, every thing and every one, has to be re-imagined, re-configured, re-oriented to a way of life that consists in an obedient following of Jesus. This is not easy." Indeed, it requires a lifelong work of total renovation beginning with the first word of Jesus's ministry, "Repent!"

I didn't become a Christian so many years ago just to prop up a decaying ecclesiastical structure. I became a Christian from the secular background in which I was raised because Jesus grasped me, and set about the process of reworking me into his own image. I have wanted to walk the Jesus way, but often have stumbled and fallen headlong. Then the word "Repent" has echoed in my ears and by God's grace I have been able to pick myself up and carry on. But I have to do this in partnership with fellow-travelers within the church, across the globe, and down the corridors of time.

A Christian is never a Christian in isolation, and as a follower of Jesus Christ I am called upon to function within this great continuum of God's salvation initiatives taken in history. The Jesus Way demonstrates the reality of this by spending a huge chunk of the first part of the book talking about facets of the way of faith of Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, the Isaiahs, on the shoulder of whose insights and discipleship the way of Jesus is built.

Peterson introduces us afresh to great notions and concepts of Scripture, such as what it means to be God's servant, what is the nature of sacrifice, and the place of prayer in this momentous journey. Yet "the way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped -- it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections where we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him" (Page 18).

The question we are being asked by a statement like this is about how prepared we might be to pause, reflect, engage in prayerful conversation with one another and Christ, and whether we have it within us to continue forward on a path that might well be in process of diverging from the way, the truth, and the life. "To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the one who calls us" (Page 22), and I wonder for how many of us this might be true. I know that I fall very far short.

This battle within the church is, I think, not so much about the issues, important as these are, but is about Jesus Christ and what should be the nature of the discipleship to which we have been called. Toward the end of The Jesus Way Eugene Peterson identifies several other ways taken when Jesus was incarnate upon earth, and as I read his descriptions of the contrasting ways of Herod, Caiaphas, and Josephus, I found myself squirming uncomfortably because the way many of us are carrying on compares more to the approach of these characters than the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Herodian way glorifies size and wealth. It is the way of power, influence, and conspicuous consumption. Yet the Jesus way stands in stark contrast to it and is reflected in the life of the young woman, Mary, when Gabriel brought her news that she was to be Messiah's mother, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). Perhaps, Eugene Peterson surmises, the burden of this prayer was something Mary taught her first-born son. Certainly it is reflected in the Gethsemane prayer of "not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22:42).

If we are journeying on the Jesus way then we pray ourselves into the identity of slave (Greek: doulos). "The more exalted we become, the more prominent the position in which we are placed, and the more important we become in the economy of the kingdom of God, the more subservient we become. 'Servant' was the prayed identity for Mary," and by implication it should be our identity, too. In our battling I see little in any of us that tells me very much about servanthood, but a great deal about our fascination with power, influence, and making end runs on one another.

I do not pretend to know the right way forward, although I hope I am earnestly seeking it. Neither can I stand in judgment over the actions others might have taken, because there is much in my own record of which I am thoroughly ashamed as I seek to measure myself by the way of Jesus. However, it does seem that in the struggle for control and power the whole notion of Christian servanthood has been one of the casualties.

Having described the true task of the priest Peterson wants us to think about Caiaphas, pointing out that "sometimes priests, impatient with being servants of God and God's people, insist on taking control of the relationship, managing God's business and our salvation. When this happens... we end up with Caiaphas" (Page 224). He goes on to say that "priests are at their best when we don't notice them. The moment we begin to notice, we become wary. When he or she, whether laity or clergy, pretends to do God's work for us, an alarm sounds" (Page 226).

By Christ's time the priesthood had become as much about power, privilege, and influence, as it was about being the intermediary between the people and their God. Peterson gently reminds us that if following Jesus means walking the path of servanthood, then in no way can it be turned into a path of privilege rather it is about taking up the cross daily.

Jesus always accepted that healthy spirituality requires an institutional structure. Despite how compromised the structures of his day were, he did not separate himself from them. He didn't, like the Essenes sheer off and form his own exclusive, ascetic regimen isolated from the wider community, and when in Jerusalem he worshiped in the Temple the megalomaniac, Herod, had built, and that was governed by that sly old fox, Caiaphas. Certainly, there seems to be a lesson we can learn here.

The prayer of the Jesus way in these circumstances is the prayer of Thomas, "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28). "No matter how much we know, we don't know enough to know what Jesus is going to do next. And no matter how familiar we are with the traditions and customs and privileges that go with being on God's side, we aren't familiar enough to know how Jesus fits into it" (Page 242). Such a prayer should have us thinking twice and thrice about the words we say and the actions we take in the midst of so much confusion.

Finally we come to the way of Josephus, a man who was beginning well and then was seduced by the spirit of the age. He had, among other things, trained as a Pharisee, but he ended his days living the life of a wealthy ease in Rome having sold his soul and integrity for personal wellbeing. Josephus was an opportunist with natural charm and great charisma. Perhaps these are dangerous gifts in the hands of religious leaders, certainly we have seen much misuse of them in our day.

Force, in one way or another, was the flavor of each of the other religious and social alternatives of Jesus's lifetime, yet despite all the errors the early Christians made, this was not one of the traps that they stumbled into, for as the Epistle of Diognetus puts it, "force is no attribute of God" (Page 260).

No, the Christian way, that which sought to walk in the footsteps of Christ was one in which they prayerfully sought to find their way forward, seeking to be "of one accord." If you don't buy Eugene Peterson's book for any other reason, then I would encourage you to purchase it for his extraordinary exposition of 'homothumadon,' the almost untranslatable word that keeps cropping up in the Acts of the Apostles. It means roughly being of one mind, being of one accord, experiencing the fire of the Spirit in the midst of community.

"The difficulty of experiencing homothumadon is that typically we aren't paying any attention to the resurrected Jesus, and don't know what to look for, or are impatient in the waiting, or are distracted by more glamorous and riveting events and circumstances that promise shortcuts" (Page 263).

I would posit that at the heart of many of our problems is the reality that we have yet to even attempt to follow the Jesus way.

"What stands out as we consider all these dismissed options is that following Jesus is a unique way of life. It is like nothing else. There is nothing and no one comparable. Following Jesus gets us little or nothing of what we commonly think we need or want or hope for. Following Jesus accomplishes nothing on the world's agenda. Following Jesus takes us right out of this world's assumptions and goals to a place where a lever can be inserted that turns the world upside down and inside out. Following Jesus has everything to do with this world, but almost nothing in common with this world" (Page 270).

Yet our battles are being fought out using the goals and attitudes, ways and means, of this world. Maybe, just maybe, what we need to do now is to step back, and even if a few of us look to see how we might live the Jesus way in the midst of the confusion, something beautiful for God would be born, rising as a phoenix from the ruins.

Actions of Bishop Geralyn Wolf

Almost as soon as I had posted yesterday came the announcement that Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island had taken action in the case of Rev. Anne Holmes Redding.

As most of you are now aware, the bishop wrote to her diocese, "After meeting with her I issued a Pastoral Direction giving her the opportunity to reflect on the doctrines of the Christian faith, her vocation as a priest, and what I see as the conflicts inherent in professing both Christianity and Islam. During the next year she is not to exercise any of the responsibilities and privileges of an Episcopal priest or deacon. Other aspects of the Pastoral Direction will remain private."

There is both grace and discipline in the bishop's action, and from what I have read there has been an appropriate response from Dr. Redding. While this is far from the end of this incident, I cannot but help thanking the Bishop of Rhode Island for the sensitivity and forthrightness that she has shown. Let us pray that in their pastoral relationship, Bishop Wolf can provide Dr. Redding with both oversight and space to work through what it means to be a servant of the Living God.

Let us pray for a godly outcome to this strange situation.

The Implications of the Episcopal Muslim Priest

I suspect some of you will think that I am fixated on the case of Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, the self-proclaimed Episcopal Muslim. I am not sure that I am, but her situation raises (in one way or the other) so many substantive issues -- not least the nature of the Godhead himself.

During the 1990s I got to know Leonid Kishkovsky, one of the leaders of the Orthodox Church in America, and unusual for an Orthodox priest in that he has also been heavily involved ecumenically. Among other things, Leonid is a past president of the National Council of Churches, hardly a right wing body! We were, if I remember correctly, talking over dinner one evening about the agendas people bring to believing and what might be the core requisite doctrinal convictions necessary for Christian believing.

I recall Leonid saying that he could cope with a breadth of belief, but it was when folks started messing with the doctrine of the Trinity that he found himself getting extremely uncomfortable. We kicked this around for a while, and I felt that by and large my friend was making a pretty good case. During the years since then I have watched as ecclesiastical wrecking balls have moved ever closer to deconstructing the Nicaean Creed. Certainly there have been individuals in the church who have problems with it, but they have been less blatant about their rejection of its central tenets than Ann Holmes Redding.

It is not that Dr. Redding's circumstance is strange, although it is, but stranger still has been the lack of appropriate response by the bishop of the diocese in which she is canonically resident, and also the almost-affirmation of her stance by the bishop of the diocese in which she is geographically situated. She clearly is in open denial of substantial truths concerning the nature and person of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it seems that those under whose authority she ministers are either unwilling or unable to enter into dialogue with her or take the appropriate disciplinary action. (See additional comments at the end of this piece)

So we have this bizarre reality now prevailing where priests and whole congregations are not only being shown the door, but are being subjected to draconian and bitter legal action because of they are attempting to actively work out what it means to live with the affirmations Christians have always believed. Meanwhile, another priest who has denied the very substance of her ordination vows, thereby de facto revoking her commitment to the doctrine and discipline of the Episcopal Church, not only gets away with it, but has complimentary articles are written about her by a church publication!

There is nothing take-it-or-leave-it about the Nicean and Chacedonian truths concerning the nature of the Trinity, and especially the fullness of the person who is the second member of the Trinity. These are not adiaphora, these are at the very heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, God's Incarnate Son.

Ann Holmes Redding has now clearly become a test case. If she is not put under any kind of discipline for her heterodoxy then it confirms that subjective relativism is the name of the game, rather than even the mildest form of catholic creedal believing. Jesus may be honored in Islam, but that faith honors him as something far less than the Son, God's ultimate revelation of his being, love, grace, and nature.

If Redding is Islamically faithful, then she probably believes that Mohammed is the bearer of God's ultimate message to humankind, which Islam affirms. If this is the case then she had relegated Christ in such a way that genuine Christian believing is made extremely difficult. However, if she believes that Jesus is God's only-begotten Son as stated in the Nicaean formula, then she is flying in the face of all that Islam believes about Christ. Christianity and Islam's understanding of Jesus of Nazareth are mutually exclusive of one another.

While such evisceration of truth leading to irrational relativism is as strange as anything that has come up in recent years, it is merely part of the amazing continuum along which much North American mainline religion is traveling.

Within the Episcopal Church, this relativistic tide is the environment that is leading to the wholesale rejection of the Anglican Covenant by dioceses, individuals, seminaries, and so forth. As I have studied the Covenant it seems to me to be little more than a 21st Century re-presentation of classic, historic Anglicanism. But historical Anglicanism is not what this tide of change is all about. Instead we prefer to stroke and be stroked by the Zeitgeist -- from this will come all manner banality.

*****

Within a very short time of me posting this piece, Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island place Dr. Redding under Pastoral Direction. We owe Bp. Wolf a great debt of gratitude for the manner in which she has handled this situation both with loving pastoral care and firmness. (http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/4194/)

Nevertheless, the principle that I spell out here is one we need to ponder upon for it cuts at the very heart of a Christian understanding of the nature of the Godhead and the manner of redemption.

Richard Kew

The Strange Business of the Muslim Episcopalian

I have over the last few days been attempting to get my mind around the assertion of the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding that she is both a Christian and a Muslim. I have done my research by going back to the "source" documents to make sure that I have fully grasped what this is all about. Then this morning, my day off, as I have been going about my chores I have been turning it around in my mind.

The furor surrounding Ann Holmes Redding has a number of fascinating dimensions, not least the appropriateness of her status as a priest in the Episcopal Church. During the last few years it seems that some of us have been regularly lectured about obedience to the doctrine and discipline of the Episcopal Church, and there have for some been dire consequences for stepping outside it. Now Dr. Redding has provided an interesting test case about whether all the talk about the doctrine and discipline of the church of these years is really serious, or if deep down it is about something else.

While the Episcopal Church has turned itself into a maximalist when it comes to obedience to the discipline and canons of the church as interpreted by the leadership, it has steadily become increasingly minimalist regarding doctrinal affirmation. Yet however many fundamental Anglican formularies are shaved away, the Nicene Creed is one fundamental doctrinal statement that the overwhelming majority say they accept.

If Ann Holmes Redding is now free to continue her idiosyncratic course without action being taken, then the creeds are up for grabs and any pretence of being a catholic and reformed church is being deliberately abandoned. That her bishop, Vincent Warner, does not seem to understand the theological implications of the statements Ms. Redding has made is a sad and ominous sign.

But there is more going on than this. I must begin by saying that I respect Ms. Redding's willingness to approach the Islamic faith with reverence and respect. While the aggression of popular Islam around the world has caused gred grief, I have learned from the likes of Bishop Kenneth Cragg that I will never fully be able to understand this religious confession if I do not treat it respectfully. I confess that as much as I attempt to do so, I find this extremely difficult.

Yet it seems Ann Holmes Redding has only managed to make this dual commitment to Christianity and Islam by stepping aside from a biblical and historical understanding of the nature of the trinitarian God and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, toward a theology and Christology that has robbed from our Lord and Savior his must essential distinctives.

To be a Muslim is to accept Christianity as a way station preparing for the fullest revelation that is the Islamic obedience, and Jesus as a prophet making straight the way for Mohammed. The great rift between Islam and Christianity is radically different understandings of the nature and person of Christ.

As the Seattle Times summarizes Ms. Redding's belief system it is clear she has wandered far, far from anything that vaguely resembles the historic Christian faith. "She believes the Trinity is an idea about God and cannot be taken literally. She does not believe Jesus and God are the same, but rather that God is more than Jesus. She believes Jesus is the son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine — because God dwells in all humans. What makes Jesus unique, she believes, is that out of all humans, he most embodied being filled with God and identifying completely with God's will."

Perhaps her "progressive" Christian faith has led her in this direction, but her jump to Islam while attempting to continue holding onto her Christian standing would suggest that when it comes down to it the Christian doctrinal tradition is of little importance to her.

But there is more here. If she has in the past questioned what she might have considered to be the unfounded biblicism of those of us who are orthodox Christian believers, how is she going to handle the Islamic belief about the inspiration of the Quran as dictated directly by the angel Gabriel to Mohammed? That same Quran denies the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, something that she says she believes in. It would seem that these two paths to most thinking people are incompatible.

It would be wonderful to think that this priest had discovered an appropriate way to breach one of the most agonizing religious gulfs in human history, and that neither Christians nor Muslims would have to compromise their beliefs to become brothers and sisters in faith together. However, it would seem that what it seems she has actually done is to deliberately let go of the most substantial distinctives of her Christian heritage in favor of an understanding of God that cannot appropriately figure within Christianity.

The more I have thought about Islam over the years the more I have come to appreciate the assertion of one of my seminary professors that Islam is actually a Christian heresy, and in its formative period borrowed much from the Christian church. Some have even suggested the the Nestorian church of the east, with its less-than-thorough grasp of the nature of the Trinity readily prepared for Islam to sweep the faith away through much of what is today the Islamic world. If I did not know the saving mercy of redemption that is available through Jesus Christ, there is much in the stark ethic of Islam that I might find attractive. However, it seems to me that with the best will in the world it is hard to consider these two religions as compatible bedfellows.

I would suggest that Dr. Redding has for a long time probably affirmed a somewhat relativistic understanding of the Christian faith that has now met and is being steadily subsumed by the appeal of Islam, and her embrace of it. Which way she goes will be interesting to see, but while she is making up her mind it is entirely inappropriate for her to be considered a priest in good standing in the Episcopal Church, however theologically suspect this denomination is.

Victors Reaching Out To Losers

Hands Across the Divide -- A Sculpture in Londonderry, Northern Ireland

I love having satellite radio in my car, and the other day I was listening to a piece as I was driving about peacekeeping and reconciliation. It was from the BBC World Service and was by Paddy Ashdown, a former military officer, British MP and party leader, and then international representative in Bosnia.

He started in Berlin at the museum established to commemorate the occupation of Germany during the immediate post-war period. Ashdown and his interviewees talked about the peacekeeping success of Germany in that era from which many lessons were learned and applied as difficulties have arisen elsewhere.

One example that was pulled from the hat was that the victors sought to reach out to and make friends with the losers. The museum apparently highlights this in many of its exhibits, and Ashdown and the curator to whom he was talking discussed this.

That one statement got me off thinking about the crisis in the Episcopal Church, where no such thing is going on. Indeed, there seems to be a determination by the present "victors" to drive forward their agenda regardless of the distress it causes to the apparent "losers," or the damage it might be doing the denomination. I'm not sure how a reaching out and making friends would take place, but certainly that moritorium on litigation would be a great starting point, for then it would be possible to sit down to try and talk our way through this issue to some satisfactory resolution without an axe hanging over the heads of any of the parties involved.

People will inevitably complain that this would take far too long, but there is no such thing as a quick fix when it comes to these kinds of circumstances. Besides, it seems that prolonged stretching out of what might be right and worthwhile is never a good reason for not doing it. John Bauerschmidt, our bishop, points out that church conflicts seldom sort themselves out quickly -- and this one should be no exception. Yet our fallen-ness tends to encourage us to put speed ahead of what might be a faithful way of proceeding.

The other day, as I was thinking this through, I tried out my thoughts about victors reaching out to losers on a friend whose insights I value. He thought about it for a few moments then said something to the effect that do we know who the winners and the losers are?

Good point. It do not doubt that it will take several generations before we are able to see this time in perspective and only then will we have some clarity. However, I have in my mind this hunch that ultimately these difficult events through which we are now living will appear very differently then than they do now to those of us who are living through them.

As I read over and over again the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, the reaching out of victors to losers, and vice-versa, seem to have to do with the very uncomfortable teaching of our Lord. There is some turning the other cheek stuff going on here, which itself in the Sermon is a lead up to the loving of our enemies. Oh, and while we seek to love our enemies we are called to "pray for those who persecute" us (Matthew 5:44). Now here are some challenging words in these circumstances.

If we are looking for a way forward, a way out of the present impasse, then we would cannot do much better than to really soak ourselves in the words and actions of the One we consider our Lord and Savior. These values of the Kingdom are demanding, and I am not sure a godly way forward is possible until some of us on ever side of this sorry affair start taking them seriously.

Long and Winding Road Home: Pt. 2 - The Episcopal Church

The Chiltern Hills and the fields among which I grew up

While I will continue to be a priest of the Diocese of Tennessee, as I leave active involvement in the Episcopal Church in early September it will be with tangled and knotted feelings. For most of my three decades here I have appreciated being part of this denomination, and it has been a setting in which I have grown as a disciple of Christ and as a person.

There have always been elements of Episcopal life that have irritated me no end, high on the list has been this church's inability to take seriously the need for doctrinal clarity, but then there have been all sorts of other components of Episcopalianism that have enriched me, stimulated me, challenged me.

The Episcopal Church forced me to reach outside the tiny little Anglican box I had inhabited prior to my first crossing of the Atlantic, and for this I will always be profoundly grateful. Yet it has been recent years that have floored me, with deficiencies of the church getting out of control in such a way that they have completely overwhelmed many of the benefits.

There was a time when with a sense of genuine appreciation I could tell people "I am an Episcopalian," yet these days I try to avoid such identification, and when it is necessary to make it with mingled emotions of regret and embarrassment. The turmoil of these recent years has, in effect, stolen the church I loved, and started the process of putting in its place something so distorted that at times the only descriptive words I can come up with are bizarre and even grotesque.

The extreme lurch that the Episcopal Church into the arms of the Zeitgeist has disfigured it to such an extent that part of me is very tempted to get back into that tiny little box that I once inhabited. Certainly, it has been made abundantly clear by those who control the denomination that those of us who occupy the broad mainstream of Anglican Christianity are no longer wanted nor particularly welcome. The most recent actions of the Executive Council are further illustrations of this, and such things will always be a source of personal sadness.

I came to America in the first place because God made it clear that this was the setting to which he was calling us, and we believed that we were being asked to play a small part in the renewal of the Episcopal Church that was gathering strength at that time. There have been all sorts of good things that have happened, and over the years we have seen God's hand at work in things we have been part of, and enterprises we have undertaken. There have been some successes, and there have also been a number of obvious failures.

Yet the present climate excoriates what we considered to be advances, and what I had thought had been worthwhile contributions to the life of the Episcopal Church in obedience to the demands of the Kingdom, is being treated by the postmodern majority as some sort of a defacing of the tradition (although the postmodernizers are very much making up what they believe the tradition to be as they go along). While I do not like what has become of the Episcopal Church, this is the setting in which God has placed me, and it has become a very difficult boat from which to fish in recent years.

While the Episcopal Church seems determined to rid itself of many of the major contributions I and my ilk have made, I honestly do not see much in the new alphabet soup of Anglican entities that is emerging as anything more than a temporary holding pattern, and not necessarily a wise one at that. I agree entirely with Archbishop Drexel Gomez that much of this separating has seemed extraordinarily premature.

While the doctrinal side of me finds is much more at home with these slivers of Anglicanism than the ailing denomination from which they have turned, I am sure that if I were to be part of one of them, then I would be peculiarly uncomfortable about their life as well. While I respect many of those who have made these moves, there is no reason to believe that separation solves the problems we have -- which are so much bigger than the presenting issues that have disrupted the life of the church.

This battle is about nothing less than who God is, how God has revealed himself to us, and what the implications of that might be in daily living. The starting point for any debate or discussion has to be the Trinity, and certainly not human sexuality.

What has happened is that we have been shoo-ed by God out into a Wilderness, we have been dispatched into Exile. After the Jews were taking into exile in Babylon, a couple of generations passed before God began speaking to them with the red-blooded words of that great prophet in the tradition of Isaiah.

Exile is agony and can be utterly debilitating, but evidence from the history of salvation is that it is the place where God meets and renews his expectant people, having allowed them to shed much of the unhelpful baggage that they were carrying. My work with the Russian church in the 1990s brought me face-to-face with a church who had been forced to learn some incredibly painful lessons from a different kind of exile, now it is our turn.

If we look at the experience of the Jews and of church history, it is in exile that we experience theological and spiritual renewal that would have been impossible if our standard had still been flying high. In humiliation and sitting amidst the ruins we are called upon to wait until the Lord God is ready for us again. Maybe all this will take decades and not months, and all the time our demeanor should be humility in sackcloth and ashes.

There is much from the Episcopal Church that I will miss, but most of these things are from the old Episcopal Church, the one that used to exist, not the one that is being born in the confusion and error of today. I have fond and thankful memories, and my prayer is that even an ocean away I will be able to do something that will play a tiny part in the restoration of North American Anglicanism to the favor of the Lord.

A Long and Winding Road Home -- Part One

Around this time thirty-one years ago I was wrestling with a whole cascade of ideas and emotions. It was one of the hottest summers on record in England, but it was the United States that was so much on my mind as the days ticked by, and we found ourselves getting ever closer to pulling up our roots and moving across the wide Atlantic Ocean.

We were venturing into the unknown. As exciting as the prospect was, fears and anxieties jostled and adrenalin pumped. Was this the most colossal mistake we had ever made in our lives? How would we ever adapt to living in such a strange and alien country as the USA? How would our children fare amidst so much change? How would we adjust to the American Church? And so the inner debate went on and one.

Between keeping our little girls clean and fed, we were packing up our home, and bringing to an end the happy years of our ministry in Bristol, England. During the long light summer evenings Rosemary and I talked endlessly about what we were about to do, praying, and at times holding onto each other as both reasonable and silly fears swept over us.

I will never forget the moment the British Airways 747 lifted off and the roofs of Heathrow Airport quickly disappeared beneath the mist. I fought back tears, felt nauseous, and wondered whether ever again we would see our beloved homeland. It seemed we were about to fall over the edge of the world. If crossing the Atlantic was as emotionally fraught as this for us, how must it have been for the first settlers in Virginia and the Pilgrims?

Three decades have passed since these things took place and many of those same feelings have again become our companions. However, this time we are preparing to make the return journey. The days are ticking by for us to go back to England, and after a half a lifetime of Americanization I now find myself anxious and concerned about whether I will be able to fit back into a very different Britain, and a much altered Church of England from the one that we left.

While there is a sense of adventure about all this, in my calmer moments I wonder whether issues of sanity come into play when people consider migrating across an ocean for the second time in their lives! Yet how many folks get the chance to serve the Lord in a position that perfectly fits their gifts and skills when they are in their early sixties?

A number of years ago when trying to prepare for the latter years of my active life, I had this sense that God's purposes for me might be in the realm of bringing to birth the next generation of Christian leaders, but as time passed and nothing came of it I concluded that I had misread the signs. Then when such dreams had been forgotten, out of the bright blue yonder came Ridley Hall, Cambridge. Now I find myself amazed that I will be able to wrap up four decades of stipendiary ministry playing a small part in this vital enterprise of getting the next generation onto the front lines. In many respects I can hardly believe my good fortune, but leaving our world here is the price that we have to pay.

Right now we are wrestling with realtors, and beginning to part with precious possessions, wondering all the time whether we can financially make it in a place where a modest apartment costs about as much as a significant mansion in this neck of the woods. There are fears galore, and while England isn't an unknown there are trends and subtleties within the culture that are sure to come as a huge surprise. How will we adjust back to the English Church? Isn't it going to be very difficult to leave our younger daughter, a physician and wife, here on this side of the water? Meanwhile the question of thirty years ago comes up again to haunt us: are we making the most colossal mistake of our now considerably longer lives?

My late Aunt Mary has been a warning to us. After twenty-five happy years in Montreal, Canada, and having been widowed, my father's elder sister returned to our hometown in the 1970s to live. It didn't work. The woman who had left the United Kingdom for the Dominion of Canada in the year of the Queen's coronation, had been altered by the New World out of all recognition. She chafed at the smallness of English life, and it wasn't too long before she sold up and returned westward, never even wanting to visit her birthplace again.

I find myself wondering in my darker moments if it is going to be the same for us. I am already bracing myself for my first year back in England's green and pleasant land. Like my aunt there are bound to be elements of English life that will chafe, irritate, drive me mad, make me angry, and trigger reverse homesickness. I live here amidst a residual Christian culture within which I am comfortable, how will I adjust to the European side of the ocean where such a thing is long gone, and the most significant religious challenge of the 21st Century is how to address the rising tide of Islam?

During these many years spent in America we have experienced periods of intense homesickness. At first it was an agonizing sense of loss, but as time has passed it has turned into a delicious bittersweetness -- more romantic yearning for a Masterpiece Theatre figment of the imagination than a longing for the England that is really and truly there. At this point I find myself walking into a bracing north wind that is blowing such dreaminess away. England is not about rose-covered cottage doorways and Jane Austen country house society, but is an over-populated, thrusting, secular realm which at times has a very nasty edge to it. It is to this England that I am returning, and to which I must readjust.

It should be no surprise that as we let go of our American life we should be be looking back and assessing what it has all been about. For a start, I am immensely grateful for the time that I have spent here. For nearly a quarter century I have been a citizen of two countries, never entirely at home in either, and I expect this to be true for the rest of my life. There is so much about the United States that I love and admire, and I hope that during our years here we have been shaped bysome of the very best in American culture and Christianity.

The United States may be far from perfect, but I recognize that this is an extraordinary country that still has extraordinary potential, and while here I have had the privilege of knowing some of the most remarkable people that walk the face of this planet. I hope that I will carry back to the Old World some of the great benefits that are mine because of the time that I have spent here in the New.

I am not entirely sure of how it is there now, but the Britain I left was one where some of the brightest ideas would very politely have cold water poured over them (unless they came from someone who was very forceful, or who had the right background and connections). The America to which I came was one that was willing to take a calculated risk and give something new and different a try. Failure was not seen as terminal, and space is given to folk to pick themselves up, dust themselves down, and move forward after such a hiatus. I still believe this to be the case, and it is part of the strength of the American spirit.

I want to ponder the Episcopal Church at length in a later piece, but I cannot finish this one without some reference to it. I came to the USA believing that God was asking that we play our small part in its renewal. During the years I have been here we have seen some remarkable things happen and God acting in ways that were beyond our wildest dreams. But now as I prepare to go back to England, the Episcopal Church has reduced itself to a pitiful tatter of its former self.

I grieve the fragmentation and the rich web of relationships and ministries that have been badly damaged or terminally broken. It seems increasingly evident that the Episcopal Church I have known and loved has committed itself to the garbage heap of history, but I am not sure the course which has been taken by many who have been fellow-travelers and colleagues in the past is the right one. I said many years ago that if the Episcopal Church were to split then the only people to gain from it would be the attorneys. Alas, from what I am seeing and hearing, this sad prediction looks set to turn out to be true.

I try to comfort myself that we are passing through that time of confusion that inevitably precedes a new beginning. It is my prayer that after this time of upheaval steadier hands will take the tiller of the Episcopal Church and its separated daughters, and with it wisdom and willingness to face up to what the Kingdom of God demands will emerge. Perhaps the Spirit of God will take that American can-do mindset and enable us to come out of this slough of despond into which we have fallen, and help us to create a missionary body that knows how to reach the hearts and souls of post-Christian, post-modern America, with the Good News of Jesus Christ in all its fullness.

Meanwhile, my job is to get on with the process of sorting my things, wrapping up my life here, and getting ready to go back to my homeland and all the challenges and opportunities for the Gospel that await us there.

Being A Man In This Brave New World

Many things have either died or been stillborn as a result of the Episcopal Church's tragedy that has been unfolding since August 2003. For me one was a book I was in process of writing following a powerful gathering of men that took place in Florida in early 2002.

Convened by Bishop John Lipscomb and Jay Crouse, who worked in men's ministries in the Diocese of Southwest Florida, it was an attempt to assess what must happen if we were to give ministry among the male half of the population its rightful place in the church's life. I remember enjoying that gathering almost more than any I have ever participated in, and came away with quantities of material and research ideas that we hoped would result in a book that would have a profound impact on ministry amongst men in North American Anglicanism.

Alas, we were derailed. Our intentions were diverted by the slow motion train wreck that has been taking place ever since the Episcopal Church declared, in effect, that it was totally confused about what it means to be a man, to be a woman, and how we human beings of differing genders relate to one another. I sometimes wonder how many other magnificent Kingdom opportunities were lost as Gospel-inspired dreams have given way to the banality of keeping up with a crumbling culture?

But I am getting off topic. By that time I had written six chapters of a book on the challenge of reaching men in the topsy-turvy world of today. Although I have brought them out and dusted them off every now and again, occasionally using them as the basis for a talk or two, the book has never seen the light of day, and publication is probably now never likely to happen.

Just this week in our parish we are attempting to expand our early Tuesday morning men's bible study into something that reaches out in appropriate ways to the males living round here. With the encouragement of some of the guys I decided there may be a few useful thoughts in this manuscript that would be worth sharing with a wider audience because the book is unlikely to see the light of day.

So I have launched another blog Being A Man In This Brave New World, that is simply an attempt to make these thoughts that I had several years ago accessible. The chapters will be posted in installments as I rework the materials, sometimes needing to bring some up-to-date, and perhaps modifying ideas that might seem a little undeveloped as a result of mature thought.

If anything, I have an even deeper concern for the plight of males, seeking to work out what it is to live as a man in this strange culture that is emerging from the demise of centuries of a predominantly Christian culture.

While women have found themselves in all sorts of ways in the last forty years, men are floundering. Here is a huge challenge that many seem incapable of taking up, often because of shrill voices that seem quite happy to either abandon or relegate to insignificance a huge proportion of those of us who suffer from what might be called testosterone poisoning.

I doubt whether my words on this subject come up with much that is new, but they have been thought out within the context of a denomination that has been one of the least successful at holding onto its male membership, or addressing the deeply felt needs and yearnings of masculine hearts and minds.

I suspect that such a manuscript will be interpreted as anti-women, but that is certainly not its intention. The four human beings who I love more than any in the world are all female: my wife, my two daughters, and my one and only grandchild, a little girl called Hannah. Over the years I have been profoundly influenced by the elder three of these females, and I hope I am a better person because of it. I am sure that Hannah will join the others in shaping her Grandpa's thinking and behaving in due course.

In addition, I have been privileged to serve Christ in his church alongside some outstanding women, as well as gaining much from many of the females that I have known in the various congregations that I have served over the years.

All this leads me to assert that the life of the feminine half of the race might be so much richer if males can rediscover their masculine genius, complementary to the glorious richness that women bring to the mix of humanity. "Vive la diference" the French have been known to say about the genders, to which I would add that the difference means that we really do need each other if we are to be whole as God intends.

So, in coming weeks keep your eyes open for what gets posted on the new blog, http://beingamaninthisbravenewworld.blogspot.com.

The Scriptures & Preaching in hard times

The other day I was doing due diligence checking up what was going on in the confused and confusing world of Anglicanism when I came across a powerful article on TitusOneNine (http://www.kendallharmon.net) that dealt with the issue of preaching. It was written by a Roman Catholic priest from Rhode Island, David Lewis Stokes, Jr. (http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_stokes29_05-29-07_CE5J3O5.2551ddd.html) The trigger for the piece, published in the Providence Journal, was a story of a local minister had recently been caught "recycled sermons without acknowledging his sources."

The outcome was a thoughtful analysis of preaching and its decline in our culture for, as Fr. Stokes says, "To climb up into a pulpit week after week has become much like the tight-rope artist who must amaze a demanding audience with ever more daring routines."

Stokes' piece was timely and well-modulated, producing several helpful insights that everyone who undertakes the weekly spiritual striptease of preaching would do well to meditate upon. While he skirts around what it might be that reduces preachers to wrapping themselves in someone else's rags, it is implicitly a warning to each of us that we should engage the world of the Bible that it might engage and shape the lives we live in the world of today.

When I read the piece on TitusOneNine I found myself looking forward to the responses to David Stokes and eagerly went several times a day to the article to see what people were saying. After only two slim comments I posted something myself to see if that might stimulate some discussion. Only two more thoughts came trailing in.

Meanwhile, folks were getting hot under the collar by the dozen as they responded the the ecclesiastical political stories being posted, coupled with the banal and bizarre that has become the stock-in trade of much of the Episcopal Church. My inner response was one of exasperation.

One of the most exciting and wonderful things that ordained leaders are called to do is to be privileged to open the Word of God for the People of God on each passing Sunday (and sometimes in the week as well). While there are some who would dispute the priority I give to it, I believe that preaching is a Christian leader's most important task and we belittle it or minimize it at our own and the church's peril.

This, indeed, is what we have done for generation after generation, in Anglicanism and way beyond the borders of our little church. Instead, we get far more agitated about who will attend the Lambeth Conference, whether the Archbishop of Canterbury is a good guy, and so forth.

Yes, we have some intensely difficult ecclesiastical conundra before us and I don't mind admitting that each twist and turn of the Anglican-Episcopal merry-go-round leaves me ever more confused. It is almost impossible to see what is happening in the wider church and it is probable that only with hindsight as the years pass that we will be able to see precisely what has been going on.

The place where the life of the church continues day by day, week by week, month by month, is not the diocese, and is definitely not the national church, but is the congregation. God's way to bring in the Kingdom is by the local community of Christ's people being faithful in their witness both in season and out of season. However, they cannot be faithful if they have not been fed by the incarnate Word from the written Word, and through the work of the Holy Spirit.

This is where preaching comes it, for it is what happens around the work the pastor does in the pulpit that forms and shapes a congregation, helps it set its agenda, asserts its priorities, and attempts to feed the sheep who have gathered around the table. Word and Sacrament go hand-in-hand, but without the Word the Sacrament loses much of its meaning, for the Word is God speaking.

While it would be ludicrous to suggest that we have a moritorium on church politics, although this priest would heartily welcome such a thing, it would not be so foolish to suggest that each of us who is called to the awesome task of rightly expounding the Word of God to manage our time differently. Perhaps we should spend an hour or two less each week surfing the net for the latest howler from the Presiding Bishop and such, and to give that time to marinating ourselves in the Scriptures so that we can pass on something substantial to those we are called to pastor.

The Lambeth Conference Invitations

While rummaging around while waiting for an appointment to arrive I found this at http://www.cartoonchurch.com/blog/ -- and thought it rather fun

Escape from Reality

Back in the Sixties, Dr. Francis Shaeffer's first book was published. It was entitled Escape from Reason, and while Shaeffer's style was not what you would call readily accessible, it was profoundly influential in the lives of many of us who were struggling to work out how to think Christianly -- and, as a result, live Christianly. If Shaeffer had been alive and writing today I suspect the content would have been significantly different and the title might have been Escape from Reality.

We live today in a culture that it seems will do almost anything to hide from reality. We entertain ourselves to death, and we think nothing of repackaging facts, notions, and ideas so that they will not disturb our illusions. We refuse to take words (or in the Christian world, the Word) at plain face value, and then we reinterpret and twist them to suit our own preferences and propensities. Our world is one that is much more comfortable with image rather than substance, and puts feelings before objectivities.

This came home to me afresh when talking recently with my younger daughter, who is a physician. As part of her residency in a gynecology rotation she was asked if she would be prepared to spend a morning observing abortions, something with which she found herself as a committed and biblical Christian struggling. Finally she decided that if she was to be able to give adequate advice in the future to her patients, then at least she should have some first hand knowledge of what happens in such unfortunate circumstances.

On that day there were two procedures. One was a gynecological necessity: something had gone so terribly wrong in the womb that the fertilized egg had died as a result of some unexplained deformity. This was, as she pointed out to me, little more than a D. and C. The other was the termination of a twelve-week pregnancy. My daughter told me that she put on a professional face while having to put her heart, head, and emotions on hold for a while.

As she explained to me what happened I realized that what was going on in that medical situation was akin to an escape from reality by means of being trying to cloud what was going on. Before the procedure began an ultrasound was taken, but the patient was discouraged from seeing it. No explanation was given, but the only reason must have been that at that point the fetus looked so much a baby that it might discourage the mother from going forward.

Then the procedure was completed and the pump had done its work, those working in the operating room had to go through the contents of the receptacle to make sure that nothing had been left behind. As it happened all the organs were there: tiny arms, legs, a head, and so forth. Yet all the time the fiction was being maintained that this was merely the removal of something unwanted that had invaded this woman's body.

Even the language that was used in this particular environment was framed to prevent an actual discussion of the mindset behind such medical events. Rather than talking of the options of pro-choice and pro-life, the appropriate terminology was pro-choice and anti-choice. I suspect that behind this was the fact that being able to choose from a vast array of possibilities is the ultimate good in the postmodern world, so language is configured to make it seem that those who believed that a child had been conceived and now discarded were standing in the way of what is best within our culture.

I tell this story not because I find abortion deeply repugnant (which I do), but because it is such a clear illustration of the manner in which we are willing to put up with the distortion of reality in so many areas and disciplines of life. I would go so far as saying that we live in a world that had an inbuilt determination to do its best hide its head in the sand rather than the sometimes uncomfortable and painful business of facing up to reality.

We see this syndrome working itself out in all sorts of settings and disciplines, and I suspect there are probably times when we catch ourselves doing it. Facing up to reality is not a lot of fun, whether it is the implications of climate change and the part each of us might play in it, to the pitiful messes that we make of our own individual lives and relationships -- yet there is a difference between attempting to cushion life's pressures and trying to avoid them.

At the heart of Christian discipleship is the task of facing and facing up to reality, for at its heart is the incarnation and the work of the Cross, which are God's way of enabling us to deal with the tragedies and hardships that reality engenders. Eugene Peterson recently wrote, "We can refuse to permit the culture to dictate the way we go about our lives" (The Jesus Way page 13) and so we should if we are serious about our faith. This means being willing to face up to reality and its consequences, rather than hiding ourselves away from it, and as they say around the part of the world where I grew up, 'calling a spade a spade.'

Gratitude for the Ministry of John Stott

Having now celebrated his 86th Birthday, Rev. John Stott has made it clear that after speaking at the Keswick Convention this summer for one last time, he will be retiring to a retirement facility for Anglican clergy in the south of England.

And so draws to a close the public ministry of one of the most substantial Christian leaders of our time, one whose influence will be felt for decades, possibly centuries, to come. It is hard to believe that distinctive voice of his will no longer be heard constantly and consistently enunciating and expounding the Scriptures, which have been his lifelong passion. This, perhaps, has been his greatest example.

John Stott is in many ways a man from another time, yet there are countless numbers in Christian leadership today who would probably not be where they are without his books, his preaching, his speaking, his prayers, or his wise counsel. He has certainly been an example to me of what it means to be obedient to Jesus Christ -- and to the ordination vows that we as deacons and priests in the Anglican tradition take.

I have not read all of John's fifty published books, but I have absorbed enough of them to know that his mind, shaped by God's mind revealed in the Word Written, has helped form my mind and influence my discipleship. I spent several months this winter re-absorbing his magnificent work on the Cross once more, and realized as I did so just how poverty-stricken was my own understanding of the finished work of Christ. Once again he encouraged me to, as it were, reach higher.

The last time I saw John to speak to was at the National Evangelical Anglican Congress in England in September 2003. Personally I was still reeling from the blow of the General Convention of that year and felt frightened, angry, and sad. Although it can hardly be described as a proper conversation but more of a chance meeting in the hallway outside the main assembly room, he held my arm wanting to make sure that I was alright. That meant a lot. I suspect our American tragedy of these past few years has been very much part of his prayers.

I first encountered John Stott when I was in my early twenties and he was in his mid-forties. I remember soon after I was ordained John speaking at a junior clergy conference, and as I looked across the room of several hundred eager young men each one was taking notes, we were hanging on his words, learning from the way he apportioned the Word of God. Yet he would never have wanted us to accept what he told us unquestioningly.

Half a dozen years or so later, on a cold, snowy February day in New England, having preached at the parish of which I was then the interim rector, John came to our tiny house and ate lunch. I will never forget the sight of him sitting in the middle of our battered old sofa chatting with and providing entertainment for our elder daughter, Olivia, then four years old.

John is a man who loved children. He made up for his own single state and resulting childlessness by being uncle to countless small kids whose homes he visited in his endless travels around the world. He is not lovingly known as "Uncle John" for nothing!

During the last few years we have watched a triumvirate of extraordinary figures move off the stage of active Christian leadership: two Johns and a Billy. Dr. Graham's public ministry is now, like his old friend John Stott, over. Each of these great evangelical figures, one a Baptist and one an Anglican, has fought the good fight, and henceforth is laid up for them a crown of righteousness which they will receive when they meet their Master face-to-face and hear his, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

The third member of that triumvirate came from a very different background. He was a Pole, Carol Wojtyla: John Paul II. He is already experiencing that fuller life, and is being fast-tracked to sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church. I doubt John Stott would be at all comfortable if such a practice was carried out in Anglicanism, yet I hazard these two Johns together with Billy Graham have made a contribution to the advance of the Gospel which is so huge that it is hard to measure this side of eternity.

As I wind up my own thirty-one years of ministry in the United States and prepare to wend my way home to England, I am beginning to realize what a great privilege it will be to serve the Lord at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. Ridley was where Rev. John R. W. Stott was trained for ordination during the years that surrounded the end of World War Two.

And to Dr. Stott I say from the bottom of my own heart, "Thank you, John, your witness and your ministry has been an inspiration and challenge for which I am profoundly grateful. May God bless you in these your golden years, your active presence will be missed. I hope, however, that your pen will continue to be active!"

What Future for Bishops?

I am a lifelong Anglican, baptized on a spot where Roman children could well have been baptized when I was four months old, and now ordained for more than thirty-eight years. I certainly have had plenty of gripes about bishops, but have always functioned within a context where they are very much part of the landscape -- and always have been. So I don't, per se, have any objection to the office of bishop and the role that it should, might, or could play in the life of the church.

During my ministry, even when we have found ourselves at loggerheads with one another, I have attempted to fulfill my ordination vows of canonical obedience to my bishop, even those bishops whose theological positions (and sometimes hostility) have stretched me to the uttermost. I confess that while I was over-awed by bishops when I was first ordained, today in general this species of ecclesiastical bird does not impress me.

A couple of years ago, as part of the preparation for the election of a new bishop in our diocese, I was charged to put together some studies on the nature of the episcopate which were then shared with all the parishes. I found that a helpful exercise from which came what might be called a personal recommitment to the importance of the office of bishop in the life of the church. However, what it also did was to provide me a lot of data about the history and nature of the office which made me realize just how far our present crop of ordinaries has drifted from anything that could be considered biblical, apostolic, or a historical model of Christian leadership.

The other Sunday the parish asked me if I could give an overview of where we as a province are in relationship with the Anglican Communion, and since then have heard a whole variety of criticisms of the episcopate (among other things) from parishioners -- not least my own wife. As we were driving home from church on that particular Sunday she said something about wondering whether bishops are not now a liability in the church rather than an asset. (She actually has some pretty strong reasons for making such a statement). Let me add, that my wife is no latecomer to Anglicanism, having a lifetime's involvement somewhat like my own except that she is not ordained.

In the past I have loved indulging in those conversations about whether bishops are of the esse (being) of the church, or merely its bene esse (wellbeing), or something else. I have always firmly believed that bishops are for the wellbeing of the church for I do not want in any way to un-church those who are faithful followers of Jesus Christ, but whose churches are not governed in the same manner as ourselves. However, in the last few years I have not seen much wellbeing coming from most of the episcopal leadership of our denomination.

A while back I received a note from a diocesan bishop who had liked something I had written but thought that I was being less than generous with his brother and sister bishops. When someone I respect challenges me in such a way, then I believe it is my responsibility to revisit what I thought and what I said. Perhaps I was being less than fair. Since he wrote me I had been doing that, and now find myself saying, "Yes, I did not judge the episcopate fairly in what I wrote, frankly, I was too generous!"

I am sure to some that this sounds harsh, but we need to assess what the primary functions of the bishop are. They are called to be a focal point of unity in the Body of Christ, they are called to uphold the catholic doctrine and faith, and they are called to be the primary missionary of their diocese. Looking at the actions of the Episcopal Church's bishops over the last few years, it seems that the overwhelming majority have failing grades in each of these areas.

Every effort has been made by much of the Anglican Communion, for to generously accommodate the perceptions of the Episcopal Church, and to maintain unity, but that seems to be the last thing in the world the House of Bishops wants. Indeed, many in that majority are determined to walk apart from the rest of the Communion to which we belong and of which, until now, the Episcopal Church has been a respected member. The House of Bishops then asserted a populist American personality in a kind of in-your-face manner, effectively turning its back on the catholic heritage of the Anglican Communion.

More than that, by their actions they are trying to close the door to continuing catholicity for literally hundreds of thousands within the Episcopal Church who have affirm historic faith and have no desire whatsoever to cut ties with the 80+ million brothers and sisters in Christ that we have around the world. They claimed to be standing up for a minority, but in the process they have excluded from their convictions an even larger minority. This is a tragedy.

Meanwhile, the missionary task of taking Jesus Christ into the communities where we are situated and then into all the world, has been dreadfully damaged -- and not just in those so-called traditional, conservative, Network, or Windsor dioceses and parishes. Most statistics make pretty depressing reading these days, and it is not those dioceses with a strong orthodox component who are being forced to sell their cathedral or the like. Without being able to at least hold their own numerically and in the process recruit a steady flow of younger people, both parishes and dioceses have little hope of much of a future.

As we look around the church, congregations have been forced to close, few new congregations have been planted, and there has been little or no growth in countless parishes which once were moving forward in a healthy manner. Add to that the decline in giving which is reflected in budget deficits at all levels, and the reduction in the number of vocations to overseas ministry, and it is obvious that our ability to be obedient to Jesus's Great Commission is severely jeopardized.

Bishops should have that Great Commission written on their heart, and be leading the people forward in this great adventure, but instead they are often in denial that anything is wrong, or have confused perhaps interesting peripherals for the heart of the Gospel. Then the response to these and so many other failures is denial. Organizations and entities that are in denial are usually in trouble, and there is little doubt that The Episcopal Church has so major problems that, being led by its bishops, it is refusing to address.

One of the reasons for these difficult circumstances in which we find ourselves is that I am not sure that the episcopate of the Episcopal Church has for a long time understood properly what the role of a bishop should be as the servant leader of the servants of God. The model for being bishop that has prevailed for so long is that of the secular corporate Chief Executive Officer, the President of a company with a number of outlets in a particular geographical region rather than a Pastor, a Preacher, a Person of Prayer, someone who sits at the feet of Jesus Christ and humbly leads forward those to whom they have committed their lives.

When a healthy model of what it means to be bishop is removed for any length of time, it should not surprise us that the model that is put in its place is going first to be inadequate to the task, and then will begin to decay or degenerate into something else. This is what has happened! The most recent statements coming out of the House of Bishops demonstrate that these men and women have little idea of the classic roles of leadership that they ought to be exercising - and neither do they possess the theology that should under-gird it. If their documents are anything to go by, their theological capacity is somewhere between patchy and non-existent.

Now, criticism is cheap and easy, the question is whether it is even possible to begin reforming the episcopate. Certainly, the will to reform needs to be there, and right now I sense that is probably missing. However, a starting place might be for them to explore the nature of their task in light of what Scripture teaches, especially the Pastoral Epistles, and also the models of episcopate that prevails in the sub-apostolic church and in churches where there has been healthy spiritual and discipleship advance. What needs to be asked is what the episcopate is actually about, and then how these insights can work in the 21st Century circumstances in which we live.

For those of us who value bishops, we might redouble our prayers for them, but also encourage our own bishops to think about what the challenges and opportunities might be if they were to step aside from the received model of leadership that has come down to them in the last 40-50 years, and move forward by going back to our roots.

For the orderly governance of the church, we need canons, but it would also be incredibly creative and helpful if bishops would stop hiding behind those canons, or using them as zingers to help them maintain their power. Do they not realize that they are servants, and that their mitre is not a crown?

I suspect the Episcopal Church has not yet reached a low enough point where it is prepared to really address the issues that are before it, and certainly the bishops are going to be difficult to budge. I suspect also that those in leadership would have little or no intention of listening to the insights that come with my set of convictions. However, I guess what I am doing is putting some ideas on the table that might percolate into the system together with other people's notions, so that we might in due course be able to move forward in a healthy way.