Author: fatherneo

Consider these figures from the Barna group:

Among non-evangelical, born-again Christians, Obama leads 43-31%. This lead among the born again group is particularly significant, Barna notes, because this would represent the “first time in more than two decades that the born again vote has swung toward the Democratic candidate.”

Among Catholics, Obama has opened a wide lead of 39-29%. Among Protestants, Obama also has a resounding lead of 43-34%.

Barna also noted that the “McCain candidacy does not seem to be gaining momentum among evangelicals,” and his support has in fact “declined significantly.”

Why the shift?

So I’m a little late seeing Dark Knight, but since I saw it on IMAX, I can say my experience of it was tremendous. I liked the character intrigue a bit more in Batman Begins, and I prefer my comic book violence more hand to hand combat than multiple explosions, but I loved the premise of Dark Knight. Repeatedly the characters talked about the hero Gotham ‘deserves’ and ‘wants,’ which was not the black, vigilante Bat, but a more presentable person who ‘plays by the rules.’ I won’t spoil it too much for you.

It is often said the church gets the ‘bishops we deserve,’ which is telling in our Episcopal Church and in other places throughout history (the popes of the 15th century come to mind).

It is also telling to look at the heroes of our own day and culture. Why are our heroes athletes who make millions and don’t have enough sense not to use drugs or drink and drive? Why are our heroes CEOs who take their companies for millions? Why are our heroes beautiful narcissists and handsome millionaire socio-paths who have less relational skills than your average toddler?

We all get the heroes we deserve.

Our Anglican Communion continues to unravel. Regardless of what we do with GAFCON, the global meeting of orthodox Anglicans (heavily weighted to Africa) underscores the obvious reality, the face of Anglicanism (and Christianity) has changed so radically that the average Anglican (ironic term) is a black woman from Africa.

Since the global south and Latin America dominate the numbers, so why then does the North and the West continue to act as though we are what defines the faith. In the Episcopal Church, for example, we think that because of our wealth and prestige we can dictate worldwide Anglicanism. (African Anglicans number about 55 million and about 750,000 Episcopalians in the US show up on a given Sunday) We strut our tininess in the face of the black continent’s dominance. We don’t even have a voice in our own country, much less among those for whom the Bible is a book that is alive, a book that is animated by God’s Holy Spirit.

Now, to be sure, the African and Latin American churches have a multitude of problems and issues (tribalism, polygamy, political compromise with dictators, etc.), however, revival is happening because being at the bottom brings one to God.

Theologian Miroslav Volf said:

To triumph fully, evil needs two victories, not one. The first victory happens when an evil deed is perpetrated; the second victory, when evil is returned. After the first victory, evil would die if the second victory did not infuse it with new life.

At our parish Sunday, we had one of the lost boys of Sudan speak to us, Father Daniel Deng Kuot (he is pictured on the far right). Father Daniel is from southern Sudan and in the early 90’s, his village was destroyed and his family killed by soldiers from the Khartoum trained Islamic government. The government of Khartoum convinced the Muslims of Darfur (western Sudan) that the black Christians of the south were hindering the spread of Islam, and that the natural resources in the south (gold, oil) should go to the rest of the country. So, many of the attacks on the southern blacks of Sudan were carried out by Darfurian Muslims.

In 2003, the Muslims of Darfur realized that they had been used by the government and the share of the natural resources in the south was not a reality. Many of them felt used and betrayed, so they spoke out. Therefore, that same year, the Khartoum government decided to wipe out the Darfurians as they had attempted to do to the black Christians. As you know, many from Darfur have been killed or displaced and live in refugee camps.

Fr. Daniel has made most of his recent missionary efforts to the people of Darfur. He has brought to the same people who killed his loved ones food, clothing, medical aid, and the love of Jesus Christ. He, and others from the Sudanese community who have settled in the United States and other places after being displaced in part because of the Darfurians, have decided that the love of Jesus is more effective than revenge.

This is love of the most powerful and difficult kind. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who abuse you…”

Fr. Daniel has a bullet hole in his back from a radical Muslim. Yet he is not afraid. And he loves them. In Fr. Daniel’s life, evil is dying.

A Methodist is a Baptist who can read.
A Presbyterian is a Methodist with money.
An Episcopalian is a Presbyterian with manners.

While there are many problems with my own church in the US (The Episcopal Church), the reason it has been unable to be indigenous like other Anglican bodies around the world, is primarily because it is the church of gin and lace.  It was once the ‘Republican party at prayer’ and now it is the ‘Green party at prayer.’

With all of its claim to progressiveness you would think it was the religion of the masses.  Not so.  It is the religion of the elite.  We never learned (with some notable exceptions) how to be accessible to people of all hues and economic backgrounds.  In fact we have persecuted those who have tried to do just that (Wesley, as an example).

How do we get away from the wine and cheese culture?

 

So the true difficulty is making time and space amidst ‘household’ responsibility.  If you look at the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (250 A.D), you discover that the ‘hours of prayer’ made famous by the monastic tradition, actually began in the church among ‘ordinary’ Christians.  So, the early Christians rose at midnight and prayed, and prayed several times during the day (7 times total), both corporately (before work the community would gather daily) and privately, presumably with the children around and the chaos that accompanies little ones.

Folks get their knickers in a knot when kids are present at worship fidgeting and doing things kids do, but I wonder if that’s not the beauty of it.  Should we not all learn to pray, worship and receive the sacraments as soon as possible? Should we not all learn to be silent, even when the world around us is buzzing.  Should we not ‘take our cells’ into the world?

I heard that when Henri Nouwen used to teach workshops to seminarians on prayer, he would begin by gathering the class together (and of course they were in rapt attention), say a few words, then request that they sit in silence—for four hours!

Nouwen would observe that the seminarians would squirm and fidget during the first two hours before finally sitting still. What Nouwen concluded and what his students learned was that, in our cultural cacophony of distractions, it takes two whole hours to block out the noise, and that only then can we begin to listen to the Spirit of God.

I have gone back to Henri Nouwen’s book, The Way of the Heart, his reflection on how the sayings and stories of the Desert Fathers can inform ministry in our day (and any day). What struck me was his notion that silence is not usually what we think of. We think of silence as an opportunity to have ‘me’ time or to have our ‘privacy.’

Silence from the desert perspective is not to have a quiet moment for ‘getting away from it all.’ Desert silence is going in your cell to be mortified; to be purged; to be converted. It is to leave the world, face the Devil and one’s own disordered passions. It is to stand in God’s presence, with all that we are and all that we are not laid before him. To stand before him to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and to whom no secrets are hid.

Indeed, the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before Him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Muslim women dress so as not to be taken advantage of.

Jewish (Hasidic and Orthodox) men ‘wear’ their faith so that all can see.

Buddhists look like, Buddhists.

Christians priests are obvious, but what makes the body as a whole distinct?  I know, no ritual or dress ‘saves’ us, but do the rituals of Western culture bring us down to Gehenna?  I know, we love, so that all will know we are disciples, we live righteously (theoretically on both of those) but it seems there should be something physical, tangible and obvious about our faith as there is for the other faiths of the world.  We are not Gnostics are we?

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

As I wrote below, to find success in our culture is not to find one’s place in the group, but to transcend it. I was reading a recent Touchstone article (‘Unmarried, Still Children” by Joan Frawley Desmond) and the author quotes Jeffrey Arnett’s recent work Emerging Adulthood, where Arnett says that those in their late teens and twenties define adulthood as “accepting responsibility for the consequences of your actions,” and choosing “personal beliefs and values independently of parents or other influences.”

Even the old Lutheran Hiedelberg Catechism, while emphasizing strongly individual salvation and  individual justification says,

Question 54. What believest thou concerning the “holy catholic church” of Christ?

Answer: That the Son of God from the beginning to the end of the world, gathers, defends, and preserves  to himself by his Spirit and word,  out of the whole human race, a church chosen to everlasting life, agreeing in true faith;  and that I am and forever shall remain,  a living member thereof.