I am in a Dmin program at the local Seminary. Last week I took a course on ‘Leadership in Spiritual Formation.’ I was shocked (and delighted) that the prof, an executive pastor in a mega-church, has found himself on a journey to the church fathers and the ancient practices of ascesis as described by the Desert Fathers.
Recently, Willow Creek Church has put out a study based on a collection of surveys called Reveal, which ‘revealed’ that much of what Willow has done (mega, super size, seeker everything) has not formed disciples. In fact, they found that those involved most in church activities were the least ‘formed’ of the ranges of people that pass through their ‘big barn.’
It is easy to pick on the consumerism of mega-churches, but even our best churches (of all traditions) are finding it more and more difficult to make disciples who are mature and passionate about Jesus.
We all know that if we ‘did it like the apostles’ we would be great. The second century catechumanate would be outstanding. But in the land that produces the most Christian materials, that has access to more discipleship ‘stuff’ than any other culture in the history of the world, we can’t seem to make disciples. In fact, by population, we are becoming more and more ‘unchurched’ and are in need of missionaries to us!
I have thought much (and am doing a lot of reading) about what it means to be ‘missional’ in the context of the local church and as Christians in the so-called ‘postmodern’ environment we find ourselves in. This being an election year, a variety of issues are at the forefront: many ‘moral’ in nature. War, sexuality, immigration, etc.
So what is at stake for us, as Christians? Is it important that we ‘win’ in regards to having our agendas met?
We are all citizens and therefore it is our duty to vote, and vote our conscience. However, does the Church have a different aim, goal, mission than the state? I hope so. But to engage in the way we speak as Christians, you would think that Christians expect the state to have the exact same goals as we do. Or, in fact, maybe we’ve forgotten our mission altogether and mistake ‘being right’ or ‘winning’ with spreading the gospel. Therefore, can ‘winning’ be counterproductive? Are we expending energy on the ‘battle’ rather than the ‘war?’ (again figuratively speaking.)
Epiphanytide Blessings! When we think of an ‘Epiphany,’ we think of an ‘aha’ moment–a moment of clarity or discovery. The Feast of the Epiphany (Theophany in the East), is the feast of manifestation; the manifestation of Jesus as the Theoanthropos to the Magi, and in his baptism, and in his first miracle.
Epiphanytide is a gift to the Church and to the world because it continues the reflection of the Incarnation after the calendar has passed December 25th. We don’t cease contemplating God becoming man because Christmas is over, we continue because our faith is meaningless without the reality that God became man to save us and to make us like himself.
I was somewhat of an Ebenezer Scrooge this Advent. I guess it was because there really is no such thing as Advent anymore. No asceticism, just a lot of expansion of tummies. No repentance, just a lot of over indulgence. Such is the ‘holiday season’ in America. I felt that it was 30+ days of missing the point.
Then, I got laryngitis the 23rd and am still getting over whatever it is I have had for almost 2 weeks. I had to preach and celebrate sounding like a tiny froglet. Bah humbug baby.
While the Christmas Eve liturgy was beautiful as always (though I tried to sing ‘Silent Night’ and nothing came out), it was not until Christmas Day that my Ebenezer attitude waned.
There are a group of refugees from Sudan and Burundi who attend our church. Since it was snowing and hardly anyone showed up for the Christmas Day low mass, I went to pick up the refugees. I thought that only one or two would even be out to greet me, but the whole 20+ of them were ready for the ‘big’ celebration. They didn’t realize that the big service was the night before. I had to make two trips and was 15 minutes late to my own service. But it was worth it.
The service was fine and I growled my way through the liturgy, but the ‘Christmas moment’ did not come until I was taking them home. They live a short distance away, but the snow made for a longer trip and one woman began to spontaneously sing ‘Angels We Have Heard On High’–in Kurundi.
The tempo was a bit off for my Anglicized ear, and understood not a word, until I heard ‘Glooooriaoooriaoooooria, in excelsis deo…’
Here was a group of people stranded in a refugee camp in Tanzania since 1972; children who were born in miserable conditions, only knowing life as a refugee–and yet they were singing a French Christmas carol with a Latin chorus.
No matter how the Church has failed Africa and other places throughout history, Jesus showed up in Africa and everywhere our fragile feet have tried to take the gospel. I heard it on the lips of precious people whom God has rescued and brought to our doorsteps. The songs of angels, ‘Glory to God in the highest…’ has reached all times and all places. I heard it sung by His missionaries, only now they sing to my land and my people.
The translation of the Bible into English marked the birth of religious fundamentalism in medieval times, as well as the persecution that often comes with radical adherence in any era, according to a new book.
The 16th-century English Reformation, the historic period during which the Scriptures first became widely available in a common tongue, is often hailed by scholars as a moment of liberation for the general public, as it no longer needed to rely solely on the clergy to interpret the verses.
But being able to read the sometimes frightening set of moral codes spelled out in the Bible scared many literate Englishmen into following it to the letter, said James Simpson, a professor of English at Harvard University.
“Reading became a tightrope of terror across an abyss of predestination,” said Simpson, author of “Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and its Reformation Opponents” (Harvard University Press, 2007).
“It was destructive for [Protestants], because it did not invite freedom but rather fear of misinterpretation and damnation,” Simpson said.
It was Protestant reformer William Tyndale who first translated the Bible into colloquial English in 1525, when the movement away from Catholicism began to sweep through England during the reign of Henry VIII. The first printings of Tyndale’s Bible were considered heretical before England’s official break from the Roman Church, yet still became very popular among commoners interested in the new Protestant faith, Simpson said.
“Very few people could actually read,” said Simpson, who has seen estimates as low as 2 percent, “but the Bible of William Tyndale sold very well—as many as 30,000 copies before 1539 in the plausible estimate of a modern scholar; that’s remarkable, since all were bought illegally.”
When Catholicism slowly became the minority in the 1540s and 50s, many who hadn’t yet accepted Protestantism were berated for not reading the Bible in the same way, Simpson said.
“Scholarly consensus over the last decade or so is that most people did not convert to [Protestantism]. They had it forced upon them,” Simpson told LiveScience.
Persecution and paranoia became the norm, Simpson said, as the new Protestants feared damnation if they didn’t interpret the book properly. Prologues in Tyndale’s Bible warned readers what lay ahead if they did not follow the verses strictly.
“If you fail to read it properly, then you begin your just damnation. If you are unresponsive … God will scourge you, and everything will fail you until you are at utter defiance with your flesh,” the passage reads.
Without the clergy guiding them, and with religion still a very important factor in the average person’s life, their fate rested in their own hands, Simpson said.
The rise of fundamentalist interpretations during the English Reformation can be used to understand the global political situation today and the growth of Islamic extremism, Simpson said as an example.
“Very definitely, we see the same phenomenon: newly literate people claiming that the sacred text speaks for itself, and legitimates violence and repression,” Simpson said, “and the same is also true of Christian fundamentalists.”
This is what the government of (Northern) Sudan sent to pick up the teacher who named the class teddy bear ‘Muhammed.’ While every prime time in America Christianity is blasphemed, the government in Khartoum can hardly handle something this innocuous.
If you want to know what has happened in Sudan, imagine the whole Southern part of the country being ruled by a government like the one in the North. Kyrie Elieson!
Quddouson Allââh, Quddouson ul-qawee, Quddouson ulladhee la yamout, Irhamna!
So asks the Orthodox bishop, Kallistos Ware. In his work The Inner Kingdom, he dares to ask the question. Ware is not a squishy theologian. He is thoroughly traditional and Orthodox in all points. But he is expressing a true and I think orthodox hope.
He mentions that St. Gregory of Nyssa also had such hopes. Ware says,
“Gregory [writes], ‘the wickedness which is now mingled and consolidated with our nature has been finally expelled from it, and when all those things that are now sunk down in evil are restored to their original state, there will ascend from the entire creation a united hymn of thanksgiving…All this is contained in the great mystery of the Divine Incarnation.’This final restoration, Gregory clearly states, will embrace even the devil.”
Ware does not deny the existence of hell, he only questions the purpose for it. Is it a place of condemnation and judgment, or does it have a restorative or healing element to it? Is the fire of God wrathful or is it remedial? Ware is not trying to presume that God’s purpose will eventually win out to save everyone, he is only expressing a hope and a sincere prayer.
So many of our Mainline denominations are becoming pathetic shells of irrelevance and heretical teaching. There have been a variety of schisms and people in exodus for at least three decades, my Episcopal Church being a case study in hemorrhaging and splintering. There are basically two choices, Exodus or Exile. To exodus is to leave it all behind, to find solace in Rome, Orthodoxy, or some sort of megalomania church. Or, in the case of orthodox Anglicans, to ‘come under Episcopal oversight’ of a foreign body. The new body then becomes characterized by the bitterness and memories of the old. The new body then tries to create an idealism from a bygone era, whether that be the ’50s or (God forbid) the 60s or 70s, or even the mega-church 80s.
There then the bitterness will extend to the ‘foolish ones’ who chose to stay behind. ‘They just stay because they are afraid for their jobs (or pensions, or whatever).’ The insecurity they feel in their ‘safe haven’ is projected upon those who are still in the ‘apostate’ tradition.
But what of those who choose exile in their own traditions? What of those who choose to stay in the Episcopal Church, for example? What of their fate?
There are no easy solutions and tomes have been written in this regard. Can you be apostolic and missional in Babylon? Can you be Catholic in the midst of heresy? Can you have Catholic order amidst ecclesiastical disorder? Can you sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land?
We, who are orthodox must find a different way other than schism and compromise. There are tools in the unopened chests of our tradition that must be employed. The first is repentance. Years of compromise in areas of sexuality have left us where we are today. How can we speak against one form of fornication when we have turned a blind eye to other forms of fornication for years?
We also need to repent for neglecting widows, the fatherless and the sojourners among us. Conservative Episcopalians in the US have been the arrogant elite who have failed to care for the poor among us and our fellow Anglican Africans overseas. While Christians have been dying and abused in this and every land, we conservative Episcopalians have been sipping brandy and talking about the stock market. It is time to repent.
Secondly, we need to pray. We need to create monastic and neo-monastic communities within our churches that call upon the power of God. No structural solution is as strong as the power of God working among his people. Prayer is also an antidote to the venom that characterizes so many of our own ranks. When we have Matthew 5 and Luke 6 hearts, the world will take notice. Only prayer can get us there.
Lastly, we (orthodox) need to work together. We need to rely on the power of the gospel and the koinonia of our mutual work. We need to worship and learn together. We need to be inspired to grow our churches and our own souls. We need to find out why there is revival in our world and ask the Holy Spirit to bring it to us. We need to scan the world for the fire of God and follow its light. We also need to share resources and even workers in the harvest.
There are no easy answers for those of us in Babylon. Only the path of Jesus.
I was invited to interview with a small but vibrant church outside of town. My wife and I were greeted to at least a hundred folks for a picnic. We thought they were there to see us, but it was really a ‘going away party’ for most of the parish.
They were a parish meeting in a trailer while the church next door was huge with all the great facilities. So, the young rector decided it would be good to leave the fuddy duddies behind and merge with the larger body. He took the picnic as an opportunity to yell at an old guy who had held him back and told him he couldn’t wait to ‘get the hell out’ of the little church.
In the dream, my wife and I were sympathetic to the 10-15 quirky older folks who were staying behind and wondered if God were still calling us there. One guy walked by us in the picnic and asked if I was the new rector. He then said, ‘well, too bad I’m leaving, but that other church has the best library, and a school, and…’
There are a variety of historical origins of Halloween (or All Hallows/Saints Eve), from the ancient Celtic Festival of Samhein, which was all about the dead visiting the living, to the pious Christian celebration of those who have gone before us-beginning with fasting and ending with baptisms and high liturgy.
Many Christians have their knickers in a knot on Halloween because of its potential for demonic emphasis. What do you think?
