I have been ranting lately about the Episcopal Church--and some of you think I'm being extreme about the subject. I admit it. I am. It is probably the only way to be in a community that thrives on accommodation. Look at how our church handled the issue of slavery: we did not split, as other denominations did, but we also simply never addressed the matter honestly. That left us in a position of some awkwardness during the civil rights era. We were simply a segregated church. The same was the case with the ordination of women. It took extreme action to change the dynamics. Someone wrote to say that I am using the divisive tactics of the right. And that is probably accurate. A united church or communion is not the holy grail.
But what I want to write about today is the film, Amazing Grace, which my wife and I saw on Saturday. It is about William Wilberforce and the effort to abolish the slave trade in Britain in the early eighteenth century. Amazing Grace is not a great film, but it is a good film. The acting is fine, the story line is well developed. Good and evil are somewhat less than black and white, although Wilberforce seems to lack all fault. Nonetheless, it is a film we Episcopalians should see and hear carefully. At one point in the story, the House of Commons and the leaders of the church caution that while they agree that slavery is an abomination, it is necessary to go slowly in order to protect business interests. The society runs on the slave trade and there is no easy way to change the order of things without distrupting economic and social comfort. (The same argument is almost always made against social change.) While the British government went carefully, thousands of Africans were sold and died. (What might happen in a forty-day period of reflection on whether gays are human? Gays may die from hate crimes here and around the world, while we pray for guidance.)
In the film there are clergy active on behalf of abolition. They are perceived by those in the mainstream as being "nuts." And indeed they seem to be somewhat off the rails. They are driven by one idea and one wonders if that is such a healthy way to live. But at the same time, it is obvious that Wilberforce is unable to let go of what he hears as a calling from God to take action against an obvious evil. In that, of course, he was absolutely right. As were those who took action against segregation in the US and died in defense of those who could not change the system on their own. The Episcopal Church has a martyr or two among the dead, Jonathan Daniels, to name one. He was vilified by his church and his bishop attempted to rein him in.
Amazing Grace reminds us that social change does not just come about on its own, as our Presiding Bishop intimated in her recent remarks to the staff at the Episcopal Church Center. Progress, she said, is being made. I think the underlying message is: be patient. But left alone, physics tells us, things decay, including the pursuit of justice--although it is interesting to note, that left alone injustice seems to flourish, contrary to the laws of physics. Perhaps evil is above such things. It appears that we need to be instruments of grace in order to counteract the ordinary course of evil. That's what Christians are meant to be.
Bishop John Chane of Washington, DC, has also spoken out on the subject. He says that he will not roll back the clock to appease the Anglican Communion. Take a look at the website for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and read what he has to say: www. edow.org.
On the good news front, a beaver has returned to the Bronx River, setting up a house where no beavers have been seen in two centuries. Somehow this beaver came to learn that it is ok to be in the Bronx River again, that the right kind of tree is there for him, that there is good clean food. It is not clear whether he is alone. He may be bringing a mate. We can hope. I like to think of this lonely beaver, taking off on his own. Back among his beaver relatives and friends I imagine their is a lot of talk. "Imagine, going off like that on his own. Why does he think he knows more than the rest of us? You watch, he'll be back. Beavers were never meant to be in the Bronx. Am I right? Huh?"
Monday, February 26, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Giving Up Church for Lent
Following her less than thriumphal return from the meeting of Anglican leaders in Tanzania, the Presiding Bishop of the Episocopal Church has asked the faithful to observe a season of fasting, which she has defined, in part, as temporarily abandoning the church's fundamental embrace of all people. She is saying, in effect: let us temporarily exclude gays from the privileges of inclusion while we ponder whether the "other side" might have a point.
Peter Akinola, head of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, represents the other side. His country is pondering a law that makes gayness a crime. It is a first step toward exterminating gays. Do we really need to reflect prayerfully on whether that might be a good thing? Do we need to ask God's guidance as to the value of all human beings in God's sight? Is this not, in essence, a religious Munich?
During the meeting in Tanzania, the primates (as the leaders of Anglican provinces are called) went to Zanzibar to hold a Eucharist (Episcospeak for Holy Communion) to repent of the Church's involvement in slavery on this two-hundredth anniversary of Wilberforce's successful campaign against slavery in Britain. I think it's wonderful that the primates were feeling penitent about their institution's past sins. But of course the irony is that the primates were knowingly continuing to treat certain humans as less human than they, the essential condition for slavery to flourish.
Not only that, but there was not one word, so far as I can tell, about slavery in the present day: sex trafficking, employment slavery, the ownership of humans. It goes on. There are an estimated 800,000 women in sex trafficking in the world today; some 200,000 of them are in the US. Nigeria is an important hub of the sex trade in Africa and has not signed on to the international agreement to combat the trade in people as sexual objects. Akinola and his US followers have not said a word about this modern-day slavery. Nor has the American church (the General Convention of the Episcopal Church passed a resolution condemning sex trafficking in 2003 but, typically, nothing else seems to have been done about it).
In the United States, Atlanta and San Francisco are bustling centers of the sex trade, but I have not heard a single word from the bishops in those cities about the crime of slavery under their church noses.
Perhaps some repentence for current sins is in order.
Many members of the Anglican Communion are in countries that participate in sex trafficking. There are also wars on the planet. There is starvation. There is genocide in Sudan. There is stuff for the church to talk about and to do something about.
But the primates assembled in Tanzania could only think about one thing (well, they did mention a few other matters, but we know that they were not the real meat of the meal).
And the leader of the Episcopal Church in the US appears to have agreed with the conclusion of the primates that now would be a good time to consider whether gays really belong. Or whether the rantings of bigots (don't tell me about their pain, please) should engage our Lenten reflection.
The Episcopal Church has finally made itself profoundly irrelevent by concluding that membership in an exclusive, private club (The Anglican Communion)--never mind that it has membership rules that exclude certain "impure" groups--is more important than, well, just about anything.
For me, that means that I am going to take this period of Lent to give up the church, to withhold monetrary support (do not tithe for apartheid), to stay away from its sacred ceremonies and pious follies, and to reflect prayerfully on how those of us who loved a different church might call it back to faithfulness. If you are interested in joining me, let me know. (And if you are not an Episcopalian but believe that your church is also irrelevent to the present real world, feel free to join in--or, rather, opt out.)
Peter Akinola, head of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, represents the other side. His country is pondering a law that makes gayness a crime. It is a first step toward exterminating gays. Do we really need to reflect prayerfully on whether that might be a good thing? Do we need to ask God's guidance as to the value of all human beings in God's sight? Is this not, in essence, a religious Munich?
During the meeting in Tanzania, the primates (as the leaders of Anglican provinces are called) went to Zanzibar to hold a Eucharist (Episcospeak for Holy Communion) to repent of the Church's involvement in slavery on this two-hundredth anniversary of Wilberforce's successful campaign against slavery in Britain. I think it's wonderful that the primates were feeling penitent about their institution's past sins. But of course the irony is that the primates were knowingly continuing to treat certain humans as less human than they, the essential condition for slavery to flourish.
Not only that, but there was not one word, so far as I can tell, about slavery in the present day: sex trafficking, employment slavery, the ownership of humans. It goes on. There are an estimated 800,000 women in sex trafficking in the world today; some 200,000 of them are in the US. Nigeria is an important hub of the sex trade in Africa and has not signed on to the international agreement to combat the trade in people as sexual objects. Akinola and his US followers have not said a word about this modern-day slavery. Nor has the American church (the General Convention of the Episcopal Church passed a resolution condemning sex trafficking in 2003 but, typically, nothing else seems to have been done about it).
In the United States, Atlanta and San Francisco are bustling centers of the sex trade, but I have not heard a single word from the bishops in those cities about the crime of slavery under their church noses.
Perhaps some repentence for current sins is in order.
Many members of the Anglican Communion are in countries that participate in sex trafficking. There are also wars on the planet. There is starvation. There is genocide in Sudan. There is stuff for the church to talk about and to do something about.
But the primates assembled in Tanzania could only think about one thing (well, they did mention a few other matters, but we know that they were not the real meat of the meal).
And the leader of the Episcopal Church in the US appears to have agreed with the conclusion of the primates that now would be a good time to consider whether gays really belong. Or whether the rantings of bigots (don't tell me about their pain, please) should engage our Lenten reflection.
The Episcopal Church has finally made itself profoundly irrelevent by concluding that membership in an exclusive, private club (The Anglican Communion)--never mind that it has membership rules that exclude certain "impure" groups--is more important than, well, just about anything.
For me, that means that I am going to take this period of Lent to give up the church, to withhold monetrary support (do not tithe for apartheid), to stay away from its sacred ceremonies and pious follies, and to reflect prayerfully on how those of us who loved a different church might call it back to faithfulness. If you are interested in joining me, let me know. (And if you are not an Episcopalian but believe that your church is also irrelevent to the present real world, feel free to join in--or, rather, opt out.)
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Tearing Down the House
This morning I was reading Donald Richie's lovely little book, The Inland Sea, which is an account of his exploration of the islands and communities that surround the long, narrow sea below the main island of Japan. The book was published first in 1971 and reissued in 2002 by Stone Bridge Press. In a section about Shinto shrines, Richie talks about something I had heard when I was in Kyoto last summer but had not understood: that the great shrine of Ise was torn down every twenty years and rebuilt--and that this had been going on for over a thousand years. (I had heard that all shinto shrines are destroyed and rebuilt in this way, but I don't know if that's true.) Richie speaks of this process as being a way of stopping time, not the building of great structures like the pyramids or the Empire State Building, or cathedrals.
Richie doesn't mention cathedrals, but reading his reflections made me think of the church structures we revere so highly in Christianity. My own parish church is an architectural gem, really quite beautiful. Sometimes it seems that we worship the space itself not in the space. This weekend I am off to Philadelphia for a meeting in the cathedral there, which has been redesigned to accommodate rearrangements of the furniture according to different seasons and festivals. I hear that it is an impressive space, although the preservationists were outraged that it had been gutted and rebuilt. I am looking forward to seeing it.
When I was last there, the space was appointed as a traditional gothic church, dark, pews insisting on their right to dominate, everything oriented rigidly to the altar and priest. I was doing a one-man show that I had created in which I played St. Francis of Assisi. The show could be longer or shorter, depending on the situation, but it always began in the same way: I told the story of Francis when he was confronted by the town bishop and his father for stealing from his father to pay for repairs to the local church. Francis takes off his clothes and goes naked into the woods, declaring that his only father is the one in heaven. I took off my clothes, leaving, however, a pair of shorts to protect the delicate.
After the death of St. Francis, some of his followers tried to carry on his practice of radical poverty, wandering the countryside and resisting the pressures of the church heirarchy to create a permanent church structure and begin to make some money off of the pilgrim trade. Eventually, these radical followers of Francis were declared heretics. It was against the gospel to be poor and to wander freely about. (How can the bishop control what you do or how you worship if he doesn't know where you are?)
In my previous post, I spoke about Trinity Church in lower Manhattan, which owns a lot of real estate and has its own impressive tent of meeting. Since then I notice that the churches in Virginia that wish to break with the Episcopal Church authority there are suing to keep their property. In the end, that's what matters most: who gets what possessions in the divorce.
These musings have a point: church buildings are a burden to the faithful. They substitute as objects of worship; they cost too much to maintain; they become the focus of controversy when larger issues should be addressed (as in the case of parishes leaving the fold); they are not intrinsic to the Christian way, which in the beginning was followed in the homes of the faithful.
Quite simply, I suggest that we get rid of them as quickly as we can. When the dissidents leave the official church, we should let them have the buildings and the burden of caring for them. When congregations are too small for massive structures, they should abandon them and convert them to nightclubs, as has happened with one former Episcopal Church in New York. Where feasible, we should sell the churches and allow them to be torn down and replaced by condominiums.
Thirty-five years ago, when I visited the island of Solentiname in the south of Lake Nicaragua--the home of liberation theology--I went to Mass in a shed with no walls. The cows wandered in and out, chewing cud. The whole thing could easily have been blown down by a strong wind. No problem. It would be easy to put it up again. It seems trite to say: it was clear that the church was not the building. It was the people partying with God.
Perhaps we should adopt the Shinto model and tear down our churches every twenty years or so. Think of all the money and grief we would save. Not to mention the high cost of insurance.
Richie doesn't mention cathedrals, but reading his reflections made me think of the church structures we revere so highly in Christianity. My own parish church is an architectural gem, really quite beautiful. Sometimes it seems that we worship the space itself not in the space. This weekend I am off to Philadelphia for a meeting in the cathedral there, which has been redesigned to accommodate rearrangements of the furniture according to different seasons and festivals. I hear that it is an impressive space, although the preservationists were outraged that it had been gutted and rebuilt. I am looking forward to seeing it.
When I was last there, the space was appointed as a traditional gothic church, dark, pews insisting on their right to dominate, everything oriented rigidly to the altar and priest. I was doing a one-man show that I had created in which I played St. Francis of Assisi. The show could be longer or shorter, depending on the situation, but it always began in the same way: I told the story of Francis when he was confronted by the town bishop and his father for stealing from his father to pay for repairs to the local church. Francis takes off his clothes and goes naked into the woods, declaring that his only father is the one in heaven. I took off my clothes, leaving, however, a pair of shorts to protect the delicate.
After the death of St. Francis, some of his followers tried to carry on his practice of radical poverty, wandering the countryside and resisting the pressures of the church heirarchy to create a permanent church structure and begin to make some money off of the pilgrim trade. Eventually, these radical followers of Francis were declared heretics. It was against the gospel to be poor and to wander freely about. (How can the bishop control what you do or how you worship if he doesn't know where you are?)
In my previous post, I spoke about Trinity Church in lower Manhattan, which owns a lot of real estate and has its own impressive tent of meeting. Since then I notice that the churches in Virginia that wish to break with the Episcopal Church authority there are suing to keep their property. In the end, that's what matters most: who gets what possessions in the divorce.
These musings have a point: church buildings are a burden to the faithful. They substitute as objects of worship; they cost too much to maintain; they become the focus of controversy when larger issues should be addressed (as in the case of parishes leaving the fold); they are not intrinsic to the Christian way, which in the beginning was followed in the homes of the faithful.
Quite simply, I suggest that we get rid of them as quickly as we can. When the dissidents leave the official church, we should let them have the buildings and the burden of caring for them. When congregations are too small for massive structures, they should abandon them and convert them to nightclubs, as has happened with one former Episcopal Church in New York. Where feasible, we should sell the churches and allow them to be torn down and replaced by condominiums.
Thirty-five years ago, when I visited the island of Solentiname in the south of Lake Nicaragua--the home of liberation theology--I went to Mass in a shed with no walls. The cows wandered in and out, chewing cud. The whole thing could easily have been blown down by a strong wind. No problem. It would be easy to put it up again. It seems trite to say: it was clear that the church was not the building. It was the people partying with God.
Perhaps we should adopt the Shinto model and tear down our churches every twenty years or so. Think of all the money and grief we would save. Not to mention the high cost of insurance.
Monday, February 5, 2007
While the Waters Rise
The Episcopal Church, it seems, has a talent for the ridiculous. Episcopalians form perhaps the easiest group of believers to satirize (and the safest--we just don't get violent). It could be the way our clergy dress up--not only dress up, since Roman Catholics and Christian Orthodox get fancy without being made so much fun of. We Episcopalians make a fetish of our clerical garments--we take them so seriously. A priest I know said, when he was elected bishop, "think of all the great clothes." And he was only half kidding. Another bishop suggested his autobiography might be titled, Men in Skirts. Now, of course, we have women in, um, well, they're already in skirts. Some of this is an ability to mock ourselves and that's a good thing. But we are easily mocked by others, especially perhaps when we try to be serious and important about, for example, the Big Issues Facing the World.
Take this week's issue of The New Yorker, which has a hilarious piece by Rebecca Mead on the latest Trinity Institute conference, "God's Unfinished Future: Why It Matters Now." Apparently the attendees called it "Apocalypse Not" (although the funnier New Yorker typo--did the New Yorker used to have typos?--reads, Apocalpyse Not).
For those who don't follow the Epyscopal Church insider guide, The Trinity Institute programs have for years brought Big Deals in Religion to New York's Trinity Church (downtown Manhattan), the richest church in the world, to talk about Important Subjects. This year's conference was on one of the neglected subjects of Episcopal discourse, the Book of Revelation and the End Times. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists think about the End Times a lot. There is an entire series of books, in fact, The Left Behind Series, that lays out in excruciatingly bad fiction what happens when the End comes and the good are raptured (taken to Heaven) while the Bad are left behind to duke it out with the AntiChrist. At the Very End of Time, when JESUS comes back to judge those left and annihilate the legions of the AntiChrist, it is very bad news indeed. According to the latest installment of the series, Jesus cuts off body parts and blows up infidels. It isn't pretty. And I suspect Episcopalians figure prominently among the dispatched.
Needless to say, when Episcopalians talk about the End, they don't use such graphic, impolite images. As Mead describes it, they get together for canapes and Pinot Noir and say ridiculous things. (I know this to be true.) Mainly, it seems, people concerned with the End are the poor or culturally disadvantaged, of which there were few to none, I'd guess, at Trinity. Peter Gomes noted that we Episcopalians have a greater investment in the present than in the future.
Trinity's investment in the present is huge: it owns much of the real estate in downtown Manhattan. One might think that the church would care about global warming, since the impact on its real estate holdings could be significant, something Mead noted wryly in her article.
What her article suggests to me is that it's not only the world that should be worried about rising waters. For Episcopalians, as the Psalm says, the waters have risen up to our necks. We're drowning as we sip our Pinot Noir and attend, glancing slowly into the mirror, to the creases in our vestments.
Take this week's issue of The New Yorker, which has a hilarious piece by Rebecca Mead on the latest Trinity Institute conference, "God's Unfinished Future: Why It Matters Now." Apparently the attendees called it "Apocalypse Not" (although the funnier New Yorker typo--did the New Yorker used to have typos?--reads, Apocalpyse Not).
For those who don't follow the Epyscopal Church insider guide, The Trinity Institute programs have for years brought Big Deals in Religion to New York's Trinity Church (downtown Manhattan), the richest church in the world, to talk about Important Subjects. This year's conference was on one of the neglected subjects of Episcopal discourse, the Book of Revelation and the End Times. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists think about the End Times a lot. There is an entire series of books, in fact, The Left Behind Series, that lays out in excruciatingly bad fiction what happens when the End comes and the good are raptured (taken to Heaven) while the Bad are left behind to duke it out with the AntiChrist. At the Very End of Time, when JESUS comes back to judge those left and annihilate the legions of the AntiChrist, it is very bad news indeed. According to the latest installment of the series, Jesus cuts off body parts and blows up infidels. It isn't pretty. And I suspect Episcopalians figure prominently among the dispatched.
Needless to say, when Episcopalians talk about the End, they don't use such graphic, impolite images. As Mead describes it, they get together for canapes and Pinot Noir and say ridiculous things. (I know this to be true.) Mainly, it seems, people concerned with the End are the poor or culturally disadvantaged, of which there were few to none, I'd guess, at Trinity. Peter Gomes noted that we Episcopalians have a greater investment in the present than in the future.
Trinity's investment in the present is huge: it owns much of the real estate in downtown Manhattan. One might think that the church would care about global warming, since the impact on its real estate holdings could be significant, something Mead noted wryly in her article.
What her article suggests to me is that it's not only the world that should be worried about rising waters. For Episcopalians, as the Psalm says, the waters have risen up to our necks. We're drowning as we sip our Pinot Noir and attend, glancing slowly into the mirror, to the creases in our vestments.
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