Turning Over a New Leaf

The road goes ever on and on....

Many things in my life are about to change, including the location of this blog. From this time forward you can find Souljourning at www.souljourning.wordpress.com. Stay tuned.

Radical Orthodoxy

Pentecost & Evangelism

We are told in the book of Acts that on the Day of Pentecost, about 3,000 souls were added to the Church. This simple fact has for many linked the Day of Pentecost to the process of evangelism, which interests me as an Evangelist considerably as you might imagine. But I think the coming of the Spirit to the Church was more than a membership drive, and so evangelism for us must be more & deeper than simply new members.

The miracle of Pentecost is a clear reversal of the tragedy of the Tower of Babel where humans became not only further estranged from God, but also from one another. The Communion for which we were created is lost and the story of the progressive disaster of that lost communion marks much of the opening narratives of Scripture. In contrast, the Gospels and Acts tell a story of the reversal of that lost communion.

One of the great challenges of the Church in the modern age is to return the proclamation of the Gospel (evangelism) to its proper foundations and rescue it from the increasing secularism of marketing growth and moralistic interpretations. Christ did not come to make bad men good, but to make dead men live. The conversion of 3,000 at Pentecost was not a membership drive, but glorious reversal of both The Fall and the tragedy of Babel. That is the Gospel we proclaim! Not, “Join our church, be good, and God will take care of you,” but “Life, freedom, healing, forgiveness, redemption, and salvation are offered to you in the death & resurrection of Jesus.” We, The Church, are simply the humble stewards of that message, that way of life, and the mysteries of the Sacraments through which Jesus still comes to us.

Psalm 121 Anglican Style

Two New Blogs of Note

The first, is a wonderful New Testament studies blog put together by my close friend Mr. Larsen, who recently had a paper accepted by the SBL for presentation at their national conference. Check it out here: Matt's NT Studies Blog

The second is a blog dedicated to Anglican spirituality, theology, history, and worship. Check it here: A Tribe Called Anglican

The Green Patriarch

This documentary was produced last year by Becket Films and looks at the environmental activism of the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church Bartholomew, whose work stems from his belief that we are part of nature, and that God’s intention for humans is to be stewards, or caretakers, of all creation.

Watch it here: The Green Patriarch

Cloudbank Sessions

Hold the presses! At long last, the wishes of the people and the Universe have been realized ... Donnie Mortimer has finally recorded an album! Check it here:

http://mortimermusic.blogspot.com/

Do whatever you need to do (including small and medium size misdemeanours) to get your hands on what I'm sure we'll be one of the most musically brilliant and well crafted pieces of art in your collection.

Also, check out this article in Elephant Magazine regarding Donnie, his music, and the album:

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2010/01/new-music-donnie-mortimer-in-the-studio

Christian in a Meaningful Sense

“I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”

-- Christopher Hitchens, Atheist and Author in response to a Unitarian minister

Free Fallin'

Couldn't help but share this:

New NT Wright Book Coming in March

From Publishers Weekly:

How do you develop a character suited for God's Kingdom? Practice, practice, practice. That, in a nutshell, is the message of this volume on building Christian character by Wright, a prodigiously prolific Bible scholar and Anglican Bishop of Durham, England. In arguing for this new vision of virtue, which is a vision of Jesus Christ himself, Wright carefully explores such classical exponents of character as Aristotle. He also acknowledges the existence of other notions of encouraging behavior-based rules, duty, or being true to oneself. Drawing on Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, Wright asserts that true transformation comes through the work of the Holy Spirit and through worship, mission, and following Jesus. As the habits of virtue grow, the church will become the royal priesthood it is meant to be, anticipating God's coming new world.

"Bishop Wright, with his usual wisdom and erudition, shows how an account of the virtues is not only compatible but is required by the New Testament understanding of what it means to be a Christian. This important book will hopefully be read by theologian and non-theologian alike." -- Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School

Gusher Marathon Training: Week 1

Well, after a long (5 year) hiatus from endurance running, I am reentering the fray this spring at the inagural Gusher Marathon in Beaumont, TX. This week is the first week of my training. May the Lord preserve me and keep me from injury.

Patriarch Bartholomew to appear on 60 minutes

Update: Watch Full Epidsode Here

NEW YORK (ARCHONS) – His All Holiness Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians who constitute the second largest Christian denomination in the world, will be featured on the CBS News program 60 Minutes reported by Bob Simon, scheduled to air on Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 7 p.m. EST. The segment will focus on the Orthodox Church, the most ancient Christian church, and its development from its earliest years to modern times in what is now the Republic of Turkey.

His All Holiness was named 11th among the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine and was awarded the US Congressional Gold Medal for his efforts to promote human rights and religious tolerance. He has also been recognized by the United Nations as a Laureate Champion of the Earth for his pioneering work to protect the environment. Affectionately known as “the Green Patriarch,” Patriarch Bartholomew has called upon leaders of all denominations to join him in this effort, noting simply that “If life is sacred, so is the entire web that sustains it.”

His All Holiness recently concluded an extended visit to the U.S., where he participated in an environmental symposium in Mississippi, ministered to the five million Orthodox faithful in America, and met with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and President Barack Obama, among many others. He is the author of Encountering the Mystery (Doubleday) and In the World, Yet Not of the World (Fordham).

Commenting on the upcoming broadcast, Archbishop Demetrios of America said:“The appearance of the Ecumenical Patriarch on a program such as 60 Minutes is an extraordinary opportunity for the American public to become aware of our Orthodox Christian Faith. Millions of people who would otherwise have limited knowledge of the Orthodox Church will have the chance to see and hear the highest ecclesiastical personage of our Church in their living rooms. It is also a tremendous opportunity for our own Orthodox Faithful in the United States to see His All Holiness in a way that will surely touch their hearts and minds with love and deep respect.”

Summary of the Christian Life

"The Christian Life could be summed up by saying, 'Become what you are!'' -- Kallistos Ware

Kallistos Ware Blog

I am starting a new side blog dedicated to the life and thought of Bishop Kallistos Ware, who has been a very important part of my Christian growth and formation the last couple of years, and who -- as far as I can tell -- does not have any other online compedium of his available articles, lectures, etc. I commend him to you, and hope you will find him as nourishing and inspiring as I have.

http://www.kallistosware.blogspot.com/

And The Wolf Shall Lie Down with the Lamb.

This is a video of a Serbian Orthodox Monk and a wolf. I have read stories of saints and very holy men and women who could befriend and "tame" wild animals (St. Francis of Assisi, St. Seraphim of Sarov, etc.), but I have never seen anything like this. I do not understand the narration - but no words are necessary in this video. The reality speaks for itself.

Hauerwas on the Reformation

"So on this Reformation Sunday long for, pray for, our ability to remember the Reformation – not as a celebratory moment, not as a blow for freedom, but as the sin of the church. Pray for God to heal our disunity, not the disunity simply between Protestant and Catholic, but the disunity in our midst between classes, between races, between nations. Pray that on Reformation Sunday we may as tax collectors confess our sin and ask God to make us a new people joined together in one might prayer that the world may be saved from its divisions."

Read it all here.

One Step Forward...

I would be remiss if I failed to post something regarding this tremendous eccumenical news:

The Roman Catholic Church has opened the door (via an Apostolic Constitution) for dissatisfied Anglicans to join together with the RCC.

From CNN:

The process will enable groups of Anglicans to become Catholic and recognize the pope as their leader, yet have parishes that retain Anglican rites, Vatican officials said... The parishes would be led by former Anglican clergy -- including those who are married -- who would be ordained as Catholic priests, said the Rev. James Massa, ecumenical director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops... "This sets up a process for whole groups of Anglicans -- clergy and laity -- to enter in to the [Roman] Catholic Church while retaining their forms of worship and other Anglican traditions."...We've been praying for this unity for 40 years and we've not anticipated it happening now," ... "The Holy Spirit is at work here."

The Archbishop of Canturbury responded:

The announcement of this Apostolic Constitution brings to an end a period of uncertainty for such groups who have nurtured hopes of new ways of embracing unity with the Catholic Church. It will now be up to those who have made requests to the Holy See to respond to the Apostolic Constitution.

The Apostolic Constitution is further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition. Without the dialogues of the past forty years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured. In this sense, this Apostolic Constitution is one consequence of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.

More on the Big Eccumencial News

Sometimes there are no fireworks.

Turning points can pass in silence, almost unobserved. It may be that way with the "Great Schism," the most serious division in the history of the Church. The end of the schism may come more quickly and more unexpectedly than most imagine.

On Sept. 18, inside Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer palace about 30 miles outside Rome, a Russian Orthodox Archbishop named Hilarion Alfeyev, 43 (a scholar, theologian, expert on the liturgy, composer and lover of music), met with Benedict XVI, 82 (also a scholar, theologian, expert on the liturgy and lover of music), for almost two hours, according to informed sources. (There are as yet no "official" sources about this meeting -- the Holy See has still not released an official communiqué about the meeting.)

The silence suggests that what transpired was important -- perhaps so important that the Holy See thinks it isn't yet prudent to reveal publicly what was discussed.

...Closer relations between Rome and Moscow, then, could have profound implications also for the cultural and liturgical life of the Church in the West. There could be a renewal of Christian art and culture, as well as of faith.

All of this was at stake in the quiet meeting between Archbishop Hilarion and Benedict XVI on Friday afternoon, in the castle overlooking Lake Albano.

Read it all here.

Gollum Playing Screwtape

Andy Serkis, the man who did Gollum's character in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, will be doing the voice of Screwtape in a upcoming audio drama remake of C.S. Lewis's classic The Screwtape Letters. It looks quite good!

The official website is www.screwtape.com.

Big Eccumenical News!

From the NCRegister.com:

The Catholic Archbishop of Moscow has given a remarkably upbeat assessment of relations with the Orthodox Church, saying unity between Catholics and Orthodox could be achieved “within a few months.”

In an interview today in Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper, Archbishop Paolo Pezzi said the miracle of reunification “is possible, indeed it has never been so close.” The archbishop added that Catholic-Orthodox reunification, the end of the historic schism that has divided them for a millennium, and spiritual communion between the two churches “could happen soon, also within a few months.”

“Basically we were united for a thousand years,” Archbishop Pezzi said. “Then for another thousand we were divided. Now the path to rapprochement is at its peak, and the third millennium of the Church could begin as a sign of unity.” He said there were “no formal obstacles” but that “everything depends on a real desire for communion.” On the part of the Catholic Church, he added, “the desire is very much alive.”

Archbishop Pezzi, 49, whose proper title is Metropolitan Archbishop of the Mother of God Archdiocese in Moscow, said that now there are “no real obstacles” on the path towards full communion and reunification. On issues of modernity, Catholics and Orthodox Christians feel the same way, he said: “Nothing separates us on bioethics, the family, and the protection of life.”
Also on matters of doctrine, the two churches are essentially in agreement. “There remains the question of papal primacy,” Archbishop Pezzi acknowledged, “and this will be a concern at the next meeting of the Catholic-Orthodox Commission. But to me, it doesn’t seem impossible to reach an agreement.”

Prospects for union with the Orthodox have increased markedly in recent years with the election of Pope Benedict XVI, whose work as a theologian in greatly admired in Orthodox circles. Benedict is also without the burden of the difficult political history between Poland and Russia, which hindered Polish Pope John Paul II from making as much progress as he would have liked regarding Catholic-Orthodox unity.

Relations have also been greatly helped by the election of Patriarch Kirill I earlier this year as leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is by far the largest of the national churches in the Orthodox Church. As the former head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external relations, Kirill met Benedict on several occasions before and after he became Pope, and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch is well acquainted with the Roman Curia and with Catholicism.

More Rowan...

It should probably be obvious to most of the regular readers of this blog by now that I have a tremendous respect for the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. So, part for my pleasure, and part for yours, I offer you the following recent interview with Rowan Williams about prayer and the church:

The Archbishop on Understanding Prayer

A Journey

I have been thinking a lot lately about the interplay, as a Christian, between being accessible / relevant on the one hand, but not selling out to consumerism / entertainment on the other. But, thanks a twitter by a friend of mine, I came across this: a recent conversation between Ian Hislop and Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. (transcript by Ruth Gledhill). The whole conversation is worth reading, but here's an excerpt:

Ian Hislop: .... How do you balance that attempt to be of the age, to be accessible, and yet not be banal.

Archbishop of Canterbury: The point is often being confident enough about what you are inviting people into, which is not simply an entertainment but a journey and process of change. ....I went with the family to Taize for a few days in the summer.... one of the things I shall remember for a long time is the sound of 5,000 teenagers being quiet. That was an environment that didn't make any concessions to entertaining anyone. It assumed that if you were there, you wanted to be taken a bit deeper. That's the crucial thing.

IH: I remember being told by my teenagers that Church was boring and thinking, good it's meant to be boring. You need a lot more boring in your life and in the middle of it, you'll find something.

ABC: I have to confess that has been in the past one of my regular confirmation sermons. Get used to it. It's not always going to be fun. Life isn't always going to be fun and there's something to be said for sitting things out.

IH: This particularly applies to young people...there is a tendency to assume they have no attention span....

ABC: We set our assumptions and expectations very low.... It's a downward spiral.

IH: Keeping it simple may not be good enough, enriching enough.

ABC: That's right. While I hope that I don't set out to be boring in church - shut up everyone! - I also hope that when I stand up and perform the liturgy, I am doing something that is not just reflecting to them what they already know and what they feel comfortable with. That somehow there is a journey forward to be undertaken. We expect people to grow.... if we don't provide an environment where people grow we only have ourselves to blame. Very often what the Church past and present has been in danger of doing is offering people a thinned down experience whereas I would like to say it is utterly the opposite.

Fruitful

I would like to announce with great joy and thanksgiving that Jenny and I are expecting our first child. That's right... my beautiful wife Jenny is pregnant. Please keep us (all three of us!) in your prayers. I have caught myself frequently humming, tearfully at times, a song by Josh Garrels called Little Blue:

Who is like my child
Who’s so lovely and wild?
Oh, my little bird
By the river I have heard
My lover calls
In fall and spring
She says
Keep your eyes on heron’s wings
She’s coming soon
Let’s dance and sing
For the joy a new life brings

Strong and graceful, too
Like your mother
In red and blue
Love I never knew
Filled my heart
When I held you
My lover calls
In fall and spring
She says
Keep your eyes on heron’s wings
She’s coming soon
Let’s dance and sing
For the joy that her life brings

It's coming soon, let's dance and sing, for the joy a new life brings!

A Word of Hope for Episcopalians

Following the Northern Plains Anglican's lead, I think this is very wise and timely remark from the comments section of The Deacon's Slant regarding the present situation of The Episcopal Church:

I do think TEC is still a church - just one in very bad shape - much like the Church before Francis or Dominic - intellicutaly lazy, adicted to secular power and taking its queues from the secular world. But it seems that everytime the Church gets into this position, God raises up a prophet (such as Francis - who was a Deacon by the way) to call the Church back into relationship with her Lord.

That is part of what I am trying to do in my little neck of the woods - be that prophet that calls the Church back to her Covenant.

YBIC,Phil Snyder

Unpacking the Archbishop's Statement

The Good Bishop NT Wright, in collaboration with ACI, has responded to Rowan's reflections here. This is an absolute MUST read if you are an Episcopalian or Anglican.

Rowan’s Reflections: Unpacking the Archbishop’s Statement

+++Rowan Williams Reflects

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has reflected (a very Rowan-esque thing to do) this week on the recent actions of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church to open the ordination process to homosexuals, transsexuals, and try-sexuals (people who will try anything sexual) and to "develop" liturgies for same sex blessings.

I won't post the whole reflection here, but I'd like to share and comment on a few pieces myself:

From 1.1, "No-one could be in any doubt about the eagerness of the Bishops and Deputies of the Episcopal Church at the General Convention to affirm their concern about the wider Anglican Communion."

This is perhaps the most amussing part of the whole reflection to me, because it seems to be that very thing that many, many poeple doubt, including his fellow senior bishop NT Wright.

From 2.8, "...a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole. And if this is the case, a person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church's teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires."

This is one of the clearest statement I have ever seen +++Rowan make regarding same-sex relationships, and it seems he comes down here clearly on the side of orthodoxy.

An important point from 2.10, "...if society changes its attitudes, that change does not of itself count as a reason for the Church to change its discipline."

And finally, some very wise words about how the local church responses to various concerns from 3.12, "When a local church seeks to respond to a new question, to the challenge of possible change in its practice or discipline in the light of new facts, new pressures, or new contexts, as local churches have repeatedly sought to do, it needs some way of including in its discernment the judgement of the wider Church. Without this, it risks becoming unrecognisable to other local churches, pressing ahead with changes that render it strange to Christian sisters and brothers across the globe."

Rowan, without being unkind or vicious, manages to draw a line in the sand and spell out the consequenses for those who cross it. Not consequenses that he will impose with the heavy hand of the See of Canterbury, but consequenses that the line-crossers will bring upon themselves. It is not the clear anathama of the progressives that many of the orthodox were hoping for, but it is substantial none the less.

Also, a few commentaries of note on Archbishop William's reflection that I'd like to point out to my readers:

First, one by A.S. Haley (also known as the Anglican Curmudgeon) is probably the best one I have read so far, and I commend it to you heartily.

Others that are worth your time are those by Matt Kennedy, Peter Ould, and Jordan Hylden. I am still waiting for ACI to respond, and when they do, I'll let you know.

Overall, I am moderately pleased with Rowan's actions so far, although I am aware this puts me in a very, very, very small minority seeing that he has now managed to throw the progressives into a tantrum right along with the usual conservative poopooing of his efforts (here, here, and here). I will concede that Rowan's way forward is not altogether "strong" or "clear," but neither is is tyranical, mean-spirited, or proud. His prayerful, patient, and almost-to-a-fault-kindness and forebearance, though not a very popular way to lead, do have the smell of Christian to me. Many would accuse him of being "weak" or a "coward," but he seems to be attempting a difficult path of orthodoxy and unity that, to his mind, is faithful to the Jesus he worships, winning him precious few friends along the way. Quite a cross to bear and hardly the behavior of a coward. I will keep him in my prayers, and I hope others will do the same.

***UPDATE*** Roman Catholic church issues statement of support for Rowan Williams:
In a statement July 29, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity noted Archbishop Williams' concern for maintaining the unity of the Anglican Communion through common faith and practice based on Scripture and tradition. The Vatican office "supports the archbishop in his desire to strengthen these bonds of communion, and to articulate more fully the relationship between the local and the universal within the church," the statement said. "It is our prayer that the Anglican Communion, even in this difficult situation, may find a way to maintain its unity and its witness to Christ as a worldwide communion."
Read it all here.

Bishop NT Wright Weighs In

The man, the myth, the legend, the Bishop NT Wright has now weighed in on the recent moves by the Episcopal Church into what basically amounts to pan-sexuallity. It is so good, that I quote it here in full. From the Times of London Online:

In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.

Both the bishops and deputies (lay and clergy) of TEC knew exactly what they were doing. They were telling the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other “instruments of communion” that they were ignoring their plea for a moratorium on consecrating practising homosexuals as bishops. They were rejecting the two things the Archbishop of Canterbury has named as the pathway to the future — the Windsor Report (2004) and the proposed Covenant (whose aim is to provide a modus operandi for the Anglican Communion). They were formalising the schism they initiated six years ago when they consecrated as bishop a divorced man in an active same-sex relationship, against the Primates’ unanimous statement that this would “tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level”. In Windsor’s language, they have chosen to “walk apart”.

Granted, the TEC resolution indicates a strong willingness to remain within the Anglican Communion. But saying “we want to stay in, but we insist on rewriting the rules” is cynical double-think. We should not be fooled.
Of course, matters didn’t begin with the consecration of Gene Robinson. The floodgates opened several years before, particularly in 1996 when a church court acquitted a bishop who had ordained active homosexuals. Many in TEC have long embraced a theology in which chastity, as universally understood by the wider Christian tradition, has been optional.

That wider tradition always was counter-cultural as well as counter-intuitive. Our supposedly selfish genes crave a variety of sexual possibilities. But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).

Paganism ancient and modern has always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the biblical witness is scarcely confined, as the shrill leader in yesterday’s Times suggests, to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’s own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behaviour outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition.

The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.

Such a novel usage would also raise the further question of identity. It is a very recent innovation to consider sexual preferences as a marker of “identity” parallel to, say, being male or female, English or African, rich or poor. Within the “gay community” much postmodern reflection has turned away from “identity” as a modernist fiction. We simply “construct” ourselves from day to day.

We must insist, too, on the distinction between inclination and desire on the one hand and activity on the other — a distinction regularly obscured by references to “homosexual clergy” and so on. We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may “love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel.

The question then presses: who, in the US, is now in communion with the great majority of the Anglican world? It would be too hasty to answer, the newly formed “province” of the “Anglican Church in North America”. One can sympathise with some of the motivations of these breakaway Episcopalians. But we should not forget the Episcopalian bishops, who, doggedly loyal to their own Church, and to the expressed mind of the wider Communion, voted against the current resolution. Nor should we forget the many parishes and worshippers who take the same stance. There are many American Episcopalians, inside and outside the present TEC, who are eager to sign the proposed Covenant. That aspiration must be honoured.

Contrary to some who have recently adopted the phrase, there is already a “fellowship of confessing Anglicans”. It is called the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is now distancing itself from that fellowship. Ways must be found for all in America who want to be loyal to it, and to scripture, tradition and Jesus, to have that loyalty recognised and affirmed at the highest level.

Tom Wright is Bishop of Durham