Mary Ann Mueller reports on Episcopal Church General Convention vote to approve blessing of same sex unions

This is significant—very significant—in lots of ways, though not in the way that those who supported it might think.

Report from the House of Bishops

INDIANAPOLIS, IN: Same Sex Blessings at GC2012 - "It was horrifying"

COMMENTARY

By Mary Ann Mueller
Special Correspondent
www.virtueonline.org
July 10, 2012

It was horrifying to watch and listen to the House of Bishops vote for same-gendered blessing liturgy.

Bishop after bishop, following the calling of their name, answered "Yes."

Bishop Alexander - yes; Bishop Whitmore - yes; Bishop Gray-Reeves - yes; Bishop Robinson - yes. One hundred and eleven times the answer was "Yes."

Bishop Douglas - yes; Bishop Gulick - yes; Bishop Peter Lee - yes; Bishop Jones - yes; Bishop Glasspool - yes; Bishop Johnston - yes; Bishop Beisner - yes; Bishop Jefferts-Schori - yes ...

With each "yes", my heart dropped a little farther, another tear formed.

Again The Episcopal Church was hurtling down a path of spiritual self-destruction.

It was heartbreaking to witness. It is soul-wrenching to write about.

Before the roll call vote, Bishop Duncan Gray of Mississippi pleaded with his brothers and sisters in the House of Bishops for an air of humility.

"I know this will pass," he prophesied. "Can we walk beyond this vote with a sense of humility and less of a triumphant way?"

The Mississippian was correct. A-049 passed and, for the most part, The Episcopal Church is celebrating.

So much for restraint, Bishop Gene Robinson immediately tweeted: "Episcopal Bishops authorize rite of blessing for same-sex relationships 111 to 41. ‪#LGBT"
_____________________

Report from the House of Deputies

GC2012: HOD Vote came Silently on Same-Sex Blessings

By Mary Ann Mueller
Special Correspondent
www.virtueonline.org
July 10, 2012

[Same Sex Blessings] INDIANAPOLIS - The House of Deputies' afternoon vote on A-049 came in silence, the result of modern technology.

When the House of Bishops voted to approve same-gender blessings each bishop was called by name and with their own voice they were required to vocalize their vote - yea or nay.

Electronic voting was the rule of the day in the House of Deputies. Each Order - lay and clergy, were called to vote using their hand-held electronic voting devise.

The laity was called to vote.

"The vote is open." Silence followed. "The vote is closed."

The clergy were called to vote.

"The vote is open." Silence followed. "The vote is closed."

Silence ... the waiting began.

To pass the time the candidates for the Vice President of the House of Deputies were nominated from the floor.

Silence ... the waiting continues.

Finally, out-going House of Deputies' President Bonnie Anderson announced the results: Lay yes votes - 86; lay no votes - 19; lay divided votes - five. Clergy yes votes - 85; clergy no votes - 22; clergy divided votes - 4.

"A-049 passes with a 78% in the lay order and 76% in the clergy order," a tired House of Deputies' president confirmed.

And with that same-gender blessings received the blessing of General Convention and became a part of the fabric The Episcopal Church.

[President] Bonnie Anderson then dismissed the House of Deputies.

[NOTE: A vote by orders in the House of Deputies means that the totals: 86-19 Lay and 85-22 Clergy represents the numbers of deputations (of 4 clergy and 4 laity in each deputation) voting yes or no. A divided deputation is a deputation that is evenly divided 2-2. Since a majority of yes votes is needed to pass legislation, a divided deputation is, in effect, a no vote.]
__________
Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline.

Accused bishops protest their loyalty to TEC

George Conger reports that seven of the nine bishops mentioned in my previous post on this subject have written a letter to the Episcopal Church House of Bishops protesting their innocence of charges of misconduct:

Seven bishops have written an open letter to the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops repudiating charges of disloyalty brought against them by the provisional bishops of Fort Worth and Quincy.

On 6 July 2012, seven of the nine bishops accused of misconduct by Bishops C. Wallis Ohl Jr., and James C. Buchanan stated there was no truth in the accusations leveled against them.

The Rt. Rev. John W. Howe, retired Bishop of Central Florida, the Rt. Rev. Paul E. Lambert, suffragan Bishop of Dallas, the Rt. Rev. William H. Love, Bishop of Albany, the Rt. Rev. D. Bruce MacPherson, Bishop of Western Louisiana, the Rt. Rev. Daniel H. Martins, Bishop of Springfield, the Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, retired Bishop of South Carolina and Dean of Nashotah House, and the Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton, Bishop of Dallas stated they had been forced to act in order to protect the Episcopal Church – not to harm it.

“No charge is more serious to us than the one that we have acted against our own Church—in other words, that we have been disloyal. We assure each of you that we have acted out of a profound loyalty to this Church we love,” they wrote.

Read it all.

Idaho woman placed aborted fetus on barbecue

I almost went into shock when I read the above title, reprinted here just as it appeared in the newspaper, since it could be taken to mean that the mother barbecued her unborn child.  But the actual story was only slightly less horrific:

POCATELLO, Idaho - When Pocatello police got a tip that Jennie Linn McCormack had ended her pregnancy by taking an abortion drug obtained over the Internet, they showed up at her apartment one cold January day in 2011 and demanded an explanation.

McCormack eventually took them out to her back porch, where the remains of her fetus were on the barbecue, wrapped up in a plastic bag and a cardboard box.

"My baby is in the box," McCormack said. Officers uncovered the frozen remains of a 5-month-old fetus and erected crime scene tape around the porch before taking her to the police station and charging her with a felony.

But—get this—a lawsuit has now been filed to strike down the law that prohibited the mother from doing what she did.

The civil suit that followed, scheduled to be heard by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on July 9, asks the courts to reject as unconstitutional the law in Idaho - a state with only two abortion clinics - that makes it illegal to obtain abortion pills from out-of-state doctors over the Internet.

The case also marks the most significant constitutional legal challenge so far to so-called "fetal pain" statutes, adopted by Idaho and at least five other states. Such laws significantly shorten the window of time in which a woman can legally abort a fetus - in the case of Idaho, to 19 weeks.

McCormack, living in a conservative, heavily Mormon region of southeast Idaho, now finds herself in the middle of an uncomfortable dilemma for both sides of the abortion debate.

Anti-abortion groups have usually been uneasy about the idea of arresting women who violate abortion laws, preferring to go after the doctors they see as the guiltier parties.

Abortion-rights groups, meanwhile, want to challenge increasingly restrictive abortion laws, but for them, McCormack is far from the ideal plaintiff - she aborted a fetus at home at close to 20 weeks. And her case, if it winds its way upward, would face a U.S. Supreme Court that seems little inclined to shore up Roe v. Wade.

Read the whole story.

Have you ever been stung by a dead bee?

One of my favorite classic movies is To Have and Have Not, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (in her first motion picture).  Bogart plays the captain of a sport fishing boat, operating out of Martinique, an island that, at the time (1944), was under the rule of Nazi-dominated Vichy France, which provides the source of the movie's intrigue.

Walter Brennan, in one of his best character roles, plays Eddie, the perpetually drunk ship's mate.  Eddie has the annoying habit of asking each new person he meets, "Have you ever been stung by a dead bee?"  In response to the other person's inevitable question, Eddie explains, "Even a dead bee can sting you if you step on it, especially if it was mad when it died."

Nine bishops of the Episcopal Church just got stung by a dead bee this week.

Bishops Edward L. Salmon, Jr., Peter H. Beckwith and Bruce MacPherson received word that a complaint had been filed against them under Title IV of the Episcopal Church's Canons for signing affidavits in opposition to a motion for Summary Judgment in the Episcopal Church's lawsuit in the Diocese of Quincy.  In a similar action, Bishops Maurice M. Benitez, John W. Howe, Paul E. Lambert, William H. Love, Bruce MacPherson, Daniel H. Martins, and James M. Stanton were informed that a complaint was being brought against them for filing an Amicus Curiae (Friend of the Court) Brief in the Episcopal Church's lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Texas involving the Diocese of Fort Worth. 

As Attorney Allan Haley (The Anglican Curmudgeon) notes, the Bishops are being charged merely for expressing an opinion that differs from the Episcopal Church's litigation strategy.  I encourage you to read Mr. Haley's blog for an excellent analysis of all that this means.  My concern is the most basic one:  The Episcopal Church is now pressing charges against bishops (and could presumably press them against any member of the clergy) merely for expressing an opinion that differs from the Episcopal leadership's party line.

Is the Episcopal Church frightened that the disagreement of a few bishops could jeopardize its case?  It cannot be argued that the Episcopal Church is taking this disciplinary action to keep the rest of its bishops in line.  Of the nine bishops being charged, five are already retired; and there aren't any other bishops left in the Episcopal Church with the slightest inclination to question its litigation strategy.  So where is the threat?

A sociologist has observed that one sign of a dying organization is that it will try to exercise increasingly tighter control over its shrinking membership. 

Average Sunday attendance across the Episcopal church in 2010 was 657,831 in the United States. That compares to 856,579 in 2000 (a 23% decline in only ten years).  In contrast the Anglican Church in North America now numbers over 1000 congregations and reported an increase in Average Sunday Attendance of 15% in one year (2010-2011).  The ACNA also reported that 13% of its congregations were in the process of planting a church during 2011. 

My purpose is not to make much of these statistics other than to observe that all the signs of life seem to be on one side.  Meanwhile the Episcopal Church is headed toward a General Convention in Indianapolis next week where it is sure to approve rites for blessing same sex marriages.  The main reason this won't provoke a sizable exodus is that there aren't that many conservatives left to leave.  There is a disagreement not merely over the denomination's budget but even how the budget should be presented and by whom.  Then, for good measure, there is an official "Lament Over the Doctrine of Discovery" being thrown in, complete with prayers by the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies.  For the uninitiated, this means repenting for the fact that European settlers came to America.

The "Lament" is being described as:

                         A prayerful gathering, in a Sacred Circle,
                                     with readings, stories, prayers, songs, reflection,
                                     giving and receiving;       
                        In acknowledgment of and response to the tragic consequences
                                    of the Doctrine of Discovery; 

Just for fun, try Googling the term "Sacred Circle" and notice how many of the results refer to anything even remotely Christian.  (Hint: it's a nice round number, i.e., zero.)  

I have had numerous discussions in recent years with Episcopal bishops, including most of the nine named above, against whom charges are now being preferred, regarding whether the Episcopal Church was salvageable or a lost cause, and about whether its present condition was the result of incompetence or active malignancy.

To these fathers in God I would simply say,

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.  If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.  (I Peter 4:12-14)

With regard to these same bishops, I know that my thinking tends to be too "bottom line" oriented for those who have spent their entire lives in the Episcopal Church and who have become wedded to it through long and intimate association.  In my reckoning, if the Episcopal Church is going to be out of business by 2050, it is already dying now; and we should not mistake its death throes for signs of life.  Though the Episcopal Church still has the power to sting, it is only the sting of a dead bee.

South Carolina Standing Committee Releases General Convention Statement

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina has released a statement concerning what appears to be the inevitable outcome of the 2012 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, that is, the official approval of a rite for the blessing of same-gender unions.

The Very Rev. Paul Fuener, President of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina, had this to say in issuing the Standing Committee's statement:

The position of this Diocese on these matters has been clear and consistent.  We continue to affirm and assert our calling to seek to "make Biblical Anglicans for a Global age," and we declare that we will not walk with the General Convention down the road they are choosing.

The statement establishes the position of the Diocese that,

We hereby repudiate, denounce and reject any action of the Episcopal Church which purports to bless what our Lord clearly does not bless.  Specifically, we declare any rite which purports to bless same-gender unions to be beyond the authority and jurisdiction of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and without force or effect.

You can read the entire statement here.  (A PDF document will open in your browser.)

The Episcopal Church's General Convention, held every three years, will be meeting in Indianapolis from July 5-12, 2012.

Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers. syn- socialism.

What really happened in the Wisconsin recall election

Okay, you know I am conservative and love satire.  You've been warned.

Address by Metropolitan Jonah to the ACNA Assembly

The following greeting and remarks were delivered this afternoon by His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, of the Orthodox Church in America, to the Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America, meeting in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. 
_____________________

There is one Body and one Spirit, just as there is one hope in God's call to us: One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of all. 

 Brothers and sisters in Christ, It is good to be here with you again, three years after I first was with you in Bedford, Texas.   I bring you greetings and, I hope, encouragement, from the Orthodox Church in America.

Over the past three years our churches have conducted a theological dialog, discussing the issues that separate us, issues that are not so much OCA vs. ACNA, but issues that separate Anglicanism from Orthodoxy.  This has focused on the issue of the filioque, the addition by the Roman Church to the Nicene Creed, forced on the entire Western Church in the 11th century, and this, disrupting the unity of the confession of the Catholic Faith.

I would remind you that the root and foundation of the Church of England is not “Roman” but rather, the broader Orthodox Catholicism that prevailed until the Roman Church began massive changes in the Second Millennium.  The English Church was a local Orthodox Catholic Church in communion with Rome and the rest of the Churches for most of the first millennium.  Part of the English, and even continental, Reformation was intended to bring the Church back to its original roots, free from the changes that occurred during the isolation of the Western Church in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages.   The Orthodox see the Reformation as having gone awry, and reinforced the very elements that made the Western Churches’ theological positions idiosyncratic, thus isolating it even more from Orthodoxy.

My hope is that we can roll this back.  You have the opportunity to return your Church to its original heritage, and thus actualize the rich inheritance of English Orthodox Catholicism, in communion with its root tradition.   This means the overcoming of generations of schism, a schism which was forced on the English Church, and then a perpetual state of schism for itself and the churches established by it in its colonies and missions. This needs to be healed.

The ecumenical hope is to overcome the schisms of the West, so that the English and Roman Churches can again take their place within the communion of the One Orthodox Catholic Church.  You have an immense role and opportunity within this.   Removing the filioque is not simply a nice gesture of ecumenical solidarity; it is, rather, an affirmation of the ancient faith of the Undivided Church.  

Realignment

There is another element in this which is of immediate importance, and directly follows on the above.  As was written about by Robert Terwilliger, a great Anglican divine of the 20th century, there is a coming realignment within Christianity, one which we can already see the strains of.  Whenever schisms happen within the Church, they are generally because certain individuals lead a group out of the Church, being disobedient to the Faith and Doctrine, and refusing to submit to the authority of the hierarchy, which is trying to discipline them and call them to repentance.

What is happening now is somewhat different: a split between those who hold to traditional, biblical faith as interpreted by the Fathers of the Church and the ecumenical councils; and those who espouse a secularized belief, subject to the rationalizations of the scholars according to contemporary philosophy, who dismiss the Fathers and the Councils as no longer relevant, who dismiss the moral teachings of the Scriptures and Fathers as culturally relative.  This could be called, by one side, a break between traditional Christianity and post-modern worldly philosophy.   Or it might be labeled as the freeing of people from fundamentalist oppression to the light of their own reason.

This is not the protestant/catholic divide; it is not the evangelical-charismatic vs. mainline divide.  It cuts across all communities in the West, even affecting the Orthodox and Roman Churches in some degree.  As Anglicans, you are no strangers to this: it is the reason you are here, and not in TEC. It is creating a massive realignment within Christianity; those who hold to the traditional Scriptural and patristic Faith and discipline of Orthodox Catholicism; and those who reject it, criticize it, and I will add, as you well know, persecute it.  You and the ACNA are part of that realignment.

There is a radical cultural shift away from traditional Christianity, toward something unrecognizable.   The “Secularists” (for lack of a better, non-pejorative term) reject the virgin birth of Christ, the resurrection, even His Divinity; that His words are recorded in the Scriptures and that the Scriptures are even relevant to our days; rather they are oppressive and keep humans in darkness.  Another Episcopalian bishop, a certain Mr. Spong, wrote that “Christianity must change or die,” referring to traditional orthodoxy, espousing the radical secularization of the Episcopal Church and all Christianity.   It is my prediction that it is not the Orthodox Churches that will die.

Solzhenitsyn said that “what the Soviet death camps could not do, Western secularism is doing more effectively.   In Russia, 20 million died in the last century as martyrs for the Orthodox Faith, and countless millions of others were thrown in the gulag, for standing up against militant secularism.  Many perished because they resisted the Renovationists whose schism distorted the Orthodox Faith. Whether you call it Soviet atheism, or Western secularism, it is the same enemy.

Our battle is against secularism.   His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, has called for us to stand together against this enemy.  This is the realignment: to stand together for the faith once delivered by Christ to the Apostles, and thence to the Bishops, without alteration, without change, without revisions; against those who would submit their faith to the current of the age, the wisdom of this world.   We must stand together, and we cannot stand alone.  Even the immense Roman Church is buffeted by the militant secularists, who defy authority and criticize that which they know not, and we can see in this country how increasingly fragile their unity is.

 Brothers and sisters, we must embrace the Cross of Jesus Christ, the foolishness of the Gospel, the wisdom that is not of this world.   We must rejoice in the salvation that God has given us in His Son Jesus Christ, who was crucified for us and rose from the dead. We glory in His Resurrection, and await His Coming Again.  We must overcome the divisions that separate us, so that we can stand united in one mind and one heart, confessing that God has come in the flesh to raise us to heaven.  We must live according to the moral and ethical commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ enshrined in the Gospel, and reject sin and recognize its corruption.  This is the orthodox faith of the Fathers, the Ecumenical Councils and the undivided Church.  We will have to accept the scorn and derision of those who are of this world, even those who call themselves brethren, being cast out of their synagogues and ridiculed, sued in civil courts, and count all things as worthless that we have lost for the sake of Christ.  This, my friends, is our cross.   We have to support one another in bearing it.  The closer we come, the greater our mutual support will be, and we will not lose heart, or forget that Christ has already won the victory: He has overcome the world.  By accepting to go by way of His Cross, we too will share in His Victory.

Let us listen to the words of St. Paul:

10 I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.   11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brethren.  12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”  13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? …  17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.  18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”  20 Where is the wise man?  Where is the scribe?  Where is the debater of this age?  Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?   21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.  22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17-25, Revised Standard Version)

Beloved, Christ is Risen!

A Legend Goes Home

For those of you more accustomed to other types of music, this is like losing Benny Goodman or Isaac Stern.

Folk musician Doc Watson dies in NC hospital at 89

Doc Watson, the Grammy-award winning folk musician whose lightning-fast style of flatpicking influenced guitarists around the world for more than a half-century, died Tuesday at a hospital in Winston-Salem, according to a hospital spokeswoman and his manager. He was 89.

Watson, who was blind from age 1, recently had abdominal surgery that resulted in his hospitalization.

Arthel "Doc" Watson's mastery of flatpicking helped make the case for the guitar as a lead instrument in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was often considered a backup for the mandolin, fiddle or banjo. His fast playing could intimidate other musicians, even his own grandson, who performed with him.

Richard Watson said in a 2000 interview with The Associated Press that his grandfather's playing had a humbling effect on other musicians. The ever-humble Doc Watson found it hard to believe.

"Everybody that's picked with you says you intimidate them, and that includes some of the best," Richard Watson told him.

Doc Watson was born March 3, 1923 in what is now Deep Gap, N.C., in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He lost his eyesight by the age of 1 when he developed an eye infection that was worsened by a congenital vascular disorder, according to a website for Merlefest, the annual musical gathering named for his late son Merle.

He came from a musical family — his father was active in the church choir and played banjo and his mother sang secular and religious songs, according to a statement from Folklore Productions, his management company since 1964.

Doc Watson's father gave him a harmonica as a young child, and by 5 he was playing the banjo, according to the Merlefest website. He learned a few guitar chords while attending the North Carolina Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh, and his father helped him buy a Stella guitar for $12.

"My real interest in music was the old 78 records and the sound of the music," Doc Watson is quoted as saying on the website. "I loved it and began to realize that one of the main sounds on those old records I loved was the guitar."

Doc Watson got his musical start in 1953, playing electric lead guitar in a country-and-western swing band. His road to fame began in 1960 when Ralph Rinzler, a musician who also managed Bill Monroe, discovered Watson in North Carolina. That led Watson to the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 and his first recording contract a year later. He went on to record 60 albums.

According to the Encyclopedia of Country Music, Watson took his nickname at age 19 when someone couldn't pronounce his name and a girl in the audience shouted "Call him Doc!"

Seven of his albums won Grammy awards; his eighth Grammy was a lifetime achievement award in 2004. He also received the National Medal of the Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1997.

"There may not be a serious, committed baby boomer alive who didn't at some point in his or her youth try to spend a few minutes at least trying to learn to pick a guitar like Doc Watson," Clinton said at the time.

Folklore described Watson as "a powerful singer and a tremendously influential picker who virtually invented the art of playing mountain fiddle tunes on the flattop guitar."

Doc Watson's son Merle began recording and touring with him in 1964. But Merle Watson died at age 36 in a 1985 tractor accident, sending his father into deep grief and making him consider retirement. Instead, he kept playing and started Merlefest, an annual musical event in Wilkesboro, N.C., that raises money for a community college there and celebrates "traditional plus" music.

"When Merle and I started out we called our music 'traditional plus,' meaning the traditional music of the Appalachian region plus whatever other styles we were in the mood to play," Doc Watson is quoted as saying on the festival's website. "Since the beginning, the people of the college and I have agreed that the music of MerleFest is 'traditional plus.'"

Doc Watson has said that when Merle died, he lost the best friend he would ever have.

He also relied on his wife, Rosa Lee, whom he married in 1947.

"She saw what little good there was in me, and there was little," Watson told the AP in 2000. "I'm awful glad she cared about me, and I'm awful glad she married me."

In a PBS NewsHour interview before a January appearance in Arlington, Va., Watson recalled his father teaching him how to play harmonica to a tune his parents had sung in church, as well as his first bus trip to New York City. Telling the stories in a folksy manner, he broke into a quiet laugh at various points. He said he still enjoyed touring.

"I love music and love a good audience and still have to make a living," Watson said. "Why would I quit?"

Musician Sam Bush, who has performed at every Merlefest, began touring with Doc and Merle Watson in 1974, occasionally substituting for Merle when he couldn't travel.

"I would sit next to Doc, and I would be influenced by his incredible timing and taste," Bush said after Watson's recent surgery. "He seems to always know what notes to play. They're always the perfect notes. He helped me learn the space between the notes (are) as valuable as the ones you play."

Bush said he was also intimidated when he began playing with the man he calls "the godfather of all flatpickers."

"But Doc puts you at ease about that kind of stuff," Bush said. "I never met a more generous kind of musician. He is more about the musical communication than showing off with hot licks."

His blindness didn't hold him back musically or at home.

Joe Newberry, a musician and spokesman for the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, remembered once when his wife called the Watson home. Rosa Lee Watson said her husband was on the roof, replacing shingles. His daughter Nancy Watson said her father built the family's utility shed.

Guitarist Pete Huttlinger of Nashville, Tenn., said Doc Watson made every song his own, regardless of its age. 'He's one of those lucky guys," said Huttlinger, who studied Watson's methods when he first picked up a guitar. "When he plays something, he puts his stamp on it — it's Doc Watson."

He changed folk music forever by adapting fiddle tunes to guitar at amazing tempos, Huttlinger said. "And people all over the place were trying to figure out how to do this," he said. "But Doc, he set the bar for everyone. He said, 'This is how it goes.' And people have been trying for years to match that.

"He took it (the guitar) out of the background and brought it upfront as a melody instrument. We're no longer at the back of the class. He gave the front to us."

Wayne Martin, executive director of the North Carolina Arts Council, said recently that Watson took southern Appalachian forms of music such as balladry, old-time string music and bluegrass, and made them accessible.

"He takes old music and puts his own creativity on it," Martin said. "It retained its core, yet it felt relevant to people today.

Said Bush: "I don't think anyone personifies what we call Americana more than Doc Watson."

In 2011, a life-size statue of Watson was dedicated in Boone, N.C., at the spot where Watson had played decades earlier for tips to support his family, according to the Folklore statement. At Watson's request the inscription read, "Just One of the People."

_________

Online: http://www.merlefest.org/

Atheist Richard Dawkins Supports Bibles in Schools

World-renowned atheist Richard Dawkins says he supports the mission of England's Department for Education to make sure every public school in the nation has a copy of the 1611 translation of the King James Bible.

"A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian," said Dawkins in a column he wrote for The Guardian.

The author and evolutionary biologist even went as far as to say he would have donated to the cause had he been given the opportunity to do so.

The books are being distributed to the schools in celebration of the translation's 400th anniversary.

Read it all.

Doctor of Divinity

“There once was a clergyman named Tweedle
Who refused an honorary degree.
He said, ‘Twas bad enough being Tweedle, 
Without being Tweedle, D.D.’”

Well, my name is not Tweedle, so I did not refuse the honorary degree which Nashotah House Theological Seminary graciously bestowed on me at the 167th annual Commencement of that hallowed institution.

Prof. Stanley Hauerwas, from Duke University, was the speaker at this Commencement and also delivered a public lecture the previous evening entitled, "A Suffering Presence: Twenty-five Years Later," marking the anniversary of his landmark book which examines how profoundly medicine and theology are intertwined when we deal with the human experience of illness and mortality.

The Nashotah House Class of 2012 was graduated in superb style (as usual) and a good time was had by all. The Nashotah House blog and Facebook page will probably have pictures soon, and I will try to link to them when they are available.

Pope Benedict XVI gives direction to U.S. bishops on hot-button issues

Over the course of the last six months, Pope Benedict XVI has delivered five major speeches to small groups of American bishops who were in Rome for their "ad limina" visits, which are required once every five years.

The ad limina visits are an opportunity for the pope to address the major issues faced by a local church.

Religion News Service provides a brief recap of some of the Pope's words for American bishops in recent months.  Here are a couple of excerpts:

'Anti-Christian' culture in America

“At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good, and thus about the conditions for human flourishing. In America, that consensus, as enshrined in your nation’s founding documents, was grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principles deriving from nature and nature’s God. Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such.” (Jan. 19)

The church's place in the public square

“The legitimate separation of church and state cannot be taken to mean that the church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the state may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation.” (Jan. 19)

 Read it all.

Oh, the irony!

For each General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the convention office publishes a "Blue Book" containing all the reports of the Committees, Commissions, Agencies and Boards to be presented at that Convention.  Although it is called a "Blue Book," the color varies for each General Convention.  In the seven times I have attended, it has been brown, burgundy, olive green, various shades of blue, etc.

This July, the General Convention is scheduled to deal with a report recommending the adoption of liturgies to bless same sex relationships.  Would you like to guess what color the "Blue Book" is?

Click here to find out.

You just can't make this stuff up!

C. S. Lewis Cover Story in Time Magazine (from 1947)

The lecturer, a short, thickset man with a ruddy face and a big voice, was coming to the end of his talk. Gathering up his notes and books, he tucked his hornrimmed spectacles into the pocket of his tweed jacket and picked up his mortarboard. Still talking—to the accompaniment of occasional appreciative laughs and squeals from his audience—he leaned over to return the watch he had borrowed from a student in the front row. As he ended his final sentence, he stepped off the platform.

The maneuver gained him a head start on the rush of students down the center aisle. Once in the street, he strode rapidly—his black gown billowing behind his grey flannel trousers—to the nearest pub for a pint of ale.

Clive Staples Lewis was engaged in his full-time and favorite job—the job of being an Oxford don in the Honour School of English Language & Literature, a Fellow and tutor of Magdalen College and the most popular lecturer in the University. To watch him downing his pint at the Eastgate (his favorite pub), or striding, pipe in mouth, across the deer park, a stranger would not be likely to guess that C. S. Lewis is also a best-selling author and one of the most influential spokesmen for Christianity in the English-speaking world.

Since 1941, when Lewis published a witty collection of infernal correspondence called The Screwtape Letters, this middle-aged (49) bachelor professor who lives a mildly humdrum life (“I like monotony”) has sold something over a million copies of his 15 books. He has made 29 radio broadcasts on religious subjects, each to an average of 600,000 listeners. Any fully ordained minister or priest might envy this Christian layman his audience.


Something like Hell

That audience is the result of Lewis’ special gift for dramatizing Christian dogma. He would be the last to claim that what he says is new; but, like another eloquent and witty popularizer of Christianity, the late G. K. Chesterton, he has a talent for putting old-fashioned truths into a modern idiom.

With erudition, good humor and skill, Lewis is writing about religion for a generation of religion-hungry readers brought up on a diet of “scientific” jargon and Freudian cliches. His readers are a part of the new surge of curiosity about Christianity which in Britain has floated, besides Lewis, a whole school of literary evangelists (T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, Dorothy Sayers, et al.). Detective Story Writer Sayers has explained this new interest in Christianity as “spontaneous . . . and not a sort of “Let’s-get-together-and-pep-up-Christianity” stunt by excited missioners, than which nothing could be more detestable. . . . People have discovered by bitter experience that when man starts out on his own to build a society by his own power and knowledge, he succeeds in building something uncommonly like Hell; and they have seriously begun to ask why.”


Something like a Father

C. S. Lewis’ new book, to be published in the U.S. this month, is called Miracles, A Preliminary Study (Macmillan; $2.50). Its tightly constructed theological argument: that the miraculous (“interference with Nature by supernatural power”) not only can exist but has existed in human history. “Naturalists,” who see nature as “the whole show,” with no room for a creative God in the picture, will be baffled or repelled. But those who accept the basic Christian concept of a Creator-God will be rewarded with a full measure of the quality Lewis’ devotees have come to expect—a strictly unorthodox presentation of strict orthodoxy.

Lewis (like T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, et al.) is one of a growing band of heretics among modern intellectuals: an intellectual who believes in God. It is not a mild and vague belief, for he accepts “all the articles of the Christian faith”—which means that he also believes in sin and in the Devil. After sneezing, he was once heard to murmur that it was “because of the Fall.” He was referring, not to the season, but to the Fall of Man, which Christian theology holds responsible for the major disorders of mankind. Lewis is scornful of many modern intellectual and moral fashions: he thinks a Christian can do worse than imagine God as a fatherly ancient with a white beard. He writes:

“. . . When [people] try to get rid of manlike, or, as they are called, “anthropomorphic,” images, they merely succeed in substituting images of some other kinds. “I don’t believe in a personal God,” says one, “but I do believe in a great spiritual force.” What he has not noticed is that the word “force” has let in all sorts of images about winds and tides and electricity and gravitation. “I don’t believe in a personal God,” says another, “but I do believe we are all parts of one great Being which moves and works through us all”—not noticing that he has merely exchanged the image of a fatherly and royal-looking man for the image of some widely extended gas or fluid.

“A girl I knew was brought up by “higher thinking” parents to regard God as perfect “substance.” In later life she realized that this had actually led her to think of Him as something like a vast tapioca pudding. (To make matters worse, she disliked tapioca.) We may feel ourselves quite safe from this degree of absurdity, but we are mistaken. If a man watches his own mind, I believe he will find that what profess to be specially advanced or philosophic conceptions of God are, in his thinking, always accompanied by vague images which, if inspected, would turn out to be even more absurd than the manlike images aroused by Christian theology. For man, after all, is the highest of the things we meet in sensuous experience.”

Heaven & Boiled Fish

Lewis sees no good reason to accept the modern dictum that “scientific” explanations are more authoritative than theological ones: “The old atomic theory is in physics what Pantheism is in religion—the normal, instinctive guess of the human mind, not utterly wrong, but needing correction. Christian theology, and quantum physics, are both, by comparison with the first guess, hard, complex, dry and repellent. The first shock of the object’s real nature, breaking in on our spontaneous dreams of what that object ought to be, always has these characteristics. You must not expect Shrödinger to be as plausible as Democritus; he knows too much. You must not expect St. Athanasius to be as plausible as Mr. Bernard Shaw: he also knows too much.”

Lewis’ idea of Heaven is not the 20th Century’s watered-down version of ineffable, gaseous ecstasy, but a state as real as Sunday morning breakfast. It’s right there in the New Testament, says Lewis, referring to the resurrected Christ taking food with His disciples: “If the truth is that after death there comes a negatively spiritual life, an eternity of mystical experience, what more misleading way of communicating it could possibly be found than the appearance of a human form which eats boiled fish?”

Sex in Heaven? Bachelor Lewis is no man to be afraid of that one either: “The letter and spirit of Scripture, and of all Christianity, forbid us to suppose that life in the New Creation will be a sexual life; and this reduces our imagination to the withering alternative either of bodies which are hardly recognizable as human bodies at all or else of a perpetual fast. As regards the fast, I think our present outlook might be like that of a small boy who, on being told that the sexual act was the highest bodily pleasure, should immediately ask whether you ate chocolates at the same time. On receiving the answer no, he might regard absence of chocolates as the chief characteristic of sexuality. In vain would you tell him that the reason why lovers in their carnal raptures don’t bother about chocolates is that they have something better to think of. The boy knows chocolate: he does not know the positive thing that excludes it. We are in the same position. We know the sexual life; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other thing which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it.”


Steep Descent

The man who can put medieval scholasticism into such comfortable modern dress was born in Belfast, Ireland, where his grandfather, an itinerant Welsh boilermaker-turned-shipbuilder, had settled. At the age of twelve, young Clive deserted the Church of Ireland (affiliated with the Anglican Church) for atheism. After a brief World War I career as a 2nd lieutenant in France, where he was wounded in the back by a British shell that fell short, Lewis graduated from Oxford with honors, tried a few years as a starveling poet, and in 1925 happily accepted his present post.

When he was about 18, Lewis bought a book called Phantasies, by George Macdonald, a Scottish Presbyterian best known for his Princess & Curdie and other children’s fairy tales. In the introduction to his recent anthology of Macdonald’s work (TIME, June 2), Lewis confesses the importance of that day’s purchase: “I had already been waist-deep in Romanticism; and likely enough, at any moment, to flounder into its darker and more evil forms, slithering down the steep descent that leads from the love of strangeness to that of eccentricity and thence to that of perversity. Now Phantasies was romantic enough in all conscience; but there was a difference. . . . What it actually did to me was to convert, even to baptise . . . my imagination. It did nothing to my intellect nor (at that time) to my conscience. Their turn came far later and with the help of many other books and men.”

These books and men effected in him what he considers an entirely intellectual conversion. Without any sudden awakening or “rebirth,” Lewis found himself approaching the unexpected conclusion that Christianity is the simple truth. While groping for answers, he wrote to a friend: “The Absolute is beginning to look more and more like God.” A short time later, his return to the Anglican Church was complete.


Brown Girl to Mother Kirk

Lewis has provided a lively and dramatic account of his spiritual safari “from popular realism to Philosophical Idealism; from Idealism to Pantheism; from Pantheism to Theism and from Theism to Christianity.” In his first—and not initially successful—fantasy, The Pilgrim’s Regress, he used Bunyan’s device of a naive wayfarer beset by symbolic men and monsters.

Lewis records “John’s” journey in quest of the beautiful island he glimpsed mysteriously in the stern, unfriendly land of Puritania, where he was born. Puritania was strictly administered by Stewards who issued complex rules of behavior and clapped forbidding masks over their faces whenever they mentioned the Landlord. Searching for his island vision, John one day found “in the grass beside him … a laughing brown girl of about his own age, and she had no clothes on. “It was me you wanted,” said the brown girl. “I am better than your silly Islands.” And John rose and caught her, all in haste, and committed fornication with her in the wood.”

But John soon found that the brown girl was not what he was looking for, and journeyed on. At last, after many adventures, John confronted the “aged, appalling . . . crumbling and chaotic” face of Death itself.

Said Death: “Do not think you can call me Nothing. . . . The Landlord’s Son who feared nothing, feared me. . . . Give in or struggle.”

“I would sooner do the first if I could.”

“Then I am your servant and no more your master…. He who lays down his liberty in that act receives it back. Go down to Mother Kirk. . . .”

“You must dive into this water,” said Mother Kirk. “You have only to let yourself go.”

Satan’s Scientists

After he had let himself go and plunged into the Church of England, Lewis found himself part of a small circle of Christian Oxonians who met informally each week or so to drink and talk.

Lewis’ new-found Christianity also introduced him to Charles Williams, the author he says has influenced his writing more than any other, living or dead. Williams was a scholarly, self-educated, Cockney-accented Londoner who died last year, leaving an astonishing assortment of essays, poetry and fiction that delighted a small circle of Christian intellectuals. His first novel, War in Heaven, told of a cops-&-robbers chase through modern England which followed when somebody turned up with the Holy Grail. The Williams books inspired Lewis to write a trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength) dealing with the forces of Good and Evil at war on the planets of the solar system. One element common to all these stories: the villain of the piece is always a scientist.

The consistent identification of scientists with the forces of evil is characteristic of Lewis. To him, scientists seem, most nearly to embody the Christian sin of Pride—setting up the human will against the Divine. For this sin, Adam & Eve were expelled from the Garden and the heroes of Greek tragedy were punished by the gods. Lewis is a bitter academic opponent of Oxford’s “progressive element” of scientists and “practical” faculty members who would lay more stress on “useful” courses than on Oxford’s traditional concern with the humanities.


The Gentle Slope

Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters largely as “a kind of penance,” which his friends claim is his attitude toward all his Christian writings. He says he found it the easiest work he has ever done, but that it grew to be “a terrible bore.” It was an immediate and phenomenal success on both sides of the Atlantic. Innumerable ministers quoted Screwtape in sermons and urged it on their congregations. Catholics enjoy it as much as Protestants. One clergyman makes a practice of presenting copies to his parishioners with passages marked for their special attention. To date, Screwtape has gone through 20 British and 14 U.S. printings.

The book is a series of admonitory letters from Screwtape, a fiendishly knowing member of Hell’s “Lowerarchy,” to his nephew Wormwood, a novice tempter who is grappling with the Enemy for one of his first souls. The irony with which Lewis catalogues all the trivia most likely to keep man from God has made Screwtape a modern classic. Samples:

“It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

“The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice . . . and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. . . . Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that “only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new civilizations.” You see the little rift? “Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.” That’s the game.”

God’s Unscrupulousness

With Screwtape’s success, Lewis became a celebrity. A man who could talk theology without pulling a long face or being dull was just what a lot of people in war-beleaguered Britain wanted. The BBC put Lewis on the air and for three years his short, plain-spoken broadcasts on what Christians believe made him, for his listeners, almost as synonymous with religion as the Archbishop of Canterbury. The R.A.F. even chose him as a kind of Christian-at-large to visit air bases and discuss theology.

Lewis hated the work. Heavy theological argument with topflight minds is his greatest pleasure, but he is too much of an intellectual snob to enjoy answering not-very-bright questions. He doggedly stuck to this chore as part of his duty to Church and country, but he once wryly blamed his unpleasant war work on the “unscrupulousness of God.” Said he: “I certainly never intended being a hot gospeler. If I had only known this when I became a Christian!”


Down the Garden Path

Outside his own Christian circle, Lewis is not particularly popular with his Oxford colleagues. Some resent his large student following. Others criticize his “cheap” performances on the BBC and sneer at him as a “popularizer.” There are complaints about his rudeness (he is inclined to bellow “Nonsense !” in the heat of an argument when a conventionally polite 25-word circumlocution would be better form). But their most serious charge is that Lewis’ theological pamphleteering is a kind of academic heresy.

On this score, one of Lewis’ severest critics insists that his works of scholarship, The Allegory of Love (on Spenser), and A Preface to Paradise Lost, are “miles ahead” of any other literary criticism in England. But Lewis’ Christianity, says his critic, has brought him more money than it ever brought Joan of Arc, and a lot more publicity than she enjoyed in her lifetime. In contrast to his tight scholarly writing (says this critic), Lewis’ Christian propaganda is cheap sophism: having lured his reader onto the straight highway of logic, Lewis then inveigles him down the garden path of orthodox theology.

Perhaps some of those who would like Scholar Lewis to be quieter about his Christianity would be surprised to learn how quiet about it he really is. So rigidly private does he keep his private life that virtually none of his best friends have been invited even to tea at his twelve-room house in suburban Headington (as a Fellow of Magdalen, he has rooms in the college as well). Lewis sometimes refers vaguely to living with his “old mother,” though his friends know that she has been dead since his childhood. One persistent rumor identifies the “mother” as a Mrs. Moore, mother of a friend killed in World War I, whom Lewis invited to keep house for him and who is pictured as an aged, bad-tempered old party. And there are said to be other dependents in the house, in addition to Mrs. Moore.


Wet Weather Ahead

Postwar Oxford’s swollen enrollment is now giving Lewis too much to do to spare him time for extracurricular writing. During the “long vac” this summer he has been hard at work on his volume for “Oh-Hell,” which is Oxford’s name for the Oxford History of English Literature (still in preparation). During the college year ahead, in addition to his crowded lectures, he will also be busy “tooting” his 18-odd tutorial pupils. At regular intervals they will come, singly or in pairs, to read him their essays in his handsome, white-paneled college room overlooking the deer park, or (when there is not enough coal or wood to keep it warm) in his tiny, book-crammed inner study. Lewis has informed the BBC that he is through with radiorat-ing, for an indefinite period. He has no immediate plans for further “popular” books, fantastic or theological. But Lewis admirers may not have too long to wait.

Recently in Oxford’s lively undergraduate magazine, Cherwell, he wrote: “Perhaps no one would deny that Christianity is now “on the map” among the younger intelligentsia, as it was not, say, in 1920. Only freshmen now talk as if the anti-Christian position were self-evident. . . . [Yet] we must remember that widespread and lively interest in the subject is precisely what we call a fashion. . . . Whatever . . . mere fashion has given us, mere fashion will presently withdraw. The real conversions will remain, but nothing else will. In that sense we may be on the brink of a real, permanent Christian revival: but it will work slowly and obscurely in small groups. The present sunshine . . . is certainly temporary. The grain must be got into the barn before the wet weather comes.”

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You might also like: "One Grand Miracle," Reflections from The C. S. Lewis Institute.
 

The Message of Easter (Accept no substitutes!)

Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down death by death,
and on those in the tombs
bestowing life!
These words are what is known in Eastern Orthodoxy as the Paschal Troparion, which announces the Good News of Resurrection, that Christ is risen from the dead and has, by his own death, defeated death and has bestowed life on all who die in Christ.

Some modern theologians teach that the resurrection of Jesus was spiritual rather than bodily. Some who hold this view maintain that Jesus' human body either vanished or was removed by God, and he reappeared in a spiritual form.

According to the spiritual resurrection theory, when Christ was laid in the tomb, his physical body did not rise, but only his Spirit. Those who take this view maintain that a spiritual resurrection is a way of reconciling the Bible with science, history, and common experience which say that the dead do not rise.

Others say that it doesn't matter what happened to the body, the important thing is that God sustained Jesus in some way after his death and that this is our hope for life after death. As I have written in a number of places, if all we mean by resurrection is the hope for life after death, we do not need Christianity. Other religions and even the ancient Greek philosophers teach the immortality of the soul.

Still others say that Christ did not rise bodily or even appear to his disciples after his death. The resurrection stories are myths, invented to reflect the esteem in which Jesus was held by his followers.

But talk of a spiritual resurrection contradicts the plain sense of the biblical accounts that the followers of Jesus did, in fact, find his tomb empty, and this was the first step in their believing that Jesus had risen bodily from the tomb.

In Luke 24:38-39, Jesus said to his disciples: "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Jesus himself states that he was not a spirit, but truly, physically alive when he reappeared from the dead.

This, of course, does not convince those who hold that resurrection stories are myths. But the absence of the body, buried and held under close guard by the Jewish and Roman authorities, is the one incontrovertible proof. If those same authorities were later upset (and they were!) with the preaching of the apostles regarding the resurrection of Jesus, all they had to do was produce the body. But they could not.

Concerning the resurrection of Jesus the Apostle Paul says:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. (I Corinthians 15:3-6)

Paul also says, "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied." Can we imagine that he is speaking of merely a spiritual resurrection? Of course not.

Two things are apparent from the Bible's teaching regarding the resurrection of Jesus: (1) It is a bodily resurrection. (2) It is the remedy for the two chief concerns that human beings have: (a) How do we deal with the sin that is in each of us? And, (b) What happens to us when we die?

The question of how we deal with the sin that is in each of us contains an assumption: that we are sinners.

A Confession from the historic Book of Common Prayer sums up our condition this way:
[W]e have followed too much the devices and desires
of our own hearts,
we have offended against thy holy laws,
we have left undone those things which we ought to
have done,
and we have done those things which we ought not to
have done.
This is true of each and every one of us. We are inclined toward sin by our natures from birth. But modern liberals have denied the Fall and its effects and have tended to view sin as societal almost to the exclusion of the idea of personal sins. They have worked for social justice, seemingly ignoring the fact that social injustices are merely the effects of personal pride, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth (the seven deadly sins) writ large.

A sense of the reality of the Fall must be recovered in theology and our understanding of human experience. The way we are is not the way God intended. Because of the curse of the Fall every aspect of our beings and our existence been touched by sin. This does not mean that we are as bad as we can be; it means that we are not in any respect as good as we ought to be.

The consequence of our sinful natures and the sins we commit is that we are separated from God. This is the curse of "death" in Genesis 2:17. Yes, physical death is involved, but the main point is that fellowship with God was broken; Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, and we have been separated ever since. Look at Psalm 22:1 and the crucifixion in Matthew and Mark. Jesus said, "...why have you forsaken (ignored, left, abandoned) me?" That's what happened when Jesus died, he took our separation for us.

The good news of Easter is that the resurrection is God’s answer to both of humankind's deepest questions. The resurrection is God's remedy for sin and death.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) The reason God became incarnate in the person of Jesus was to take our sins upon him and to free us from the death of eternal separation from God. The resurrection is the validation that his mission was a success and the guarantee of our future resurrected life with him.

That the death and resurrection of Jesus was God's remedy for our sins and death could not be more clear from virtually every part of the New Testament:

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit," (I Peter 3:18)

"But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21)

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (I Peter 2:24)

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:23-26)

"And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." (1 John 2:2)

"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:10)

"It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." (Romans 4:24-25)

But liberal Christians have always been reluctant to believe in: (1) the reality of the Fall, (2) the substitutionary death of Jesus for our sins, and (3) the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Why is that?

The answer is as old as Christendom. In fact, it is a problem that exists due to Christendom. By "Christendom" I mean the cultural dominance that Christianity has traditionally enjoyed in the nations of the West, dating as far back as the conversion of Constantine and the Edict of Milan, in AD 313, which made Christianity a legitimate religion in the Roman Empire.

Here is where the problem arises: Throughout its history as the culturally dominant religion in the West, Christianity has gained adherents because of its cultural position who did not actually believe all that Christianity taught. In the early and medieval periods of Christendom, believers sometimes separated themselves from the laxity and worldliness of the Church by entering monastic life.

St. Antony of Egypt withdrew to the desert to escape a world where professing Christians failed to live up to their profession. St. Benedict created cloistered communities where the holy life could be pursued apart from the world’s distractions. St. Francis of Assisi’s call from the Lord to “Rebuild my Church!” was a call to take the holy life out of the cloister and proclaim it to a world that, while officially Christian, consisted of great multitudes whose faith was superficial.

The increase in faith seen in the Reformation and subsequent evangelical revivals and the later revivals of the First and Second Great Awakenings were movements of the Holy Spirit in people who earnestly sought all that the Christian life was meant to be. But the ascendancy of Christendom in the West brought in its train those who sought the approval that came from association with what was often the state church without truly knowing Christ.

The Enlightenment of the 18th century compounded this problem in two ways: First, it not only made a certain degree of unbelief by those who held religious office acceptable, it even made skepticism necessary if one was to be considered intellectually respectable. Almost overnight, skepticism became a virtue, and unadulterated piety became a vice. Second, it gave hardened unbelievers an intellectual vocabulary for expressing their unbelief. The result was that, just as the early liberal theologian, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), sought to make Christianity acceptable to its “cultured despisers” by watering down its tenets in an attempt to reconcile them to the criticisms of the Enlightenment, so much of subsequent academic theology has been shaped by the desire to accommodate Christian beliefs to the sensitivities of non-believers.

We are currently witnessing a phenomenon known as "the New Atheism"—a new expression of atheism that is committed to active and aggressive intolerance of religion. The chief reason for the rise of the New Atheism is not that Christianity has become less believable but that those who doubt the truth of Christianity are under less social pressure to assent to it.

How do we address these "cultured despisers" of religion? We demonstrate by our lives the virtues and qualities that come through faith in Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We witness with bold and articulate apologetics. And, as this site makes clear, we begin by upholding the truth that Christ is truly risen:

Without the resurrection of Jesus the following is true: Jesus is not God, Jesus is not the Messiah, we are still dead in our sins and there is no way to God or heaven, our faith is in vain (it’s a waste of time, energy, money, etc.), Christianity is based on a lie and not facts of history, the doctrines of Christianity ought to be rejected, and no one ought to be a Christian.

But, thanks be to God, the tomb is empty! Christ is risen!

Claims of a spiritual resurrection will not suffice. We eschew religious leaders who espouse "resurrection" as a vague notion that God is somehow embodied in the world and not the triumph of the Son of God over sin, death, and hell. We witness to the only truth that will save the people of the world for all eternity: That Jesus is uniquely God's only begotten Son, that he died for the sins of the world and rose again bodily from the grave—and that he will come again so that those who are living and those who have died believing in him will be resurrected like him and live with him for ever.

This is the apostles' teaching; it is the undiminished faith of those who have known Christ for 2000 years; and it is Church's true message to the world in Jesus' name.
 

Do Dogs Know It's Maundy Thursday?

As we concluded dinner tonight, I watched our ten year old female Beagle, Sunny, sitting by the patio door, looking out across the lake as the Sun set. She had a look on her face that was as both forlorn and pensive as I have ever seen.

Does she know it's Maundy Thursday? Does she know that on this night, 2020 years ago, Jesus celebrated his last supper with his disciples? Does she know that, afterward, he went out to a garden and, while he prayed, was overcome with such agony that drops of blood and sweat fell together to the ground?

Does she know that later one of his closest friends betrayed him with a kiss? Whatever can be said of dogs, they do not deceive or dissemble like that.

Does she know that the Lord of Glory was arrested like a common criminal? Scourged and mocked as not even a common criminal would be? That, though without fault, he was rejected and condemned by those he came to save?

Does she know how, the next day, the sky grew dark as the Father looked away—and the ground shook as, abandoned and alone, he gave up his spirit?

And does she know that the grave could not hold him? That he walked again, talked with his disciples, and ascended to the Father, and that we shall see him again?

It is a matter of conjecture what animals know about the spiritual world. (I am reminded of the apparently fictitious case of two churches across the street from each other that had dueling billboards debating whether dogs go to heaven.)

I am a theologian, one of those people who knows how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. [Correct answer: As many as God wishes to do so.] I am supposed to know the answer to questions like this. But I don't.

But this much I can surmise: If he is the One by whom all things consist (Col. 1:7), and if the whole creation groans as in the pains of childbirth and "waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8:19-23)....

Then, somehow, even the animals must know.

The whole creation groans,
And waits to hear that voice
That shall her beauteousness restore,
And make her wastes rejoice.
Come, Precious Lord, and wipe away
The curse, the sin, the stain,
And make this blighted world of ours
Thine own fair world again.
 

Holy Week

Four pieces for Holy Week: three in Rite II and one in Rite I (you have to be an Episcopalian to understand that). For contemporary music lovers, "Lead me to the Cross" by Hillsong:



Second, a new twist on an old Gospel hymn, "Jesus Paid it All" by Kristian Stanfill (this one just blows me away):



Third, Hillsong and 100,000 of their friends remind us that "Worthy is the Lamb:"



And, finally, (put on your classical hat) George Frideric Handel's "Worthy is the Lamb" and "Amen" from The Messiah, proving that the oldest can sometimes be the best:


 

Easter without Jesus

Just. Flipping. Unbelievable!

That was my reaction as I read Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's Easter 2012 Message: “Give Thanks for Easter.”

My second thought was, I can recommend two excellent books for her: The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey; and the brand new (February 2012) The Jesus We Missed, by Patrick Henry Reardon. (I am very keen on Reardon's book and highly recommend it to anybody.)

But the three aspects of this "Easter Message" I found so unbelievable are that it: (1) never once mentions Jesus, (2) seems to speak of Resurrection as merely a concept and not an event, and (3) once again hypes the Millennium Development Goals instead of (or, as though they were) the Gospel.

I say "once again" because the MDG's were the focus of the Presiding Bishop's Lenten Message a mere six weeks ago.

This emphasis on the Millennium Development Goals led to a stinging rebuke from the Archbishop of Kenya, Dr. Eliud Wabukala, according to a March 29 report by Anglican Ink editor, George Conger:

The Archbishop of Kenya has criticized idolatry of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) saying faith in Christ, not works performed in his name, is the path of salvation.

The 22 February 2012 letter written by Archbishop Eliud Wabukala on behalf of the Gafcon primates chastised Christians who in the pursuit of social and economic change, lost sight of the centrality of the cross and the primacy of repentance and amendment of life. “While it is obvious that such good things as feeding the hungry, fighting disease, improving education and national prosperity are to be desired by all, by themselves any human dream can become a substitute gospel which renders repentance and the cross of Christ irrelevant,” he said.

Reprising the theme of her Lenten message, Dr. Jefferts Schori's message for Easter begins:

One of my favorite Easter hymns is about greenness. “Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain.”

It goes on to talk about love coming again. It’s a reminder to me of how centered our Easter images are in the Northern hemisphere. We talk about greenness and new life and life springing forth from the earth when we talk about resurrection.

"Now the Green Blade Riseth" is an Easter hymn from the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 that uses the sights of spring as metaphors for the true Resurrection of Christ. But it seems that the gist we are supposed to get out of this Easter Message and the Presiding Bishop's reference to this hymn is that being a church member is about being green (in the eco-political sense); and, therefore we must support the Millennium Development Goals.

The Presiding Bishop continues:

As we began Lent, I asked you to think about the Millennium Development Goals and our work in Lent as a re-focusing of our lives. I’m delighted to be able to tell you that the UN report this last year has shown some significant accomplishment in a couple of those goals, particularly in terms of lowering the rates of the worst poverty, and in achieving better access to drinking water and better access to primary education. We actually might reach those goals by 2015. That leaves a number of other goals as well as what moves beyond the goals to full access for all people to abundant life.

In this Easter season I would encourage you to look at where you are finding new life and resurrection, where life abundant and love incarnate is springing up in your lives and the lives of your communities. There is indeed greenness, whatever the season.

She then concludes:

Give thanks for Easter. Give thanks for Resurrection. Give thanks for the presence of God incarnate in our midst.

As Christians we do not so much give thanks for Easter. Rather, Easter is a time when we give thanks for the Resurrection of God's only begotten Son, who became incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, lived a life like ours, except without sin, died for the sins of the world, and rose bodily from the tomb three days later, thereby assuring us of his victory over sin and death and of the hope of a resurrection like his for all who follow him by faith.

This is what Christianity has always believed, and it never quite ceases to be shocking when a senior cleric dresses up in episcopal garb and utters all the usual expressions—and means something totally different by them!

It would be easy to assume orthodox meanings to "give thanks for Resurrection" and for "the presence of God incarnate in our midst," except that, in the context of Dr. Jefferts Schori's theology, resurrection is not the event of Jesus rising from the tomb so much as it is the concept of always finding new life through God's activity in the world. Similarly, "the presence of God incarnate in our midst," is not a reference to the literal Incarnation of Jesus, but a reference to God being embodied in the world in a panentheistic way, a concept she borrows from theologian Sallie McFague, whom she has quoted in her book, A Wing and a Prayer and in various addresses and interviews.

When I say that I found this Easter message unbelievable, it is because, as I was reading it, I had the sense that Dr. Jefferts Schori's religion is not merely liberal religion, it is a caricature of liberal religion by someone who may not even grasp the extent to which that is true.

One of my favorite television shows of all time is the BBC series, Yes, Minister, and the sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, a situation comedy that is a political satire on the inner workings of the British government. One episode, "The Bishop's Gambit" parodied Liberal Christianity and politics in the Church of England. The Prime Minister thinks that the church is a Christian institution; but his advisor, Sir Humphrey, informs him that most of the Anglican bishops do not believe in God, and that a theologian's job is partly to make it possible for agnostics or atheists to be church leaders.

Imagine what the creators of this series could do with the Episcopal Church: senior clerics whose use of religious terms bears no resemblance to the conventional meaning of those terms. Clergy who are simultaneously Episcopalians, Buddhists, and Muslims. A leader whose Gospel is really a United Nations social program! The mind reels.

To draw an analogy from another sitcom: This Easter Message from the Presiding Bishop may well be the Episcopal Church's "jumping the shark" moment. This is an election year, a time when candidates are talking about the things that matter most to the American public. Have you heard one candidate—even one secular politician—mention the Millennium Development Goals? I haven't either. And it seems to me that to take as your main message, on the Church's most important day, something that no one else considers important is the very definition of irrelevance.

And we wonder why the Episcopal Church is shrinking.
 

Home--the already and the not yet

I was looking at this bucolic setting for the South Dakota state capitol building this morning and wondering if I might enjoy living somewhere even more remote and rural than my present situation. Provided I could earn a living there, I believe the answer is yes.

My thoughts this morning brought to mind Walker Percy's essay "Why I Live Where I Live," in which Percy describes his reason for choosing to live in Covington, Louisiana: "The reason is not that it is a pleasant place, but rather that it is a pleasant nonplace." As I take Percy's meaning, a "nonplace" is a place that is conducive to writing without encumbering the writer with such a sense of place that his writing is bound or altered by it.

All of us are affected by the places where we live and work, probably to a much larger degree than we realize. Michigan could not have produced a Walker Percy any more than Connecticut could have produced a Willa Cather, or New York produce a Flannery O'Connor, or Massachusetts a John Steinbeck.

Writers sometimes have to be exiled from the place they call home in order to reflect most profoundly on its influences. Take Willa Cather moving to New York City at age 33 and living there the rest of her life, writing what critics of the time considered to be anachronistically agrarian novels. You can take writers out of the places they call home; but, often, it only serves to reinforce the sense of home that lives forever inside them.

I write these words looking out a window on Upper Nashotah Lake, in Wisconsin, on a sunny but blustery day in March. Yes, I think, South Dakota would be fine—at least in the summertime. A writer needs a place, or a nonplace, to call home.

Unlike two of my favorite American authors, Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor, I am not a southern Roman Catholic, I am a northern Episcopalian. Or, to be more accurate, I am a southern Episcopalian living in the North. And given that I find even the North's long winters preferable to the South's heat and humidity, here, God willing, I shall remain.

But I do miss the South. In particular, I miss the churches in the South. But having gone back there in recent years, I am reminded that even they are not what they were. The old saying is true: "There is no going home." There is only going back in your mind to the place you remember as home and being nourished by what it gave you.

When my wife and I first attended Calvary Church, Memphis, in 1977, it had a presence of the holy unlike any church building I had ever experienced. An older, British professor, under whom I did my doctorate, went with me once to a noontime Lenten preaching series and was struck by it too. "This is a church that has been prayed in," he said.

Years after I had moved to Pennsylvania, the newsletter of the parish chronicled changes of a startling sort. A new Reconstruction had invaded my old, Southern parish with a vengeance.

I have been back to Calvary a couple of times in recent years. The old saints I remember were buried years ago. The younger saints I knew have dispersed to other churches. New people, new clergy, new lighting—no warmth, no life, no Spirit. Sadly, the church had outlived the feeling of being a place that had been "prayed in."

So what do we do, those of us who are Christians and who have a profound sense of "home" and a longing for it in our hearts?

1. We labor on, knowing that none of the places we call home in this lifetime is our true home. "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Corinthians 5:1). For the Christian, we know that our true home is in heaven, and that all the places that seem like home in this lifetime are both a foreshadowing and a longing for an ideal, heavenly home that God has placed in our hearts.

2. While we are here, we have to create sacred spaces for ourselves and others. We have to create spiritual "homes," places that have been "prayed in"—where we and all who will join us can experience God in a deep and life-changing way. These are places of Word, Sacrament, prayer, music, liturgy, fellowship, and healing. They must be places of profound welcome and life-changing challenge—places of joy and excitement, and places of rich wholeness and deep peace.

3. In short, until we come to our heavenly home, we must be about the business of bringing our heavenly home to earth—both for ourselves and those who are only just awaking to the stirrings of a homeward call in their lives and are uncertain how to get there.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.     (Hebrews 11:8-16)

 

Europe bishops slam Saudi fatwa against Gulf churches

From here:

Christian bishops in Germany, Austria and Russia have sharply criticized Saudi Arabia's top religious official after reports that he issued a fatwa saying all churches on the Arabian Peninsula should be destroyed.

In separate statements on Friday, the Roman Catholic bishops in Germany and Austria slammed the ruling by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Shaikh as an unacceptable denial of human rights to millions of foreign workers in the Gulf region.

Archbishop Mark of Yegoryevsk, head of the Russian Orthodox department for churches abroad, called the fatwa "alarming" in a statement on Tuesday. Such blunt criticism from mainstream Christian leaders of their Muslim counterparts is very rare.

Christian websites have reported Sheikh Abdulaziz, one of the most influential religious leaders in the Muslim world, issued the fatwa last week in response to a Kuwaiti lawmaker who asked if Kuwait could ban church construction in Kuwait.

Citing Arab-language media reports, they say the sheikh ruled that further church building should be banned and existing Christian houses of worship should be destroyed.

Read it all
 

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 5 of 5

Prayers by:

1. The Most Rev. John Sentamu (Archbishop of York)
2. The Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres (Bishop of London)
3. The Most Rev. Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury)



See the John Stott Memorial website for more information.

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 4 of 5

Tribute by Mark Greene (Executive Director, London Institute for Contemporary Christianity):

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 3 of 5

Sermon by The Right Reverend Timothy Dudley-Smith:

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 2 of 5

This video contains international tributes from:

ASIA - The Most Reverend John Chew
AFRICA - The Reverend Robert Aboagye-Mensah
LATIN AMERICA - Ruth Padilla-DeBorst

John Stott's Memorial Service - January 13, 2012 - St. Paul's Cathedral, Part 1 of 5

One of the things for which I am most grateful is that we at Nashotah House were able to confer an honorary doctrate upon John Stott prior to his death on July 27 last year. His memorial service was held on January 13, 2012 at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of London among the participants. Videos clips have been made available, and I am posting the first of five parts here.

This video contains words very much worth hearing in the opening tributes from:
1. Canon Mark Oakley
2. The Right Reverend Michael Baughen
3. Frances Whitehead (Dr. Stott's Personal Assistant)

That Subversive Book

Mel Lawrenz writes on The Brook Network:

Jiang Yuchun was a boy the first time he attended a Christian gathering in a home in Anhui Province, China. He and his father walked fifteen miles under cover of darkness because any kind of Christian gathering during the Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976 was an act of subversion according to government policy. Thousands of believers were martyred during those dark days; every Christian leader exposed was imprisoned or killed; the Bible was practically extinct.

Yuchun watched the leader teaching the group, holding a tattered copy of the Bible tightly in his hand. The pages were torn and dirty, the corners worn to a rounded shape...

Read the rest of the story, and be sure to click on through to read Jiang Yuchun's testimony about "The First Bible I Saw in China".