Category Archives: Anglican

The Dorchester Chaplains

Susan Snook mentioned the Dorchester Chaplains below; I didn’t address it in the comments because this issue does deserve a full-on post of its own to sort through what we’re working with here.

For those unaware, the commemoration of the Dorchester Chaplains kicked off one of the biggest focused arguments around Holy Women, Holy Men (HWHM). You can see the commemoration here. I see a lot of different pieces to this commemoration and the controversy around it. Let’s call them out one by one…

1. The inclusion of an unbaptized person on the calendar. Of the four people listed in the commemoration, one of them is Rabbi Alexander D. Goode. Obviously, Rabbi Goode was not baptized. For those of us with a higher theology of sanctity, this presents a problem. We define “saints” as—among other things—Christians who witness to the particular character of God in Christ through their life and works. Therefore, having an unbaptized saint is a non-starter; it contradicts the definition. However…

2. There is a lack of consensus in the Episcopal Church on the definition of the term “saint.” People’s Exhibit A here is the (in)famous Dancing Saints mural at St. Gregory of Nyssa, San Francisco. Exhibit B would be the exchange that Donald Schell (part 1, part 2)  and I (full thing) had at the Episcopal Cafe on saints and sainthood sparked by his writing on the mural. Exhibit C is the comment section for Lent Madness each year. I fear that the broad middle regards sainthood and sanctity in terms borrowed more from Moralistic Therapeutic Deism than it does from classical Christianity. That is, linking MTD’s points 2 and 5, I think the default definition is “good, nice, fair people who went to heaven when they died.” The additions that came in with HWHM also left some asking if the new criteria could be simply summed up as “proto-progressives.” What’s tricky here too is RC theologian Karl Rahner’s notion of “anonymous Christians” which, as far as I’m concerned is like throwing the back-door open wide and laying out a welcome mat for MTD theology.  Because there is no formal definition, those who see saints as (minimally) baptized have nothing substantive to appeal to against those who counter that a given person was “really good.”

3. Unbaptized martyrs. To complicate matters, there was one class of unbaptized persons who could make it into the rolls of the saints in classical Christianity: martyrs. This was a necessary situation because of the persecutions of the pre-Constantinian period. You would have catechumens and such who were seized by the authorities and killed for their faith without ever formally having been baptized. As a result, the church came up with the idea of a baptism with blood which lays down the principle that those who desired baptism but were killed before receiving it did get a de-facto baptism with their own blood and could, therefore be honored as sainted martyrs. The most famous examples on our calendar are Perpetua and Felicity.

It was absolutely axiomatic in the early church that martyrs were saints. The first saint of the church was Stephen and he provides the foundational account: he followed Jesus and imitated him so perfectly that he died a death like his—killed on account of his testimony concerning Jesus, condemned despite his innocence of any real crime, and forgiving his killers, even praying on their behalf with the result that one of them—Saul—was himself converted. Once we hit the Constantinian period and the opportunity to die at the hands of the state decreased, the church had to start thinking about other criteria and other forms of martyrdom. Fast forward to the present day and we see that the concept of martyrdom has become a little murky.

The 1988 4th edition of LFF first includes “Constance, Nun, and her Companions” with the subtitle “Commonly known as ‘The Martyrs of Memphis.'” What killed them was not a hostile government but a mosquito-bourne illness; they were not killed because they refused to recant or burn a pinch of incense to the emperor. Rather, they died because of their commitment to their mission of helping the sick and poor who could not or were not able to flee the diseased city. I think we can see why this is referred to as “martyrdom”; their deaths were due to their commitments to Christian principles. In this case, we can see how dying for a principle is linked to dying for Christ. But is all death on behalf of principles death, on behalf of Christ? Do we need to draw any lines—and if so, where? Since we already mentioned St. Gregory of Nyssa, how would we assess one of their choices, Iqbal Masih? Here’s how Donald described his witness in part 1 linked to above:

He was a Pakistani Christian child sold into indentured servitude at age four. At ten he escaped from crippling work as a rug-knotter, and fearlessly told his story to the world, offering his voice and experience to support the Bonded Labor Liberation Front that was freeing thousands of child-slaves like him and teaching rug buyers around the world to ask who was making their hand-tied rugs, how the workers were being treated and whether they were being paid fairly. In 1995, when Iqbal Masih was twelve, he testified before the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. That Easter he went home to his village to go to church, and that afternoon was shot dead, martyred in the street for helping other children find freedom.

Is this martyrdom? On what criteria do we make a judgement yea or nay?

Then, of course, we return to the original subjects, the Dorchester Chaplains. They gave away their life-vests to other men. They died on behalf of their principles. Is this martyrdom—and to what do we appeal to ground our answer?

Then, to complete the step, is any martyrdom a baptism in blood; why or why not?

(The flip side of this is a controversy over the definition of marytrdom reflected in the Revised Edition of LFF. Typically martyrs were identified by assigning a person the propers for a martyr and/or the preface for Holy Week. But Christians killed by Christians–like Cranmer, Ridley, Tyndale, et al. receive the preface for a saint rather than those for a martyr. Someone judged that a death was not a martyrdom in the case of Christian-on-Chrstian violence. Do we agree or not? If not, why not?)

4. The Long Shadow of anti-Judaism/anti-Semitism. This is one that both sides in the controversy have to be very careful about. There are those who suggest that we can keep the commemoration, but just drop Rabbi Goode from it. There are a couple of reasons why this doesn’t fly including some I’ll hold until my next point. Suffice it to say that this approach would smack of continued Christian anti-Judaism/anti-Semitism. We have a history of saying and doing very bad things to Jewish people in the name of Christianity; we don’t want to perpetuate this in any way or form. But we’re in danger of doing it in two different forms here. One is the approach that seeks to lift up the Christians and dispense with “the Jew.” That’s a complete non-starter for me. The other is to say that we welcome his presence and accept that his faithful witness to God is identical or certainly equal to that of his Christian brother chaplains. He was being very Christian, but maybe didn’t realize it… But is there a way to do this without passing him in as an “anonymous Christian”? How do we do this without the spectre of supercessionism raising its ugly head? Again—in the face of the pervasive presence of MTD and its philosophy in our culture, how do we properly differentiate Christian virtue from a more generic “being excellent to each other”?

5. There are politics involved. One of the factors that makes this commemoration more complex than others is its source. If you notice, there are actually no Episcopalians in the quartet; there was the rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest, a Methodist minister, and a Dutch Reformed minister. So, where did this come from and why? This commemoration was passed to the SCLM by the office of the Episcopal Church that deals with both military and hospital chaplaincies, an office overseen by an Episcopal bishop. One of the reasons why this particular commemoration was offered was because it underscores and celebrates the ecumencial character of chaplaincy work. Its interdenominational and interfaith character is a feature, not a bug.  The other key reason why removing Rabbi Goode from the commemoration (in addition to the appearance of anti-semitism) is that it would undercut one of the key purposes of the observance in the first place. It is politically more complex for the SCLM to refuse a commemoration that we asked for from an official body with a bishop behind it.

6. Memorable/Important/Significant vs. Holy. One of my great liturgical heroes and a person I look up to quite a lot is Walter H. Frere. An English bishop who did a lot of work in late medieval Sarum sources and a correspondent of Evelyn Underhill, Frere did some important work in thinking through incorporating classical catholicity into the process of modern prayer book revision and was one of the architects of the failed English 1928 effort. One of the topics he wrote about was how to do a responsible Anglican sanctoral calendar, and his approach was widely followed in prayer book revision processes across the Anglican Communion throughout the 20th century. But I think he failed in one very important and significant way. He entirely avoids any discussion of the miraculous or the holy. Instead, he takes what I’d consider a rationalist approach to the saints, portraying them chiefly as historically significant individuals.

This is the place where our processes diverge the most from—say—the Roman Catholic approach. As is well known, Roman Catholic saints must “prove” their sanctity through two well-documented miracles. Largely we tend to consider this to be wierd and a hold-over of medieval superstition. But what we don’t do is consider why this factor is important to begin with… Miracles and holiness functioned for medievals and continue to function for modern Roman Catholics as proof of the eschatological character of the saints—that they were hooked into the life of God in an extraordinary way by virtue of their devotion and manner of life.

Following Frere, we don’t go there. No Anglican commemoration process looks at or asks about miracles. Instead we focus around notions of memorability, importance, and significance. I think we lose something important here. I stand behind what I said in the post I linked to above: “I understand perfectly well the banality of modern life. What I ask of my saints is the capacity to crack open reality and reveal to me the numinous life of God hid within it.”

Where is the numinous here? As we amass a collection of “good, nice, and fair” progressive people, are we considering elements of the numinous and mystical as part of their witness—that weird connection into the life of God that is part of eschatological experience? That’s actually something that jumped out at me in the materials submitted for Hiram Hisanori Kano; he had that.

Final Thoughts

The SCLM did recommend some commemorations to remove from the calendar; this was not one of them. I support that precisely because of the shift away from the liturgical/sanctoral model of HWHM to the catechetical/family history model of GCW. Because GCW is not intended to be a sanctoral calendar, I can see this commemoration catching the outside of the plate in terms of people and events who are significant and important for how the Episcopal Church sees and understands itself moving into the 21st century.

I do think that Rabbi Goode—or at least what little I know of him—shows a good and noble character. But that’s not all there is to a saint. We should fully believe in and celebrate good and noble people without feeling the need to either force them into our vocabulary or to warp our vocabulary to accomodate them. Saints are models of Christian maturity, mirrors of the virtues of Christ, present intercessors on our behalf, and signs of who the Church is. Rabbi Goode can’t be that for us on several levels but that doesn’t make him any less of a person.

As an analog, in addition to the necrology model I mentioned in the previous post, I am reminded of Jerome’s On Illustrious Men. This work was a collection of Jerome’s thoughts and opinions on early writers who were important and significant for the Christian Church. Chiefly, he is identifying authors and the books they wrote that ought to be read by Christian readers. Generally, it serves as a catalog of the orthodox Christian Fathers of the Church and an ennumeration of the books they wrote. However, amongst the people you’d expect are a number of interesting choices: the Jewish philosopher and exegete Philo Judaeus, the Jewish historian Josephus, and the Roman Stoic Lucius Annaeus Seneca whom he includes on the technicality of some apocryphal works (which I’m pretty sure Jerome knew were spurious). Jerome performs a little CYA here:

Lucius Annaeus Seneca of Cordova, disciple of the Stoic Sotion and uncle of Lucan the Poet, was a man of most continent life, whom I should not place in the category of saints were it not that those Epistles of Paul to Seneca and Seneca to Paul, which are read by many, provoke me. In these, written when he was tutor of Nero and the most powerful man of that time, he says that he would like to hold such a place among his countrymen as Paul held among Christians. He was put to death by Nero two years before Peter and Paul were crowned with martyrdom.

Jerome’s list isn’t really a sanctoral list. Properly, it’s a list of authors who were important and significant—which is what GCW is too. If Jerome can include a few outliers like Philo and Seneca, I think GCW can survive an occasional exception like Rabbi Goode.

That having been said, I do think that we need a much better and clearer agreement on what saints are. For me, this is directly tied to the sacraments and to seeing Christian discipleship as intimately tied to the living of a sacramental life that begins with Baptism and is nourished by Eucharist, Confession, and the rest. We need to cultivate our appreciation for the numinous and to explore it as an important part of our faith, not to flee from it as some kind of superstitious embarrassment.

 

Responding on the Saints

Scott Gunn posted on the three sanctoral resolutions coming out of the Standing Commission on Liturgy & Music’s (SCLM) work for General Convention this summer. I’ve found his whole series on the General Convention resolutions for this year (Tangled Up in Blue) to be a good starting place to think things through. I know there’s been some criticism of this effort, but—speaking as someone who has been privy to the discussions and the drafting of the resolutions—I’ve found it helpful to see how a “regular person” who hasn’t been privy to the conversations reads things.

Why legislation is presented a certain way is not always clear. In some cases, it seems that an unnecessarily tortorous route was taken for no good reason. Some suggestions from outside observers can appear like easy fixes if you don’t know the history behind the situation. Others seem like good ideas but have hidden gotchas buried in them. Others are untenable due to political fights within the church or within the committee. Sometimes a tortorous route really is the best solution to a problem because it will present the greatest good to the greatest number in the most pastoral way; sometimes it reflects a lack of will to make hard decisions and piss some people off…

As I read Scott’s reflections on the three sanctoral resolutions, I come with the history/baggage of knowing why certain easy options wouldn’t work or why we chose to go in a certain route. Thus, I want to make some corrections, some clarifications, and present some answers about why things look the way they look.

Scott starts with some general comments around the “Holy Women, Holy Men” (HWHM) process. Brief background—this revision of the Calendar was kicked off in 2003 by then Presiding Bishop and SCLM member Frank Griswold with the intention of expanded the calendar and remedying some historical imbalances in the demographics of the calendar with special reference to lay/clergy, white/people-of-color, men/women, and Anglican/non-Anglican levels. The SCLM came back in 2009 with a bit of an expansion: here is my graphical breakdown of what it accomplished in terms of numbers of additions and how it affected some of the identified areas of concern. Now, here are Scott’s thoughts:

…my concerns can be summarized thusly:

  • SCLM seems to want to do too much, too soon, which results in less than their finest possible work.

  • They confuse “extraordinary or even heroic human being” with “exemplar of Christian discipleship.”

  • They set out excellent criteria for inclusion in the calendar, and then proceed to ignore their own work.

  • They don’t seem to listen to feedback, unless what they’re hearing is very different from what I’m seeing. If so, I’d love to see a report on the feedback that’s been received.

I’d agree that the first three are issues—and, because of that, we’ve tried to address them in the resolutions that we offered. On the fourth, there was feedback given publicly on the blog that we did look at, and in my own work submitted to the SCLM, discussed in meetings, and posted here on my own blog, I took the criticisms of HWHM into account as much as possible. In particular, I identified six major centers of energy around HWHM that we needed to factor into our work. So—yes, I did listen; the degree to which it was enacted, well, I think we had varying amounts of success as we attempt to balance different needs and concerns against one another.

The other major issue that Scott raises in his beginning section is the definition of a saint:

However, we must also note that WEP sows theological confusion. An example:

There are a variety of views concerning who and what a saint is: some would identify a saint as any Christian who has struggled to lead a faithful life; others reserve the title for those who have demonstrated heroic virtue on account of their depth of union with Christ and who now participate in the nearer presence of God.

Well, no. Actually, the scriptures and the church’s tradition are quite clear on who the saints are. Anyone who is baptized is a saint. The New Testament is crystal clear on sainthood, and sainthood is the property of all Christians. Go ahead and look it up. I’ll wait. Except for the SCLM, I just don’t think anyone is confused by this.

Actually—Scott’s wrong here. The church has traditionally used the term saint in two ways. One is the Pauline general sense, but since the third or fourth century it has also had a specific referrent to those people who have heroic lived out their baptismal calling. All Christians are created equal. All Christians are equal in the eyes of God. But not all Christians are equal in their fervor, devotion, and witness to who Christ is. Not only that, the church has historically said that holiness isn’t just about ethics but about humans serving as channels for eschatoogical power and grace that manifest miraculously in connection with certain Christian persons living and dead. Yes, 21st century Christians tend to get squeamish when we start talking about miracles and holiness—but its part of our tradition that we have to work with.

Yeah, sure, under the general sense of the term both your grandma and Francis of Assisi are saints. But—no offense to granny—Francis has a far greater impact on our common life as a community because of the way that he inspires a full-bodied living of the Christian message, serves as an icon of Christian maturity, and helps draw the whole Church towards its end in Christ through his life, work, witness, and on-going prayers. He deserves the specific use of the term in a way that granny just doesn’t.

So—moving from generalities to specific resolutions now…

A055: Revise Liturgical Commemorations.

Here we recommend some deletions, recommend some additions, and introduce some revised collects.

I agree with Scott that both the additions and the deletions could use some additional information about them. To be fair, though, this is the form in which additions and deletions have been made since there was a process to do so. Information has not historically been provided. Ruth Meyers has already requested some information on the deletions to be drafted; it would probably be a good idea to do the same on the additions.

On the additions, most of these were submitted by dioceses or provinces. Hiram Hisanori Kano, in particular, was put forward quite strongly by two geographically separated dioceses who already commemorate him in their local calendars, so there is evidence for pre-existing commemoration on-the-ground for some of these.

As far as I’m concerned, the centerpoint of this resolution is the revised collects. We received a lot of feedback on the poor state of the collects for HWHM; this is an attempt to answer it. I wrote many of these collects, but other members of the subcommittee also took part. The goal here was to move away from the “biographical ‘collect'” and to produce true collects that were grounded in baptismal virtues and charisms. Too, these collects should be far more singable than the former versions. There are still some collects out there that probably should have been redone; there are doubtless many things that could be tinkered with to improve the new collects—but forward progress has been made to address the issues raised about them.

A056: Authorize New Liturgical Resources: A Great Cloud of Witnesses; Weekday Eucharistic Propers.

My main critique here is that Scott has missed the chief point of A Great Cloud of Witnesses (GCW). Here are the big things to know about GCW:

  • It would clarify that the official Sanctoral Calendar of the Episcopal Church consists of the Major Feasts already identified within the ’79 Book of Common Prayer. Lesser Feasts & Fasts never said if it was a sanctoral calendar and never called the people in it “saints”; HWHM made some pretentions in this direction and did use the word saints; GCW is clear that it is not a sanctoral calendar—GCW is definitely for the idea of saints, but is not going to try to tell you who they are.
  • It makes a clear and decisive break from the idea that the SCLM is a canonization committee. No longer are we operating with a curial model of a central committee naming saints that everyone else has to live with. Instead, it emphasizes the classic Christian model: local communities identify and celebrate saints.
  • GCW is primarily a catechetical resource that offers pointers towards liturgical resources if the local community decides that they wish to celebrate a certain person within it as a saint.

Because GCW is a catechetical rather than a liturgical resource, Weekday Eucharistic Propers 2015 (WEP) is a liturgical resource to help local communities think through what propers to use for Eucharists that fall outside of Sundays or Feasts provided for in the BCP.

Here’s the key thing to know about WEP:

  • Its three main divisions reflect the three major options for celebrating weekday Eucharists:
    • It provides weekday readings for the Temporal cycle
    • It provides the Commons of the Saints
    • It provides the Propers for Various Occasions
  • It reinforces what the prayer book has always said about the entirely optional character of the people in LFF, HWHM, or GCW. They’re all optional; they always have been. HWHM did not take away any ferial days. There was a perception of a loss of ferial days on the part of those who perceive the “lesser feasts” as mandatory—but they’re not: they’re entirely optional.

In particular, I’d like to see greater use of the Propers for Various Occasions (votive masses). Of the suggestions for liturgical commemoration listed in GCW, you’ll note that usually roughly half of them are from the Commons of Saints while the other half are from the Propers for Various Occasions. What’s happening here is that a community might decide that it wants to celebrate the life and work of someone who they don’t feel was a saint but who brought attention to a specific issue, cause, or doctrine. In that case, a votive proper for that issue/cause/doctrine could be used to supply the propers of the day and the devotional collect could be used to conclude the Prayers of the People: this way a particular cause or concept is honored without the person being celebrated as a saint.

Ok—the other thing to note here is to loop back to the cathecetical vs. liturgical distinction and to reflect on the new purpose of GCW. What is this thing? From my perspective, the book has shifted from being a martyrology to being a necrology. Let me clarify the terminology here… A martyrology was a community’s “book of saints.” Usually at the Office of Chapter—kind of like a daily monastic staff meeting—the martyrology would be read so that everybody would be clear on which saints they would be celebrating on the next liturgical day (which might start at sundown if it happened to be a feast).  A necrology was a community’s “book of the dead.” Classically in the Christian West, a dead person who was a significant part of an ecclesial community (church, cathedral, monastery, whatever) got a requiem on a set of anniversaries: 3 days after their death (in token of the resurrection), 7 days (the week anniversary), 30 days (the month anniversary), then yearly after that. And when I say “significant part” there are a variety of ways a person could get included, the two most obvious being members of the community and benefactors. That is, monks got listed in their community necrologies as did people who give financial gifts and support. Too, one of the ways that relationships between different monasteries was maintained was in a mutual sharing of necrologies. (I.e., we show that we’re connected to you by praying for and remembering your dead in the same way we do our own—and vice-versa.) The necrology was where this community list was maintained through the decades and even centuries. (We often see necrological entries in sanctoral calendars within community books—the distinction between feasted saints and the local dead is usually pretty obvious based on the way the dead were written into the margin of the kalendars. I don’t have any good examples of hand but I should definitely run some down for you…)

[As an aside, the practice of a fulsome necrology gve our spiritual ancestors a much better sense of a baptismal ecclesiology than our current practice does—we have a tendency to neglect our dead… But that’s a discussion for another post.]

GCW is a necrology for the Episcopal Church. It lets us know when certain people who are of on-going importance to our community died, and helps inform our current community about who they were and why they matter to us. The key, then, is importance and significance not necessarily or inherently holiness. Now, local communities may well decide that some of the communal dead are indeed the blessed dead who are not just part of our historical past but are part of our eschatological present and are working alongside us and praying for us now—but GCW is not that list!

As a result, this changes what we’re doing here and how we think about both the number of names and who we include. That, therefore, bring us to the last sanctoral resolution:

A057: Create Additional Liturgical Commemorations.

Scott seems to be un-thrilled by this one…:

My answer to this one can be served up on a plate. It’s a NO sandwich as a side of NO. For dessert, we’ll have the NO cream sundae with a NO-berry on top. Seriously. What the…?

Yes, the proposal is to add 55 new people to GCW. And, yes, they’re all women.

The impetus here should be fairly straightforward. Since 1982, General Convention has told the SLC/SCLM to produce a set of commemorations that is more balanced with respect to gender. The 1980 edition of LFF had 90% men and 10% women so you can see why this would be an issue. Again in 2003, the call was given for a more gender balanced list. And, you can see why as the numbers and only twitched despite the 1982 legislation; in 2003 the balance was 86% men and 14% women. HWHM, that paragon of inclusivity which was going to solve this problem through the addition of a hundred plus names, provided only another little twitch: the count is currently at 81% men and 19% women. Which is why my co-chair tends to refer to it as “Holy Men, Holy Men.”

Part of the mandate for this triennium was to actually make some progress in this area: try to get the commemorations to better reflect what the church actually looks like. Now, there are only strategies that can be used in order to change a percentage: take away some of one group or add more to the other group. Too, these strategies can be used in combination. And that’s what my first attempt tried to do. I initially floated the idea of reducing the calendar significantly and putting the other people into an historical almanac. Thus, I both removed men and added women. But this solution was rejected.  The message was loud and clear: you can’t remove men already on the calendar to make the numbers work. Therefore there was only one other option left—add more women. And that’s what this resolution does.

As far as a list of women goes, I think it’s a good one. It does skew modern in the range of who is included, but it could have been much worse; I think we have a good selection of women who represent a wide variety of Christian vocations. I.e., it’s not all modern “social justice warriors.” Some of them clearly make the list, but we also have a solid variety from the patristic and medieval periods as well as the last century and a balance of actives and contemplatives.

I don’t know if this resolution will pass or not. I think a lot of people will have the same reaction that Scott did. One of the consistent criticisms of HWHM was the number of people on it; recommending more does seem to be ignoring that feedback. On the other hand, we are trying to address something that has been mandated by General Convention and has not been sufficiently acted on for over 30 years despite reminders in the interim to do something about it.

One more time since it seems not to have sunk in: adding more names is not the same as adding more saints. We’re not adding saints, we’re expanding the scope of who we remember as part of our community, some of whom we may actually want to celebrate as saints, others of whom we won’t.

Parting Thoughts

Scott had a few more parting thoughts, one of which was this question:

A bonus challenge: I’d like to hear from any lay or clergy leader in a congregation who celebrates Holy Eucharist daily (that’s all seven days, every week). Do you find this sanctoral calendar expansion, as envisaged by the SCLM, helpful in your corporate worship life? Why or why not?

Now—I’m not in such a congregation. But I try to pray the Office daily and include the saints within the Office. My own perspective too is shaped by the fact that I’m a medievalist. I have no issues at all with having a whole pile of people being remembered on one day. In fact, many of the historic calendars did just that. It’s pretty simple—you have a principal figure of the day and you commemorate the rest. What does this acheive? That’s easy—it helps us get a better sense of what baptismal ecclesiology really is and what it actually means: we are a community spread through time, united in the eternal present moment of Jesus Christ. I do believe that some (probably most) of our dead are presently “go[ing] from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in [God’s] heavenly kingdom” (BCP, 488) while others presently cheering us on so that “encouraged by their examples, aided by their prayers, and strengthened by their fellowship, we also may be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (BCP, 489).

On the Collect for the Departed

A whole bunch of things are swirling around in my brain around the dead, saints, and theology thanks to discussions about the SCLM report, the talks I’m going to be doing in Atlanta next weekend (more on this in a little bit!), and the latest edition of the Collect Call which focused on the collect for the Departed.  If you’re not listening to the Collect Call and/or recommending it to your parishioners, you really ought to be. Brendan and Holli do a great job of looking at the collects and discussing the theology in them in a very accessible way. A few points, some in response to the episode, others that I just think need to be said…

1. Baptismal Ecclesiology!!

I don’t like it when certain liturgical, biblical, or theological phrases are co-opted by church politics and their functional meaning is reduced to address a very specific issue. I’ve often said that I fear this is the case with the phrase “baptismal ecclesiology.” A plain and literal meaning of this phrase means that we are talking about Church as it is fundamentally and uniquely formed by Baptism and the necessary and inherent corollaries of that fact. The way that it tends to get used in church talk, though, is to indicate either a construct of the church as a non-hierarchical institution (oddly, this perspective seems to be insisted upon by certain priests and leaders who impose it in a hierarchical kind of way…) or following the catch-phrase for Integrity “all the sacraments for all the baptized” promoting the full inclusion of lgbt folks in the life of the church.

Now, personally, while I totally support the roles of bishops, priests, and deacons and acknowledge an inherent hierarchy there, I am for a less hierarchical practice of being church. As I was saying to a clergy friend on Facebook, as a layman I do get tired of “clergysplaining”—when someone dismisses me on the basis that they wear a collar and I don’t. Also, I do support the full inclusion of lgbt folks in the church. However, the apparent attempt to reduce the term “baptismal ecclesiology” to these two specific referrents drives me crazy.

If we say that we are interested in and care about a true baptismal ecclesiology, then it means thinking through all of the various aspects of what that means—and that was one of my big beefs with Holy Women, Holy Men. This collect gets it exactly right:

Eternal Lord God, you hold all souls in life: Give to your whole Church in paradise and on earth your light and your peace; and grant that we, following the good examples of those who have served you here and are now at rest, may at the last enter with them into your unending joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This is precisely an expression of baptismal ecclesiology! The church consists of all the baptized, not just the-baptized-who-happen-to-be-bodily-living-right-now. This is part of why getting our theology of sanctity and saints right is important! All souls who have been baptized are, in the words of Colossians, “hid with Christ in God” and are plugged into the life of God in a greater and grander way than before. The physically dead still remain part of our community—which is the entire logic of church-yard cemetaries.

We need to be thinking and talking about baptismal ecclesiology in its broader sense and not just allow it to be narrowed for use as political language.

2. When to Use This Collect

The collects for Various Occasions grew out of the old notion of votive masses. Briefly, with a multiplication of priests who were each bound to say a daily mass, early medieval monasteries and cathedrals needed something else to celebrate other than the Mass of the Day from the Temporal cycle as that mass could only be celebrated once. The solution was votives. Masses were said for particular intentions and a standard weekly pattern evolved:

John Beleth in the thirteenth century describes a series of votive Masses once said (fuit quoddam tempus) each day in the week: on Sunday, of the Holy Trinity; Monday, for charity; Tuesday, for wisdom; Wednesday, of the Holy Ghost; Thursday, of the Angels; Friday, of the Cross; Saturday, of the Blessed Virgin (Explic. div. offic., 51).  (Ibid.)

These changed over the centuries as certain causes and personages waxed and waned in the church’s favor. However, take a look at these and then at the first several items appointed for Various Occasions: “Of the Holy Trinity,” “Of the Holy Spirit,” “Of the Holy Angels,” “Of the Holy Cross,” etc. Coincidence? No.

One of the most common votives throughout history in the Christian West was the Requiem—the Mass for the Dead. It was said for a particular person on the day they died, the third day after they died (in token of the resurrection), then on the anniversaries: the week (7 days later), the month (30 days later), and then yearly from then on. In some times and places, the Mass for the Dead for the community (rather than for a specific individual) was said on any ferial day. In some places, the pratice was to do a solemn Requiem for the whole community on the first Friday of every month. Some priests were paid stipends in wills to say daily Masses of the Dead for wealthy benefactors.

Most modern Christians tend to look askance at these sorts of practices, and—partly due to Reformation polemics—tend to see the last practice of bequeathing masses as a bald tactic by the Church for diverting the fortunes of the faithful into their coffers. I’m not saying that there isn’t truth to this critique, but I also have to point out that, due in part to this focus, the medieval church had a far better sense of the expanse of a baptismally-shaped church than we do!

In addition, the Offices for the Dead were supplemental versions of the Office prayed in addition to the regular hours on behalf of the dead. In some places, these offices were done at particular set times, in others it was done every day. Again, thinking of late medieval wills, some of the wealthy set aside money to be paid out to poor men who would pray the Office of the Dead daily for them.

This constant prayer for the dead generally and specific dead individuals helped retain a sense of community through time, seeing the living and the dead in close communion. If we were serious about a baptismal ecclesiology, this might be a practice worth considering. Hence, I include both the Traditional form and a Contemporary form of the Offices of the Dead at the St. Bede’s Breviary. Note that the aforementioned collect is the one used in these offices.

3. No Prayers for the Dead in “I Will Bless You…”

Huh… I hadn’t realized that. I’ll have to poke around and find out what’s up with this.

 

 

The Liturgical Addendum

My sincere apologies to the General Convention translation crew… The appendix to the Standing Commission on Liturgy & Music (SCLM) resolutions has now been made public. It can be found here (in a 264 page pdf…). The first section contains the materials on same-sex blessings. A second part contains the material generated by my Calendar Subcommittee. Of that part there are three major sections. The third contains resources for Honoring God in Creation.

The first section of the Calendar material is the revised collects. These go from page 152 to page 171. Generally, what you’ll find here is a move away from the “biographical collect.” Introduced in the 1980 revision of Lesser Feasts & Fasts, the biographical collect tends to functionally serve as a mini-homily in prayer form. It tends not to formally be a collect as a collect is one sentence long; these tend to be two sentences. Instead of stressing elements of biography or profession, the new collects try to foreground virtues and charisms. That is, the new revisions attempt a deeper connection with Baptism and the Baptismal Covenant.  Baptism doesn’t give a person a profession. That is, one isn’t baptized as a lawyer or a musician or a teacher. Rather, Baptism opens us to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the virtues of Christ. As a result, most of the revisions attempt to reflect this theological understanding grounded in Baptism, and focus on charisms and virtues rather than accidents of profession and biography.

The second section contains the prefatory material for “A Great Cloud of Witness” (GCW) which introduces a new paradigm for understanding the materials formerly submitted as Holy Women, Holy Men.  This material goes from page 172 to page 217. I’ll expand on this later, but there are two central shifts here. The first central shift is from the Calendar as martyrology to the Calendar as necrology. That is, the SCLM is not saying that the people listed in GCW are saints. Rather, these are people whom we recognize as part of our broader family of faith who have helped the Episcopal Church understand who it is and how it proclaims the Gospel in this time and place. Saints are not declared by a “central committee” but by local communities who may choose all, some, or none of the folks listed in GCW as they discern holiness and sanctity within the bounds of a prayer-book faith. The second central shift is from propers to commons. Instead of trying to assign appropriate propers—Scripture readings in particular—to every single person in the book, the Commons of Saints have been greatly expanded and the individual entries suggest which Commons would be appropriate sources from which to select biblical readings if a given individual is deemed to be a saint by the local worshipping community.

The third section is a companion to GCW. Entitled “Weekday Eucharistic Propers: 2015”, its presence underscores the fact that all of the contents of GCW are entirely optional. Thus, it presents three among many licit options for celebrating weekday Eucharists by 1) collecting the options for following the Temporal Cycle together into a coherent structure, 2) giving greater visibilty to the sadly neglected Various Occasions, and 3) giving options for eucharistically celebrating saints as determined by the local community. This material goes from pages 218 to page 228.

I will be saying more about these materials as time allows and as you ask questions for clarification!

SCLM Resolution on Article X

There has been a great deal of online discussion over the last couple of days regarding the intentions of the Standing Commission on Liturgy & Music around the Article X resolution. For those who don’t keep track of such things, Article X is the part of the Episcopal Church’s constitutions that deals with alterations to the Book of Common Prayer and other aspects of our worship life.

Here is what the SCLM has included in the Blue Book that touches on Article X—it cites the full article but recommends an addition that I have bolded below:

Resolution A000: Amend Article X of the Constitution: The Book of Common Prayer [first reading]

Resolved, the House of ________ concurring, That Article X of the Constitution is hereby amended to read as follows:

The Book of Common Prayer, as now established or hereafter amended by the authority of this Church, shall be in use in all the Dioceses of this Church. No alteration thereof or addition thereto shall be made unless the same shall be first proposed in one regular meeting of the General Convention and by a resolve thereof be sent within six months to the Secretary of the Convention of every Diocese, to be made known to the Diocesan Convention at its next meeting, and be adopted by the General Convention at its next succeeding regular meeting by a majority of all Bishops, excluding retired Bishops not present, of the whole number of Bishops entitled to vote in the House of Bishops, and by a vote by orders in the House of Deputies in accordance with Article I, Sec. 5, except that concurrence by the orders shall require the affirmative vote in each order by a majority of the Dioceses entitled to representation in the House of Deputies.

But notwithstanding anything herein above contained, the General Convention may at any one meeting, by a majority of the whole number of the Bishops entitled to vote in the House of Bishops, and by a majority of the Clerical and Lay Deputies of all the Dioceses entitled to representation in the House of Deputies, voting by orders as previously set forth in this Article:

a) Amend the Table of Lessons and all Tables and Rubrics relating to the Psalms.
b) Authorize for trial use throughout this Church, as an alternative at any time or times to the established Book of Common Prayer or to any section or Office thereof, a proposed revision of the whole Book or of any portion thereof, duly undertaken by the General Convention.
c) Provide for use of other forms for the renewal and enrichment of the common worship of this church for such periods of time and upon such terms and conditions as the General Convention may provide.

And Provided, that nothing in this Article shall be construed as restricting the authority of the Bishops of this Church to take such order as may be permitted by the Rubrics of the
Book of Common Prayer or by the Canons of the General Convention for the use of special forms of worship.

Explanation

The Constitution allows the General Convention to authorize alternative forms of worship only for trial use as a proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer. Since the 1979 Book of Common Prayer was adopted, alternative forms of worship in the Enriching Our Worship series and in Liturgical Resources 1 have been authorized, even though these were not designated for trial use as a proposed revision of the BCP. In addition, a number of congregations are experimenting with other new liturgical forms. This amendment would create a clear constitutional basis for experimental liturgical reforms that are not intended for trial use as a proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer, while ensuring common prayer through the use of authorized liturgical materials.

I first remember this coming up at the October meeting where we were putting the Blue Book together. Despite the occasional moment when I shoot my mouth off, I don’t consider myself a “church politics” person when it comes to things like constitutions and canons and such. Indeed, I didn’t quite catch what this was saying the first time around and, in fact, thought it said the opposite of what it is attempting to say. I still find the language and the placement of clauses in the explanation a little odd, but I don’t see it as a nefarious attempt to manipulate processes (more on this later…).

Ok—what is this trying to say, and why are we saying it? The addition itself is enabling General Convention to provide for “other forms” (read here–liturgies) aside from what is in the authorized books like the Book of Common Prayer and the Book of Occasional Services.  Why would we do this? The language is “for the renewal and enrichment of the common worship of this church.” Renewal and enrichment as opposed to “regular use.” So—we’re discussing the introduction of novelties and experiments here. This neither says nor implies that this change is giving permission to seek alternate liturgies to supplant those of the prayer book throughout the church. Furthermore, General Convention holds the keys: “for such periods of time and upon such terms and conditions as the General Convention may provide.” So, yes—there can be some experiments, but not a free-for-all, and these experiments ill be sanctioned and delineated by General Convention.

The Explanation portion provides some context and presents an intention for this addition. There’s a whole lot of backstory to this that I have neither the time nor the desire to get into at this point, but let me, instead, point you to Prayer Book Studies XV: The Problem and Method of Prayer Book Revision. If, like me, you might read this title and assume that it will talk about liturgical principles for change, you’d be quite wrong. Rather, it is an 18-page essay written in 1961 intended to persuade General Convention to pass a resolution including the notion and phrase of “trial use.” Here’s a key bit with clear application to the present resolution:

For the past three General Conventions (1952, 1955, and 1958) the Standing Liturgical Commission has offered with its report to the Convention a resolution seeking an amendment to Article X of the Constitution that would set up the possibility of trial use in any forthcoming revision of the Prayer Book. This resolution has been defeated in all three Conventions. The Commission is disturbed, not so much by its defeat, as by the fact that the proposal has not as yet been properly interpreted to the Convention. (PBS XV, 14)

Thus, in the days when the ’79 prayer book was but a twinkle in Massey Shepherd’s eye, there was legislative resistence to the idea of trial use, and when it did finally get passed it was with the constraint that such trial use be specifically intended for the purpose of prayer book revision.

As I understand it, this is still the way the official documents read: trial use is coupled with prayer book revision.

Jump closer to the present. We have the Enriching Our Worship series.  Well—what is it? We are not in a state of prayer book revision. Yet these things exist and are in trial use. Glancing over the prefaces of EOW 1, it appears that these documents were seen in continuity with and were passed in 1997 as the fourth edition of Supplement Liturgical Materials. I have no clue what this series or its canonical/constitutional status except that I think it may have been what Prayer Book Studies series morphed into. (Like I said, I don’t follow this kind of stuff, and all of these things happened before I became an Episcopalian…)

To put it bluntly, I think some canon lawyers messed up. EOW seems to exist in a legislative limbo  that is technically not permitted by the Constitutions. If something is “trial use” it is therefore for the purpose of “prayer book revision.” EOW is authorized for circumscribed “trial use,” but the language of “prayer book revision” has been studiously avoided.

Now we’re in a position to understand the Explanation and what the addition to Canon X is about. The only licit purpose for new GC-authorized liturgies as it currently stands is for prayer book revision. What this amendment is trying to do is to create an official grey area for “alternative forms of worship” to be used on a GC-circumscribed basis that are not necessarily nor inherently intended as part of prayer book revision. As I see it, it’s a retroactive “cover your butt” amendment for things like EOW and Daily Prayer for All Seasons (of which I’ve written in the past). And, of course, the “I Will Bless You” materials in Liturgical Resources 1—and that’s where people start going ballistic in multiple directions…

From where I sit, the point of this amendment is to define what these alternative forms of worship are constitutionally, and to say that they are not currently seen as part of the process of prayer book revision. I, for one, would be very happy to say that EOW and DPFAS exist but are not seen or thought of as replacement for material currently in the prayer book. Chiefly because I don’t think they measure up.

Two of the fellows of the Anglican Communion Institute are quite concerned about this change and see it as a harbinger of great changes to the church and its polity. They see this as the end of the former way of doing things and as the start of a new kind of church with new rules. I think that they are reading way to much into this and are neglecting the context, particularly the explanation. I’m quite sure in response they’d question my naiveté at such a reading.

Bottom line is, of course, do we need an Official Gray Area? I understand the desire for constitutional CYA and provision of a space to point to for the blessing liturgies. But I don’t know if this is the best way to go about doing it.

My own feeling—as I’ve said before—is that the period of reception for any given edition of the BCP ought to be measured in generations rather than years. I do think that waiting four hundred years is too long. But we also need to give the book time to percolate and work amongst the church. The energies are still stewing.

Another issue concerns the SCLM itself. Are we a commission that creates work for itself, then—on passage of the resolutions—insists that we only take up what Convention asks us too? That’s a genuine question. For me, I’d love to see a return to Prayer Book Studies where the SCLM and others are actively studying aspects of our liturgies—use, pastoral value, perception within the church, perception from various bodies outside the church, re-examination of the tradition and history in light of these discussions, etc.  Perhaps a Gray Area is best accomplished through those means.

There’s a lot up in the air. A great deal of the future direction of many of these matters depend on how the TREC resolutions develop. Will the SCLM be one of the last CCABs standing? Will it change is shape and purpose? Will it too be swept away altogther? I suppose we’ll all have to wait for the summer to see…

Anglo-Catholic Identity–Again

The last couple of posts (Anglo-Catholic Future in the Episcopal Church and its follow-on A Response to Josh) have raised some comments and questions that I’ll try to address. On one hand, Brian has questioned my use and appropriation of the term “Anglo-Catholic”; on the other, Susan, Greg and others have located themselves in the final paragraph of “A Response to Josh” but neither see nor understand themslves as being particularly “catholic”…  As different as these questions are, I think there’s a common thread here that makes me reckless enough to try to tackle them both in a single post.

I’ll start with Brian’s comments:

I am challenged by your self-description as an “Anglo-Catholic” only because, in the history of this blog, I have never seen you cite, or even mention having read about, the Tractarians, especially Newman and Pusey, the Ritualists, the founding priests of the SSC, the slum priests of the late 19th century, the “martyrs of ritualism” who were jailed for violating the Public Worship Regulation Act, the early AC religious orders, the Anglo-Papalists of the early to mid-20C, the participants in the Anglo-Catholic Congresses, the work of Frs. Huddleston, Raynes, and other CR priests in South African missions during apartheid, and so on. I think those of us who were steeped in that tradition, by the priests who formed us, chafe at your description of historic Anglo-Catholicism as “extreme, regressive, and eccentric,” and at your reference to “the sins of the fathers” in your response to Josh. Your vision of Anglo-Catholicism seems historically myopic, and I think it is easy to dismiss those of us who differ with your understanding of the movement if you lack a full knowledge of that history. I say this in good faith after a few days of bemusement.

I know Brian fairly well from our online interactions and, I think, have a good sense of where he’s coming from. Lineage is important. (There’s an additional subtext here around lineage as both of us enjoy martial arts and if there’s one thing martial artists like to argue about its lineage and the implicit connection between lineage and effectiveness…)

When I first started actively attending an Episcopal parish it was one in Ohio headed by a former Presbyterian who was high as could be with smells, bells, and Rector’s forums on Anglo-Catholic topics. When we wnt back to Atlanta, M had a parish placement but we were unofficially affiliated with an Anglo-Catholic parish there. The priest was a member of the SSC and highly placed in Forward in Faith NA. I learned quite a lot from him, his liturgies, sermons, and spiritual direction. (He was the one who introduced me to Martin Thornton.) Bouncing from Atlanta to New York, we alternated between Smokey Mary’s and St Luke’s in the Village and I got up to the Church of the Resurrection a few times. On moving to the Main Line, M got her start in a parish with an incumbent raised at St Clement’s who maintained a prayer-book parish with an Anglican Missal altar party. I could go on, but I don’t feel the need to…

What’s my point in this rehearsal? The Anglo-Catholic movement within the Episcopal Church is a living tradition. And, as a result of being a living tradition, it’s a rather broad one—indeed, much more broad than some would desire.  As you can see, there’s quite a span: Tridentine ceremonial to Vatican II style, those affirming women and queer folk and those not. Which is why there’s also an Anglo-Catholic movement outside of the Episcopal Church. Furthermore, in the time since I’ve started blogging, the span of Anglo-Catholics within the Episcopal Church has narrowed quite a bit. Between the formation of ACNA, the mass departure of Forward in Faith, and the establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate, there has been a lot of shifting around and many who described themselves as Anglo-Catholics left. For those whose ultimate desire was union with Rome, they have left and gone to Rome. Indeed, the FiFNA priest mentioned abve is now a priest of the Ordinariate. For those who were too Anglican (or too remarried) for the Ordinariate, ACNA provided a option.

If you’ll note, I carefully specified my remarks around an Anglo-Catholic movement that wished to be taken seriously within the Episcopal Church. So—I’m speaking to the living tradition of Anglo-Catholism that has chosen to remain within the Episcopal Church and wants to have an effect upon it.

Having talked a bit about the “living tradition” thing, I’ll switch gears slightly, shift to the topic of self-applied labels in identity politics and directly address the points that Brian raised. As I read his comment, Brian is suggesting that I don’t belong within the Anglo-Catholic tradition and have no business claiming the label because I do not have the proper intellectual foundations within it.

So, let me sketch a little bit of my intellectual formation with regard to 19th century Anglicanism. I’m a biblical scholar with an interest in the use of Scripture in liturgy and its application in ascetical theology. That means I do a lot of reading, only some of it related to Anglican topics. I have read the entire contents of Tracts for the Times in my early days as an Anglican and learned a lot from them. I’ve read a lot of John Mason Neale and his circle. I’ve read some from the Ritualists. I’ve read, in particular, liturgical and ceremonial material from the time, focusing on the early history of Ritual Notes and the Directorium Anglicanum and others. Fr. Rock’s Church of Our Fathers in three volumes lives on my Kindle. I’ve read broadly through Hierurgia Anglicana. Those are the folks who fall narrowly within your canon.

No, I’ve not read much from the early SSC founders or their hiers.

I’ve no doubt departed from the narrow way in reading more of J. Wickham Legg, Vernon Staley, Percy Dearmer, and those who I would regard as my best conversation partners, Walter H. Frere and his friend and correspondent Evelyn Underhill. And I’ve been guilty of reading and being formed by other people you didn’t mention like Lancelot Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, John Donne, and George Herbert.

My take-away from this reading is that the Anglican way is a liturgical spirituality informed by patristic interpretation and practice understood in such a way to speak to the spiritual yearnings of our times. So I spend more of my time reading Augustine, Cassiodorus, John Cassian, Benedict, Gregory, Bede, and the desert tradition generally (that also being the roots of real “Celtic theology” which learned much more from the Desert Fathers than Greenpeace.)

So—am I a real Anglo-Catholic?

Those who have been reading this blog from the beginning will recall that I have a love/hate relationship with the Anglo-Catholic label. Indeed, over the past decade(!) that I’ve kept the blog up, I have attempted to explicitly disavow the label and distance myself from it at least twice.

Once was here back in 2005: Anglo-Catholic.

Another was here in 2008: faux catholic.

I’ve tried to go with different alternatives too. Here was an attempt from 2006: Sarum Anglicans? and another from 2007: What is in a name?

But, like a dog returning to its vomit, I have returned to the Anglo-Catholic label partly because that’s how I am perceived by the wider church. I’ll talk more about this in a moment, but for the sake of completeness let me link to this piece from 2006 where I specifically recant the position that I took in that first link up there from 2005: An Anglican Moderate.

“Anglo-Catholic” to the best of my knowledge—and I’m sure folks will feel more than free to correct me on this if I’m wrong—does have a narrow meaning in which it refers to a particular group of writers and thinkers in late 19th century England who suceeded the Ritualists. However, very few people use it with this narrow referrent. Its far more common usage is a general term for those who insist on a catholic continuity in the Anglican churches. (For instance, check out the authors collected in the mid-ninteenth century “Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology“!) As such, the general term “Anglo-Catholic” is a synthesis. I explore my understanding of such a synthesis in this post from 2010: Tradition: Between Synthesis and Historicity. At the end of the day, such a synthesis is a set of ideas and perspectives enshrined by a current living community, and this is where we really get at the root of things. Brian’s community will not regard me as a true Anglo-Catholic. Why—because I have not read the intellectual canon within which Anglo-Catholicism resides? No—they would tell me that I am not a true Anglo-Catholic because if I were formed properly in that canon I would recognize that women cannot be clergy and that queer folk should be kept in their closets. And—by and large—most of the people who make up Brian’s community have left the Episcopal Church. (As has Brian.)

I, on the other hand, recognize a synthesis largely contiguous with that of Brian’s community (!), that not only has a home but has an important voice to offer the Episcopal Church—and that there is a living community here that embodies and sustains it.

(I identify the two major differences between my position and positions like Brian’s as these: 1) I don’t believe in an infallible church and thus see some matters as open for discussion that they see as closed, and 2) I don’t see the point of the movement as corporate reunion with the Roman Catholic Church. I’m certainly not against corporate reunion with the Roman Catholic Church but, let’s face it, they’ve got some work to do before I’d be willing to sign off on it.)

But there’s another piece here too. Up to now, I’ve been talking about self-applied labels. As my friend Robb noted in a comment on one of the pieces linked to above, there’s a point where a subculture’s navel-gazing breaks down…

The funny thing is that – the more I am engaged in debates about what is truly Catholic – the more it feels like other debates about meaningless subcultures: is Green Day punk in the same way as The Ramones; can you be a true Goth and listen to Marilyn Manson; who best represents country music, David Allen Coe or Kenny Chesney? (btw, there is only one right answer to that last question!!!)

Anybody remember the Goth Code (or the Geek Code)? I’m sure there’s an Anglo-Catholic variant somewhere. If the seventh letter is an “f”, it means you’re for the use of folded chausibles in Lent; if the 12th is an “m” then you think the maniple should be removed for the sermon—but if you do, you’d better be ready for the severe verbal whoopin’ from those who think it should stay on and have three sources older than yours to cite as evidence!!

But these are points that—however significant they may be to insiders—are completely ignored by those outside the subculture.

Here’s the thing. When someone sees me cross myself at the Elevation and genuflect on the way out of the pew they’ll say, “What are you, an Anglo-Catholic or something?” I could say, “Well, no, actually I’m a Reformed Patristic Prayer-book catholic Anglican within the Episcopal Church—not technically an Anglo-Catholic. When I crossed myself, I was following the tradition of the vernacular devotions for the Sarum Mass which is totally different from the use of ‘Anglo-Catholics’ simpliciter as they were simply borrowing the Roman Catholic customs of their day without a whole lot of reference to historical analogues…” but the person making the remark would have wandered off after the third word.

The Episcopal church calls me an Anglo-Catholic. I can disagree, isolate myself because of a concern for terminology not shared by 99.9% of people in or outside the church, and in the process cut myself off from a community of people who may or may not share my terminological scruples with whom I share a great deal in terms of theology and practice. Or, alternatively, I can embrace the label despite my hedging and potential scruples and lend my voice to those who love the church and want to support it in its mission by reminding it of our core beliefs and principles.

This, then, is where we get to the final point I want to make: what a catholic movement (and yes, I do prefer to use this term and to use a lower-case “c”) has to contribute to the broader Episcopal Church. Several people saw things they liked in the final paragraph of my previous post. But—they don’t see themselves as being “catholic” let alone “Anglo-Catholic.” So what gives?

I don’t think that there was anything distinctively catholic in that last paragraph; I think it is something that Anglicans of any stripe ought to be able to get behind. However, I do think that catholic Anglicans (and Episcopalian Anglo-Catholics) may have a clearer perspective on some of these issues because of our chosen theological conversation partners and patterns of life.

Reading the Church Fathers is a manifestly useful exercise. All sorts of discussions and arguments were had in the first several centuries of the Church’s life as we were hammering out language to wrap around our understanding of God in the Scriptures, the experience of the Risen Jesus in the Sacraments, and participation of the Holy Spirit in the life of our communities. The Fathers (and Mothers) got a sense of what thoughts led to skewed practice. And that’s the real problem with heresy—not that someone is thinking an unapproved thought, but that someone has construed who and what God is in a way that will have tragic consequences if we try to live it out. That’s why Arianism, Gnosticism, Pelagianism, Montanism, and others are problems: they live badly. In some way, their communal expression undercuts the abundant life with God and the reconciliation between God and his whole creation promised in the true Gospel.

We who read these writers hear what they were struggling against and are more ready to identify it in our own time.

We who have chosen to lead a self-consciously liturgical and sacramental life will have both different thoughts and different instincts—whether conscious or not—around the sacraments, their relationship to a life of discipleship, and how the church deploys them than those who don’t. Are these thoughts and instincts “better”? I wouldn’t say “better” myself, but they may well be more thought through or more organically integrated in a spiritual life.

Personally, I think the Episcopal Church could stand to learn quite a lot about sanctity, holiness, and the connection between the sacraments and the sacred from the catholic movement. As I’ve said before and will no doubt expand upon, “A Great Cloud of Witnesses” is not the document I wish for the church—but it meets the church where the church is. I hope it serves as a starting place for a set of discussions that can eventually get us to a clearer place.

No, I don’t think the catholic movement is the sole location of faithful Christians in the Episcopal Church—there are myriads who aren’t and have no need to be catholic. No, I don’t think that catholic devotions should be made mandatory or imposed on the prayer book. I’m quite happy having the St. Augustine’s Prayer Book to use alongside my BCP. No, I don’t think that being an Anglo-Catholic in the Episcopal Church is the only way to be one. There are different syntheses recognizably within the tradition. I can honor that and respect those who hold them even while I don’t agree with them.

So—that’s where I am today. An Anglo-Catholic in the Episcopal Church who believes that we have much to offer the church. You may not agree—either that I’m an Anglo-Catholic, or that the church needs to listen—but I don’t plan on shutting up and going away any time soon…

A Response to Josh

This post started out as a response to the comment that Josh left on the previous post but ballooned beyond the size of a proper comment…

The Church is not about “winning” or “losing” (your language, not mine). I fully believe in the Episcopal Church as a big-tent movement and am committed to it remaining so. One part of that big-tent, though, covers those of us who believe in the creeds without any finger-crossing, and that voice needs to be heard and taken into account.

Yes, the broader church will often ignore what we say because the Anglo-Catholic side has historically been guilty of oppressing and suppressing women and those not in the closet. And the irony of that position is that there were more closeted gay priests in the Anglo-Catholic movement than probably anywhere else in the Episcopal Church put together. The points that I’m making here are these: 1) those of us who do identify as catholic within today’s Episcopal Church need to commit ourselves to fully including LGBT folk, women, and children. I bring this up because I’m addressing an issue I see in my own community. (You may not be seeing it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.) In my experience, there are gay-friendly churches who still limit and suppress the legitimate ministries of women and children. 2) It’s not enough for us to act in these ways, we also need to communicate it broadly so that we can no longer be dismissed because of the sins of our fathers 50 years ago that we have since put behind us. 3) Welcoming women to the altar (as with St Paul’s K Street) is a strong visible step forward, but is not sufficient to say that women—and children—have been fully included.

You haven’t seen these things? I’m not surprised. You’re not an Anglo-Catholic father of two daughters married to a female priest. This situation gives me a very useful perspective from which to observe and comment upon my own community (which is what I’m doing…). I never understood sexism in the church until I was married to M and heard, saw, and experienced the sexism that she did and continues to encounter; I never reflected thoughtfully from an informed perspective on the place of children in church until I had my own.

Is the issue of children in church an issue throughout the church? Most certainly. But an important difference between my community and others is our understanding of the Eucharist. If Communion is just a time to think pleasant thoughts about Jesus while we have a snack together, than kids may well be better served somewhere else coloring pictures of Bible stories. In my theology, though, the Eucharist is the rite through which the whole gathered community most fully embodies myriad and multiple aspects of the Body of Christ as we bring together the mystical, social, eschatological, and sacramental Bodies of Christ into one shared experience. If the children are not there they miss something important; if they’re not there, we miss something important too: the Body of Christ is visibly diminished at the point where we are attempting to enact it most fully.

That deals with the points that I was raising in my previous post. Now, I do need to address a piece of baggage that you felt the need to insert (that I neither said nor intended) and which perfectly illustrates the kind of projection that hapens when an Anglo-Catholic speaks up.

You wrote in your comment:

Maybe if Anglo-Catholics stopped holding themselves out as practicing a superior version of the faith, they’d face less discrimination; I don’t know. . . . Instead, what I see denomination-wide is that the Catholic movement has won (but thinks they haven’t), thanks by and large to the rubric in the ’79 Prayer Book mandating the Eucharist as the principal Sunday service. . . . Meanwhile the “evangelical wing” has been thoroughly routed and/or has walked out. We are all catholic now, we are all evangelical, and thanks be to God. . . . It’s true that Derek and I disagree about the usefulness of pious add-ons (my term) to the liturgy, and that TEC as a whole will never adopt them for general use *unless they appear in the Prayer Book.* But as I survey all the changes in this Church in the last 40 years, in which Protestors have moved almost entirely to the Catholic side, I’m astonished at the persistence of these distinctions, as if the Catholic movement cannot rest until every pious add-on has been adopted by every last one of us. . . . Can Catholics never simply declare victory and throw a party? Apparently not; it really is about all those pious add-ons now, isn’t it. Anything to continue dividing us.

So—I post about making sure that my community is including children in worship and suddenly it becomes “Derek wants to make Josh say prayers to Mary.” Really? What a fascinating reaction…

First off, weekly communion is not a “Catholic” thing, it’s an “Anglican” thing. The celebration of the Eucharist on Sundays and Holy Days was the pattern laid down by both the English 1549 BCP and the English 1662 which has since formed a template for most of the rest of the Anglican Communion. Whether these patterns were actually followed is another thing entirely, but to call them “Catholic” rather than “Anglican” is to misrepresent our Anglican origins.

Therefore, and second, the fact of a weekly Communion does not mean “the Catholic movement has won” as you put it. The Disciples of Christ (some background here) have weekly communion; are they therefore “Catholic”?  You have fallen into a conventional mistake of confusing ritual with theology. Just because a church does a certain thing does not establish what they believe about it. I would suggest that since the convergence of the Ecumenical Movement and the Liturgical Renewal Movement the broad middle portion of the Episcopal church has adopted a number of practices that were seen a century ago as “Catholic”—but that does not mean that the beliefs of these Episcopalians have changed or that they hold to the catholic theologically grounded logic of why some things are done and not others. Indeed, this is a key to our big-tent system: we can participate in the same liturgies yet understand them and what we do in them in some very different ways.

Third, I care not one whit whether you or anyone else uses “pious add-ons.” I use some of them because they feed me spiritual. I have no interest in imposing them on anyone else. You’ll note that they are entirely optional in my edition of the Offices. I’ll even go out on a limb and wager that the catholic movement as a whole doesn’t care if you use them or not. Your knee-jerk assumption about my agenda says more about you than me.

What do I care about? Resurgent Arianism in the church really bothers me; approval and promotion of teachers who suggest that Jesus was just an enlightened revolutionary teacher rather than God Incarnate bothers me. Casual modalism bothers me. Indeed, causual modalism implying that Jesus has no role as Creator or Sanctifier further reinforces Arian tendencies. Insidious Gnosticism and the notion that the faith is about an individual’s intellectual assent to a set of ideas rather than the communal living of embodied beliefs bothers me. Disconnecting the sacraments from a life of discipleship bothers me. The Eucharist is a sacrificial meal of reconciliation that draws us deeper into our baptismal vows and commitments. It is a sign of and for the baptized community and those who wish to receive it should be invited into the community through the font. Concerns about Christology have real, practical, pastoral implications; sacramental theology matters in how we see God at work in the world around us. This isn’t a “superior version of the faith”—it’s the faith as we’ve been taught it. I have a duty to teach it to my children and, by extension, to have confidence that the other members of the church who are teaching my children hold it too.

Anglo-Catholic Future in the Episcopal Church

The news appeared in my Twitter feed yesterday that St. Paul’s K Street has gone through a process of discernment and is welcoming women clergy to their altar as well as same-sex blessings. I know with regard to the first that this was a move that had been in process for a while. There had been some discussions a bit ago about M being in residence there, but those did not come through at that time.

Serving on the SCLM has been a good experience in many ways; one is the opportunity to get more involved in church discussions at the broadest level. I get to see and hear things from a different perspective than what I just see in the life of one or two parishes. In particular, I have come away with two strong convictions.

First, the Episcopal Church needs a strong voice within its deliberations that will continue to champion a classical understanding of doctrine and a disciplined approach to the alteration of the church’s discipline. That is, we need advocates who are willing and able to teach the doctrines of the creeds and to champion authentic Christian discipleship rooted in the sacraments and spirituality that have been handed over to us. The church’s discipline—those things that are not doctrine but around which the church orders its common life—needs to be carefully thought through and alterations to it should be backed by solid theology and connections into our core doctrine. A catholic movement within the Episcopal Church ought to be able to make this case with credibility and conviction. It shoud have a clear sense of why we do what we do and be able to speak sensible with those who disagree and those who are undecided.

Second, there are many in the councils of the church who are quick to dismiss anything coming from an “Anglo-Catholic” source as inherently problematic because of an assumption of bias and irrelevance. Almost every time I opened my mouth in meetings or offered a proposal, there were those on my committee who would immediately suggest that my recommendation was somehow anti-women and anti-lay. As a layman married to a female priest, I found this bizarre! Or, alternatively, that what I proposed was of no interest to the broader church because it only addressed the needs of a shrinking “boutique” spirituality that had no connection or application to modern church life. They had slotted me into a mental pigeonhole and, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, were ready to dismiss me beause of biases they assumed I held (but didn’t).

If the catholic movement wants to be a relevant force in the church, if it wants to be listened to, to have its arguments taken seriously, and actually have an impact upon the decisions made by the Episcopal Church going forward, I believe that we need to both enact and communicate broadly three basic principles in our local parishes and beyond:

1) that openly gay and lesbian people are full and welcome members of our communities and should exercise their ministries among us,

2) that women are full and welcome members of our communities and should exercise their ministries among us, and

3) that children are full and welcome members of our communities and should exercise their ministries among us.

Now—I’m well aware that there are those who identify as catholic Anglicans who will take issue with 1 and 2 in light of what has been said above and identify them as changes of doctrine rather than discipline. I disgree and have written about both explaining my reasons in the past. Rather than get stuck rehashing arguments about 1—as the church is wont to do—I’d rather focus on 2 and 3.

The irony, as I see it, is that many of the catholic parishes that I know personally that do the best with 1 fail on 2 and 3.

What specifically do I mean about point 3? Case in point: removing everyone under the age of fifteen from the sanctuary at the beginning of the service and giving them coloring sheets in another room is something very different from seeing them as full and welcome members who have ministries to exercise in our midst. I’ll go so far as to say that any church that holds Sunday School during Mass (catholic or not) is failing on 3. When we don’t allow our children to be in Mass or suggest that they be somewhere else, we have failed. Now—there is a range here. At the parish where we attend now, small children are invited out after the Gospel for a children’s time that extends through the end of the prayers. I have far less of an issue with this because 1) Sunday School happens at a different time—this isn’t the only child-focused education on offer, and 2) it’s quite optional. Many children don’t go out; my children have never felt any pressure to do so.

(This is quite different from one broad-church parish we visisted. They were almost anxious to remove my children from the service when we walked in and were taken aback when my girls refused to go. Then, after the service, a number of adults came up expressing their surprise and delight that the girls were “good” in church…)

I understand that some parishes, particularly those of a more solemn bent, want to minimize distractions and disruptions. I get that some people—particularly those who aren’t parents—don’t want to deal with noise from other people’s kids. Three things: 1) it’s a gathering of the Body of Christ, not a classical concert, 2) parents should have an awareness of when it’s a good idea to remove a noisy child from a congregational situation—shaming them doesn’t help, 3) if your solemnity is so fragile that it can be easily shattered by the mere presence of a child, it’s more likely to be pretence and pretentiousness rather than true solemnity. (If it were true solemnity, the kids would be caught up in it as well!)

My experience, though, is that the kids who are “good” in church are those who are most used to it. Kids who are in church learn—and are taught—how to behave properly in church. They are taught by seeing how others behave, and by being hissed at and prodded by their parents.  Trust me: I’ve done it. Communities teach children what is expected. Too—and more to the point—children tend to be far less squirmy when they’re engaged and assisting! My girls always choose to sit up front where they can see what’s going on, but they’d much rather sit in the chancel helping out.

I have no issue with nurseries. There was a certain age between 18 months and 3 when I would often put H in the nursery when I was juggling G, but once G could sit properly by herself and participate, I brought H back in. (Because M is usually in a chancel somewhere, I’m used to being a single pew-parent.) Too, there are some children who have genuine difficulties sitting still and being quiet for whom additional arrangements may be necessary—but these are few and far between.

The reason why this matters is because it ties into both relevance and catholic evangelism. Children are just as moved by deep ritual and sacramental experience as anyone else. If we are unable to preach the Gospel and serve the sacraments to our own children, then we’d be better off packing up the place and shuttering it now.

Another piece here is that when 3 is not done properly, when children are not fully incorporated into the worship and formational life of the community, it inevitably impacts 2 as well. When children are not in the service, those who give care to them—usually their mothers or grandmothers—get marginalized as well. I was once in a parish where the Senior Warden and several other vestry members did not attend Mass or a hear a sermon for months on end. Why? Because they were the women teaching Sunday School which took place during Mass.

How a self-described catholic parish treats female clergy is one thing—and an important thing. But don’t forget female laity either. Don’t congratulate yourself for the occasional woman in the pulpit if you’re keeping a whole lot of others out of their pews each week.

The other thing about parishes where Sunday School happens during the Mass is that Christian formation is usually seen as something just for the children. There is rarely a separate time for adult formation—and everyone is thereby impoverished. Whole community formation is necessary—formation for children, formation for adults, and formation for adults that happens at other times so that those who teach can be informed as well. (No, I don’t want someone who doesn’t grasp the basics of the faith trying to educate my children in it!)

I want to be part of a vibrant catholic community within the Episcopal Church. I want my wife and my children to be full and equal parts of it as well as our gay friends. I want our voices to be heard and taken seriously when the church gathers for councils and decisions. As long as the catholic movement is regarded as a haven for the extreme, regressive, and eccentric, we will neither be heard nor heeded.

SCLM Resolutions Posted

The resolutions put forth by the Standing Commission on Liturgy & Music (of which I am a member) have been posted on the official General Convention Blue Book site. In all fairness, what has been posted is as much a teaser as the full material. Our resolutions have been posted; the appendices have not—and we have a lot of appendicies and the core of the material resides in those!

So—the actionable items are now out in the public sphere, much of the content to be considered is not yet out there. Some of it has appeared at various points around the web. For instance, much of the material that appears in “A Great Cloud of Witnesses” has been posted here in draft form as it was being developed and also, in a more formal state, on the SCLM’s own blog.

Although I did discuss the collect revision process in this post and included my revision for the feast of St. Bede, there are an additional 80 or so collect revisions not yet published.

In addition to the material around the Calendar, the other material that will no doubt draw much comment is the material around same-sex blessings. Again—the resolutions are posted, the material is not. It will be—but you’ll have to be patient until they do appear…

Anglican Breviary Online Update!

I realized that I haven’t given much of an update on the Anglican Breviary online recently.

The wiki can be found at anglicanbreviaryonline.org.

Last night I caught up on some work I had backing up including quite a bit of material from the post-Christmas period and Epiphany (with much thanks to Richard and Scott!). I also modified the side-bar to make it more user-friendly, and to give better access to the seasonal material that has been entered.

Here’s our status:

  • Most of Advent is in.
  • The text of Christmas is all in; there are a few bits that need the formatting markup. The majority of that is in, though.
  • Epiphany and its Octave are mostly in. A couple of days are lacking, as is some more formatting.

I’d love to start a push towards Lent before we actually get there so we can get the material in both here and also into the St. Bede’s Breviary.

The issue—as always—is one of time and resources. (My ISP is reminding me it’s time to re-register the URL as well…) I’ll be contacting those who have helped who are currently without assignments for entering more text; if you’d to help out, leave a comment or drop me an email. And, as always, donations are appreciated and help move things along. (I just learned that my button on the wiki wasn’t working through the “front door” url, so I’m co-opting the St. Bede’s Breviary link—just earmark it for the Anglican Breviary and list the form you want your name to appear on the Benefactors page!)