Salt

Interesting Sites

A House Democrat Keeps Track of Bush's Experiments with Truth.

A new interesting culturefilter with an English tilt.

And Last, I have a new browser - Mozilla.

A Play

I think i'm going to write a play about a priest who is always looking for volunteers.

setting: A church. People facing a preacher, who is discussing interesting ideas.

"Hey guys, we're going to have a dinner and discuss something churchy!"

Parishioners sit in silence

"It'll be fun!"

"but father, who's going to come?"

"You are!"

"Oh. Do I have to?"

"Um, no, but it would be nice."

"I'm sure other people will enjoy it."

***

"So we're going to go and say a litany for justice for some oppressed people downtown. Lets Go!" says the Father. "Any volunteers?"

Silence

"Come on, it'll be fun."

Someone pipes up. "I nominate you, Father."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you like going to those things."

"but I don't want to go alone."

"You can take the deacon. She'll keep you company."

***

Priest: "I think we should do a bible study."

"That's a great idea father!"

"I hope you'll join me."

"Oh. Well. Um. Don't you think you could do more bible study in your sermons, instead? [Pause]. No scratch that. Perhasyou could write a couple bible thingies in your newsletter. We always like it in the newsletter."

A poem for now

I sometimes think that our current church debates would be tempered if we had a bit more humility.

Here is a poem I recently came across

Maternity

I gave birth to life.
It went out of my entrails
and asks for the sacrifice of my life
as does an Aztec deity.
I lean over a little puppet,
we look at each other
with four eyes.
“You are not going to defeat me,” I say.
“I won’t be an egg which you would crack
in a hurry for the world,
a footbridge that you would take on the way to your life.
I will defend myself.”
I lean over a little puppet,
I notice
a tiny movement of a tiny finger
which a little while ago was still in me,
in which, under a thin skin,
my own blood flows.
And suddenly I am flooded
by a high, luminous wave
of humility.
Powerless, I drown.

—Anna Swir, translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan

going to a convention

Yes, I'm going to a convention, my Episcopal self, to Cleveland to talk about ways to unseat Bush.

First two things:

People who want a gay marriage amendment are finding it difficult.

The reason: Christians think of politics as divisive and don't want to get involved in such divisive things. They want to avoid the subject. Thank you Dawne.

Who am I

"It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is."

You are Desiderius Erasmus! You have great love for others and will do just about anything to show it to them. You are tolerant and avoid confrontations, so people generally are drawn to you. You are more quiet and reserved in front of strangers, but around some people you open up. When things get tough, you like to meditate alone. Unfortunately you often get things like "what a pansy," or "you're such a liberal."

What theologian are you?
A creation of Henderson

Thank you, Heretic

Its happened before

A couple general observations about the sexuality debate.

The core foundational debates have not been settled, but have been around for a while.

1) The status of scripture in Christian thinking [say, with Barth's Neo-Orthodoxy "Just accept the Bible and deal" and Child's Biblical Theology "The bible makes sense and maps the mind of God" and Kerr's Narrative Theology "The bible's stories are human stories which is why they are the Word of God"] has been contested since Bultmann, and Schweitzer.

2) The status of scripture has been undermined by the problems of translation, interpretation and worth.

3) The primary issue, then, has not about what the bible said. But authority. Reading the bible threatened papal authority. The unifying factor had been authority, not scripture in part because there has never been a mythical time of Christian consensus.

4) Scripture and society are overlapping, but not identical, categories. Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes or Locke would note that scripture has not been the basis for, at least, Common law. Scripture was relevant for the scrooby separatists and other wild fanatical Christians, of whom America inherits a fair amount of its culture. But current laws about sexuality illustrate the difference.

5) Our current understanding of Sin has resulted in confusion because since Galileo, Mendel and Darwin [Freud, and Marx, also], ahave undermined our understanding of "eternity" and cosmology. "Hell" is simply unimportant to most people in the educated west.

6) As an aside, I think our cultural debates are still influenced by the French Revolution and the American Civil War.

7) These controversies, that revolve aroud the state, church, and culture, have been seen in the French Revolution and American Civil War.

There is nothing new under the sun. And The current conflict is just a continuation of older ones. {On Monday I will explain why everything is different under the sun]

Always Remember This

My girlfriend asked me for a story today.

I didn't have one, but I had a conversation yesterday that was very inspiring. I thought you might like it.

Yesterday I talked with one of the greatest priests in the country for 1/2 hr. He has grown his parish in the city from 400 to 2000 people in the course of eight years, without gimmicks.

He told me the story of a priest who saved a parish, surrounded by 4 cardinal parishes, and made it thrive.

He started a Sunday school. Instead of the same burnt out teacher, he taught the teachers over at his house for an evening. The teachers would teach for only six weeks.

At the end, they'd throw a party at the rectory.

After a year, he fired the choir, but then asked some of the members [who wouldn't be caught singing with such a horrible choir]. He said, "I just took a lot of Tums" when having to deal with the conflict. but they got a pretty good choir started.

Instead of readings, he had people write skits for one of the services - a new flexible 9:15 service. He always kept the 11:00 traditional.

Sometimes people would get upset at him. He'd put his arms around them, give them a big hug, and say, with his aw shucks WVa accent, "Well, I hear what you're saying, and it must suck to be you."

He started a boys choir because every good Episcopal Church should have a boy's choir. But he decided that he'd advertise in places that weren't typically "Episcopal." A teacher said, "I'll help you, but only if I can start a Girl's choir."

did you do a lot of work? No. I just preached and wrote the cover story of the newsletter. But I kept people on target with the vision.

The moral of the story:

is not that you need to have a great Sunday School.

Not that you need to start a new choir.

And its not that you need skits.

Or even that you should have a reliable supplier of antacids.

And of course you should have a vision. But that's not the moral.

The moral

is, ye priests, ye seminarians, ye preachers of the Word

have fun. {OK... Joy is a better theological word, but because its theological its confusing}

The Word

"If Jesus' own example is to be trusted, then following the Word of God may not always mean doing what is in the book. Instead, it may mean deviating from what is in the book in order to risk bringing the Word to life....

If I am wrong, then I figure that the Word of God will know what to do with me. I am betting my life on that."

Barbara Brown Taylor, the Christian Century, 10/18/2003 [thank you uncle Marty]

Ye Seminarians, some recommendations:

Holy The Firm [a novel]
The Living Pulpit
Context

Methodist Decision

Looks as if Karen Dammann is going to continue having trouble. The Methodist church affirms that homosexuality is contrary to Christian activity; and it denies that the church can ordain openly active gay clergy.

My first response was to invite excellent gay Methodist pastors to find a understaffed, sympathetic, Episcopal diocese looking for exciting clergy. But it is more important, I think, for people to continue engaging those who think differently - to witness and challenge the received wisdom.

It has been intersting to see how our diocesan organization and minimal discipline allowed the consecration of a gay bishop.

People change when they have face to face relationships with others who think differently.

"Face to face brings respect"

What Bush Does to Republicans

What's the difference in the GOP from when you were growing up?

If you're fiscally responsible, this is not your party. If you believe in a moderate foreign policy characterized by alliances, free trade and the ability to operate in an international environment, this is not your party. If you believe in limited federal government, this is not your party. If you believe that the government should stay out of your bedroom, this is very definitely not your party. In fact, I would argue that unless you believe in the American imperium, imposed on the world by force, or unless you believe in the literal interpretation of the Book of Revelations, this is not your party.

From Salon

Save us, Lowell, Jacob, or Amo, Frank or Barber.

Where did all the Rational Republicans go?

[sigh]