Kirk meets Dr. McCoy for the first time

From the upcoming new Star Trek film, opening next month. Here we see Kirk meet Dr. McCoy for the first time.

Tuesday Night at the Cafe: Pie Jesus from John Rutter's Requiem

Just home from Holy Week choir rehearsals at Truro. One of the highlights is that we're doing Rutter's entire Requiem on the evening of Good Friday starting at 7:30 p.m. (I'll be one hiding behind the music). If you are in the area on Good Friday, please know you are very welcome.

Here's some more information on the Requiem:

Requiem aeternam - The first movement consists of the Introit from the Tridentine Requiem Mass (Requiem aeternam) and the Kyrie.

The second movement is entitled Out of the Deep, and is based on Psalm 130, a psalm commonly used at Anglican funerals. It contains a prominent cello solo written in C minor.

The third movement is the motet Pie Jesu. It begins with a lyrical soprano soloist singing with a very light accompaniment, with only slight involvement of the chorus echoing the words "Dona eis requiem, Dona eis sempiternam requiem."

The fourth movement is the Sanctus (with Benedictus) and, characteristically, it is a bright, lively, and exclamatory movement which is brightly orchestrated with bells, flute, and oboe and occasional timpani recalling the passage in Old Testament scripture in Isaiah chapter 6, and the worship of the six-winged seraphim in the heavenly throne-room of God.

The fifth movement is the Agnus Dei in the version used in the Tridentine Requiem Mass.

The sixth movement is Psalm 23, another psalm commonly used at Anglican funerals.

The seventh movement includes words from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer Burial Service ("I heard a voice from heaven...") and the communion chant from the Tridentine Requiem Mass (Lux aeterna).

The Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court

From the Anglican District of Virginia, via e-mail:

FAIRFAX, Va. (April 7, 2009) – In response to the appeal in the Virginia church property litigation filed on Tuesday, April 7 by the Diocese of Virginia and The Episcopal Church, the Anglican District of Virginia Vice-Chairman Jim Oakes issued the following statement:

“We are saddened that The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia find it necessary to continue this litigation with an appeal filed during Holy Week. The appeal process will cost additional millions of dollars that could be spent on mission and ministry. Both sides have already spent some $5 million in legal costs, money that could have gone to helping our communities during these tough economic times. The legal victories we’ve had so far in support of our religious freedom have only encouraged us to stand firm in our Anglican faith and work together to deliver the message of Christ.

“Since our final legal victory in December 2008, the Anglican District of Virginia has added two more congregations, bringing out total to 25 congregations and three mission fellowships. This continuing growth here and around the country is tangible evidence of the hunger for orthodox Anglicanism in the U.S. Despite today’s appeal, we will continue to move on with our mission to spread the transforming news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our doors are open to everyone, especially those who thirst for transformation and renewal.”

An interesting way to begin Holy Week. The seal is the official Commonwealth of Virginia State Seal.

UDPATE: The Diocese of Virginia's appeal is here and the separate appeal from Katharine Jefferts Schori is here.

Why did Jesus die, Bishop Schori?

Katharine Jefferts Schori continues the litigation road show by setting up a shadow diocese in Illinois last Saturday with four churches and a hand-picked bishop. The real Episcopal Diocese of Quincy voted to separate from The Episcopal Church according to the canons of their diocese.

While in Peoria, she answered a question that sort of makes Holy Week rather pointless, doesn't it?

In response to a question, Jefferts Schori said that to insist Jesus is the only way to God is to "limit God." She said that God is certainly at work in the lives of people in Jewish and Muslim communities.

"God is, at the very least, a mystery," Jefferts Schori said. "God's intention is for a restored relationship with all humanity. My job is to proclaim the good news of Jesus, but I cannot deny God is not at work in other ways."

This kind of logic is like saying "Yes, I've found the cure for cancer, but if people want to use a different treatment, I can't deny that they could be treated in other ways."

The Presiding Bishop continues to appear to have no deep conviction that Jesus is her savior or an understanding that Jesus said that the only way we can approach God is through Him. God does want to save the world, but it's all through Jesus - our redeemer, the savior of the world - not just bits. How He accomplishes this is an amazing work, but that's what Jesus said. How can she be a bishop of a church, of the Episcopal Church, and not believe it? Did Ridley and Cranmer and Latimer die for nothing? And for that matter, then, why did Jesus die? Who's idea was that?

Bob Dylan on Barack Obama, Ulysses Grant, vacant lots, Civil War ghosts - and Bob Dylan

BB NOTE: Part III of Bill Flanagan's interview with Bob Dylan is now up at the London Times. He talks on the new President of the United States, the American south, President Ulysses Grant, and the ghosts of the Civil War that haunt our land. Today we get Mystical Bob Dylan, who explains that "I think it’s the land. The streams, the forests, the vast emptiness. The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I‘m more at home in the vacant lots. But I have a love for humankind, a love of truth, and a love of justice. I think I have a dualistic nature. I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type."

I am becoming convinced, though certainly it's open to discussion, that Bob Dylan writes half the time about God and the other half about America. This interview certain speaks to his love for America, not the political love (which is evident in his thoughts about President Obama), but a far more mystical Kerouac-like love for the land and it's vast open expanse of wonder, even if he shakes off the trendy water hole for a vacant lot.

In his conversation about Barack Obama, again what strikes me is that he talks about both the president's mother and father - one from Kansas and one from Kenya, growing up in Hawaii, again a very different way of looking at the President than how he was often seen in the campaign for where he was touted for being more of political entity and frankly, I find far Dylan's vision far more mythic than what his campaign has done.

I do wonder what Dylan, though, means when he says "I think I have a dualistic nature." On one hand he craves an almost misanthropic wild life in the vacant lot, while on the other hand he cares passionately for humanity, and truth and justice (and shall we infer, the American way?). For some reason, I remeber Pasquinel in Centennial, paddling his canoe through the wilderness of the west, escaping and embracing sometimes beyond his will and often because of it.

You can hear another track, I Feel A Change Comin' On, from his upcoming album, Together Through Life, here.

Bill Flanagan: In that song Chicago After Dark were you thinking about the new President?

Bob Dylan: Not really. It’s more about State Street and the wind off Lake Michigan and how sometimes we know people and we are no longer what we used to be to them. I was trying to go with some old time feeling that I had.

BF: You liked Barack Obama early on. Why was that?

BD: I’d read his book and it intrigued me.

BF: Audacity of Hope?

BD: No it was called Dreams of My Father.

BF: What struck you about him?

BD: Well, a number of things. He’s got an interesting background. He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage - cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse.

BF: In what way?

BD: First of all, Barack is born in Hawaii. Most of us think of Hawaii as paradise – so I guess you could say that he was born in paradise.

BF: And he was thrown out of the garden.

BD: Not exactly. His mom married some other guy named Lolo and then took Barack to Indonesia to live. Barack went to both a Muslim school and a Catholic school. His mom used to get up at 4:00 in the morning and teach him book lessons three hours before he even went to school. And then she would go to work. That tells you the type of woman she was. That’s just in the beginning of the story.

BF: What else did you find compelling about him?

BD: Well, mainly his take on things. His writing style hits you on more than one level. It makes you feel and think at the same time and that is hard to do. He says profoundly outrageous things. He’s looking at a shrunken head inside of a glass case in some museum with a bunch of other people and he’s wondering if any of these people realize that they could be looking at one of their ancestors.

BF: What in his book would make you think he’d be a good politician?

BD: Well nothing really. In some sense you would think being in the business of politics would be the last thing that this man would want to do. I think he had a job as an investment banker on Wall Street for a second - selling German bonds. But he probably could’ve done anything. If you read his book, you’ll know that the political world came to him. It was there to be had.

BF: Do you think he’ll make a good president?

BD: I have no idea. He’ll be the best president he can be. Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as beaten men. Johnson would be a good example of that ? Nixon, Clinton in a way, Truman, all the rest of them going back. You know, it’s like they all fly too close to the sun and get burned.

BF: Did you ever read any other presidential autobiographies?

BD: Yeah, I read Grant’s.

BF: What was he like? Any similarities?

BD: The times were different obviously. And Grant wrote his book after he’d left office.

BF: What did you find interesting about him?

BD: It’s not like he’s a great writer. He’s analytical and cold, but he does have a sense of humor. Grant, besides being a military strategist, was a working man. Worked horses. Tended the horses, plowed and furrowed. Brought in all the crops – the corn and potatoes. Sawed wood and drove wagons since the time he was about eleven. Got a crystal clear memory of all the battles he’d been in.

BF: Do you remember any particular battle that Grant fought?

BD: There were a lot of battles but the Shilo one is most interesting. He could’ve lost that. But he was determined to win it at any price, using all kinds of strategies, even faking retreat. You could read it for yourself.

BF: When you think back to the Civil War, one thing you forget is that no battles, except Gettysburg, were fought in the North.

BD: Yeah. That’s what probably makes the Southern part of the country so different.

BF: There is a certain sensibility, but I’m not sure how that connects?

BD: It must be the Southern air. It’s filled with rambling ghosts and disturbed spirits. They’re all screaming and forlorning. It’s like they are caught in some weird web - some purgatory between heaven and hell and they can’t rest. They can’t live, and they can’t die. It’s like they were cut off in their prime, wanting to tell somebody something. It’s all over the place. There are war fields everywhere ? a lot of times even in people’s backyards.

BF: Have you felt them?

BD: Oh sure. You’d be surprised. I was in Elvis’s hometown – Tupelo. And I was trying to feel what Elvis would have felt back when he was growing up.

BF: Did you feel all the music Elvis must have heard?

BD:No, but I’ll tell you what I did feel. I felt the ghosts from the bloody battle that Sherman fought against Forrest and drove him out. There’s an eeriness to the town. A sadness that lingers. Elvis must have felt it too.

BF: Are you a mystical person?

BD: Absolutely.

BF: Any thoughts about why?

BD: I think it’s the land. The streams, the forests, the vast emptiness. The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I‘m more at home in the vacant lots. But I have a love for humankind, a love of truth, and a love of justice. I think I have a dualistic nature. I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type.

BF: But the album is all about love – love found, love lost, love remembered, love denied.

BD: Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

You can also read this post at the London Times called, Ulysses Grant, Quantrell, Jesse James, the Battle of Shiloh - what's Bob Dylan been reading?

UPDATE: There's now a story in the Telegraph here.

Easter Reflections from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

BREAKING NEWS: ACNA Canons published, comments welcome

Bishop Bob Duncan writes:

The Leadership Council is scheduled to meet and to act as the Provincial Council of the Anglican Church in North America on April 24th and 25th, 2009.

The draft canons attempt to order the life of the Church, consistent with the Provisional Constitution (now proposed for slight amendment) and nine initial canons adopted by the Council in December of 2008. Several principles should be obvious:

1. confessional unity, expressed in matters of Faith and Order;
2. subsidiarity, where what may be wisely left to the local level (both diocesan and congregational) is left to the local level, including property ownership;
3. missionary focus, especially in structures, roles and representation;
4. flexibility, recognizing the diversity of Godly approaches common among the partners coming into union;
5. disciplinary reform, including address of concerns for Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders, as well as provision of a provincial tribunal.
6. collegial accountability, especially in matters relating to bishops.

The charge to the Governance Task Force was to provide a strong skeleton around which a living Church could be built.

Read it all here, as well as links to the proposed canons. Reading music provided below.

Monday Morning at the Cafe: Gotta Serve Somebody

So, we're starting off the day with a tune from the road in Copenhagen. Last night, we learn from RWB,that Dylan did three songs from his "Gospel" period, kicking off the show (when was the last time he did that) with this song, and following up later in the set with Every Grain Of Sand as the fourth song, and I Believe In You. What is this, Holy Week?

Military Brats: Our Journey Home

Episcopal Church involved in at least 57 lawsuits over property

George Conger reports that the number of lawsuits that include the Episcopal Church has risen to fifty-seven.

Conger writes that the recent publication last month of the Episcopal Church's national legal strategy that intended to “craft a lawsuit that is trim and focused on the critical claims involving ownership and possession of diocesan property” in Episcopal dioceses that voted to separate from the Episcopal Church and join the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone has caused the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy to seek protection from the Illinois state courts.

Meanwhile, Episcopalians in the pews appear to be getting somewhat restless.

From the gathering last Friday afternoon in the Diocese of Washington to the recent announcement that the celebration of the ministry of outgoing Diocese of Virginia Bishop Peter James Lee on May 30th at the National Cathedral is now cancelled, the laity in the pews are showing discontent. This has become most apparent in the current controversy over the process and election of a practicing Buddhist as an Episcopal bishop (more updates here) where bishops are finding themselves being confronted back home by the rank and file laity who want to know how this could have happened.

In addition, with General Convention coming up this summer in Anaheim, Episcopal leaders are calling for the overturning of B033 (which originally attempted to placate in the final hours of Columbus 2006 the requests of the Windsor Report), as well as vows from both the current Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies that the Anglican Covenant will not be seriously considered while they remain in office.

Here in Virginia, briefs continue to be filed in anticipation of a decision by the Virginia Supreme Court to take up the Circuit Court rulings by Judge Randy Bellows over the property of the Virginia churches that voted to separate from the Episcopal Church in 2006. The Episcopal Church is attempting to solicit support from other mainline denominations in their appeals, but it might be wise for those denominations to check with their own laity before moving forward in haste. A lot of water has gone under the bridge, as it were, since 2006, and with the economic downturn, denominational portfolios aren't what they once were.

In fact, the litigious war is wearing down many over the long haul - but then again, was that not why it was pursued in the first place?

Saturday Night at the Cafe: Hard Times Come Again No More

Who said this?

"The government calmly goes on printing these scraps of paper, because, if it stopped, that would be the end of the government. Because once the printing presses stopped - and that is the prerequisite for the stabilization of the currency - the swindle would at once be brought to light. Believe me, our misery will increase. The scoundrel will get by. The reason: because the State itself has become the biggest swindler and crook. A robbers' state! If the horrified people notice that they can starve on billions, they must arrive at this conclusion: we will no longer submit to a State which is built on the swindling idea of the majority. We want a dictatorship."

Tip of the tinfoil to ZeroHedge. Read the book here.

Crossing the Potomac

Drove over the Potomac to Chevy Chase, Maryland, this afternoon to hear old friend Phil Ashey, now the COO of the American Anglican Council, speak on current events and issues in the Anglican Communion at the Columbia Country Club.

It was a standing-room-only-event and it was clear that the vast majority of people in the room were Episcopalians. They had a lot of questions, really good questions, thoughtful and passionate, and it got me to thinking about the current state of the "Communion Partners" who have not yet held such meetings with the laity.

I've been supportive of Communion Partners, those bishops who feel at this time that they should remain within the structures of The Episcopal Church and witness from within. There is certainly a biblical precedent to do that, to be a remnant, and God does have a track record of bringing dry bones to life. There's no doubt about that.

But what caused me to pause today is that it's clear that up to this moment the Communion Partners have overlooked an important key to any hope of success they may have. Almost all the attention, all the discussion, all the papers, all of it - including the name itself - have overlooked the laity remnant. There may be an assumption, an erroneous one if today is any indication, that the laity will just sit idly in the pews and wait for some voice from on high to say something at some point, or will just require them to sit still until retirement age comes along and the clergy and bishops call in the cash cow of their pensions and waddle off into the sunset. The laity are expected to still be there, sitting in their pews, looking at the walls, and wondering what in tarnation just happened and where did everybody go?

In fact, the laity are reading - they are reading the newspapers and the diatribes the come out of 815 and their diocesan headquarters. They get the quizzical stares at the office and out on the golf course and down at Starbucks. They are watching old friends they've known from prayer groups and Bible Studies getting sued and defrocked. They watch their own bishop sue homeless ministries because they just might be preaching Jesus to the poor while housing an Anglican church. And they see that their church - for some the only church they've ever known - is leaving them and though they desperately want to stay, their church is leaving them out in the cold. They can feel it, they can see it slipping away and when they bring it up it's like inviting a skunk to the Sunday picnic.

Sitting with them today, in this packed room in the heart of the DC metropolitan area, listening to their questions, seeing the pain in their faces, the frustration in their voices - it brought back memories of similar gatherings on Sunday afternoons not all that long ago over on this side of the Potomac. I could see today, as they sat with every chair taken, that they are trying to hold on, but they can feel it. They can see it. Something is not right. They feel isolated, left behind. And the "Communion Partners" has very little to do with them. Their own voices are not being heard. I spent two hours listening - and the pain is as real now as it was three years ago.

There are times when I cross over the Potomac, leaving Virginia for Maryland and it feels like going to a foreign land. But not today, not this afternoon as Phil Ashey brought them news of hope - that the laity do have voice, the laity can do something about it, the laity do not just have to sit quietly with their hands folded and pretend it's all going to be all right. I'm reminded what we hear often from the lips of bishops. The laity is the first order of the church, they say - the ministers of the church. This was an impressive crowd gathered on a busy Friday afternoon, the traffic wailing by outside on Connecticut Avenue, the storm clouds passing over as the cherry blossoms danced in the wind through the streets. Yes, they are the first order of the church.

We learned this afternoon that Mary Haines, widow of the former Bishop of Washington, Ronald Haines, passed away last week after a long illness. I remember her. She was one of the voices that stood out from the crowd, that was determined to stand for biblical Christianity in the Episcopal Church even when it took her to the opposite side of the fence than her own husband. She never missed a meeting and was fervently prolife. I thought of her as well today, of all the hours and years she spent working hard to see the church come back from the brink. I just know that if she was still here, she would have been in that room today.

It was clear those those that gathered today love their church - they love their church, but not at any price and it would be wise for the Communion Partners to not assume whom they speak for, not at this late hour. The days of assumptions are over. We must work together.

It makes no sense that while the leadership of the Anglican Communion meeting together in Alexandria, Egypt in February was calling for restraint - at that very hour a rector and his flock in Binghamton, New York, were being ordered out of their church home and the rectory, even the poor and the homeless they served in their soup kitchen. The signs they left behind at the old church now closed pointed the poor and homeless to the soup kitchen's in their new location, rented to them by the Roman Catholic Church - but even those signs were pulled out of the ground, leaving the poor with no where to go.

How odd that in many ways those gathered in the room this afternoon identified with that story, even as we sat in the high brow, well-heeled digs of a Chevy Chase country club - that even while calls of restraint continue from those who call themselves Communion Partners, the signs that point the way are being pulled out in front of them. And the shades are drawn and the clock is ticking. They know from the papers they read and the sermons they hear and the proclamations that are made, they know, they know that the church they once knew is gone, gone just like that old friend who once sat amongst them and who's voice they hear no more.

Buried in the Communique that came out of Egypt was a phrase that told those gathered today more than the rest of the Communique put together. It was inserted from the Windsor Continuation Group and put in the footnotes:

Any scheme developed would rely on an undertaking from the present partners to ACNA that they would not seek to recruit and expand their membership by means of proselytisation. WCG believes that the advent of schemes such as the Communion Partners Fellowship and the Episcopal Visitors scheme instituted by the Presiding Bishop in the United States should be sufficient to provide for the care of those alienated within the Episcopal Church from recent developments.

The audacity that this kind of pronouncement can be made as if we are living in a Royal Colony and the King has made it so. Has anyone actually talked to the laity who are feeling alienated? Anyone? The poor who can't find their meal? Anyone? As evidenced today, that answer is quite simply - no.

To late, my brothers? Too late - but never mind? All our trials, Lord, soon be over?

Anglican Consultative Council to meet in Kingston, Jamaica (May 1-13)

UPDATE: "ENS" has an update:

The latest draft of an Anglican covenant is expected to be released next week ahead of the ACC meeting. The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, one of two Episcopal Church members on the Covenant Design Group, told ENS April 3, at the conclusion of the design group's latest meeting, that it is "warmly commending this draft" to the ACC, which is the only communion body with the authority to ask the Anglican provinces to sign onto the covenant.

Dramatically contrasting Radner's statement, they quote Bishop Schori as downplaying the whole thing to something more like a networking soiree, where she will be "reconnecting with old friends, meeting new ones, and learning more about the vast and diverse ministry within the Anglican Communion." Nothing like spending thirteen days in the West Indies costing God knows how much during a recession just to swap howdies and chat each other up on "vastness and diversity." Why not just Skype each other and call it a day?

***

The ACC is one of the "Instruments of Unity" in the Anglican Communion. Documents have been posted to the AC website here. The schedule is here.

The next meeting is May 1-13 in Kingston, Jamaica. Topping the agenda is Covenant & Windsor Continuation Group matters, even though both the Presiding Bishop and House of Deputies president have stated their intentions not to bring the Covenant up before General Convention while they remain in office.

The participants are listed here. Of interest is that the Province of the Southern Cone has not yet informed the Anglican Communion office who will be representing their province.

Here's the press release on the Jamaica meeting:

The Anglican Consultative Council, made up of lay people, clergy and bishops from the 38 Anglican Provinces of the Communion, meets in Kingston Jamaica May 1 - 13, to consider among other things, mission in the 21st century, the future structure of the worldwide Church, and theological education.

The ACC meets approximately every three years under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who will give a presidential address on May 11.

Foremost on the agenda for this, the 14th meeting of the Council, will be consideration of a Covenant for the Provinces of the Anglican Communion and reception of the final report of the Windsor Continuation Process. Both of these documents are key to discerning a way forward for the Anglican Communion in light of recent stresses cause by differences over matters of human sexuality.

In a letter sent to all ACC members, Anglican Communion Secretary General Kenneth Kearon says: “Our 11 days together will provide an opportunity for us to engage with the Mission of the Anglican Communion through the work of its commissions, networks and working groups as well as experience something of the life and vitality of the local Anglican Church."

Many of the networks and working groups that help profile various areas of interest in the Anglican world including peace and justice, the international women’s network and inter-faith concerns will report during the meeting. Ms Hellen Wangusa, the Anglican observer at the United Nations will speak on mission

The ACC’s opening service will be on Sunday May 3 at the National Arena. On Sunday, May 10, ACC delegates will participate in Mission Sunday at various churches across the Diocese. The closing event will be a service to be held at the Cathedral of St. Jago de la Vega, Spanish Town, on May 12.

All plenary sessions and worship services are open to media. Plenary sessions will be held at the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston. Daily news briefings will be held and podcast as soon as possible on http://www.anglicancommunion.org to enable media and interested Anglicans from around the world to follow the proceedings. A final news briefing is scheduled for Tuesday, May 12.

The current chair of the ACC is Bishop John Paterson of Auckland, New Zealand. Canon Kearon serves as the secretary to ACC meetings.

Read it all here.

Does the God of Christianity exist, and what difference does it make?

A fascinating debate on "Does the God of Christianity exist, and what difference does it make?" Christianity Today hosts this debate that includes author Christopher Hitchens. His several comments about the Archbishop of Canterbury are pointed - which is troubling.

Note not just what each panelist says, but how they say it.

And listen to Christopher Hitchens carefully - not just his answers, but the questions he asks before he answers.

Note how Hitch speaks relationally while the Christians who says it's about relationship is just making speeches. Also note how powerful it is to ask the questions before answering rather than just answering the questions for five minutes and how powerful one can use story pictures to make the point. Humor is also very important.

Watch it all here.

Tip of the tinfoil to JH. Note - click here to watch the debate since it's not yet available here.

"Buddhist" Bishop releases a statement

SUNDAY UPDATE: But what, there's more.

The Incarnation is the very reason for creation, so that God might graciously share the Divine life with the “other.”

The Incarnation reveals the true nature of God as well as the true nature of humanity.

"The Incarnation is the living font from which flows the gracious capacity for our own transfiguration in Christ .. the sanctifying touch of Christ is a soteriological embrace as well as a divinizing one.

-Kevin Thew Forrester

Kevin Forrester, the current bishop-elect of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan (who has been under scrutiny for this hybrid views on Buddhism and Christianity) has released a statement tonight defending his view of the nature of Christ. I've read it several times and am still having Christian Science flashbacks.

He uses authors, not scripture informing scripture, to muddy - not clear - the waters, using murky phrases such as saying that the incarnation is the very reason for creation (which is a bit self-gormandizing), so that "God might graciously share the Divine life with the other.” Not sure what the "Other" is, because of course he doesn't say. Obviously if we don't know, we're not enlightened which again gives me Christian Science flashbacks.

His combination of mystic crystal revelations of "our own transfiguration in Christ" with the mind's true liberation of "the true nature of humanity," he describes the "sanctifying touch of Christ" as a "soteriological embrace" as well as a "divinizing one" which, wink-wink, extends to the cosmos themselves the moment that Jesus (not necessarily the Incarnate One) stepped out of the Cosmos-sanctifying Jordan River, metaphorically speaking of course.

And then there's the assumption that we now go do likewise, having been "touched" by the Incarnate One (not necessarily Jesus) we are soteriologically embraced and now transfigured into the divine. Well, pass the peanut-butter brickle, we're celebrating.

He does call the doctrine of original sin, "problematic," though he feels it "retains significance." How kind. What kind, we don't know. Historical significance, perhaps? Anthropological? Ecnosociological? Patriarchal? A missed bus to Boston? He doesn't say.

What he does say is that something he calls the "Incarnate One" sanctifies and saves everything that he touches, including the cosmos. The "Incarnate One" bestows power to sanctify all the cosmos (which I guess is still in play due to that earlier soteriological embrace) for the Other. No need for a cross. No need for resurrection. No need for repentance. No need at all. Now we get our own divine transfiguration in something he calls "Christ" (not necessarily either Jesus or the Incarnate One) which is actually just a living font, a divine spicket. Well, hotdog.

What's gone missing? Why that unfortunately event up on Skull Hill. While Forrester spends virtually the entire statement to his undisclosed audience name-checking his springtime reading list, he never tells us what he actually believes, what his convictions are, what is Jesus. One has to read between the lines and dicier all the name-checks peppering his paper. He continues to fashion together his own unique hybrid of Buddhist Christology, and then goes and calls it the "Centrality of the Incarnation" - as Benedict said in Much Ado About Nothing, "there's a double meaning there." He might as well have called it "The Center of the Other."



Click and play and read the the entire statement below. Note that he asserts that his theological assumptions to all his life and theology are "quite clear to the diocesan community of Northern Michigan." Just how does he know that? Why is it so clear to them but to the rest of us we're mystified? Does that not assume that they are happily enlightened and anyone who questions him is, well, an idiot? Look at all the authors he's read (but where is Mrs. Eddy, we wonder?). We do note that the one he has put away is Anselm of Canterbury. All that penalty for sin is death stuff, it's so, well, not groovy.

Centrality of the Incarnation

Kevin Thew Forrester

There is a pivotal theological assumption to all of my life and theology, which is quite clear to the diocesan community of Northern Michigan.

My theological formation is deeply rooted in the theology/Christology/anthropology of Karl Rahner. Rahner affirms that “Christology is the end and beginning of anthropology.” The pivotal assumption on my part is the centrality of the Incarnation – the God-man, Jesus Christ. Here, my Incarnation theology is more in the tradition of the Wisdom literature of the Scriptures, the Church Fathers and the Orthodox tradition (in contrast to that of Anselm). The Incarnation is the very reason for creation, so that God might graciously share the Divine life with the “other”.

The Incarnation reveals the true nature of God as well as the true nature of humanity. I love the ability of the Fathers to speak clearly about the sanctifying and saving nature of the Incarnation, specifically as it relates to the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. Kilian McDonnell, in his marvelous book, The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan: The Trinitarian and Cosmic Order of Salvation, explores this in some detail, drawing upon the groundbreaking research of Gabriele Winkler. (A fine article by Winker is “The Earliest forms of Ascetism,” in The Continuing Quest for God: Monastic Spirituality in Tradition and Transition.) In the baptism at the Jordan, the Incarnate One is revealed according to many of the Church Fathers as “Spirit-filled and as Only begotten (First-born) of the Father” (Winkler). Gregory of Nazianzus says that when Jesus is baptized by John, Jesus “sanctifies the Jordan.”

What the Incarnate One touches, he sanctifies and saves. Again, Gregory of Nazianzus declares that “Jesus comes up out of the water and he makes the cosmos, which he carries, to ascend [out of the water] with him.” Here we come to part of the significance of Rahner’s statement that Christology is the end of anthropology. But Gregory has carried it further. The Incarnation has the power to sanctify all the cosmos. The Father, Jacob of Serugh, speaks poetically of Jesus consecrating all waters: “The entire nature of the waters perceived that you had visited them – seas, deeps, rivers, springs and pools all thronged together to receive the blessing from your footsteps.”

As I understand it, the Incarnation is the living font from which flows the gracious capacity for our own transfiguration in Christ. Fallen and blinded by sin (I would continue to affirm that the problematic doctrine of “original sin” retains significance) the sanctifying touch of Christ is a soteriological embrace as well as a divinizing one. For me, the Wisdom tradition of the Scriptures, the Church Fathers and their theological lineage embody a theology of Incarnation with profound meaning for us today.

Tip of the tinfoil to The Other Cafe. You can read more of Forrester's earlier writings here and here. It is called religious freedom that people may carry on into personal spiritualized adventures into the hinderlands, but it's not the role of a Christian bishop, many of whom have been martyred for the faith. God bless you, Master Ridley.


UPDATE: Excellent article from Robert Munday, Dean of the Episcopal Seminary Nashotah House. Here's an excerpt:

The ultimate responsibility for a Buddhist Bishop-elect and a Muslim Episcopal priest (and countless other permutations of syncretism and unbelief among clergy that simply haven’t come to light) belongs to an Episcopal Church where probably NO ONE along the path of their journies ever said to them, “This is wrong. Here are the claims of authentic Christianity, and you can’t reconcile them with Buddhism or Islam.” In fact, Kevin Thew Forrester’s late Bishop even commended him publicly for walking the path of Zen Buddhism and Christianity together.

The most tragic dimension is that Kevin Thew Forrester and Ann Holmes Redding learned Buddhism and Islam from people who were true believers and enthusiastic practioners of those religions, while they learned a deconstructed, demythologized, desupernaturalized version of Christianity from teachers who had long since surrendered their belief in authentic Christianity (if indeed they ever believed it) in the face of challenges from Christianity’s “cultured despisers” (to use Schleiermacher’s term). (The lesson here is that liberal Christianity is no match for the challenge of other religions.)

So, presented with an eviscerated version of Christianity on the one hand, and a sincere expression of Buddhism and Islam on the other hand--in the midst of a pluralistically, multiculturally-oriented church where merely being a “spiritual person” is enough to become a priest, and you have what we are seeing in Kevin Thew Forrester and Ann Holmes Redding.

Read it all here.

Happy Anniversary! We are three today!

Happy Anniversary! Today is our third anniversary here at the Cafe at BabyBlueOnline.org, having gone online on April 2, 2006. Our very first guest was none other than the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali.

In his honor we are naming a special Sweet Lassi after him called, of course, The Rochester. A Sweet Lassi is a delicious blending of yogurt with water, water, salt, pepper, ice, spices and spices until frothy and in the case of the cafe's Rochester, we'll include a dab of Devonshire cream.

Here is how you can make one of your own at home:



Of course, we can't be celebrating long without something from ole what's his name. This is a performance from last Saturday night in Sweden, the classic Highway 61 Revised. He's just too cool - and he's really having fun. I know it's hard to understand the words, but his performance is so entertaining just had to put it up. You can catch the lyrics here. Yeah, "... better run."



Where else can one get a recipe for a Pakistani/Indian shake, listen to Bob Dylan on the road in Sweeden, and pay tribute to a Church of England bishop who sits in the House of Lords? Welcome to the Cafe!

Of course, what has made these past three years so much fun and interesting is all of you! You all make this place come alive and I'm just so grateful that you all drop in, whatever side of the aisle you find yourself, and pull up a chair to swap howdies, toss a few pancakes, toast a few drinks, and then carry-on. It continues to amaze me that we really can enjoy those who's names we know and those who are anons and passing through. It says a lot that it's very rare that Hagrid has to hoist himself up from his table and toss someone out the door lest the cream pies start flying through the air. Thank you, one and all!

I remember last summer standing at the gates on the final Sunday afternoon of Lambeth in Canterbury, England. At the 11th Hour, when most of the media had all ready packed up and retreated back to London or to the corner pub, Lambeth Palace had relented and were going to allow the media to come in through the gates and film the bishops arriving for their last session in the Big Top.

I arrived at the gates at the appointed hour, a small group of the media remnant, with my flip video camera in hand and stood with the official from the Archbishop of Canterbury's staff as we waited for the BBC to complete filming a press conference held by The Episcopal Church that just happened to be scheduled at the exact same time. I felt a bit sheepish, me with my little flip video camera waiting for the BBC with all their heavy duty equipment - I could see them filming from across the green and there I stood with this little flip thingy. I turned to the press official and said, "all I have is this," and showed him my Flip Video Camera, feeling a bit embarrassed. He looked down at the camera and I suddenly felt like one the hoards of American tourists that line up outside Buckingham Palace. So I added, "but the good news is, the videos all end up on YouTube!"

Well, that got his attention. His eyes grew wide as we stood by the still closed gate and said, "That's you?"

I nodded. I couldn't quite describe the look on his face. But when the BBC showed up, I went with them. You all here at the Cafe have a lot to do with that. I did not go alone.

This is a new world we're in, it sort of snuck up on us. I had no idea what I was getting myself into three years ago when I launched BabyBlueOnline.org. I knew that I was going to General Convention that summer and I wanted to perhaps try a new way to get my reporting out to the readers of what is now an old-fashioned e-mail list. A blog seemed to be a good way, but I wasn't sure and intended to do both at Columbus, write the e-mails and do the blog. But once I got to Columbus it was like a scene out of Field of Dreams. It seems that others had the same idea and Columbus became our own Field of Dreams.



But it would mean very little but for all of you who drop by, perhaps write a post, or just order a chai and carry on. Some of you have your own usual table or spot at the bar - you know who you are - and we cherish you! Sometimes we're grumpy and sometimes we're silly and sometimes we're somewhere in between. But it's been a great way to meet up with people from all over the world who care about the church, who care about the mission of the church, as well as the other quirky things that pass through here - like Dylan in Sweden.

And yes, the chai, the butterbeer, the Old Ogden's Fire Whiskey, the pancakes, the cream pies, and now The Rochester are all on the house. Enjoy! And God bless you all!

"Houston, General Convention has got a problem ..."

No April Fools here.

Leading Church historian, Robert W. Prichard of the Virginia Theological Seminary, has written a fine essay in the church history journal, Anglican & Episcopal History (Vol. 78, No. 1, March 2009).

Here, Fr. N.J.A. Humphrey of Covenant offers an excellent summary of Dr. Prichard's essay, much of which is quite pertinent not only to the upcoming General Convention and it's attempt to recast Title IV with the current Troubles, but also the assumption that the General Convention operates as an authority above the local dioceses when the TEC constitution says no such thing. The essay is also casts an enlightening view on the property fights now underway in American courts, including Dr. Prichard's own Diocese of Virginia whom he will represent as a Deputy to General Convention this summer.

The Title IV revisions include what appears to be a draconian provision that would prohibit redress in American courts (the presumption in the first place is that American courts are free and the church is under law, but it seems that in the proposed revisions that is not the case and the church is above the law) In other words, the church decides what the laws mean. That's a little waco to me.

Dr. Prichard is also troubled by the announcements that the Episcopal Church will not even consider the Anglican Covenant until the current Presiding Bishop is out of office, which - according to Fr. Humphrey - is not good news for The Episcopal Church and benefits the establishment of a new Anglican province in North America.

From here:

In this post, I will summarize Robert W. Pritchard’s article in the same journal, entitled, “Courts, Covenants, and Canon Law: A Review of Legal and Canonical Issues Facing the General Convention.”

Pritchard considers the issues in four categories:

1) questions relating to the behavior of individual members of the Episcopal Church; 2) questions relating to the rights and responsibilities of congregations; 3) questions relating to the rights and responsibilities of dioceses; and 4) questions relating to the Episcopal Church’s relationship to the Anglican Communion.

In the first category, General Convention will consider a proposal from a task force it established in 2006 after rejecting much of the proposals of a similar task force appointed in 2003. According to Pritchard,

The heart of the new proposal is a plan for replacing the current disciplinary procedure in the church with a new proposal that is intended to be more compact and more collegial…The task force suggested that a single disciplinary board, from which all participants in the canonical procedure at the diocesan level would be drawn, should replace the current system in which there are separate review committees and trial courts.

After a summary of the new proposal in contrast to the existing system, Pritchard comments,

On the positive side, it is designed to promote a less antagonistic approach to questions of misconduct. It also provides for greater confidentiality and requires less personnel than the current system. On the negative side, it provides fewer checks and balances than the previous system, precisely because of fewer people are involved. (sic)

Pritchard also notes that “the new proposals seriously curtail the rights of the clergyperson accused of any offence.” The canons would exclude a right against self-incrimination, require cooperation and report of one’s own offences (except those disclosed in the Rite of Reconciliation), cannot seek the interpretation of the canons from secular courts, and the standard of proof would be “a preponderance of the evidence” rather than the current standard of “clear and convincing evidence.”

While not coming right out and saying so, it would appear Pritchard finds the new standards a bit draconian.

Moving on to the rights and responsibilities of congregations, Pritchard sets out the best summary of the legal issues in property disputes, explaining with concision “the principle of hierarchy,” which tends to favor the national church, and the “neutral principles” approach, which can favor the local congregation. Pritchard notes the vulnerabilities currently existing with the Dennis Canon, which asserts that congregational property is held in trust for the diocese and denomination. Since any summary I would attempt would not do justice to Pritchard’s paper, I will only note that it is well worth reading if one is interested in these legal issues.

In the third secion on the rights and responsibilities of dioceses, Pritchard gives a favorable review to Mark McCall’s paper, “Is the Episcopal Church Hierarchical?” published by the Anglican Communion Institute, writing,

McCall’s analysis is cogent and based on good historical argument. One can note, however, that the deputies and bishops at General Convention have often operated under the assumption that they exercised the authority over individual dioceses that McCall points out is absent from the church’s Constitution. McCall responded to this potential argument by noting that the church has “a constitutional structure that cannot be changed by canon. Any attempt to do so would be unconstitutional as an attempt to amend the constitution without following the required procedures.”

Pritchard concludes that

Were the [secular] courts to agree with McCall’s analysis, moreover, there would be no way for the General Convention itself to alter the situation. Only the dioceses themselves could make the decision to become legally subordinate to the General Convention.

Pritchard concludes this section by casting doubt on the legal strategy pursued thus far of recognizing “continuing elements within departing dioceses as the legitimate authority.” Should McCall’s analysis prove correct, “the tables might well be turned” on the national church.

In the fourth section, Pritchard notes that the “Covenant Design Group will meet from 28 March to 2 April in 2009 in Cambridge, England,” and is expected to produce a final draft for submission to the Anglican Consultative Council, which is set to meet in Jamaica from 1-12 May, 2009.

Of the Presiding Bishop’s statement that she will “strongly discourage” action on the Covenant in Anaheim in July, Pritchard writes,

A decision by the Episcopal Church to defer consideration of the Anglican Covenant until 2012 and a decision by the Anglican Province in North America to endorses (sic) it might strengthen the hand of those in the Anglican Communion [who] would like to grant member status to the alternative province.

Pritchard thus appears to be warning the Episcopal Church that inaction or delay may result in its being out-flanked.

Pritchard sets out with refreshing clarity the many issues facing General Convention. All bishops and deputies in attendance (as well as interested third parties) would be well-served to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest Pritchard’s article, particularly as he resists the temptation to advocate for any particular action on the part of General Convention.

Read it all here.

BabyBlue announces plans to become a Quaker

As many long-time Cafe regulars know, I've threatened to become a Quaker on more than one occasion.

Of course, one can't actually threaten to become a Quaker - to threaten to become a Quaker is like volunteering for the draft. It obviously misses the point.

That being said, it seems more and more these days as friends are converting right and left to Roman Catholicism - it just makes more sense for me to just get it over with and become a Quaker.

The idea of silence and non-violence has become quite attractive after the last few years of verbal hurling and pie-throwing. It's not completely out of the blue, as it were, as my ancestors were Welsh and English Quakers who fled the oppression of the established Church of England for religious freedom in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (hmm, some things don't change). In fact, we'd still be Quakers today no doubt, but for my great-great-etc. grandfather "Stevie" Ailes who headed out from home with his brother and met up with two Protestant-Irish sisters just in from Ireland. His brother married one of the them and Stevie married the other and for some reason, that got them both expelled from the Friends Meeting House.

But the time has come to revisit the strain of Christianity founded by the great George Fox. There is much to compel in the tradition, not the least of which is its focus on silence and what they call passive resistance. Only in recent years have Quakers been labeled as "pacifists" when in fact what they practiced in the past was "passive resistance." Modern Pacifism (which does not recognize the inherant evil that must be resisted) is something that is relatively new, introduced by people like Leo Tolstoy at the turn of the 20th century. Good job, Leo - that Soviet period was just a blip.

But passive resistance is far closer to the biblical model of "turning the other cheek." It's another way of getting what one wants by resistance, not by giving in. It's exactly what we've been doing in Virginia, where until the new presiding bishop intervened, Virginia understood that people take actions under conscience - including consciously objecting which is a form of passive resistance that must be respected for its Christian tradition (except when it resists the ruling majority's ideas, which of course then defeats the whole purpose of resisting, says the ruling class, and we hear the Borg command echoing on the plain, "resistance if futile," oh, but never mind). It's not that we don't care, but rather than we care very much not to give in. That being said, no one ever went out to Culpeper and picked up few loose canons, thank God. Canons from Richmond sufficed quite well instead. George Fox knew a thing or two about that.

There is the issue, however, that half my family are intimately connected to the United States Armed Forces, and in particular - the U.S. Navy. We are happily and heavily indoctrinated from babyhood to make yearly pilgrimages to Annapolis and pay homage to the old goat (no, not the commandant, who was once my grandmother's third husband, but that's another story). We are taught from the moment we begin to utter our first word to shout-out at the end of the Star Spangled Banner, "Go Navy, Beat Army!" We teach our pets not to fetch the "Army Bone," but only the "Navy Bone" for their reward. We are taught to have sea legs before we can walk and to run up and down passages in submarines before we have sense, but we are cautioned against spilling chocolate milk on the captain's chair in the Officers Mess. It's amazing, really, that my Brother the Methodist has done as well as he has.

Because of the proximately of the national nuclear arsenal to some of my family members, I have decided to let them know of my decision to become a Quaker here at the Cafe. Hopefully, my proximately to the Nation's Capital will discourage them from launching a nuclear brigade, but then on second thought, perhaps that's not so helpful after all.

The next thing that I found quite attractive about returning to the religious practice of my family's roots is silence. Many years ago I went to the All Saints Convent at Catonsville, MD and practiced the discipline of silence for five days and lived to tell about it. I did not go screaming from the compound, but in fact, actually found it quite pleasant. It wasn't just that I didn't have to speak, but there was relief in knowing that no one was speaking to me not because I had somehow been placed in the doghouse, but that they were forbidden to do so unless, of course, they needed to say the word "Fire!"

I found the whole exercise quite enjoyable, especially when it came to helping prepare breakfast each morning when the entire convent practiced the Great Silence. There's nothing quite like pointing over the table at the jelly and then at the bread and then at your mouth and trying not to laugh with a bunch of nuns to make life quite pleasant.

The other positive about the Quaker life is the opportunity to engage in this troubled economy in plain dress. Now we know that plain dress and the Quakers is not what it used to be, but we don't expect to see any Quakers on the front pages of the National Enquirer either. We may throw away all our fashion magazines and accessories and just dress plainly. One may need to change from all black to all brown, but that is a necessity one is willing to make. No more shopping malls, no more scanning People Magazines, no more Paris Hilton. For that matter, no more Hiltons period.

Now I recognize that the Quakers are not the Amish and more's the pity. I always found the Amish buggies quite picturesque and conducive to reducing stress.

One year at Truro, one of our members had done a short-term mission with the Amish and met his future wife (funny how that happens) and they got married at Truro. It was quite memorable to see all those black Amish buggies parked in the Truro parking lot. It's too bad Quakers don't have buggies. But perhaps they drive ancient Toyota Turcels instead. In which case, I'll be in luck.

Seriously, though, there is so much to commend the Quaker life, officially known as the Religious Society of Friends. Doesn't it sound rather delightful to belong to a religious community where everyone knows your name?

Another benefit in becoming a Quaker is that, as Wiki reports, "unlike many other groups that emerged within Christianity, the Religious Society of Friends has tended away from creeds and away from hierarchical structure." What a relief! No more having to stand up and recite a bunch of words all the time - especially since as of late I have been known to shout rather loudly "AND THE SON!" Creeds are so divisive, we're told - you have those who believe what they are saying and those who just reinvent the meaning depending on the time of day. And think - no bishops either. Just think about that for a minute. Think of all the free time. Bishops take a lot of work.

And then there was George Fox. He had a few issues with the Church of England too that landed him in jail on more than one occasion. That resonates. No wonder Pennsylvania is on the Watch List.

Of course, there has been this issue that the Quakers - believing that Christ is the Word of God, over the Scriptures - and their assumption that they were all united on the Scriptures to keep their theological understanding of Christ in biblical check, at some point decided that the scriptures were not as important as George Fox and the original Quakers thought and apparently have thrown them over for more progressive thought. And the passive-resistance has turned into resentful pacifism, which just stuffs all the angry feelings inside a toxic collective, spewing passive-aggressive responses to everything the group disapproves and snifs about.

Ah, but we're used to that.

No, I think it is time to return to the plain Friends Meeting House of my family's early American roots, where we sit in silence and wait for the Spirit, we stand for what is good and we resist what is evil, and we always remember to say Thee.

Of course, if it doesn't work out, we can always go back to driving the bus.

PLEASE NOTE: Tomorrow is the Cafe's Third Anniversary. Our very first post covered a personal meeting and lunch at Arties with the Bishop of Rochester. So tomorrow we will make him our Patron Saint, because that is what he is. In celebration, we will name a new dish after him, which of course, will be on the house. Hopefully he won't be too upset about the Quaker thing.