Luminous Darkness

See the real St. Nicholas at Canterbury!

I’m going to attempt to live blog from the meeting I’m attending tonight which is of District VII of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The “leadership” of the diocese will be present, and we are going to be discussing “the choices before the diocese.”
However, I want to begin with a quote from St. Basil the Great, taken from section 78 of his On the Holy Spirit. In it, he describes the nature and tone of the Church in his day, the middle of the 4th century, wracked as it was with the Arian controversy:

The love of many has grown cold; concord among brothers is no more; the very name of unity is ignored; Christian compassion or sympathetic tears cannot be found anywhere. There is no one to welcome someone weak in faith, but mutual hatred blazes so fiercely among brothers that a neighbors’ fall brings them more joy than their own household’s success. And just as a contagious disease spreads from the sick to the healthy during an epidemic, in these days we have become like everyone else: imitators of evil, carried away by this wicked rivalry possessing our souls. Those who judge the erring are merciless and bitter, while those judging the upright are unfair and hostile. This evil is so firmly rooted in us that we have become more brutish than the beasts: At least they herd together with their own kindred, but we reserve our most savage warfare for the members of our own household.

I see that when I first read this that I put a note in the margin of my copy that says: “Sounds like the church of today!”

I will post what I can as the meeting progresses.

The subject of miracles has come up a few times in the past week, and it got me thinking about it. First off, I spent Friday and Saturday attending a series of lectures by Marcus Borg, a well-known scholar of the Historical Jesus and a proponent of what he terms ‘liberal progressive’ Christianity. The lectures were very interesting, and I agreed with a lot of what he had to say.

For example, he laid out a few ways that the free gift of God’s grace towards humanity has often been overshadowed in the history of the Church by fear of heresy or conflict. In any study of the early church, it quickly becomes apparent that the standard of salvation was to believe what was pronounced as ‘orthodox’. These propositions tended to be put forth by people who often had just as much political power as ecclesiastical.* During the Reformation, Martin Luther railed against the late medieval version of this behavior and reminded us of that gift of free grace. Unfortunately, within a short period of time, the ongoing conflict between the Roman Catholic Church and various Protestant groups led to Luther’s original idea being corrupted so that it was the belief in the theological concept of free grace (as opposed to works) that made one saved, not actually the grace itself. This is a subtle but important difference in how we as human beings approach God. Free grace means that there is no ‘if…’ statement, but that, first and foremost, God loves us just as we are. I can very much agree with Borg’s point here.

However, when it came to miracles, he described how, in most modern biblical scholarship, such episodes in the Bible are generally regarded to be factually untrue, and in fact are unhelpful to modern Christian faith since they ask people to believe in “the factuality of the spectacular.” He says that this is something that no modern Church, grounded in the scientific age, should expect people to believe. In this he includes such things as the virgin birth, Jesus walking on the water, and Jesus curing a man blind from birth (although curiously he does say that he thinks Jesus could have healed a man who became ‘blind’ for other reasons than simply not having the correct ocular equipment — no real explanation of the distinction though).

The next sign was a post made by my friend Fr. Nick Knisely, regarding a new book in the UK that does very much the same thing, speaking specifically about the ‘nature miracles’ such as Jesus turning water into wine or calming the storm at sea and also the creation story in Genesis.** He also links to an article by Ruth Glendhill in The Times about a teaching document put forth by the Roman Catholic bishops of Great Britain a few years ago that makes very much the same point.

This led me to recall a sermon I preached last year where I discussed miracles. In it, I said the following:

… as some of the most far-reaching branches of science, especially theoretical physics and cosmology, are teaching us, what we can see or experience in our three-dimensional universe is not necessarily what is true. To us, the miracles in the gospels seem, well, miraculous. But to God, miracles are not miraculous. They are normal. God subsists in such a way that the divine nature is not bound by the constraints of our human existence … The reality of God is not above our reality or beyond our reality in any kind of spatial or dimensional terms that we can express. The reality of God is, by definition, completely and profoundly different than our reality. We have to readjust our perspective of the universe in light of the radical change worked by God in the Incarnation …

What I find interesting is that Fr. Nick makes a similar and related point in the comments responding to some questions about his post:

As a scientist (and more so as a physicist) I’ve never had any problems believing in the miracles described in the Bible. Quantum Physics (or at least the classical understanding of it) would say that such things are explicitly allowed to occur - they are just highly unlikely. If the Lord of all Creation is walking around, then selecting out a specific outcome of an observation of reality (even if VERY unlikely) is then pretty much even more allowable.

Speaking more as a believer - and one who’s spirituality leans towards the mystic end of the spectrum - I’ve always understood this as something that can only be viewed through eyes of faith. The same eyes that let us see more deeply into the truth of reality than would the eyes of a skeptic.

It’s really a modernist behavior though to insist though that something did or did not happen specifically.

I feel that this expresses the point I was trying to make in another way (and from a perspective of someone with rather more formal scientific training than I possess).

To conclude, the part of Borg’s lectures that troubled me the most was his fairly clear statement that he cannot accept the traditional understanding of the doctrine of the Incarnation. He believes that Jesus was a ‘Jewish mystic’ and that God did not send him to Earth for any specific purpose but that, after the crucifixion, God said ‘Yes!’ to Jesus and his life and teachings in a special and ‘decisive’ way through the resurrection, and that is how we end up with our Christ-centered Way to God. As should be clear by the excerpt from my sermon, the Incarnation is very important to me, and while I can go some of the way with Borg regarding Jesus’ human characteristics, I must fit that in with the definition of Chalcedon where Christ is divine as well.

While I would agree with Borg that “God never wants anyone to be crucified,” I do not think that precludes the idea that God might have made the Word flesh in the incarnation in order to begin the rebuilding of creation. We humans had managed to screw it up already fairly well, and we just went one step further in crucifying Jesus. However, as always, God is able to take what we screw up and do more good with it than we can possibly ask or imagine. Even, perhaps, with a miracle.

* I should make it clear here that by this statement, I am not saying I do not believe that good, true statements about the nature of God and Jesus Christ did not come out of these deliberations and councils, but perhaps rather that the Holy Spirit worked in spite of them instead of through them at certain points.

** The Genesis story is, of course, a myth. ‘Myth’ is a term that I have come to appreciate more and more over recent years. It is NOT, as much of the modern world believes, the same as fiction. Rather it speaks to a much greater and deeper truth about humanity. In words attributed to the 4th century Roman philosopher Sallustius: “a myth is a story about the way things never were but always are.”

Today is the feast of St. Nicholas, one of the oldest and best known saints in the history of the Church. With all of the current controversy surrounding the over-commercialization of Christmas at this time of year, I think that a good comparison can be made between St. Nicholas and Santa Claus. This sentiment is explored at the website of the St. Nicholas Center:

It’s been a long journey from the Fourth Century Bishop of Myra, St. Nicholas, who showed his devotion to God in extraordinary kindness and generosity, to America’s jolly Santa Claus. However, if you peel back the accretions he is still Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, whose caring surprises continue to model true giving and faithfulness.

There is growing interest in reclaiming the original saint in the United States to help restore the spiritual dimension of this festive time. For indeed, St. Nicholas, lover of the poor and patron saint of children, is a model of how Christians are meant to live. A bishop, Nicholas put Jesus Christ at the center of his life, his ministry, his entire existence. Families, churches, and schools are embracing true St Nicholas traditions as one way to claim the true center of Christmas—the birth of Jesus. Such a focus helps restore balance to increasingly materialistic and stress-filled Advent and Christmas seasons.

It is worth remembering that the traditions of the church year can help us here. Just as Advent is a full season of four weeks, Christmas is also a season of the twelve days until Epiphany, not just a one-day blow out. My friend Nick Knisely has recently explored this idea in his post ‘Christmas as a Season and not as an event…’ Among other things, he comments on the post-Christmas letdown:

The other, more practical concern, is that trying to compress two months worth of expectations into a frenzied hour of observance almost always leads to a sense of disappointment, an emotional letdown, and the inevitable question “Is this all then?” People who suffer from depression and anxiety during the holidays are often reacting to the particular experience of emptiness and exhaustion that follows the long long buildup. Helping people manage the post-holiday letdown is one of the most common tasks of the clergy in January and February.

So, with these things in mind, let me leave you with this prayer from the St. Nicholas Society:

Good St Nicholas,
Help us prepare for the miracle of the coming of Jesus.
Help us not to be blind to the gifts of getting ready.
Help us be sincere in the greetings we send and receive, with love and prayer.

Kind St. Nicholas, protect us from shoppers’ fatigue, stress, overspending, yet help us to be kind and generous of heart to all, especially those who are alone, financial poor and fearful.

May our celebration of your feast lead others to see the true meaning of giving and receiving and to guide all people to

The greatest of all gifts, even Jesus Christ, prince of peace and child of Mary, Our Lord and only saviour.

Amen.

Since today is the Feast of St. Andrew, I attended the noon Eucharist in the cathedral downtown here in Pittsburgh. I am not sure who the priest was that took the service, but his sermon was a fascinating dismissal of the entire decision-making process that has been in place throughout the history of the Church. He began by saying that in our American culture today we feel that we can only accept something once we have discussed it at great length and then voted on it. For him, the impact of this is that we do not fully accept any idea or proposition, but rather constantly ask for more proof and more evidence.

He then went on to say that this is also the way that the ‘modern’ Church makes decisions about doctrine, that is, by voting on them, and that this is wrong and goes against true Christian practice and belief. He held up St. Andrew as someone who simply followed what Jesus told him to do, and said that we should do the same. Of course, he didn’t mention what we should do when faced with a problem that Jesus didn’t discuss.

He pointed to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, which, he helpfully reminded us, is the largest legislative body in the United States with its ‘900 members’ (i.e. those in the House of Lay and Clerical Deputies — I guess that the House of Bishops and its 300 members is not really relevant somehow), as a body which makes doctrinal decisions by voting on them.

In all of this, he failed to mention that our form of ecclesiastical decision-making in the Episcopal Church was set up in the 18th century after the American Revolutionary War on purpose, to differentiate us from the state-run Church of England. To this day, the Queen of England appoints bishops and Parliament must sign off on any major doctrinal or liturgical changes, such as any revisions to the Book of Common Prayer. The Episcopal Church believes that this democratic process is the best way we have come up with to discern the teaching of the Holy Spirit in contemporary society. Through discussion, debate, and an eventual vote, we are able to try and see what new things God is telling us.

I would certainly not say that the system is perfect. At my first General Convention, I was partly amazed but also partly horrified at some of the ridiculous debates that wasted time, energy, and money. In addition, my experience at the World Council of Churches led me to an understanding that perhaps there is some value to the idea of consensus decision-making rather than straight up-or-down voting.

Now, the other piece of the Church’s history that this sermon failed to discuss are all of the councils that have been held throughout the centuries. In particular, the early Ecumenical Councils, recognized by all mainline Christian bodies as doctrinally unique and centrally important, were, in fact, voting assemblies of bishops from throughout early church. Texts such as the Nicene Creed (which, strangely, we did not say during the Eucharist — perhaps there was no room to fit it in after the lengthly sermon) were created out of these debates and discussions which, in fact, were fairly politically motivated. For example, the Roman emperor Constantine called the Council of Nicea in 314 C.E. in order to calm down the fighting factions in the Church of his day, but the main benefit that he was hoping for was political stability throughout the empire.

This idea of democratically-based doctrinal decision-making is not new at all, but, in many ways, forms the basis for the entire Christian theological tradition and points to the idea of continuing revelation — that God is still speaking to us today.

Holocaust Memorial Day was celebrated last Friday, 27 January, and I preached my sermon about it this weekend. Please feel free to read it and comment: Candlemas 2006.

One of the most wonderful things about being in the United Kingdom is the way that churches and communities celebrate Remembrance Day, 11 November, also of course known as Armistice Day. This was the day in 1918 when, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, the guns on the Western Front fell silent as the Allied Powers and Germany signed the armistice, and peace began to return to Europe with the end of the First World War. In the United States the day in known as Veterans Day. I have been in the UK for three years of Remembrance Day services, and I have been immensely moved at each one I have attended. In part, this is because of the way that many people are drawn into the church on this particular day, when they would not usually otherwise attend. (In fact, a good friend of mine only attends church once a year on Remembrance Sunday.) Additionally, while we have memorials to those who died in the Great War in the US, in the UK they are everywhere and the number of people who gave their lives from this country is staggering. I remember the memorials at my college at Cambridge that listed a fairly sizable percentage of several years worth of students – this country really lost a whole generation of young men.

This year, we had the annual College Feast on 11 November and celebrated a Solemn Eucharist beforehand for the feast day of St. Martin of Tours in our college chapel with our guest The Right Revered the Lord Bishop of Durham, Dr. Tom Wright. St. Martin was a fourth century saint who was impressed into military service as a young man in the Roman army, and whose first work of mercy was to cut his military cloak in half to give part away to a freezing man who came up to him begging outside the gates of Amiens. That night he had a vision of Jesus and was soon baptized. He later became bishop of Tours and was well-known during his lifetime for miracles of healing and exorcism.

I was talking with the bishop after the service and he wondered aloud whether the feast of St. Martin had been placed on 11 November deliberately in the 20th century in order to reflect on Armistice Day, since he is one of the few soldier-saints in the history of the church. I did some research into the matter and discovered that in fact, 11 November is the date in 397 either when St. Martin died, or when he was buried in the Cemetery of the Poor at Tours, having died on 8 November. (There seems to be some disagreement about the specifics of the matter.) It does indeed appear to be a happy, or perhaps very interesting, coincidence that this particular soldier-saint is commemorated on that particular day, and it certainly will give me pause for thought on future Remembrance Days.

We had a chaplaincy film night this evening at one of the colleges that I work for where we viewed Snow Falling on Cedars, an excellent adaptation of David Guterson’s novel of the same title. I would highly recommend both the both the book and the film; the former for its flowing poetic language and intense detail and the latter for its hauntingly beautiful cinematography. The plot concerns the death of a fisherman working off the coast of a small island in the northwestern United States, but much of the story takes place during World War II and revolves around the many Japanese-Americans who were sent to internment camps for the duration of the war. There are those would probably like to forget that we locked up these people, the majority of whom were American citizens, for no other reason than their ethnic background, many of whom had in fact been born in the United States, the children of Japanese immigrants.

Two things were particularly striking about the short discussion that we had afterwards with some of the students who had watched the film. First was the fact that none of them had been aware of these American internment camps. Now, to be fair, these were British students, and I have already learned in my time here that the teaching of American history in this country is spotty at best. (In fact, the teaching of history here is not very good generally as I seem to have learned more about British history than many university students that I have met!) However, as the camps are a piece of American history that I certainly learned about in school, it was fascinating to hear the reactions of these students upon learning about it for the first time. As the film makes clear, this is still something that it in some ways still an open wound in the hearts and minds of many Americans.

The other thing of note in our conversations was the parallel to many events that we have been seeing today in the wake of the war in Iraq and the terrorist attacks of September 11th. While both the novel and the film tell a story about America’s past, it is clear to me that this is a piece of our history that we have not learned from. We have detained a number of American citizens over the past few years, without trial, for no other reason than that they have Middle Eastern ancestry. George Santayana’s famous quote is perhaps too much overused, but there is definitely truth to it:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

I am concerned that we are in the process of repeating a part of our history, and doing so because we are not teaching people about it – perhaps even denying that it happened so as to ease our consciences. If even students at one of the best universities in the United Kingdom have not heard about these events, can we really assume that the majority of Americans are aware of them either? This kind of thing should not have been allowed to happen in the 1940’s and it should not be allowed to happen today. We must remember and learn from our history, no matter how painful, since we already seem to find ourselves repeating it.

In light of all the current debate in the church about marriage, this article in the Washington Post gives quite a good summary of some of the recent research that has been done into the history of marriage and how much it has changed over the last several hundred years. The author, Stephanie Coontz, teaches family history at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, USA, and is author of the recently published book, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage.

This quote from the article summarizes one of her main arguments:

The origins of modern marital instability lie largely in the triumph of what many people believe to be marriage’s traditional role — providing love, intimacy, fidelity and mutual fulfillment. The truth is that for centuries, marriage was stable precisely because it was not expected to provide such benefits. As soon as love became the driving force behind marriage, people began to demand the right to remain single if they had not found love or to divorce if they fell out of love.

I am certain that many people will disagree with a number of her conclusions, but the article is definitely good food for thought.