October 20, 2014

More on General

In response to a very defensive comment from a current member of the Board of Trustees of General Theological Seminary, which argued essentially that if the public knew what the Board knew (but couldn't divulge, nudge nudge, wink wink; and that the Board had no other options available) I posted the following, presented here in a lightly edited version, with a few links added for convenience of reference:
When it is not even possible to find with ease a copy of the current much-amended bylaws of the Board of Trustees of the General Seminary, and we are told to trust the trustees who know things they cannot divulge, and when faced with what appear to be abuses, it is very difficult to believe, let alone trust, that any proper process is being followed.

What is abundantly clear is that the letter from the faculty was neither intended to convey, nor did its "plain English" state, that the faculty were submitting their resignations. That the Board purported to "accept" the resignations, rather than engaging in a process to terminate employment by legitimate means (if that was to be their decision, and for which a special meeting, with notice, was required in older versions of the bylaws) represents a failure in due process. The Board were not backed into a corner. They had plenty of options at their disposal (including doing nothing), and they chose a path remarkable for its duplicity and irresponsibility.

The Trustees, above all, seem to think they are the institution. They are not. In academia -- which is not just like other not-for-profits -- the faculty are the heart of the institution, together with the students. The faculty are not mere employees, they are not merely "staff" -- and above all they are not simply replaceable production line workers.

I join Bishops Dietsche and Breidenthal in their call to return to the status quo ante as soon as possible.
  Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

October 16, 2014

On Texting

In Matthew 19, Jesus cites texts from Genesis 1 and 2 ("male and female he made them" and "for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife") in order to show that "what God has joined together no one should separate." In other words, this is his response to the question about if and when divorce is appropriate.

However, in current discussions, this text is more likely to be applied as an effort against marriage equality; sometimes even within traditions and by people who do not hold fast to the opposition to divorce which appears to have been the point of Jesus' teaching.

This assertion of a subtext, removing the prooftext from its context, strikes me as a pretext.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

October 11, 2014

The Church's Treasury

General Theological Seminary
Commencement Day Eucharist, 1997

(Various Occasions #24)
Psalm 8 - Ecclesiastes 3.1,9-13 - 1 Peter 2.11-17 - Matt 6.19-24
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Today’s readings might well be paraphrased as, Don’t Worry be Happy, Be a Good Citizen, and Try Not to Make too Much Money. The first — Don’t Worry Be Happy — is engraved on the outer wall of the Hoffman Refectory, in its more formal Latin version, Carpe diem; the second — Be a Good Citizen — is sound advice only so long as one lives in a good city, a good state.

 Of the three, it is the third, Try Not to Make Too Much Money, that appears to be particularly directed at those who serve in the church. Anyone who goes to seminary on the basis of the promise found on a matchbook cover, Go to College to Increase Your Earning Power, has either pulled the wrong catalogue off the shelf, or is two sandwiches shy of a picnic. True, the church leaves its threshing oxen unmuzzled — but it keeps them on a short leash and moving in circles at a hectic pace. In short, devoting one’s life to the work of the church — as most of us here have chosen to do — or have been chosen to do — is an effective way to follow our Lord’s advice not to lay up treasure on earth.

If, that is, we are talking about the kind of treasure that comes printed with portraits of dead politicians, in various denominations. But there is another kind of treasure that is more beguiling than the folding green. And it exists in various denominations, too: Not fives, tens and twenties, but Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Lutheran... It is a treasure which those who serve the church, and the church itself, are tempted to store up, perhaps compensating for getting less of the kind with a politician’s image and likeness on them: whether that politician be Tiberius Caesar or Andrew Jackson.

This compensation is the treasure of respectability, of stability, of survival achieved by walking the safe road of compromise. It is the treasure of becoming established of becoming an institution.

The First Letter of Peter shows this process at work; it counsels good citizenship as a strategy for survival in the Empire. Fortunately for the church, the Empire got so bad that “good” citizenship became impossible; for if the church was to remain the church it must eventually collide with Caesar.

Those who had counseled accommodation then found themselves called to re-evaluate — surely Saint Peter repented of his advice to honor the emperor when crucified head-down; and just as surely Saint Paul must have reconsidered the wisdom of appealing to Caesar’s justice when he faced Caesar’s sword. Both apostles eventually realized that they could not serve two masters — Christ and Caesar — though too late for them to leave epistles to that effect.

Imperial persecution clarified the church’s vision with the bright light of the refiners fire, and empowered it to see that survival on Caesar’s terms was not worth survival. Thank God for the martyrs whose blood tempered the steel of the early church; thank God for the confessors who realized that the time had passed for playing goody two-sandals.

And, strange as it may sound, thank God for the Caesars, the Domitians and the Diocletians and all the others who gave the church something to stand up to, something to stand up for. It was persecution that reminded the church of its primary mission: not to survive at all costs, not to survive by ceasing to be itself — but to spend itself for the life of the world, as its Lord had done.

It took the Caesars to remind the church that those who seek to save their life will lose it. It took the Caesars to remind the church that it was the body of Christ — Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate, who suffered death and was buried, and only then was raised from the dead. Christ set the pattern for the church’s life. Only by losing one’s life can one’s life be saved; only what dies can be raised again.

Much time has passed since those fiery, foundry days. The world’s animosity towards the church — with a few notable exceptions — has cooled to chilly toleration. And how has the church responded? How does the church expend its energy these days, now that Caesar no longer persecutes so vehemently? Isn’t most of the church’s warfare these days intramural? Where is the church’s treasure being spent — on outgoing mission, or ongoing questions of self-definition?

Is the church laying up treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and thieves cannot break in — or is it squandering its wealth on the ecclesiastical equivalents of mothballs, Rustoleum, and security systems?

It happens in parishes, national churches, religious orders — it even happens in seminaries! ....so I’m told… The focus shifts from the mission to the mission agency, from the work itself to the procedures, protocols, and policies for carrying out that work; from the apostolic mission to the apostolic order; from the vision to the vision statement.

The church’s vision, once turned outward to take in the needs of a suffering world, turns inward. When this happens, the church’s vision is in danger of the double darkness of which Christ warns in the Gospel — blindness that thinks it sees. The church’s view and perspective become blinded by its own bulk, its own reflection, its own precious self.

When this happens, the church risks its title as a wonderful and sacred mystery and is on the verge of becoming an institution like any other. A church preoccupied with survival rather than with mission, risks abdicating its role as bride of Christ and becoming more like Miss Havisham in Dickens’ Great Expectations.

Preoccupation with self-perpetuation transforms the church from a wedding festival with lamps ablaze and eyes bright with future hope, to a draped and shuttered room whose lonely inhabitant tries in vain to preserve a past that never was.

Am I exaggerating? Think of the energy and resources that have gone into addressing the fears of those who see the Episcopal-Lutheran Concordat as the end of the church as we know it. The Episcopal Church treasures the episcopate, and rightly so — but here is an opportunity to extend the very thing we treasure if we are willing to set aside preoccupation with its substance for a time to focus on its purpose.

The apostolic order is not an end in itself, but the chosen means for the apostolic ministry and the apostolic message:— it is the chosen vessel to bear the good news to the ends of the earth.

We are called and commissioned in that apostolic succession, to that apostolic mission, called to risk what we treasure, to spend what we have for the sake of the gospel, to risk what is most precious to us in order to share it.

And the gospel message we share is strengthened when we share it in a gospel fashion: only those who lose their lives for the sake of the gospel will save them; only what dies can be raised; only what is spent can be redeemed. True wealth, after all, is revealed in what you are willing to spend, not in how much you possess. The life of the church is death to self; and the church is most truly itself when it spends itself with an abandon that matches the liberality of the spendthrift Christ — Christ who gave himself up on the cross, who spent himself completely, who emptied himself and took a servant’s form. And he did it all for love, for the love of his bride, the church.

Christ and his bride are that perfectly mad young couple who store up no treasure — who spend all they have on each other, but having each other need nothing else. You know the story: she cut off her hair and sold it to the wigmaker to buy him a watch-fob; he pawned his watch to buy her a tortoise-shell comb — gifts, that in their purchase and giving were rendered utterly useless and yet infinitely precious, for they represented the gift of the self for the other.

What, then, is the church’s true wealth? Only Christ, and him crucified. Are we mad? Yes, we are, but so is Christ, who with divine madness values each of us poor fragile creatures as chosen and precious treasures. As the old, old, love song tells it, Solomon’s love song, the Song of Songs sung to a Christian tune: Christ is our treasure, and we are his.

Long, long ago, a good deacon faced the powers of Caesar as they oppressed the church. The authorities demanded he turn over the church’s treasures. Expecting him to bring forth gold and silver, how surprised and angered they were when he assembled the poor and the sick and said, This is the church’s treasure.

We — the members of Christ’s body — are the church’s treasure still, because beloved and treasured by Christ, because we are where his heart is, and no moth, no rust, no thief can touch us. We are the treasure of the church, and this holy place is its treasury. This place, and every place where the church gathers, and every place from which it is sent forth, though they be earthen vessels, are God’s treasury. Don’t you ever let anyone tell you they are just institutions. And don’t you ever let anyone make them so. You who teach and you who learn, you who worship and you who proclaim, you who administer and steward and care for the fabric of these vessels, keep your vision clear, always turned to the needs of the world that the church is called to serve. Carpe diem: Seize the day — the time is now. Christ is risen and ascended, and the Spirit is poised to shower us with gifts. Realize your citizenship in God’s kingdom — the country without borders where there are no aliens.

We are Christ’s treasure, and Christ is our treasure, — Christ who gives himself into our hands, precious fragile treasures of bread and wine that feed and strengthen us to spend ourselves in Christ’s service, to turn from the service of self, to do the work God gives us to do in truth and beauty for the common good. May we now and ever spend ourselves freely — spend ourselves selflessly in company with the saints: those gone before, those sitting here now, and those yet to come — all those saints who bought by Christ, are free to serve — Christ’s treasure on earth as he is ours in heaven.



Note: as indicated above this sermon was preached in 1997. It still seems timely, in spite of some of the illustrations being dated. However, other circumstances have arisen to replace them, so if you will apply the rule of mutatis mutandis, I share it here.

October 4, 2014

Generally Speaking

One would have to be living under a paving tile if not a rock not to have heard of the turmoil that has been under way at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan. I won't go into the details here, as the unfolding of this tragic conflict has been amply covered on blogs and websites and in social media. I would be tempted to say it is like watching a slow-motion trainwreck, were it not for the fact that the Internet has enabled what appear to me to be rather hasty quid-pro-quo reaction and counter-reaction, as well as a halo of commentary.

I take a good bit of this personally. I am an alumnus, having graduated in 1997. I was the valedictory preacher, and in my sermon heightened the tension between the seminary as "an institution" and as "God's treasury" — with my strong preference for regarding it more wholesomely as the latter. Two of the faculty from whom I learned the most while there, Drs. Good and Hurd, are among the eight faculty most touched by the current conflict. I have met the Dean in the past, and shared a meal with him at Dr. Good's table in what I can only regard as happier days. I know members of the Board of Trustees, including Bishop Sisk, with whom I have worked closely and whose prudence and judgment I have long admired. So, much of this appears to me, emotionally, to be an example of bad things happening to good people.

And it is difficult to set those emotions aside, especially given the haste and the form of the charges, counter-charges, and reactions. Rush to judgment seems to have become the watchword, rather than due process and careful consideration. In particular, it seems to me that interpreting the job action by the eight faculty as resignation from their positions is not a helpful approach. At the same time, it seems prejudicial to allow the Dean to continue functioning in the face of what at least some feel to be substantial complaints, rather than imposing a form of administrative leave to allow a cooling off period.

Some of this appears to me to be systematic and institutional: I'm on record as not being a big fan of Boards of Trustees in general; nor do I think it wise to vest too much power in a Dean (and President), as I believe academies function best as collegial bodies in which the faculty have the principal governing role — led, but not dominated by, a Dean. It is helpful to note that in the 1832 statutes of the seminary, the deanship rotated on an annual basis among the faculty in order of seniority, and the principle functions of the Dean were coordinative and administrative. All major decisions concerning curriculum were to be made collegially. One detail gives an idea of the Dean's scope of action: the school Janitor is to report directly to the Dean.

Most importantly, as tempting as analogies are, it is a misunderstanding to map other structures onto the peculiar academy which is the General Theological Seminary. The Dean is not to the Faculty as a Rector to a Vestry, far less a congregation. (If there is a "vestry" it is the Board of Trustees, though even there the analogy breaks down on almost all counts.) Given that this is a seminary and not a secular school, it is also important not to map its situation too closely to that even of a secular academy. For one thing, the chapel has a historic role in the life of GTS, and some of the allegedly unilateral changes in the chapel worship made by the Dean are among the complaints raised. While it is quite true that the seminary is not a monastery, the life-giving heartbeat of the school is the round and rhythm of daily worship and prayer. In fact, it seems there has been far too much knee-jerking, and not enough knee-bending, in the current tumult.

I have no answers other than to appeal for reevaluation of extreme action, and a pullback to a moderate and moderating position in which grievances might be addressed without prejudice or favor.

And in the meantime, the seminary is in my daily thoughts and prayers.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

October 1, 2014

Fragment of a Litany

God is not wise… God is Wisdom.
God is not eternal… God is Eternity.
God does not exist… God is Being.
God is not the travel nor the traveler… God is the Way.
God is not the lover nor the loving… God is Love.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG