Tain't taint

There has been a lot of phosphor spilled (or diodes charged?) over the forthcoming consecrations of the first woman bishop in England and a man strongly opposed to such ordinations, in the Province of York. Archbishop Sentamu has laid out his rationale for the scheme of hand-laying that will prevent bishops who have laid hands on women to lay hands on Philip North. Perhaps in the "Don't think about elephants!" category comes the Archbishop's declaration that this is not about a "theology of taint" — yet many are saying, "Pull the other one," and insisting that this is all about fear of hands that have touched women — the testimony of those who have advanced this form of separation notwithstanding.

What few people want to acknowledge in all this is the truth that it isn't about "taint." It is about wanting to make clear the fact that those who take this view simply are not in communion with those who have by their actions supported the ordination of women.

This, to my mind, is much more serious than any alleged fear of girls; for it represents a fundamental schism — if, as has long been the modality, the unity of a church and its being in communion with other churches necessitates a mutual recognition of ministries. These folks don't want to give anyone the impression that they are actually in communion with people with whom they aren't, as "communion" is normally understood.

I think their phrase "impaired communion" makes as much sense as "partial virginity" and wish they were more forthright in simply saying "not in communion" — but these are Englishmen and that is the English Disease of the lack of plain speaking. More deeply, it would also mean accepting that they are no longer really part of the same church — not a church within a church, but a church not touching, surrounded by, within or even close to, another church.

Simultaneous ecclesiastical cake consumption and possession is the key here, not "taint."

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Episcopal Translucency

The Joint Nominating Committee for the next Presiding Bishop has issued an interim report outlining some of the process by which they have proceeded. I remain bemused. I don't really understand why so many of the interim bodies, including the one on which I serve (the Task Force on the Study of Marriage), have felt the need to issue interim reports rather than to wait to issue the final report in what still is called "The Blue Book" but which was rarely blue even when it was a book. 

I don't find fault with the education material such groups have produced (including my own) and I found the Joint Nominating Committee's suite of three historical backgrounders helpful, as I hope some have found the resource on marriage, Dearly Beloved, to be of some help. But I am not amused by the sense of anxiety that continual updates and press releases need to be provided just to prove that these interim bodies are working on the tasks assigned to them.

I'm particularly bemused in the case of the nominating committee's progress reports as all that will matter is the final list of their nominees. There will be ample time to chew over that list, and there will be opportunity to offer other nominations if one's favorite was omitted. It seems that the need for what amounts to constant "information" (which really isn't) that has overtaken the 24-hour news cycle has bred a need to blather and comment.

We seem, as a church, to demand full but offer partial transparency, and to embrace an unhealthy obsession with process rather than clear evaluation of results. This produces a kind of unhelpful translucency that is less informative than opacity, and in the long run about as useful. It is the "form" of information without the "content" — much like the punditry of much of 24-hour "news."

I'm a long-time fan of the old management model DDAE: Discuss, Decide, Act, Evaluate. It is in that last step, Evaluation, that I think the Episcopal Church is at its weakest, and it undermines the beginning of the next cycle of Discussion. We seem constantly to be reinventing wheels rather than going anywhere. (I have been through enough rounds of "Where should '815' be?" to feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.)

So let's think about putting more effort into evaluation of results. That will help to inform the next round of discussion, leading to decision, and then one hopes, action.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Traversing the Multiverse, A Thought

A final thought before retiring for the evening:

 

Posit that each of the almost infinite number of universes form all of the possible permutations of the arrangements of all matter and energy, and that our “experience” is actually the movement of our consciousness from one universe to another. It’s not so much that there is another “me” in another universe, but that the “me” is not just the atoms that make “me” up in any given universe (as I'm more that that even there), but the coherence that threads all of these different possible “me”s together. I think of it as a set of movie films, each slightly different, laid out side by side in strips, but the “story” isn't told by running along a single film as usual, but sideways from frame to frame between all of the different films. 

 

And now, good night... happy dreams.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

MLKjr

Although the feast of Martin Luther King jr falls on the day of his “heavenly birthday” — that is, the day of his death — it seems that the people of God most often choose to follow the secular practice, and many churches observe him on his birthday, January 15, or the Monday designated as a holiday.

Next Monday, the parishes of the Bronx will gather at Church of the Holy Nativity in Norwood, to celebrate the life and ministry of Dr King; Bishop Dietsche is to celebrate, Bishop Shin to preach. The offering will support the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Scholarship Fund of the Bronx Council.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
ikon by yours truly

Arguments we've heard before...

You heliocentrists are prepared to throw aside thousands of years of tradition and the plain meaning of Scripture in advance of your novel position. Why, to even the most casual observer it is obvious that the sun travels across the sky in the course of a day, as does the moon by night. You are claiming to know better than hundreds of the wisest men in history, philosophers and saints, the nature of things that God has set in place. What will you be challenging next, the sound and tested doctrine that disease is the result of disharmony in the humours?

TSH

Aelred and Us: Ten Years On

Beginnings, Ends, and Friends

a sermon preached at the Church of the Ascension, Manhattan, on the Feast of St Aelred 2004

Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” And Jesus told his disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

In all the struggles with which the church has struggled during the last few decades, nothing has stirred the pot so much, raising it from a simmer to a boil, as the vexed matter of human sexuality. The problem with our vexation is that we have focused so much on the aspect of humanity which is not uniquely human — sex — and largely ignored the aspect of human nature that is (as far as we know) unique to human life: the capacity for self-giving and self-sacrificing love. This vexation and ignorance are no help in keeping our kettle from boiling over and making a mess of our ecclesiastical stove-top.

For conservatives in particular sex is almost always “the problem” — for at the same time they want to talk about what is “natural” they also want to preserve a strong distinction between humanity and the rest of nature. Thus, as archconservative Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria said concerning homosexuality just a few months ago, “Even animals don’t do such things.” Obviously the arrogant Archbishop is ignorant of the well-documented same-sex behavior among scores of animal species. But then, he and those who take his point of view aren’t interested in nature and whatever truth it might reveal to us; for they are quite content, upon being shown that animals do engage in such behavior, to turn around and accuse gays and lesbians of being “inhuman” for acting like animals — so I suppose in their view we really are neither fish nor fowl — nor human! — and shouldn’t even exist. As the wife of one of the bishops at Lambeth put it, that would be the final solution to the whole problem — “We don’t have homosexuals in Africa,” she said, “because we kill them.”

Though they might reject such genocidal homophobia, even more moderate conservatives display a similarly perverse exaltation of natural law that takes no account of real nature. For instance, as Roman Catholic moral theologians put it, Human sex is distinguished from animal sex in that only human sex leads to the birth of human beings. This surely qualifies for the theological “Duh” award of the decade. And while those who advance this triviality as if it were a helpful insight do so to preserve the dignity of human personhood — which of course only exists in human persons — in the end they are left with a dehumanized biological determinism, in which the primary good about a married couple is their fertility. This reasoning ignores the facts that not all heterosexual sex (even in the most loving of marriages) leads to the generation of new human beings — nor do we grant marriage annulments at menopause; nor are all heterosexual relationships loving; and some of those that are least loving may be the most fertile. It is not our capacity to breed — even to breed humans — that makes us human.

When one thus eliminates fertility and the creation of new human beings from the discussion, the conservative argument shifts in an enthusiastic appeal to a surmised “complementarity.” This circular argument limits the only legitimate human “other” for appropriately human relationships solely on the basis of the so-called complementarity of the sexes. In doing so it again reduces all human beings, male and female, to the status of mere prongs and holes, as if we were nothing more than the loose ends of biological extension cords, plugs and sockets designed to pass along some kind of live current, without regard to what that current is or is for. One conservative writer waxes eloquent on the imagined “fit” of male and female, which he says is like the fit of hand and glove: of course, notice who the glove is, and who the hand; women sure must get tired of being portrayed as accessories! So this supposedly noble effort to exalt human nature also ultimately undercuts human dignity.
These arguments also betray a kind of genealogical fixation— as if what most makes us human is our birth, rather than our life, as if the beginning of human life is all that counts, and not the human life lived to its human end; as if Genesis were the end of the story rather than the beginning. And it is this story which I wish to revisit and comment upon today.

I do this, in part on the basis of an appeal to our animal past, and the claims of nature, but more on the basis of the Gospel, and its supernatural claims upon our human present for our human future.
For what the Gospel shows us is the astonishing truth that love is unnatural. I’ll say it again: love is unnatural. Put another way, love doesn’t come naturally: perhaps that sounds less threatening! Love has to be urged and commanded. You have to work at it. Left to our own devices, our animal natures, the drive for life we share with all living things, we would seek only our own self-interest, only our own wants and needs, or at best the wants and needs of our species, as if human life were only meant to produce more human lives; as if we were nothing more than organic copy machines driven by our DNA to produce more DNA-producers, in some ways no better than a particularly large and noisy virus infecting the surface of the globe.

This driving energy, what the romantics used to call the “life-force,” is not love. On the contrary, “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower,” and drives the upbuilding of the universe is love’s opposite: self-interest, self-preservation, the survival of the fittest, call it what you will; this is the force that drove the rise of the universe from quarks to dust to stars to cells to animals and finally to us; it is this property of self-cohesion and self-preservation, the redundancy that what endures endures, and (as Doris Day sang) what will be will be, and that only what can reproduce will reproduce, that drove and drives the natural world. And although this leaning towards self-interest can take evil forms — Saint Augustine once said if you needed any proof of original sin, just watch a baby for a while — the tendency to self-interest is not evil in itself, even in human beings.

God, after all, created it as the means to build up the creation. God created the natural law of self-interest that alone could lead to the complexity capable of sustaining life. God provided nature with this inclination to self-preservation, and we have inherited it as part of our nature. So it is not evil in itself: as the rabbis taught, were it not for the yetzer ha-ra, the inclination towards self-interest, no man would build a house, or take a wife, or start a business.

But, as we know, when this drive predominates we get into trouble: and we’ve been troubled by it for a long time, from the moment we became aware of it. As the old, old story goes, it was the impulse to self-preservation that both drove Adam and Eve to their primal act of self-assertion, and convicted them with the knowledge of what they had done, when they fell into the knowledge of good and evil, the naked consciousness of the needy and assertive self, and knew what they had done, and what they had lost.

But they also learned what they still had. For in their fall they became aware that God had already given them something else, the good they weren’t aware of before they chose the evil, indeed before they knew the difference. God had balanced the force that launched the world at its genesis with another more personal gift.

God had imbued human hearts with love: which is not a creature, but the image of God’s self. Love is the gift which gave us the capacity to see and feel beyond our needs, beyond the needs even of our family or clan or society, the knowledge that we are not simply creatures living off each other, but creatures living for each other; that life is not based ultimately upon need but upon gift, and that life is not about the accumulation of assets and the preservation of the self or the species, but about the compassionate generosity that sacrifices even life itself for the sake of the beloved. God made us human, when to us, out of all creation, he gave this incredible energy that goes by the name of love. It is love itself, unnatural and counterintuitive love, which at its greatest sacrifices even its own life so that the beloved might live; it is love, the gift of God and the supernatural spark of the divine likeness that glows within each human soul, that makes human life truly human and most truly alive. It is love beyond price that makes life worth living, and worth giving up.

And when the time was ripe, God showed us this love in person, perfected in Jesus, who commands us to love each other the way he loved us: which is to say, not for what he could get out of us, but for what he could give us. God’s love is not based on need — God doesn’t need anything — but is rather God’s gift, stemming from God’s own nature, God who is love. The natural law of self-interest was merely God’s creature used to build up creation. But love is God’s self: and the love of God is not about transaction, but incarnation.

And when he had taught us this, we ceased being mere servants — who do as they are told but do not know why — and became friends, who do as they are commanded not in ignorance or out of fear, but out of trust, and in the knowledge of the love of God, who gave us life at our genesis, and gave us life again in the revelation of the Son of God, the beginning and the end, who became not only our savior, but our friend, who shared our life and of his great mercy allowed us to share in his.

* * *

This is the gospel truth as Jesus spoke it, the gospel truth that Saint Aelred of Rievaulx preached and lived. He did it in the setting of the monastery, among men committed to a life of common prayer and work, and most of all of unnatural love: the deeply unnatural love that Jesus commanded, the love that gives itself up and places others first, that sees other people not as means to an end (however good or exalted that end might be) but as ends in themselves, icons of Christ and images of God, and above all, as friends.

Now, let there be no doubt that whatever the experiments of his youth, in his later years we can rest assured that Aelred took the vows of celibacy seriously, both for himself and for the monks under his charge. But he also knew that human affection is a great gift, a gift that requires expression, and allowed his monks the familiarities of friendship that sterner ascetics would have found scandalous. Aelred walked that middle way between the biological determinists who saw human beings only in terms of their capacity for breeding, and the gnostic dualists who — misunderstanding the incarnation itself — wrongly thought they could escape the realities of their own embodiment. And so he allowed the signs of friendship to flourish in his monastery. And the monastery, the school of charity, became in its time, the preserver of the world. Not because it set out to do that, not as a means to an end, but because it was full of the love of God.

* * *

Today we have a great opportunity, not just to keep our ecclesiastical kettle from boiling over, but to preserve the world anew, and to teach the mystery of charity to a world hungry for love but steeped in self-interest. Our world has forgotten Sirach’s wisdom, that true friendship is beyond price and cannot be bought or sold in the marketplace.

And I firmly believe that gays and lesbians — whether they have legalized their domestic partnerships, had their unions blessed, or gone off to Canada to get married — can be teachers in this new school of charity for the church and the world, to offer a teaching as powerful as what the monastery taught in the days of Aelred.

And I don’t just mean more Queer Eye for the Straight Church — we’ve been there and done that for centuries; writing the hymns, playing and singing the music, crafting and leading the liturgies, designing the buildings and generally making the church more attractive than it would have been without us. No, what I mean is far more serious and far more challenging. I’m talking about the practice of the presence of God, who in Jesus Christ commands us to love each other as he loved us, with the love that does not abide in relationships built on quid-pro-quo or cost and benefit.

For I believe with all my heart that same-sex couples not only can show forth the great mystery of mutual love as well as different-sex couples do (or fail to do), but may well be able to do it better, and with greater freedom. Free from the shackles of biological determinism by which human cultures have falsely and conventionally come to believe that men and women are naturally and separately suited only for particular roles and destined as means to particular ends, we can emphatically declare and show forth in our lives that human beings are not roles, nor are they means to an end: whether that end be the brief spasm of sexual release or the procreation of a family, the maintenance of a home, or of a society. For as long as marriage is seen primarily for what one gets out of it: as a contract for the interchange of property or the grant of rights, for the building of a family or a home, for the maintenance of the social status quo — rather than for what goes into it: as a covenant of the mutual gift of two persons to each other for no reason other than for love, as long as we see the union of two hearts and minds primarily for its extrinsic worth rather than for its intrinsic value, it will be branded with the hallmark of commerce, rather than blessed as the sign and sacrament of generosity.

Such true freedom and mutuality are difficult when church and society still harp on what they call “appropriate” roles for men and women, when they place their trust in a nuclear family that even at its best was not the means by which God chose to enter creation when the time came to come among us as one of us. True freedom and mutuality are difficult when people talk the talk of self-sacrifice, but walk the walk of imposing sacrifice on others — and how many women have been told it is their natural lot to suffer in silence when men take advantage of them or neglect them, all in the hopes that it will make those men more “domesticated.” True mutuality is most difficult precisely when people are perceived to be unequal, complementary or incomplete.

And this is why gays and lesbians, free from any necessary or conventionally preassigned roles, can staff the school of truly mutual love and friendship, most especially love nourished by friendship.
And, my friends, the greatest irony of all is that such loving relationships, same-sex and different-sex, will save the world, just as the monasteries did through the troubled times of the middle ages, not because that is what they set out to do, not as means to that end, but because God wills it so, and has willed it so from the beginning, when he saw that it was not good to be alone. For just as only self-interest could build the world, only love can finally save and preserve the world. The rabbis were right: the yetzer ha-ra, the inclination to self, plays its role in building up the world; but love is at the heart of tikkun olam, our partnership with God our friend in preserving and bringing to perfection the great work of creation. As Saint Paul’s spiritual grandfather Rabbi Hillel, reflecting on both the inclination to self and the love of others, said, “If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

Christ has done us, you see, the great honor of calling us friends, friends of God in Christ and friends of each other. Friends, not servants: no longer in the dark about our friend Jesus’ plan, no longer fallen but raised to new life in him. As God is our true beginning, so too this is our true end: to honor and love God in each other and to find ourselves transformed in this honor and this love. Out of this love a broken world is pieced together, and all illusory divisions lose their capacity to divide — all of them — each and every one: and there is no more slave or free, or Jew or Gentile, or male and female, but all are one in Christ our friend. With this powerful and God-given spirit of friendship, this spirit of encouragement, this consolation and compassion, let us, at the commandment of Christ and following his example as friends together, of the same mind, having the same love, heart to heart and hand in hand, show the world, beloved, what love means. And if not now, when?

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— Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The icon is from my series of "real people" icons, with my Brother in Christ Francis Jonathan as the model.

It Depends On What You Mean By "Is"

When someone asks me if I believe that God exists I am likely to get a faraway look in my eyes because I’m wishing I were far away. I’ve given up on the smart-aleck approach of saying, “I’m not even sure I exist, let alone God,” and am more likely to say something about trying not to think about God as a thing, even the best and most powerful thing, but rather as the underlying reason that all things exist. Problem with this is that it gets an equally glassy-eyed stare in response, as the interlocutor begins to wish that they were somewhere far away as well. That’s one solution to the problem.

But it struck me today (after a nap) that it might be useful to ask, “What is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony?” Is it the sequence of thoughts and procedures that bubbled up in the particular brain of Beethoven many years ago? Is it that precious autograph manuscript in the Berlin State Library, the first musical score to be added to the United Nations World Heritage List? (And what does it mean to be added to the list? — physically attached to it with staples? in a box with the other documents with a label on front? or simply virtually included by the mere act of being listed?) Or is it the activity of scraping upon, pumping air through, and beating things with sticks, undertaken by a small army of people watching a man waving his hands to coordinate their activity? Just that once, when the deaf Beethoven did it with a group of focused musicians, or at every performance since by varying conductors and ensembles in many different places and times? Or is it the vibrations in the air made by all that scraping, pumping and beating? Or the results of those vibrations hitting my eardrums (and lots of other people’s eardrums) and producing nervous sensations that my brain finds pleasing (but some other brains may find humdrum or boring)? Is it these sensations? Or is it the grooves on the vinyl disk or the pocks on the metalized plastic disc, or the codes that generate them, or the unpacking and interpretation of the codes or grooves into air vibrations again? Or is it all of these things? If any is lacking, does that change its isness? Did it exist eternally in some platonic realm only read off and interpreted by the mind of Beethoven? Or does it only come to be when someone is listening or performing, like that sorry tree in a forest that only makes a sound if someone hears it?

And ultimately, are these something like the kind of questions we need to ask if we are to get even the slightest touch of the hem of the garment of Who God Is?

Happy New Year.
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Keeping a Secret

One of the celebrated icons of the tradition portrays John the Divine (that is, the Theologian) with a finger to his lips in the age-old gesture for silence or secrecy. I've always supposed this imagery is based on the commandment John receives in Revelation 10:4, to keep secret the message delivered by the seven thunders. Roger that, 10-4 indeed, point taken.

Whether this passage or the whole theme of an ironic “revelation” written in such heavily coded language that only an initiate can understand it, the suggestion of secret knowledge is a sure-fire way to generate book sales. Few books of the New Testament generate quite as much reflection — some of it no doubt widely divergent from the author’s intent — as well as a good amount of fevered speculation as to when it is going to “come true.” There seem to be a couple of cable TV channels dedicated more or less permanently to such prognostication.

I do not think, however, that this was the goal of the author, be that author John as the text indicates, or some other figure making use of his name. The message does seem distant from what one might expect of a Galilean fisherman promoted to disciple, perhaps the beloved one. But a lot could happen between the time spent by Galilee and in Jerusalem, and the long years on Patmos. My sense is the author made use of the time for reflection and introspection, and in the end was passing on the warning his Lord had given: be prepared to endure before you are finally vindicated. This is also, perhaps needless to say, a welcome message, particularly to those suffering real persecution.

So we honor John the Theologian, accepting his counsel to keep stum on some things while proclaiming others boldly. And to bring things a bit up to date, I've recreated the icon with a modern model, my own dear Brother-in-Christ Maurice John Grove, casting a wise and knowing eye in our direction. My goal in all of these icons is to make the saints as real and human and living as I can, and I give thanks to Maurice John for serving to that end.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Christmas Dialogue

a reminder of the what why and wherefor of the Incarnation

Lord, look at the nations engaging in war
as they ravage, destroy, and slay.
Why is it, O Lord, that you seem to ignore
all this violence, day after day?

My beloved, I gave you the power to choose
to love one another or not.
You have chosen the latter, and now you confuse
what I gave you with what you have got.

Lord, look on your people now stricken with AIDS
as they perish, waste, and die.
Is it nothing to you that this virus invades
as you watch from your throne in the sky?

My beloved, I gave you the cure for this ill
in the bark of a tropical tree;
but you burned down the forest to fatten the till.
You made that decision, not me.

Lord, look at the peoples divided by race,
by language, culture and clan.
Why not give us each the same color and face?
Please tell us, Lord, what was your plan?

My children, I gave you your races and clans
that in contrast you might find delight.
Instead you have chosen to counter my plans
using race as a reason to fight.

Lord, look at the needy, the starving, the poor
who have insufficient to eat.
Why do you in silence and distance ignore
them, up there on your heavenly seat?

My beloved, I give you enough food for each,
that all might be filled and not die.
I have given you freely all that you beseech,
Yet you hold it and hoard it, not I.

Whatever we do, Lord, we seem to go wrong;
we turn all your good gifts to ill.
Lord, help us and save us—for we are not strong—
if your grace is offered still.

My children, I gave you a brother, my Son;
the very best thing I could do.
I gave you myself: that is what I have done,
and I made that decision for you—
I took flesh, and became one with you.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG, 1990

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On the Development of Discipline

There is an old joke about a man offering a woman a small sum of money to sleep with him, which she rejects in indignation. He then offers her a fantastic amount and she agrees; but he then counters with another low offer, to which she responds, “What kind of woman do you think I am.” He answers, “My dear, we’ve already established what kind of woman you are; we are just haggling about the price.”

This reminds me of the claim by some in the church that approving same-sex marriage would be caving in to the demands of worldly culture. Surprised at the connection? Stay with me. When one examines the history of the church’s engagement with marriage, one finds that the early church gave in to worldly culture by conceding to marriage in the first place. The teaching of Jesus and Paul marks out marriage as a “worldly” phenomenon in which Christians are permitted to participate (per Paul) when they cannot control themselves and (per Jesus) provided that they remain permanently faithful. A review of the history of marriage in church law ever since shows a steady stream of concessions and adaptations to life in the world. Second marriages of widows, marriage with one not baptized, marriage of one (or more) divorced persons, marriage within the borders of affinity — all of these mark out concessions to worldly pressure.

One cannot claim that this is a matter of the faith once given instead of the discipline constantly revised.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Static Charge

There is a well-known twist on an equally well-known saying: “Don’t just do something; stand there!” While this can be good advice for a stage actor in her first TV role, or a person perched on a narrow ledge, it takes on a very different quality in the church, particularly when it comes in the form, “Please don't do anything that might upset other members of the Anglican Communion.” This was the philosophy that lay at the heart of the still-not-fully-adopted Anglican Communion Covenant, and it has reemerged in the past few days in the form of a charge from the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith, and Order to the Anglican Church of Canada not to amend its canon law to allow for same-sex marriage within the church, in order to give more time for delicate relationships to heal.

There are a number of problems with this request, itself a response to a request from Canada, and I suppose if you ask you will receive; though one is reminded of the saying, “Who among you, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone.” The most glaring problem for matters of "Faith" (a part of the Commission’s work) lies in the distance between the core doctrines of the Christian faith and issues surrounding marriage, especially civil marriage, as far as Anglicans are concerned. I won't repeat the obvious here, but note the absence of much reference to marriage in the core doctrinal statements of the early church (the Creeds), the silence of the classical Anglican Catechism on the subject, and the short references in the Articles of Religion that acknowledge marriage as “allowed” and that it is “lawful” even for clergy to marry “as for all other Christian men... at their own discretion...” (Note to Scotland!)

The second “faith” problem lies in the implication in the IASCUFO statement that this is a temporary urging, and that as soon as relationships are healed in the uneasy marriage of inconvenience the Anglican Communion, it will be belly up to the wedding prie-dieu. So this is not pitched as the faith for all times, but a temporary moratorium. The implication is that same-sex marriage will be acceptable as soon as those offended by it reach a better mind, and it is only to avoid offense that the delay is counseled. Saint Paul commended giving in to “the weak” in matters indifferent such as food; but he held the line when it came to matters he regarded as important, such as circumcision. In this case marriage is clearly important to some — those who are marrying; no one need take offense as someone else’s marriage is for them to work through, and for others to respect. If you don’t want same-sex marriage in your own province, then don’t approve it.

This sums up for me the deepest problem with this static charge: the confusing ethic that underlies the request: “Do not do for yourself what someone else doesn't want to do for themselves.” This barely recognizable “tweak” of the Golden Rule has long been the ethical standard in the dead center of Anglican circles. Rather than walking together, it amounts to standing still together, and is utterly foreign to the way history shows the church at its actual work in promoting transformation. Had this principle been employed in the 16th century, there wouldn’t be an Anglican anything today. The whole history of the church is based on some one or ones doing something that some others thought was a Bad Idea at the time.

I wrote a short blog post entitled “What Should Have Happened” about this ethical stance back in 2006, and I think it worth repeating here:

• The General Convention should have listened to the clear directions of the Primates and repented and repudiated all that had been done to offend
• The Episcopal Church should have ignored the tradition of national church polity and remained as a missionary arm of the Church of England even after the Revolution.
• The Church of England should have listened to the pope and never separated from Rome.
• The Eastern Orthodox should have done the same and submitted to Rome so as not to sever communion.
• The martyrs should have followed Saint Paul’s advice to obey those in civil authority.
• Saint Paul, in the interest of not tearing the fabric of the early church, should have acceded to the circumcision party instead of trusting to his own private interpretation of Scripture.
• The Jerusalem Council should have ignored the anecdotal evidence of Paul and Barnabas — which could only serve to make Law-abiding Jewish converts uneasy.
• Saul should have ignored his personal “experience” on the road to Damascus and followed his orders from the Sanhedrin.
• The other apostles should have ignored Peter’s “dream” and stuck to the letter of the Law.
• Jesus should have heeded Peter’s advice and turned back from Jerusalem.
• He might also have considered more seriously the various options presented to him in the Wilderness Report.
• Joseph should have ignored the “personal revelation” he received — again in a dream, no less — and acted in accordance with the Law, and when he found Mary to be with child by someone other than himself, had her stoned to death, and her unborn child with her.
• Then we wouldn’t be having all these problems with the Anglican Communion.

True then, true now.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Faulty Divorce

There is such a thing as “no fault” divorce in which the parties agree to separate with no other “cause” than their desire no longer to continue in their marriage. By its very nature this is not something that one party can impose on the other. When one spouse says to the other, “I can’t go on living like this,” a number of responses are appropriate. These include:

• “What have I done?”
• “Can’t we work this out?”
• “Are you saying you want a divorce?”

It would, however, be inappropriate and presumptuous to say, “You’ve asked for a divorce; so be it.”

Similarly, when a worker approaches a boss and says, “I can’t go on working under these conditions,” there are appropriate and inappropriate responses. Appropriate responses include:

• “What conditions? What is / are the problem(s)?”
• “How can we work this through to our mutual satisfaction?”
• “Things aren’t going to change; are you planning to resign?”

It would be utterly inappropriate to say, “I accept your resignation.” You can no more “resign” another person than you can force them to divorce you. You may be free to fire them or divorce them, but that puts the action — and the responsibility — on your side.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Of Confidence and Confidentiality

Issues of disclosure have been much in the news lately. From the scandals plaguing the Roman Church to the debates about the seal of the confessional in the Church of England, to the concerns about closed meetings of Executive Council, and unpublished bylaws at the General Seminary, there appears to be a good deal of confusion about what things, and when and how and to what extent, ought to be kept under wraps.

One of the common reasons advanced for confidentiality concerns “personnel matters.” But when the personnel matter under discussion is misconduct — in some cases to a criminal level — then confidentiality that allows the guilty employee to find another job in a similar setting amounts to conspiracy, and in the long run serves no one well. Even if it did, that is a road down which no one should want to tread.

Another reason for confidentiality is that being allowed to reveal incriminating information about oneself without fear of it going any farther is essential to the ministry of reconciliation in the confessional. The argument here is that few would avail themselves of this ministry without the assurance that what is said will not be held against them. I can understand the pastoral practical side of this, but have been unable to find any dogmatic rationale that supports the notion, particularly given the dominical teaching on the dangers of hypocrisy: that what is said in secret will be made known at length (Luke 12:1-3). The apocalypse is a warning that in the end nothing is covered up that will not be revealed.

Obviously some things do deserve the protection of confidentiality — which at the level of the confessional applies to the act of confession as well as its content. But some things, by their nature, demand public notice. Among these are minutes of meetings, actions taken by boards of directors, and changes made to bylaws. This is particularly the case where the decisions are taken in the name of some larger entity than just those immediately present in the room. Any action that touches a wider constituency ought to be communicated to that constituency.

Above all it is important to distinguish between confidentiality and secrecy. For instance, doctor / patient and attorney / client confidentiality is well understood not to prevent a doctor or lawyer from discussing a case study — with the name of the patient or client concealed.

To apply this to some of the current controversies about publication of actions of church bodies, I have suggested that in part the Chatham House Rule would make good sense in such situations. Under this rule, the subject matter of a closed meeting, and comments made in it, can be shared, but the identity of the speaker and the speaker’s affiliation are not to be revealed. This allows for open discussion of the subject matter without endangering anyone for expressing an opinion that might be controversial.

But in the end, I have no confidence in confidentiality when it amounts to selective secrecy.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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The King Is Here

SJF • Proper 29a • Tobias S Haller BSG
Jesus said, When the son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory... and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

We come now to the last Sunday of the church’s calendar year — you know our calendar doesn’t quite match up with the secular and civil calendar that starts in January. Our church year starts on the First Sunday of Advent — next Sunday — and so this church year ends this week.

It ends with a celebration that goes in some places by the name of the Feast of Christ the King. It’s a reminder of who our King is, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the one under whose feet, as Saint Paul told the Ephesians, all things are put in subjection.

Our gospel today shows this our King in action. The Son of Man comes in his glory, sits on his throne, and executes judgment. Talk about an executive order! For this is not just an order, but a judgment; and a chilling judgment it is. For those who are rewarded are not great heroes and martyrs. No, the reward of blessing is given to people who did very ordinary things: who fed the hungry and gave the thirsty something to drink, who welcomed the stranger and clothed the naked, who cared for the sick and visited prisoners.

And those who are judged guilty, are not perpetrators of horrible crimes — those who here are sent away into eternal punishment are not mass murders and terrible villains. No, they are people who simply failed to do the same things the blessèd ones did: who gave no food to the hungry or drink to the thirsty, who shunned the stranger and provided the naked with nothing to wear, who didn’t care for the sick or visit those in prison.

And the reason these two groups of people are judged as blessed or cursed is because those they served or rejected were not just anybody — they were the King himself in disguise.

+ + +

We’ve all heard stories about kings in disguise. It is a daring enterprise for a leader to put on a false beard and eyepatch and a humble garment and wander among his subjects. He had best have a strong will and a solid ego, for the things he hears may not be to his liking. Without his crown, without his royal robes of state, a king may be treated just like anybody else — for good or ill depending on who is doing the treating. One of my favorite stories is that of King Alfred, who was hiding from Danish invaders back in the ninth century. He hid undercover for a while in a peasant’s hut. One day the peasant’s wife told him to keep an eye on cakes baking on the griddle while she went out on an errand. With all of his troubles, his mind wandered, and he allowed the cakes to burn. When the woman of the house returned she gave him a ferocious tongue lashing — not knowing, of course, that she was speaking to her king.

+ + +

But we don’t have that excuse. We’ve been given the warning of who our King is. Jesus, our King, has told us in words of one syllable that as we treat the least of those who are members of his family, so we have treated him. When we fail to give food to the hungry, when we neglect to give drink to the thirsty, when we don’t welcome the stranger, or fail to give clothing to the naked, when we don’t care for the sick and ignore the prisoners: we are doing it to him.

We at Saint James Church have a number of opportunities, not just as individuals as we walk through the streets day by day, but as a congregation, to honor our Lord’s royal presence among us. Let me just mention a couple with immediate impact in the next few weeks.

First of all, this Thursday is Thanksgiving Day, and as we have done for the past several years we will have a midday worship service and then serve hot meals to any who come to our door that afternoon; and I invite all of you to come and help in that service and to share in that fellowship.

Second, your vicar and deacon have at our disposal a small fund which comes from the loose plate offering received several times each year. It is called “adiscretionary fund,” and it is used entirely for charity and outreach. When someone off the street comes to the office door and asks for something to eat, or help filling a prescription, or money for the train home to Yonkers, it is from this fund that we’re able to give a fare-card, or a few dollars. Deacon Bill has been using part of his discretionary fund to provide food to the hungry through the Elijah Project: it’s a wonderful and creative way to share, and involves members of the parish in the work of sharing. And believe you me, it is at this time of the rolling year, as the winds grow cold, that more and more people are in need of help. So today’s loose plate offering will be set aside for that purpose, and so I ask you to be generous, helping us to help others in your name. There is an old saying that the ministry of hospitality may lead you to entertaining angels unaware. Believe me, when we serve any who are in need we are not just serving angels, we are serving Christ our King as well.

These are just two concrete and real things you can do to honor our King in disguise as he spends time among us, in the here and now, so that in the day of the great “then” he will recognize us as having treated him as he deserves.

+ + +

I mentioned King Alfred a moment ago. Well, a story is told of another English king, George V, who planned to pay a visit to the northern industrial city of Leeds. The town council was very excited, and posted banners announcing the royal visit throughout the city. Multitudes flocked in the streets to celebrate, waving the Union Jack and cheering to the sounds of the brass bands. A children’s school was fortunate to have its schoolyard right on the route of the railway train upon which the king would leave the city. It was agreed and arranged that the children would be outside in formation to greet the king as he went past, and he would wave at them in return. The children were, of course, terribly excited. The great day came and the children were ready to sing their song of greeting. Down the track, out of the long tunnel, the royal train came into the bright sunlight, the engine steaming and chugging its smokestack, the steam whistle loudly announcing the arrival. The train slowed as it came by the schoolyard and his Majesty King George V emerged from the coach at the end of the train and took up his place on the platform where the assembled children could see him. He was dressed as he normally did: in a black morning coat, striped trousers and vest, and a silk top hat. He waved politely to the children with his pocket handkerchief, and then the train picked up speed and he slipped back into the coach. The cheering of the excited children subsided, until there was only the sound of one little girl who was weeping her heart out. A teacher asked the little girl why she was crying. And the child looked up, and through her sobs and tears bitterly complained, “I thought we were going to see the king; but it was only a man in a top hat!” She was expecting to see the king looking as he did in the picture on the classroom wall, with his crown and red robe trimmed with ermine. That’s what she was expecting, but that’s not what she saw.

+ + +

What do we expect our King to look like? As we pass by a hungry person on the street do we think, “This is not our king, for where is his crown?” When we see someone cold and shivering in a threadbare coat, do we think, “This is not our king, for where is his regal robe?” When we hear that someone is sick and alone, do we assume, “This could not be our king, for a king would have courtiers and officials to take care of him.” When we see a stranger, do we say to ourselves, “This could not be our king, for where are his ambassadors?” When we hear of a person in prison, do we think, “This could not be our King, for no king would ever be convicted of a crime and sent to prison!”

What do we expect our King to look like? He has told us exactly how he looks. He looks like a man — a man hungry or thirsty; he looks like a woman — a woman far from home and looking for help; he looks like a child — a child sick and alone. For our King is King even without his crown, even without his robe of state; even without his top hat and morning coat! He is our King even when he is hungry, even when he is thirsty, or sick, or naked, or lonely, or in prison. He is even our King when he is nailed to a cross — and he did that for us.

What shall we do for him? He has told us. “Oh, that today, you would hearken to his voice.”+

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Board Stiff

In spite of a few hopeful signs at the end of October, the effort to resolve the ongoing tensions at the General Theological Seminary have reached another detente. One can hope for movement, and hope has the power to grease gears, but what is needed above all is the greater virtue of charity: an ability to give, even when one believes one is in the right. And my concern is that I and others lack the third virtue of faith that the Board of Trustees is prepared to adopt that posture.

The Board of Trustees' positive move of offering to engage an outside specialist in reconciliation (the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center) was offset by the apparent refusal to provide a mechanism for a permanent neutral ombuds officer to field complaints (presumably from any side), as proposed by the eight faculty who are engaged in a work action — and now without salary. The Board instead proposed that a committee chaired by one of its own members serve in that capacity. This in itself appears to be a rejection of the notion of neutrality — for how can a member of the Board (even of Trustees) be trusted to maintain a neutral pose (that is more than a pose) in fielding complaints against actions of that Board? Given the fact that a subcommittee of the Board dismissed earlier complaints — an action that contributed to the current conflict — a truly outside auditor is needed. There is an old Latin saying, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? — Who will watch the watchers? The saying is apposite to the present situation.

At the same time, the question is fairly raised: What can an ombuds officer do? If the Board is able to ignore the complaints brought to it by faculty and students, what is there to teethe an ombuds office to hold others to action? This is an endemic problem in institutions that essentially operate on a notion of "good faith" and principles of obedience; and if "the fish stinks from the head" and there is no mechanism for replacement of that head, yet another impasse is surely at hand.

It seems, in the long run, as I've noted elsewhere, that a different approach to the governance of the seminary is needed. The original model, in which the Trustees were distant and largely hands-off, confining themselves to assuring the reputation and financial stability of the seminary, and the main day-to-day work both of administration and education were the focus of the faculty (one of whose members annually served as dean in rotation) makes a good deal of sense. Given the abject failure of the current (and preceding generation) of Boards of Trustees in holding up the financial end of things, apart from overseeing the slow parceling off of much of the patrimonial property, it would appear that outside professional help is likely in order in any case.

Finally, I want to add a word rejecting the notion that the day of the residential seminary is over, and that the formation of clergy can be left to distance learning or other models. First, the notion is patently false at the outset: there are perfectly stable (financially and otherwise) seminaries even among the small number of Episcopalian institutions, that continue to maintain an essentially residential model (I think of VTS and Sewanee — the latter of which could hardly be more residential if it tried!); to say nothing of the many secular colleges and universities that do quite well with a residential model.

Second, there is more to the training of clergy than education. The more important part of the training lies in formation: and one formed for service in the community that is the church must have some experience — even if it is only for three years — of the ancient rhythms of that church's life, nourished with daily worship. One of the more shocking revisions of the current administration at GTS was the paring back of the daily round of worship. It is of course completely true that the seminary is not out to create Benedictine monks and nuns — yet the wisdom of the Rule of Benedict, the balance of prayer, study, and work as tools for spiritual and personal formation and education, has stood the test of time in a way any seminary would be happy to match.

In short, there is no simple solution to the problems at General Seminary. But grace and flexibility are essential for any short- or long-term solution, one hopes geared to a future more productive than the recent past.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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

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

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.

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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.

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

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