With You Anon.

I saw Anonymous on my day off, in an almost empty but palatial new movie theater in Yonkers.

Let me say from the start I am no fan of the “WS didn’t write the plays” theories. My major objection is to the Main Premise, with which the film starts off in its Prologue (and with which it doesn’t advance much further): the poorly educated son of a middle-class suburban glove-maker could not have had the mental or experiential bounty to bring forth the richness of these plays and poems. This accusation, reeking as it does of Good Old English Classism, reminds me of the thesis that the Egyptians couldn’t have built the pyramids because such backward people were incapable of doing so; it must have been aliens.

I utterly reject this premise because I was, in my former career, an actor. Actors with whom I have worked are among the most well-rounded and culturally well-informed people I know, as are not a few of the directors and playwrights. The upper-class English twits I’ve encountered over the years couldn’t hold a literary candle to some of my actor friends. I’ve sat backstage in dressing rooms with actors wiling away their off-stage moments doing the London Times crossword, or working on a monumental thesis on Finnegans Wake. In my undergraduate school, actors were treated to a superb course on “Theater in the Humanities” where faculty from across the college were brought in to lecture on the history, culture, science, literature, art and religion of the various eras in which plays were written and set — producing an enviably well-rounded liberal arts education that would put the specialists in other of those fields to shame. So don’t get me started on the impossibilist assertion in re WS’s capacity for brilliance. Oxford himself gives the verdict, of course, when he tells Jonson, “People like me don’t write plays.” Aristocrats are often the most boring and ill-informed people.

What about the film as film? Well, the underpinning “theory” and the attendant revisionist history aside, it was diverting and beautifully produced. Someone got the “secretary’s hand” down pat, and the costumes and CGI scenery were impressive. The use of the theatrical Prologue in the manner of Larry O’s Henry V was clever. The snippets of the Bard’s own words are inspiring and rather well spoken (Henry more than Hamlet, but I digress...). Vanessa Redgrave is as quirky and brilliant as ever, and there are other creditable performances.

But it is in how the film failed to make use of the ample possibilities of WS’s architectonic genius that it was most profoundly disappointing. One of the things WS was so brilliant at was the layering of multiple stories in parallel and counterpoint. Here we had two stories, both reflecting the issue of anonymity, running side by side: the authorship of the plays, and the “authorship” of the progeny of ER I. Yet this rich material just sits there, never truly woven together in the delightful way that WS could do, so that the great “A ha!” moment of revelation is more of a “Huh? Oh...” The things that ought to have clicked into place didn’t. There is little or no humor in the film, none of that brilliant interplay of “conceptual rhyme and rhythm” that carries you through scene upon scene. The time-shifting was not well handled (again, providing the audience with too few of the kinds of visual and verbal cues that would enable them immediately to know when was when and what, what — the very thing the Prologue of Henry V knows must take place in the viewers’ minds — and of course this lack is fatal to the story as the author intended it to be understood.

In short, it goes to show that not everyone can write with the genius of a Shakespeare — or perhaps even be aware of the technical aspects of what make Shakespeare’s plays so enduring: it isn’t just the stories, for goodness’ sake, or even the poetry, but the resonances and braided layers of a highly refined narrative art.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Thought for 11.04.11

One problem with the Anglican Covenant Process is not so much that it is a case of closing the barn doors after the horses have bolted. Rather, it is like proposing to engage in a process to consider building a barn after the horses have bolted.

We have never had a barn. We don't need a barn. We have the field and hills before us, ripe for the galloping mission of God.

Tobias Stanislas Haller

Hidden in (Not So) Plain Sight

One of the more interesting discussions at the recent conference I attended in South Africa concerned the nature of homosexuality in those parts of Africa where its presence is most vehemently denied or persecuted. Several of the lay and clergy leaders from those areas indicated that “homosexuality” was widely seen as some kind of alien import. They allowed, however, that as long as a man was married and had children, a concurrent sexual relationship with another man could — while still being viewed with opprobrium — likely be given a pass. Such a man would not be labeled as “homosexual.”

This reminds me, of course, of the situation in many communities even in the United States — thinking in particular of some Latino and African-American communities — based on their cultural construction of homosexuality. That is, a “man who sleeps with men” might well not be seen as “homosexual,” while an effeminate man or sissy-boy might be described as such even if he is a virgin and completely heterosexual in his orientation.

This is in part due to the confusion of the many variable axes that combine in human personality to define one’s identity. It isn’t just a matter of male and female (biological sex, and allowing for the reality of intersexuality), but of feminine and masculine (cultural or societal gender), attracted to one’s own sex or the other (sexual orientation), and so on. The simple fact, put simply, is that many gay men are not effeminate, and many effeminate men are not gay.

More importantly, the African situation reminds me of how it is that David and Jonathan’s relationship (with the emphasis on Jonathan’s attraction and attachment to David) can also be covered from perception as a same-sex relationship (which it no doubt is, regardless of whether acted upon erotically). The fact that both are “manly men” and warriors, both married (in David’s case we have quite a bit of evidence along that line), shields them — in cultures that cannot distinguish sexual orientation from notions of gender — from any suggestion of being what C.S. Lewis so revealingly called pansies. (The Four Loves, 62) While it is questionable to attempt to craft a psychological profile at such a remove, it is fair to say that David’s relationships with women all seem to be based either on the desire to possess and control or some kind of political or dynastic interest (as indeed may be true of his relationship with Jonathan in taking advantage of the latter’s attraction to him), while the relationship of Jonathan to David appears to be one of deep and lasting love. At least that is the language of the text. “Pansies”? No. Oriented towards a romantic relationship towards each other?” Very likely yes. At least David is not reported to have shed any tears over his female partners, and Jonathan’s testimony of complete dedication and what the text reveals as “love at first sight” is amply clear.

The role of choice

The question, “Is homosexuality natural or a choice?” also came up at the Conference in South Africa. The implication is that if it is a choice, it is a wrong choice, or at the least a choice that need not have been made, or could have been made otherwise. In earlier times it was assumed that the choice was a conscious act to choose wrongly — a perversity: doing deliberately and willfully what is known to be wrong.

Most gay and lesbian persons do not feel their orientation to be a choice, but something about which they become aware at some point in their life — just as do heterosexual persons of their sexual orientation. Most people, it seems, do not have much of a conscious awareness of sexual attraction in very early childhood, and begin to become aware of sexual attraction later in childhood or in early adolescence.

At this point the question of choice arises: do I choose to accept my inclinations? to act on them? to suppress them? Some people choose celibacy, while others choose relationship.

This leads me to reflect on the question, “Is choice a bad thing?” Aren’t we blessed to be chosen by the one who chooses us for life? The language of choosing and taking to oneself is intimately (!) connected with both salvation history and the life of human relationships; so much so that marriage is held to be an image of God’s relation to God’s Chosen.

Can this apply to same-sex relationships? Let me take another look at the relationship from Scripture that is often held up (and at the same time denied) as being homosexual, to which I alluded above: the story of the love of David and Jonathan. This is clearly a relationship between two men, but some do not see it as sexual in nature. It is true that sexual acts are not clearly recorded (though in a few places suggested) in the text — but this is true in large part of the Scriptural attitude towards descriptions of sex, which are usually veiled in metaphor or euphemism.

But let me start with a strongly negative view of the relationship between David and Jonathan from the text of Scripture itself. Jonathan’s father Saul verbally assails his son, when he says, “You son of a perverse, rebellious woman, do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your confusion, and the confusion of your mother’s nakedness.” (1 Samuel 20:30) Jonathan’s choice, is of course a choice, but it does not come from perversity. He has no wish to see the kingdom of his father fall to confusion, and to see the swift end of that dynasty. But Jonathan knows that he had little power not to chose the one whom he has chosen; the one to whom he knew his whole being to be bound when he first laid eyes on him, the one whom he loved as his own soul. (1 Samuel 18:1) This covenanted love (1 Samuel 18:3; 20:8,16,41-42; 23:18) was the greatest love he would ever know, the love for which he would eventually risk everything (1 Samuel 20:33) and lose his life; this wonderful love surpassing the love of women. (2 Samuel 1:26)

Was Jonathan wrong so to choose? I don’t think so.

Tobias Stanislas Haller

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Two Thoughts for 11.01.11

Due to travel and the press of other work, blogging has been light. There will follow a series of relatively short posts about things that have been on my mind. Here is the first.

The May 2011 issue of Scientific American (yes, my magazine reading is backlogged, too) had two interesting articles. The first was a short piece on Bayes’ Rule by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, author of a book on the subject, The Theory That Would Not Die. The rule (or theorem) has a more complicated definition in probability theory, having to do with linking the uncertainty concerning the likelihood of an event prior to collecting evidence with the uncertainty after trial evidence has been collected. As McGrayne puts it in plain English, “the formula is a simple one-liner: Initial Beliefs + Recent Objective Data = A New and Improved Belief.”

It struck me that this is the way all systems of human knowledge should work, but that in the real world objective data often seems not to have much impact on people’s beliefs.

The second and more interesting article, “The Hidden Organ In Our Eyes,” by Ignacio Provencio, dealt with the discovery that certain special neurons in the eye are responsible for sensing light — not for the purpose of vision but in relation to the circadian cycle — the internal clock by which we adjust to day and night. Thus the eye serves two purposes. This reminded me of something I cited in my Reasonable and Holy (7):

The difficulties with ends-based natural law arguments in this regard, which are advanced against birth control as much as against same-sexuality, in particular those that focus narrowly on the mechanics of sexual intercourse, are well summarized by Gerard J. Hughes in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics.

It is one thing to say that the natural function of the eye is to see. But even bodily organs can and do serve several functions. And if one asks of the body as a whole what its function is, the answer is much less clear. Even less clear is the answer to questions such as “What is the function of a human life?” or “What is the function of sexuality in a human life?” The way one might try to answer these questions seems quite unlike the way one might try to answer questions about the function(s) of the endocrine glands or the heart in the human body. The notion of “function” at this point becomes much more a matter of moral assessment than a scientific inquiry. (“Natural Law,” 413)

I reflected on this issue in parabolic fashion with the short fable, On the Island of Silence. I am fascinated by the extent to which some people insist that anatomy — or their understanding of the nature of anatomy and biology — must be determinative of moral values. Fidelity is a moral value. Gender isn’t. Those who insist that only heterosexual relationships are capable of moral value are in fact insisting that there is a moral value to “male and female,” and ultimately, therefore, to the Y chromosome.

The fact is that we are more than our bodies. What we do with them is important, but just as the eye is not only for seeing, so too the body is not only for reproduction. Morality does not lie in our chromosomes, but in how we treat each other as complete human beings.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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DIscordance

A thing that bemuses me about Communion without Baptism [CWOB] is that it is often favored by some who make the most fuss about the Baptismal Covenant. It is deeply ironic to me that some who advance the slogan "All the sacraments for all the baptized" don't seem to realize the implication of that slogan for CWOB. One of the reasons I do not favor CWOB is my strong support for the Baptismal Covenant and all it requires, including the promise to remain faithful in "the breaking of the bread." Yes, all the sacraments for all the baptized.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

A Prayer

We have been slumbering while we should have been watching; come, let us rise to go with Jesus, even to the cross and to the grave, and in him to the risen life. Amen.

based on Mark 14:41-42

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The Place and the Power

My experience at the conference I've been attending in Durban, South Africa, has been incredibly rewarding. To sit and share in scripture, worship, reflection and dialogue with so many wonderful people from many parts of Africa and the US (and New Zealand and Sweden!) was a rich banquet which it will take some time to digest. This was, in part, my job, as I was a member of the "listening team" charged with collecting and distilling some of the wealth. An official report will be available in due coure, but I wanted to share something of the Bible study, to which I was also able to contribute some observations. Even though a "listener" I was instructed to operate under the "no muzzling the threshing ox" rule and was encouraged to participate fully even while taking notes!

The two major Bible studies were on the woman with the ointment in the house at Bethany (Mark 14:3-9) and the stilling of the storm on the lake (Mark 4:3541). What struck me in both stories was the location. The house of Simon the Leper in Bethany is a key place, as is the house of Mary, Martha and Lazarus (if indeed these are two different houses). Jesus expends a significant portion of his ministry in Bethany -- one meaning of which is "House of the afflicted." And it struck me that all of the really important things in Christ's ministry happen not within Jerusalem, but outside it -- at the margins with the poor and the outcast, not just spiritually and economically, but physically. Bethany is a place of lepers and irregular households, yet Jesus is at home there. The great crescendo of saving acts performed by this marginal man (uneducated and of questionable birth) -- the Crucifixion, Burial, Resurrection and Ascension -- all take place in the liminal and marginal world surrounding, but not within, the "Holy City."

And yet the church it seems so often wants to see itself as trhe Temple, the place of security and pomp and circumstance, rather than to be in the place where Jesus is -- on the margins in the home of the afflicted. As one of the presenters at the Conference, Sathi Clarke, put it, it is the bonds of affliction, not of affection, that truly bind up the church in the paschal mystery. Anglicans in particular seem to want to be -- and to be seen to be -- safe and secure, content in the Temple, rather than risking all on the edges.

And this brings me to the second study. We are so accustomed to reading the story of the calming of the storm as if that was what Jesus wanted to do. In fact it is what the disciples wanted done for them. Jesus' goal was to reach the other side. Perhaps Jesus wanted them to make use of the storm and their skill to reach that other shore. I can imagine Jesus saying, implicitly responding to their lack of faith, "I gave you the storm; I gave you myself. Was that not enough for you." Jesus was with them, though asleep, in the midst of that tossing sea and blowing wind, and he taught them a hard lesson by brining a calm which would give no wind to their sails.

Again, the church so often wants to be "safe and secure from all alarms" rather than to make use of the energy available and the skills at hand. Jesus says to us as well, "I give you the storm; I give you myself; what more do you need, you of fear and not faith?" Perhaps in the end, God has given us the gifts we need, the challenging two edged sword of his Word rather than an earthly peace that would diminish or constrain the powerful wind of the Spirit.

Tobias Stanislas Haller

On a journey

or, Where I'll be next week...

In mid-October, the Chicago Consultation and the Ujamaa Centre of the University of KwaZulu-Natal will convene a gathering in South Africa to strengthen mission and advocacy connections among Anglicans who are interested in the theology of human sexuality and justice. We believe that deeper connections with each other will make it easier for us to work together in mission and to communicate productively when challenging Communion-wide issues arise. The co-conveners of the consultation are Professor Gerald West, director of the Ujamaa Centre, and Professor Esther Mombo of St. Paul's University in Limuru, Kenya.
The consultation, which will involve about 55 people and last for three days, will be grounded in the Indaba process, prayer and Bible study and will explore theological perspectives on human sexuality and justice. Participants will include theologians, bishops, church leaders, grassroots advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and other people willing to engage in intensive conversations across cultural boundaries.
The participants in the consultation will share their experiences with the wider church through stories and video reflections and through the report of a listening team led by the Rev. Janet Trisk, a representative to the Anglican Consultative Council from the Church of Southern Africa.

from the pre-event release

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The Wheel Goes Round

One aspect of the sexuality debates is the extent to which those opposed to same-sex marriage ground their arguments in circular reasoning. Most of them are aware enough to see how empty it sounds to say, “Same-sex couples cannot marry because marriage is only for men and women.” So their thesis usually takes a more nuanced, but no less circular, form. “Only a man and a woman can marry because only a man and a woman are capable of procreation.” When it is noted that men and women who cannot procreate are still permitted to marry, and that marriages do not end with the end of the ability to procreate, the language shifts to, “Only men and women can marry because only a man and woman are capable of performing a procreative act.” By “procreative act” they mean an act that could be procreative if the couple were procreative.

It is very easy to become caught in the linguistic and logical thicket such thinking is based on, but in the long run it is of the form, “A procreative act is an act which, if the couple were capable of procreation, would be capable of procreation.” This strange thesis entirely begs the question, in part because “acts” aren’t procreative — people are. Procreation is not a matter of form, but of substance and capacity. If the couple aren’t capable of procreation, no act they perform can be “procreative.” In the long run this is just another way of framing the assertion that only men and women can marry.

To get a bit technical, this is the assertion of a counterfactual conditional as if it were an indicative conditional. (The difference is between “X would be if Y were though it isn’t” and “X is if Y is and it is.”) Saying something “is” when it “isn’t” — though “it would be if it were” — is at the heart of this logical fallacy.

One of the exponents of this view declared that it is analogous to angling: even when a fisher fails to catch fish he is still fishing. This is a misleading analogy. The proper analogy, from the traditionalist perspective, is “sex is to procreation as angling is to catching fish” (i.e., sex and angling being the activity and procreation and catching fish the particular and assumed desired result of that activity). Sex without the possibility of procreation is sex, but it is not procreative. It is nonprocreative sex — whether whatever makes it incapable of leading to procreation is artificial (birth control) or natural (temporary or permanent infertility, or the sex of the members of the couple).

The traditionalists simply want to restrict sex to those who formally embody the capacity for procreation, whether they are actually capable of procreation or not. And that is just another way of limiting sex, and marriage, to a man and a woman: the very premise that needs to be proven. And so the wheel spins another round.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Thought for 09.29.11

In sorting through a pile of old rubber stamps at the parish office today, it struck me that when we say a child is “marked as Christ’s own” in baptism that it is not unlike marking them with the rubber stamp that reads, “Property of Jesus; Do Not Remove From Church.”

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Scriptural Exhaustion or Inclusion

There are two primary ways to read Scripture. Both are “literal” in that they focus on the text itself, but they differ in how they attribute meaning to the text. The exhaustive view believes that a single correct reading excludes any other and exhausts the possibilities of meaning; the inclusive acknowledges that a given text may be capable of many meanings, including that discerned by the exhaustive school, but remaining open to meanings not yet discerned. The exhaustive view asserts clarity, often assumes perspecuity, and a univocal certainty. The inclusive accepts a degree of ambiguity, recognizes that texts convey meaning, that the meanings can be manifold, and the readings provisional.

The inclusive manner of reading is that of the rabbinic and the Patristic eras, of the Catholic tradition and (ironically) also of liberal protestantism; the exhaustive is represented in several strands of protestant conservatism. The inclusive manner allows the church to hold a number of interpretations, and part with those that science or reason eventually show to be untenable. The exhaustive, in the long run, often finds itself unable to navigate the waters of reality, having run aground, not on the text, but on the inflexibility and failure of their own interpretations to offer a credible word to a skeptical world.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Quick Reviews 09.17.11

My reactions to some things I've seen recently — in condensed form.

The Debt — The BBC’s “MI-5” (aka “Spooks”) with falafel. Slow-starting but builds nicely towards the end. Some fine performances could have done without the mixed efforts at Israeli accents.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark — visually stunning (in del Toro fashion) but otherwise toothless allegory about old house with IBS. Kudos to the housekeeper and the handyman who seem to bring some emotion to the situation. Stepmom with cell phone and midlife crisis Dad... not so much.

“Torchwood: Miracle Day” — far too long mix of insightful political morality and "Huh?"-inducing SF non sequitur of the most Torchwooden sort. John Barrowman, I had no idea Max Factor had started a line in polyurethane. And career note to Lauren Ambrose: find a script about something other than death.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Word of the Circus

Word is circulating on the English semaphore and heliograph system that the Archbishop of Canterbury is thinking of taking an early retirement.

This has, quite naturally, brought about the commencement of the delicate ballet of succession, much of which happens offstage, of course. Offstage ballet is not nearly so interesting as offstage brass (á la Mahler or Wagner) — but come to think of it there has been a bit of onstage brass by a few of the bishops thought possible to succeed. There has been some furtive edging of mitres ever slightly so much closer to the invisible fairy ring which will ultimately appear, as if by magic, on the day of the announcement, to circle the Chosen One. Would it not come as a surprise to all if Harry Potter were, after all, to be the youngest Archbishop in recent history!

On a more balletic front, it is also rumored that in an effort to portray the drama of this offstage action, Cirque du Soleil is working up their next extravaganza, titled Cantuar. It will be their usual mix of humorous clowning, stellar acrobatics and above all contortionists in rochets. The show is to open with a spectacular example of dexterity called, "Qui? Moi? Mais non!" in which the bulk of the ensemble represent their eagerness to climb a slender rope while pretending they just happen to be hanging around in its vicinity. The buffo humorists will join in a chorus of "J'n'suis pas digne!" as a bevy of tightly clad androgynes (portraying the Crown Commissioners), huddle to one side in a tight-knit circle. Oh, what a show it will be!

With tongue in cheek,
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Hard to Forgive

There is no debt ceiling on forgiveness. A sermon for 9/11/11, Proper 19a.

SJF • Proper 19a 2011 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God. So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

It is timely that the Scripture readings appointed for this day should deal with judgment and forgiveness. As you are no doubt keenly aware, this Sunday marks the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America, the day that will for ever live in infamy by its numeric nickname Nine-Eleven.

It is abundantly clear that much was done on that terrible day that cries out for forgiveness. America was viciously attacked; thousands of innocent people met death in its most terrifying and capricious form, doomed to die by horrible means, suddenly and unprepared. Many were vaporized in an instant, unaware what was happening to them. Others were forced to make that agonized and desperate choice between being burned alive or hurtling to their deaths on the street below. Many more were crushed under the weight of those buildings, suffocated and snuffed out in darkness. None of us who witnessed that horrible day will ever forget it, and the TV news shows will not let us forget even if we wanted to, as they run those video clips again and again, and endlessly analyze.

What makes forgiveness all the harder in this case is that those who carried out these crimes knew what they were doing. They wanted their acts to be as terrorizing as indeed they were — that’s why they are called terrorists: they did not mean only to bring destruction, but to instill fear, horror, and anguish; and this not only in those they directly harmed, but in our society and nation as a whole.

How can we forgive such wrong? How can we forgive such terrible crimes? We know how hard it is to forgive someone even when they say they are sorry — how much harder to forgive those who do not ask for forgiveness, who think that what they did was right and justified, and even think they were doing a religious duty!

If somebody steps on my foot in the subway, and then apologizes, it’s fairly easy for me to forgive, although I may still feel the pain in my foot. If someone steps on my foot by accident and then looks at me like it was my fault, I will not be in such a forgiving mood. But if someone looks me in the eye, and then deliberately stomps on my foot, with a “so there” thrown in — well, what am I to do?

My natural impulse is to feel that only the repentant deserve forgiveness; that forgiveness is something that must be earned and asked for. It is only logical, this calculus of tit-for-tat: only those who acknowledge their faults deserve to be forgiven. This seems fair and square.

Unfortunately, God does not make things so easy for me. God does not say to me, Forgive those who say they are sorry. God does not say to me, Forgive others in proportion to their repentance for the harm they have done to you. God does not give me the option of measuring how much I forgive against how much someone else repents — or doesn’t. I am not told to balance my forgiveness against another’s apology; instead I am told to balance how much I forgive against how much I have been and expect to be forgiven. The wicked slave in Jesus’ parable is punished in the end not for his failure to pay his master what he owed, but for not forgiving the debt that was owed to him.

+ + +

This is a hard teaching, no doubt about it. How much easier to keep it to myself; to treat forgiveness as if it were simply earthly coin of the realm: to balance the books of grace as if grace were a commodity that I could control, so much forgiveness doled out for so much apology; no forgiveness given unless asked for, and certainly not given to those who do not ask for it or to my mind deserve it.

What does God think? That forgiveness should be free? Do I want grace to abound when I am the wounded party and no one says they’re sorry? Does that make sense to you? Don’t we want forgiveness to be costly, to be won from us, purchased from us, earned from us by those who have done us wrong? Like the worst of the medieval bishops who sold indulgences and offered the church’s absolution in exchange for gold, dare we fall into the corrupted tit-for-tat that puts a price on grace?

+ + +

And of course, there was a price for grace — it’s just that we did not pay it. For all the while we quibble and bargain, bartering forgiveness as if it were ours to dole out, a quiet figure hangs before us on a cross. He is the one who committed no wrong, earned no just punishment. He is the one who suffered so much at the hands of those who meant to do him ill, and even thought it was a religious duty to do so, who they were right and weren’t in the least bit sorry for what they did. As that innocent man was dying, after having been unjustly tried and tortured, as he hung up there to die, they did not look with sorrow or pity upon the one whom they hated. They cursed and mocked him as he died, spitting in his direction, putting out their tongues and treating him as the greatest fool who had ever born. All the weight of the world’s wrong gathered there and pressed down upon the crucified Christ: all of the hatred, all of the sin and ignorance and pride that had been stored up or would yet come to be. The sin of the whole world pressed down upon that dying man as he hung upon the hard wood of the cross.

And what did he do? He begged God to forgive them. He stretched out his arms of love. He did not cry out to his Father, “See what they do, O Lord my God. Punish them as they deserve!” No, he cried out, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Christ is our example and our Lord. He to whom the greatest wrong was ever done, forgave in full, forgave it all. No wrong, however bad, however painful, done to us can match what was done to Christ, yet he called out to God to forgive in full, without being asked by those who most needed the forgiveness, without the repentance of those who sinned against him.

And he challenges us to do the same: to find the strength to forgive those who sin against us, recalling how, in him, our debts have been forgiven. In order to do so, we will need to fight against our natural human impulse for revenge. We will need to quell our anger and our wrath, to recall that God has said, “Vengeance is mine,” and to echo the words of Joseph in the Old Testament passage this morning, and say, “Are we in the place of God?”

After we have quieted our anger, we will also need to go further, to quiet our need to hear the apologies of those who have done us wrong, and what is worse, who continue to wish to do us wrong. This will not be easy. It is not easy to forgive when you have been badly wronged, seriously injured, terribly assaulted. Do you think Jesus found it easy — dying there on the cross? It won’t be any easier for us to forgive. It is not easy to forgive when you know that the hand stretched out to forgive may receive another bite worse than the first. It is not easy to forgive — but it is the only way to be forgiven. The wise man spoke truly, “We will all stand before the judgment seat of God.”

God challenges us to stretch our little fabric of forgiveness until it covers a multitude of sins. Not seven times, but seventy-seven — which is to say, there is no debt ceiling on forgiveness. God reminds us that he is judge, he is the one before whom every knee will bow, every tongue confess, the one to whom we will all be required to render our account: the account of how much forgiveness we have freely given away.

Let us pray. Eternal Father, help us to find the strength to forgive those who have injured us, to pardon those who have assaulted and wounded us, that when we come to the last day to stand as we must before your judgment seat, we may find the wells of your compassion and forgiveness overflowing for us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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A Poem for the Extraordinary Day

From 2008, but especially on this anniversary.

Prophecy in Stone and Mist

This prophetic image was carved in stone at the base of one of the niches in the primary portal of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine some time in the late 80s or early 90s. I was always struck by this small carving only a few inches across, with its portrayal of the great deluge washing over the towers of human industry and commerce.

The prophecy in stone rang true. However, little were we to know that the waves would also be of human origin.

Some years before the assault, I snapped this picture of Saint Paul's Chapel and the Towers, disappearing as if by an apotheosis into the heavens. These are the Towers of Memory and of dedication of those lost that day, and since, to the need to dominate and control others.

Stone and mist, both speaking towards what was to come, neither heeded quite for what they said.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Thought on Marriage 09.07.11

The church's role in marriage is essentially decorative. That is what solemnization means — to "dress up" with "solemn" ceremony. The church does not "make" the marriage; that is the work of the couple, whose vowed consent is the crucial element in the matrimonial confection, much as some hold the words of institution to be in the Eucharist. But the church's witness and blessing do not constitute the marriage. Rather they add a level of decorum and ceremonial gravitas. It is a matter of style rather than content, and the Episcopal Church (at least) holds that a couple is just as married in the city hall as in the cathedral.

In all of this the church follows the lead of its Lord, who didn't, as far as we know, ever do more in this regard than "adorn" a wedding feast at Cana of Galilee.

This is what makes the decision to allow clergy to bless same-sex unions or marriages, but not to officiate at the exchange of vows so very odd. The officiant over the vow exchange literally adds nothing to the vows other than the decorous and solemn ceremonial; the blessing, we hope, does add some real substance to the mix, and is surely the properly ecclesiastical share in the event. To allow clergy, in these cases, the exercise of the churchly ministry and bar them from the essentially civil functions of prompter and recorder appears to give more weight to the latter role than it warrants. One might well say that the blessing is as much of a "solemnization" as the assistance given in the exchange of vows and the pronunciation that what everyone has just witnessed has in fact taken place.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Oxford Movement (or not?)

The No Anglican Covenant Coalition has posted a concise negative review of the equally concise analysis of the Proposed Anglican Covenant prepared for the Diocese of Oxford. The NACC point to the irony of claiming the document will, at one level, "make no difference at all" (5.1) but then go on to claim (5.2) that the PAC may help the churches of the Communion

• To articulate and explain the Anglican traditions and faith they have inherited 
• Express their solidarity with each other, when any is the subject of misunderstanding or persecution 
• To reinforce interdependence, mutual responsibility, and awareness of each others’ differing cultures

These assertions do not appear to me to stand up very well to close examination. I am not alone in noting the extent to which the PAC

• introduces a significantly "different" manner of working and governance for the Communion
• departs from several basic elements of "Anglican tradition"
• may well formalize forms of misunderstanding and at least marginalization if not outright persecution, and
• may impede interdependence by promoting dependency and submission, cultivate irresponsibility in enforcing change on provinces without adequate awareness of the consequences, and attempt to suppress or subsume the differences in cultures that have led to the disagreements in the first place

So, all in all, not a very good analysis from Oxford.

Tobias Stanislas Haller
see my topic tag link to Anglican Covenant for more on the problems with the PAC and its ancestors; you will note that I have waffled a bit on the extent to which the PAC is pernicious or useless, but I have never thought it was a Good Idea, particularly at this time. I never counsel marriage when a couple are having difficulties in their relationship.

On the Faults of Natural Law

This short essay is not intended as an exhaustive exploration of the subject, but is designed to express in a short space the primary difficulties I have with the concept and application of natural law. This presents a problem at the outset as there are at two very different understandings of the term “natural law.” The 1910 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the subject begins,

In English this term is frequently employed as equivalent to the laws of nature, meaning the order which governs the activities of the material universe. Among the Roman jurists natural law designated those instincts and emotions common to man and the lower animals, such as the instinct of self-preservation and love of offspring. In its strictly ethical application — the sense in which this article treats it — the natural law is the rule of conduct which is prescribed to us by the Creator in the constitution of the nature with which He has endowed us.

It is the final understanding, and its application, I am addressing at this point — as it is the one that I feel is most pernicious and ethically problematical, and open to the greatest abuse.

However, let me first raise the question of why anyone should feel the need to develop such an overarching theory of morality in the first place. It seems to me that this stems from a desire for objective standards, rather than a willingness to live in a conditional moral universe that is subjective at its heart. The evident problem with such a desire for objectivity lies in the fact that morality itself is necessarily relative — that is, it deals with the interrelations between various entities, and how they interact with each other. This necessitates an inescapable degree of subjectivity. Even behaviors of an individual in relation to some nonhuman entity — the state, the church, or even God — are by definition relational. The desire to declare a given act as moral or immoral divorced from the relation of the actor to the act and to that which is acted upon leaves precious little with which to deal.

For example, theft, which as an act-in-itself is simply the manipulation of some object (real or — in this day and age — even virtual), is only considered “theft” because of the relationship of the thief to the thing stolen, and touches on whole areas of presupposed or unexamined philosophical groundwork such as the nature of ownership itself: what makes something “belong” to one individual and not to another. There is nothing essentially rational or necessary in the concept of ownership — it depends upon other concepts that derive from cultures and their attitudes and have no objective or universal standing.

This exposes the greatest problem with natural law: that the supposedly self-evident truths to which it appeals are themselves philosophical constructs that even if widely shared still reflect the cultural prejudices of those who share them. I commend reading the whole article in the Catholic Encyclopedia (see link below) which, dating from 1910, reveals rather clearer traces of these cultural prejudices proclaimed as self-evident truths than might be risked with such bluntness today.

In short, natural law, as a system, is hopelessly guilty of begging the question. It assumes as its necessary premises answers to some of the very issues it purports to address.

Perhaps the most “question-begging” aspect of the concept lies in the essentially useless conclusion identifying the ultimate principle of natural law. As Aquinas says, (and as the CE reports),

the supreme principle [governing all of natural law], from which all the other principles and precepts are derived, is that good is to be done, and evil avoided (I-II.Q94.2).

Well, that’s settled then. Just do what is good, avoid evil, and all is taken care of. The problem, of course, is that rational people disagree as to what is even the highest good, and what subsidiary goods flow from it, and what actions and relations are in accordance with the highest or subsidiary goods.

The problems begin almost as soon as one begins to attempt to apply the basic premise. As the article in the CE goes on to say, the universality of natural law

pertains not to those abstract imperfect formulæ in which the law is commonly expressed, but to the moral standard as it applies to action in the concrete, surrounded with all its determinate conditions. We enunciate, for instance, one of the leading precepts in the words: “Thou shalt not kill”; yet the taking of human life is sometimes a lawful, and even an obligatory act. Herein exists no variation in the law; what the law forbids is not all taking of life, but all unjust taking of life.

The emphasis above is mine: the authors recognize that the concrete reality and conditions of any action have a role in determining whether that action is in fact good or not — that is, if it is in accordance with natural law. But the natural law itself cannot be used to make that determination because all it says, in essence and in its pure form, is that one should seek the good and avoid evil. In the case cited, all hinges on what is determined to be “unjust” — and of course in some contexts even the meaning of “life” — and so the whole weight of morality has to refer to that universe of conditions and circumstances rather than to any objective, immutable, or universally shared principle.

Take, as another example, the good of procreation — any rational person would say that the continuance of the human species is a good thing. But some cultures or moral systems (such as rabbinic Judaism, see mYebamoth 6.6) have held that the duty to procreate is incumbent upon all men; while others (for example, the Roman Church) have held that celibacy is not only permissible but virtuous. (Aquinas’ way around the problem of celibacy — II-II.Q152.2 — was to note that the commandment to be fruitful and multiply was addressed not to the individual human but to humanity as a species — a rather clever solution, but one that also tends to undercut the very basis of natural law as incumbent upon every human as human! And clearly the Roman Church is not willing to apply this same principle to birth control, but invokes a completely different moral touchstone: the dubious notion that the “procreative function” is not to be separated from the “unitive.” Since these functions are to some extent separate even in nature and can further be separated by human action, and there may well be quite rational causes for doing so — for example, in the case of a woman for whom it has been determined that bearing a child would be a significant danger to her life — the objectivity of this moral law comes into question.)

Additional difficulties arise the further one wades into the defense of natural law. In an effort to define its “essence” the CE continues with these two principles:

(a) The natural law is universal, that is to say, it applies to the entire human race, and is in itself the same for all. Every man, because he is a man, is bound, if he will conform to the universal order willed by the Creator, to live conformably to his own rational nature, and to be guided by reason. However, infants and insane persons, who have not the actual use of their reason and cannot therefore know the law, are not responsible for that failure to comply with its demands. (b) The natural law is immutable in itself and also extrinsically. Since it is founded in the very nature of man and his destination to his end — two bases which rest upon the immutable ground of the eternal law — it follows that, assuming the continued existence of human nature, it cannot cease to exist. The natural law commands and forbids in the same tenor everywhere and always.

Noting already the exceptional cases of those who do not have the use of reason, another problem with this asserted universality arises when particular human actions judged irrational by some are judged rational by others. Who is to set the objective standard as to what is rational? Do we not end at base with reliance upon cultural norms and prejudices, which by definition are not universal?

The usual response from natural lawyers is to say that a culture (or an individual) who fails to follow some precept which the proponents derive from natural law is either depraved or perverse: that is to say, like infants or the insane they simply have not attained or have lost the use of reason or have reasoned in error, or they know full well that what they are doing is wrong but persist in doing it out of some innate disordered desire to do what they know full well is “evil.”

This is, however, merely a cloak for cultural prejudices. Allow me to cite one more example from the CE article, which is at some pains to defend the toleration of polygamy in the Hebrew dispensation (“dispensation” itself being a somewhat uncomfortable fit with a supposedly universal and immutable law):

Under no circumstances is polyandry compatible with the moral order, while polygamy, though inconsistent with human relations in their proper moral and social development, is not absolutely incompatible with them under less civilized conditions.

This blatantly sexist (and vaguely racist) declaration is clearly at odds with right reason. If polygamy is permitted (because it advances a primary end of marital union, i.e., procreation) then surely the same is true of polyandry. The rabbinic ruling (cited above) that commands a man whose wife does not bear a child within a certain term of years to take another assumes that the problem lies in the woman. But a woman whose husband is sterile is forbidden to take another man. This stems not from any truly “natural law” but from a firm bondage to patriarchy, in which tracking the patrilineal descent is considered crucial. Obviously matriarchy and family inheritance by matrilineal descent is not only just as “natural” but arguably more secure, as the occasional doubts about paternity do not arise in the case of maternity. In fact, I recall a woman stand-up comedian some years ago deriving quite a laugh from her line, “I don’t have any kids... [proud smirk] that I know of...!” The allowance of polygamy and rejection of polyandry is not objective and rational, but mere cultural prejudice at work. (I do not, by the way, say any of this in defense of either polygamy or polyandry, but simply to point out the inconsistency and sexism inherent in culturally conditioned “natural law.”)

So, is it possible to develop some objective standard that is actually helpful in guiding moral behavior. Clearly, simply to say, “Seek the good and avoid evil,” is entirely unsatisfactory and only begs the question — perhaps giving a useful definition of morality but no actual particular guidance to what constitutes moral behavior. It is rather like telling someone who wants to learn how to spell to use the alphabet.

Some of the hardest moral questions facing us in our day will not yield to a merely doctrinaire and “objective” conclusion. Acts cannot be judged good or bad in the abstract apart from the actors and what is acted upon, and the circumstances and motives underpinning and enveloping the action. Some will judge acts entirely on the basis of their consequences — and all sorts of ethical systems have evolved which attempt to judge the good or ill of those consequences (pleasure, prosperity and well-being of the greatest number, for example). Others will judge acts on the basis of positive laws and duties — surely a rational approach, but hard to put into practice divorced from motive and circumstance. Others will appeal to the social contract for interactions between human beings. Some, such as myself, will fall back upon the moral advice of Jesus in terms of love of God and neighbor.

My point is that the very existence of all of these various systems of morality seriously damage the credibility of the base assertions of natural law — and of all the systems at our disposal, it is the least likely actually to bear useful fruit, given its question-begging, cultural bondage and sterile dogmatism.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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citations of the Catholic Encyclopedia are from the online version of the article: Fox, James. “Natural Law.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. Accessed 28 Aug. 2011 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09076a.htm. The CE received the approbation of the Roman Catholic Church as follows: Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.

No Way to Run...

Every time I come upon the passage from the 24th chapter of Acts (appointed for the Daily Office today) I am reminded of the resonance between references to the early church as “the Way” to the Rabbinic concept of Halakah: the law as a Way in which one walks.

This struck me particularly this morning because I have been thinking a great deal about the dangers of ideology, and how an ideology or a theory (properly understood as a “way of seeing”) can actually prevent one from seeing a deeper reality. The phenomenon is known as “perceptual set” in some circles, “paradigm blindness” in others. Put briefly, the way you see the world can come to dominate what you see. I referred in an earlier post to the old saying, “If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” If as Thomas Kuhn suggests, we need a shift in our paradigms in order to see changes in reality, it seems to me that across the board in many areas of our lives we need a whole new shift-load of paradigms!

For both in church and state these days ideology is at the forefront and reality has become deeply shrouded in veils of preconception. From conversations on climate change to sexuality, the debt crisis to marriage equality, the verbiage — I cannot in good conscience call it conversation for the most part — appears to be dominated by ideologies and theories rather than fact. (I cannot be the only one who is appalled to see what has become of journalism these days: and there are times I long for a supply of bricks next to my easy chair to toss through the television screen when a “news” program cuts from an actual live speech by a world leader to a panel of pundits even before the speech is finished!) Whatever reality there may be is cocooned in layers of opinion, and there is no sign of a butterfly emerging. Not a chrysalis, but a mummy.

But back to Saint Paul and the rabbis, and this idea of the faith being a “way” — and of course acknowledging that the Jewish tradition had long understood various “ways” as being either wicked or good, depending. (See Psalm 1!)

The major contrast I want to note is the difference between a way and a place. In this case I am particularly thinking about how Paul’s alleged insult to the Temple (in fact baseless) led to his having to defend this new Way. And what is ironic is that the old Way of rabbinic Halakah itself turned out to be the means by which this form of Judaism was able to survive the destruction of the Temple — a Temple which God appears, from the early record, not actually to have wanted all that much; God preferring the Tent and Tabernacle, or the terrifying Chariot, to the petrified establishment on the hill of Zion. (Ezekiel sees a new Temple, Revelation assures us there is no Temple in the New Jerusalem. Take your pick.)

So it appears to me that Christianity itself could well be seen as an emergent non-Temple-based Judaism (among the many Judaisms of the first century) that gets detached and takes on a life of its own; much as rabbinic (rather than Temple) Judaism continued the life of that faith because it had come to see the living out of the Way of God was not dependent upon an external institution but an internalized (both individually and corporately) Way of life under the guidance of a transcendent God.

So does this have anything to say to our current ecclesiastical troubles — say, in relation to a proposed Anglican Covenant or the Indaba Process as “ways” of working? Or to our civic, national, or international concerns — government as institution or government as way of being?

Discuss among yourselves and report back!

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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William Porcher DuBose, Priest and Theologian

Almighty God, you gave to your servant William Porcher DuBose special gifts of grace to understand the Scriptures and to teach the truth as it is in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Icon above by the hand of Tobias Stanislas Haller
The photograph at the right shows the burial place of W P Dubose at Sewanee.

Florence Nightingale, Nurse and Social Reformer 1910

Life-giving God, you alone have power over life and death, over health and sickness: Give power, wisdom, and gentleness to those who follow the lead of Florence Nightingale, that they, bearing with them your presence, may not only heal but bless, and shine as lanterns of hope in the darkest hours of pain and fear; through Jesus Christ, the healer of body and soul, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

from Lesser Feasts and Fasts / Holy Women, Holy Men
ikon by the hand of Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Sing to the Lord a New Song

The Annual Convocation of the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory, 2011. (Photos and video by yours truly; music by Nathanael Deward Rahm BSG, sung by the Brotherhood Schola.)

An Imperfect Union

One of the issues facing clergy in New York State — joining a handful of other American jurisdictions — is the role they may play in the marriage of same-sex couples. The issue is open to a broad range of interpretation, as both the canons and the Book of Common Prayer are silent on the subject. The range of interpretation is well represented by the bishops of the various dioceses into which the Episcopal Church in the state of New York is divided. Differences of opinions between the bishops is particularly exacerbated in New York City because its five boroughs are distributed into two different dioceses: Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island are in the Diocese of New York, while Brooklyn and Queens are part of Long Island. Bishop Provenzano of Long Island has taken the position that clergy may perform same-sex marriages, while Bishop Sisk of New York has taken the position that they may bless civil marriages but not exercise the civil function in the solemnization of marriage for a same-sex couple.

This would not be a problem — or less of a problem — if we lived under Napoleonic law, in which only civil functionaries can perform the civil function of solemnizing marriage. In France a couple must take part in a civil marriage if they are to be considered married in the eyes of the state (and if they are Roman Catholic they must also have a church wedding in order to be considered married under the Roman Catholic canons.)

But here in New York, as in much of the rest of the United States, clergy are granted the faculty of performing civil marriage on the basis of their being ordained and authorized to celebrate marriages by their churches. The irony, and the misunderstanding (on the part of the civil authorities) is that according to the theology of marriage in place in the West for quite some time, the actual ministers of marriage are the couple — not the clergy. That is, the couple minister marriage to each other. The role of the church, and in particular the clergy, is to record, witness and above all to bless the marriage. But the marriage is made by the couple. So in allowing clergy the civil faculty to “perform” a marriage there was already a significant misunderstanding at play.

Ultimately this bleeds over into the current dilemma. Since blessing the marriage is all that clergy do strictly as clergy, what logic is there in forbidding them to perform the civil act of solemnization which is only theirs by gift of the state? (Except that the state only gives it because it misunderstands what the church is doing in marriage! Oh, what a mess this is...)

Canons to the right of me

The confusion is further exacerbated when we look closely at canonical rules. The first section of Canon I.18 states:

Sec. 1. Every Member of the Clergy of this Church shall conform to the laws of the State governing the creation of the civil status of marriage, and also to the laws of this Church governing the solemnization of Holy Matrimony.

We are off to a bad start with the artificial distinction between “creation of the civil status” and “solemnization.” But let that pass. The primary issue here is the mandatory conformity enjoined upon members of the clergy with the laws of the state concerning civil marriage. Several states and jurisdictions now have laws governing the civil status of marriage which permit marriage to same-sex couples. At present the “laws of this Church” do not address the question of same-sex marriage at all, either to forbid or allow. The laws of the church are designed solely to govern marriage between a man and a woman, primarily to assure that capacity to marry and consent obtain. This is how section 2 describes it:

Sec. 2. Before solemnizing a marriage the Member of the Clergy shall have ascertained:
(a) That both parties have the right to contract a marriage according to the laws of the State.
(b) That both parties understand that Holy Matrimony is a physical and spiritual union of a man and a woman, entered into within the community of faith, by mutual consent of heart, mind, and will, and with intent that it be lifelong.
(c) That both parties freely and knowingly consent to such marriage, without fraud, coercion, mistake as to identity of a partner, or mental reservation.
(d) That at least one of the parties has received Holy Baptism.
(e) That both parties have been instructed as to the nature, meaning, and purpose of Holy Matrimony by the Member of the Clergy, or that they have both received such instruction from persons known by the Member of the Clergy to be competent and responsible.

Clause (b) is a problem on a number of levels¹ but not primarily as a restriction on same-sex marriage. For the “understanding” that holy matrimony involves a man and a woman falls upon the couple rather than the clergy, as does the similar language in the “declaration of intent” that the couple are somewhat redundantly² obliged to sign. The crucial thing to observe is that none of this has any impact on the civil faculty of clergy to solemnize marriage, nor on the ecclesiastical faculty of blessing the marriage (which, as I note above, is the primary clergy task from a strictly ecclesiastical point of view.)

Rite of Way

A further level of complexity concerns the lack of a nationally authorized liturgy for the marriage of same-sex couples. This is where the “generous pastoral response” of the 2009 GC Resolution C056 comes in. This Resolution, which was adopted by overwhelming majorities in both the House of Bishops and House of Deputies, states, among other things:

That bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church...

Taking advantage of the bishops’ constitutional prerogative (Article X, and BCP page 13), to authorize special forms of liturgy for occasions not already provided for in the BCP, it is well within a bishop’s scope of action to do as some have done in allowing use of experimental liturgies such as have already been developed for same-sex marriages.

In Conclusion

It seems to me that it is fully appropriate for a bishop to authorize clergy of a diocese in which the civil law allows the solemnization of same-sex marriage to perform both the civil function of solemnization and the ecclesiastical function of witnessing, registering, and blessing the marriage, using forms authorized by the bishop to that end.

__________

1. The main problem lies in the word “spiritual” — since the tradition, and the liturgy, do not define marriage as a “spiritual union” in the Western tradition, which holds that marriage ends at death. This biblical point of view (cf. Luke 20:35, 1 Cor 7:39) is not accepted in the East, which is one of the reasons the Eastern Orthodox are not sanguine about second marriages even in widowhood.

The secondary problem concerns the marriage being “entered into within the community of faith” since as the canon states (repeating a BCP rubric) only one of the parties need to be baptized and there is no requirement at all that the witnesses be baptized.

It would probably be best to delete this whole section “b” as superfluous.

2. The Declaration of Consent contained in I.18.3.e-g repeats the language of the BCP. That a couple should have to sign this declaration prior to making the declaration as part of the marriage liturgy seems a completely unnecessary requirement, rather like requiring an ordinand to sign the Oath of Conformity before signing the Oath of Conformity in the ordination liturgy.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Hammers and Nails

The first chapter of Acts shows Jesus telling the Apostles to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the Spirit. With understandable impatience, and some initiative, they decide instead to fill the absent spot in their number left by the betrayal of Judas, with the essentially backward-looking criterion that the candidates have been witnesses to all that Jesus had done from the beginning They elect Matthias, who is enrolled among their number — and about whom nothing else is heard.

For it appears that the Holy Spirit, for which the Apostles were too impatient to wait, had other ideas about the shape of ministry for the emerging church. The Apostles were concerned about office while the Holy Spirit was more concerned to raise up ministries.

The pattern repeats a few chapters later when the Apostles are called upon to address the complaints of the Greek-speaking community’s widows, cleverly appointing seven Greek deacons to this newly created office, to placate the complaints and address the concerns. But once again, Stephen, notable among the deacons, very quickly overleaps his job description and engages in a prophetic ministry of preaching and proclamation that ends in his martyrdom, perhaps even sowing the seeds of Saul’s later conversion.

The church — and let’s face it, almost any institution — is very often caught between the expressions of charismatic ministry emerging to meet unexpected needs, and the tendency almost immediately to stamp these ministries with some kind of official recognition. In many cases the office is maintained even after the need for which it was created may have changed or ceased altogether. In doing this the church loses the flexibility to address the actual needs presented to it by the world, and stumbles about trying to fit people with a truly rounded charismatic call to serve an emergent need into the square hole of an office not ideally suited to that work. Or the leaders may despair of finding a suitable candidate for an office that is really no longer needed — such is the power of the office itself to conform or induce conformity. There is an old saying that if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and this can happen with ministry as well as carpentry.

This is true not just of individual offices but of programs — a church begins a ministry of feeding the homeless, for example, to meet a real need. But after some years, when changes in the neighborhood or the demographics have reduced or eliminated the homeless population, the church still feels that it must perpetuate this program even though the need has lessened or disappeared. The church has become so identified with that program that it is no longer able to see the new and emerging needs staring it in the face.

The Spirit calls us to sit lightly in our offices and our programs, to keep our eyes open to the world around us. Parishes, dioceses and even national churches can be paralyzed into inaction when they become so set on filling offices that they miss the crying needs, and the Holy Spirit’s abounding grace providing ministries emerging in their midst.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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A Different Gospel

And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, “This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.” He answered and said unto them, “Give ye them to eat.” And they say unto him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?” He saith unto them, “How many loaves have ye? go and see.” And when they knew, they say, “Five, and two fishes.” And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. And he drew near and said to the disciples, “Give ye me the loaves and the fishes, that the people might be fed.” But they drawing back said unto him, “Socialist!” And looking up to heaven, he rolled his eyes and sighed deeply.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Man of Crisis and Soul

Gracious God, we thank you for the witness of William Edward Burghardt DuBois, passionate prophet of civil rights, whose scholarship advanced the dignity of the souls of black folk; and we pray that we, like him, may use our gifts to do justice in the Name of Jesus Christ our Liberator and Advocate; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

ikon by the hand of Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Albert John Luthuli of South Africa

Eternal God, we thank you for the witness of Chief Luthuli, Nobel Laureate for Peace, who was sustained by his Christian faith as he led the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Strengthen us, after his example, to make no peace with oppression and to witness boldly for our Deliverer, Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

For his feast on July 22 — posted early as I will be on retreat.
Ikon written by Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Four for Freedom

O God, whose Spirit guides us into all truth and makes us free: Strengthen and sustain us as you did your servants Elizabeth, Amelia, Sojourner, and Harriet. Give us vision and courage to stand against oppression and injustice and all that works against the glorious liberty to which you call all your children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

For their feast on July 20 — posted early as I am going on retreat.
Ikon written by Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Thought for 07.14.11

Same-sex marriage is no more a threat to marriage than universal suffrage is a threat to democracy. 

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The Cost of Bigotry

Last month watched a very interesting film on Netflix. A Film Unfinished is based on a recently discovered cache of Nazi film footage and outtakes from the Warsaw ghetto. As the outtakes reveal, what appears to be a documentary on life in the ghetto is actually a highly crafted example of propaganda — the goal of which was to portray the Jews in the ghetto in the worst possible light, emphasizing the characteristics imposed upon them by the racist bigotry of Nazi ideology: as greedy, uncaring and uncharitable to the suffering among them, and bestial in that suffering. Of course, there is no suggestion that the conditions in the ghetto were caused by the Nazis!

I should probably run this past Counselor Godwin, but this film on the Nazis reminded me of another film I saw recently on PBS, a documentary about Stonewall, which included clips from “educational” films from the 50s and early 60s that portrayed the “depravity and tragedy” of homosexuality. The major theme in this propaganda is that homosexuals live furtive, dirty, and depressing lives. Again, there is no recognition that such conditions might almost entirely result from the larger society’s criminalization and marginalization.

I would love to come up with a catchy name for this syndrome: when Group X forces Group Y into a situation in which it acts in certain ways which Group X then condemns as proof of the inferiority or depravity of Group Y. Perhaps I should call it Bachmann’s Effect, in honor of the aspirant to the presidency whose comments on homosexuals are remarkably similar to those of the bigoted “educational” films of the 50s.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Nathan Söderblom of Uppsala

Almighty God, we bless your Name for the life and work of Nathan Söderblom, Archbishop of Uppsala, who helped to inspire the modern liturgical revival and worked tirelessly for cooperation among Christians. Inspire us by his example, that we may ever strive for the renewal of your Church in life and worship, for the glory of your Name; who with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

ikon by the hand of TSH+

Oh, England

Colin Coward has some choice words concerning the Church of England's entangled state of affairs concerning the ordination of gay (and eventually) lesbian persons who are living in partnerships (and one foresees, some day, marriages). In the meantime, he correctly observes that this is simply an invitation to duplicity and a step back into the closet.

It is good to remember that the official motto of the Anglican Communion is, The Truth Shall Make You Free. The fact on the ground, in England anyway, is "The Lie May Make You Bishop."

This is a shameful situation, and has nothing to do with any overarching understanding of morality. I hope that in their reexamination of the "Issues"* the leaders of the Church of England will finally come to understand that morality is not based in "the flesh" and come to see that the virtues of fidelity, self-giving, love and charity are applicable to same- as well as mixed-sex couples.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

* See my earlier analysis of the successor to "Issues in Human Sexuality" — which was hardly an improvement. It is time for a wholesale revision and reexamination.

Doing What Comes (Un)Naturally

A Sermon for Proper 10a

SJF • Proper 10a 2011 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Some of the philosophers of the romantic era and in the 17th to 19th century came up with the idea that people living in simplicity in the time before civilization were somehow more innocent, more “natural” and hence unspoiled. The notion is sometimes referred to as that of the “noble savage.” The concept became attached to Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but it isn’t exactly his idea. Still, he shared the tendency somehow to idealize human beings in their uncivilized condition. He saw civilization itself as a kind of introduction of morality and consequent decline.

The idea as Rousseau espoused it is that people in their primitive state were morally neutral, and that it was only with later civilization that evil entered the world as society began to corrupt the natural innocence of primitive existence. As Rousseau put it, the problems began “when the first man staked out a bit of land and said, ‘This is mine,’ and convinced others foolishly to agree.”

The Christian tradition is said by some to see things rather differently, but a closer reading may reveal that it is not quite so different. People sometimes look to the story of Adam and Eve and think of the innocent perfection of life that they enjoyed in paradise. But surely the point of the story is precisely that they were not innocent. They sinned — disobeying what at that point was just about the only thing God had commanded them — while they were in paradise. They may have been created innocent, but they were also created capable of committing sin, and it took them almost no time to do so.

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Theologians have wrestled with the question of human nature for thousands of years — whether people are good by nature or bad by nature, or started good and became bad, or whatever.

It seems to me that Saint Paul had it right, and made the most sense both out of that ancient story of the Garden and the Fall, and the practical reality of his own human experience. Human flesh — with its cravings, devices and desires — is weak. Human beings also have a natural tendency towards self-preservation, like most living things. And human beings develop very quickly the sense of property: at least when it comes to their own property. Much as Rousseau observed, children don’t take long to get to the point at which they have learned the first person possessive: Mine! It’s just that he saw this as part of a decline rather than natural, in contrast to another earlier philosopher, John Locke, who took the view that property was a natural right. Whether a right or a tendency, though, as a child, I had to be taught that not everything was mine — I had to learn how to share with other children.

For Saint Paul, this natural tendency is a part of the “mind set on the flesh.” It derives from our creaturely existence — our neediness. We need things; we need air to breathe, we need to eat. All of that is natural, natural to us. And that neediness has to be governed and ordered and civilized by some kind of regulation. Thus far Paul would be in agreement with Rousseau and the English philosopher Hobbes, with the exception that Rousseau was a bit more optimistic about the short-lived innocence of primitive humanity.

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But Saint Paul stands apart from all of these secular philosophers, in that, while they saw from rather different angles that law was society’s answer to the problem of human weakness, Paul saw that law was an insufficient solution to the problem. It is like a drug that comforts but does not heal. He saw law as an insufficient means of bringing peace to the warring hearts of fallible human beings. Even the law given by God could not bring compliance: in fact, God’s law only laid down the penalty: “Of the tree in the midst of the garden you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall die.” That was the law that God gave to Adam and Eve, and it was the law they broke, before the proverbial ink was dry.

So what is the answer? What does Saint Paul offer us as an answer? Paul looks to God again — for something different this time; not for the law, but something different — after all, God is the source of all good — the fountain of all goodness, as we sang in our hymns today: it is from him that everything comes, the source of all good — but Paul did not look to God for the same old kind of law that God had given in the past, the law that was weakened by the flesh and so could not bring true righteousness.

Instead God sent his Son, but not, as the evangelist John would say, to condemn the world. God sent his Son precisely to relieve the world of that endless cycle of law-giving and law-breaking that was getting us nowhere, as we spun our wheels in the dry soil or the mud of our own failings.

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For Paul had observed something in that old, old story: you may recognize it too — let me ask you, when was it that Adam and Eve sinned? While God was away from them, while they were on their own. (Of course God was not really “away” but that is how the story goes — and we had best pay attention to the details of that story.) And Eve was off on her own — away from Adam — when the Serpent whispered sweet nothings in her ear and tempted her to violate the only law on the books at that time. And her weak flesh — the desire to live forever and become like God (even though, as the text shows, she and Adam already were like God, being made in God’s image) — as I say, her weak flesh gave in, and then she persuaded Adam’s equally weak flesh to join her: all of this while God was “away.”

So the answer to all of this, Paul says, is to be always “with” God — such that God is never “away.” And this is made possible both through the fact that Jesus Christ came “in the flesh” — that is to say, in and through and by means of the very human flesh that was the problem in the first place. And further to know that God is always with us, always present to us through the Spirit. If the Spirit of Christ dwells in you, God is with you, and even though the flesh might still seek to drag you down to death because of sin, the Spirit — God’s presence — is life because of the righteousness of Christ.

This is the hopeful message that Saint Paul brings: Christ came in the flesh and remains with us in the Spirit, and his spirit is at work in us and there it can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: even though we have no power in ourselves to become righteous, his spirit working in us is life because of his righteousness.

And it is a life that contains within it the promise of new life, the resurrection life. The Son of God, the Word of God, is at work within the soil of our human flesh. Remember how the story tells, what God made us from, at the beginning. Our soil, our flesh, comes from the earth. It is like the seed of the word received and nurtured, which grows in the soil to bear fruit for righteousness, “in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” We are not good by nature, but by grace: our soil cannot bear fruit on its own, unless the seed of God be planted in it.

And so we do not trust in what is merely natural to make us good, but in the supernatural goodness of God to make us his. That is the message of salvation and grace through Jesus Christ our Lord.+

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Thought for 07.07.11

We do not trust in what is merely natural to make us good, but in the supernatural goodness of God to make us his.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG, from next Sunday's sermon...

Matter of Substance

The Proposed Anglican Covenant (PAC) is not structured as a means to reach agreement on difficult issues, but as a means to manage disagreements on any issues whatsoever when they happen. It has nothing to offer as a way forward: all brake and no engine. As a nobbled runner in the race for new models for the governance of the Anglican Communion, it is never going to win, precisely because it does not govern, or propose to govern. It still leaves the traditional autonomy (in any and all things, let’s be honest and clear) up to the individual provinces, and by its own account shields their local constitution and canons from outside interference like the sensitive private parts they are. The PAC can manage some of the interrelations between the provinces — but again only to the degree that the provinces are willing to take up the recommendations of the official recommenders. That is what it says.

If this is beginning to sound like the elderly dowager in the upstairs bedroom banging her stick against the floor to quiet her fractious and disruptive heirs and assigns gathered in the parlor, the analogy may not be too far off. To what extent is the Anglican Communion in danger of becoming a provincial staging of Gianni Schicchi?


Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Taking Council or Leaving It

My brief post (a "thought" really) seems to have struck a nerve in some circles. In part, I think it has not been well understood. Fr. Jonathan, at the Conciliar Anglican, has read far too much between the lines, and come to conclusions utterly at odds both with my intent and with what I actually said.
But he dissents courteously from the position he imagines I maintain, and all is well. For example, he says,

Communion for him equals autonomous churches (geographically oriented, presumably, though he does not say this explicitly) that share in something called “mission” and “ministry” rather than sharing in doctrine.

This is fine up through the word ministry but that "rather" completely misses my point in the whole thought — i.e., that it is precisely the shared minimalist doctrine that "goes without saying." Anglicanism classically professed not to be innovative in doctrine, but to be faithful to the biblical and ancient core of the faith. In this sense they were "catholic" — proclaiming the universal faith of the early church.

Of course, he and others disagree with, or wish further to explore, a position I actually do maintain, which is that classical Anglicanism is geared from the outset, not to a centralized conciliar form of polity, but to a distributed model in which, as it developed, the various member churches of the communion (most of them originating almost genetically) inherited certain characteristics, including the notion of strong autonomy from outside influence, even from other members of the Communion.

The group I'll call "conciliarists" hold the contrary view, that a deep conciliarity is part of the Anglican ethos. The "test" for this understanding of conciliar catholicity as engrained in classical Anglicanism is to look closely at what the classical Anglicans said to the Roman Catholic Church of their day, and how they felt themselves competent to judge the "errors" of ecumenical Councils, and reject them; and to accept the Creeds and other acts of the early Councils not on the authority of the Councils themselves, but because in their judgment the Creeds and doctrinal findings of the (first four) Ecumenical Councils were concordant with Scripture. (Note they did not go along with the disciplinary decrees of even the first four Councils, and felt themselves competent to disregard the three later Councils — again, on the basis of their own judgment.) This is all laid out in the Articles of Religion.

The point is that the classical Anglicans did not think of themselves as conciliar, but patristic or even apostolic. They were interested in "primitive Christianity" unadorned with the accretions of later traditions.

I have, of course, no objection to a discussion of the relative merits of the conciliar model, and it has many attractions, but I am finding the revisionism that wants to retroject a hankering after conciliarism onto primitive Anglicanism unhelpful. The Conciliar Anglican makes a number of claims, including this

Our notions of unfettered autonomy for individual churches are very recent and not at all tied to classical Anglicanism which balanced the doctrine of self-governing, national churches with the much more central doctrine that Holy Scripture, interpreted through the lens of the Fathers and the creeds, is our highest authority, through which the Lord governs His Church.

that does not quite pass the test of historical accuracy, or at least make sense as a complete thesis: that is, it was precisely the "unfettered autonomy" of the Church of England that allowed it to make the claims about the centrality of Holy Scripture, rather than the authority of the papacy or the councils, for establishing doctrine. The classical Anglicans did not look to the Bishop of Rome or the Councils of the Church for answers, but to Scripture.

This tendency continued, as I say, with the successive foundations that grew to become the Anglican Communion. Look deeply into the memoirs of William White concerning the founding years of the Episcopal Church, and you will find that TEC did not in fact adopt all of the doctrinal or disciplinary positions commended to it by the Church of England, and felt competent to do so. Examine the full record of the Lambeth Conferences down the years and see how various provinces have ignored its recommendations, until the things Lambeth sought to control became so common that Lambeth adopted what had been so long opposed. (I can cite birth control and reluctant toleration of polygamy as just two examples off the top of my head, but I know there are others.)

I think an accurate handle on the reality of our situation is the most helpful way to move forward. Conciliar government has its strong points -- it does not need a specious claim to historical roots in classical Anglicanism. I would find such a discussion helpful and interesting, and although I am a conservative at heart, I also am open to examining proposed revisions to old customs. This is one of the reasons I have been devoted to the Covenant Process and the discussion surrounding it, as I am not utterly opposed to the idea of improvements to the structures of contemporary Anglicanism. I just haven't seen them yet.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Update: Fr Bryan has added some thoughts to the conversation, and ends with some challenging questions:

1. Is the fact that we argue and disagree with each other on such basic questions as "What is Anglicanism?" and "Is there a unique Anglican doctrine?" itself revelatory about the nature of Anglicanism?
2. Is the term "Anglicanism" too monolithic and insufficiently descriptive of actual faith and practice? If so, would it be better to speak of a variety of Anglican identities (to borrow from the title of a book by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams)?
3. Can Anglicanism be anything anybody wants it to be? If not, what are the boundaries?
4. To quote from Fr. Tobias' initial posting, is "the idea of being a fellowship, a communion — not a 'church' or a 'federation' — of self-governing churches whose individual decisions do not bind the others, even as they cooperate in mission and ministry" a sufficient basis for stemming the tide of communion-breaking division and schism?
5. Can unity or communion in practice ("mission and ministry") take precedence over unity or communion in belief and order?

I assayed a response as follows:

Dear Fr Bryan, Thanks for your thoughts. If I'd known what a response my short thought would generate I'd perhaps have taken greater care! Maybe with it and your musing questions we might have something challenging for the GOE.

To take a stab at your questions, they are much the ones I have. I'm still wading through all of this, but my sense is that the very delicate balance of the Anglican model was "disturbed" when Lambeth, in 1998, tried to act as a Council, "settling" a matter that was really far from settled. It is the effort to build Babel as a center of unity in se that leads to the dispersion of the people. The focus of unity ought to be in service pro alia. This is what I mean about turning the focus of unity outward: in common service to others we find out identity with Christ and each other.

The difficulty on practical terms is that no one can declare what is adiaphorous at the time of the conflict. It seems to me the genius of Anglicanism up till now has been the very graciousness to close one eye and look the other way instead of engaging in head-butting or mutual anathemata. We lose our sense of the really large deposit of the faith we hold in common when we become obsessed with those things on which we differ.

I realize that is not really in the form of an answer to your question. But it is where my musings have taken me...