On Political and Social Engagement, or Not

While I resonate with frustration over the wrongs of the state (or the state of the wrongs) I have to demur from a strictly Christian Anarchist position, such as that espoused by Jacques Ellul. I regard such Anarchism as aspirational rather that practically universal. While it is perfectly reasonable for a follower of Christ to aspire to abdicate from participation in the state, short of becoming a hermit in a wilderness most of us still reap the benefits of "civilization" (the benefits of the earthly City, not of God, but of Humanity). It is almost impossible not to benefit from the public works of the state, short of retirement to the desert. 

As even St Francis realized (presaging Kant’s categorical imperative), if everyone followed the Franciscan example of absolute poverty and a mendicant lifestyle there would be no one from whom to beg. (One of the rationales for the Third Order was to allow those who could not give up everything to give up something — to support the mendicants — while acknowledging their imperfect realization of Christ’s poverty in penitence.)

This is in part why I am a Christian Socialist rather than a Christian Anarchist: the state itself is not evil (or no more evil than the individual person), “simul iustus et peccator,” and capable of doing good as well as wrong. By participating in the state, I hope to urge it toward being as good as possible, while recognizing that it is not, and never will be, heaven on earth. There is only one City of God, and it is above, where Christ is. In this vale of tears we continue to do the best we can; and there is room for hermits as well as merchants, each of them witnessing to Christ in their own ways and to the extent they are able.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG 

Emmaus: A Symphonic Poem for Easter

This is a musical composition reflecting the Lucan account of Jesus encountering two disciples as they were walking in the countryside. In this encounter he recalls for them the events of Holy Week, showing them how these fulfilled the prophecies of the Hebrew people concerning the Anointed One. These recollections warm their hearts strangely as they walk along. When the disciples urge him to stay with them, he does so. At the table, he breaks bread — as he had done on the night before he suffered — and he becomes known to them in that breaking and in that bread, even as he vanishes from their sight.

Images are mostly from Rembrandt, with a few other classic and romantic works. The burning heart is a sculpture from my Brother in Christ Karekin Madteos’ garden.

Blessed Eastertide to all...

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Failure to Concur

This year Good Friday falls on March 25, which would be observed as the Feast of the Annunciation were it not for our rules of precedence which privilege the days of Holy and Easter Weeks above all other Feasts. This is the last time Good Friday will fall on March 25 in this century, and when it does, the power of Cross will once again gently nudge the Virgin Mother forward by a bit over a week.

This failed concurrence gives rise to imagery of such weight I cannot shift it so easily from my mind. Nor have others found it so light a thing. Here is the poem John Donne wrote in 1608 on a similar concurrence.

Upon the Annunciation and Passion Falling upon One Day. 1608

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away;
She sees Him nothing twice at once, who’s all;
She sees a Cedar plant itself and fall,
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive yet dead;
She sees at once the virgin mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty and at scarce fifteen;
At once a Son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she’s in orbity,
At once receiver and the legacy;
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
The abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one
(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)
Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,
Deals in some times and seldom joining these!
As by the self-fixed Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where the other is and which we say
(Because it strays not far) doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know
And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud, to one end both.
This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one:
Or ‘twas in Him the same humility
That He would be a man and leave to be:
Or as creation He had made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating Spouse would join in one
Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone:
Or as though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.

And here is my short poem upon the Annunciation, reminding us that whether the feasts concur or not, salvation is all One.

She knelt beside the neatly planted rows
of cummin, dill, and mint. The clear March sky
was bright; a flock of birds flew high.
She pinched a leaf;
                    then, suddenly, she froze —
a voice had spoken. There was no one there.
It spoke a second time; she looked around.
“How can this be?” she asked the vacant air.
Once more it spoke, yet there was not a sound.
She paused again; her answer in her mind.

In thirty years and three, her words would find
an echo: “Not my will, but thine be done,”
said in another garden by her son,
while three friends slept.
                           So here none heard her words —
except an angel, a high flight of birds,
and three neat rows of cummin, mint, and dill:
“Be it to me according to thy will.”

Bless this day of contrast and devotion, of sacrifice and blessing. Bless us all.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Stanzas on the Way of the Cross

I
The Lord who set his hand upon the deep,
who stretched the compass on the heavens’ face,
who planned the universe and gave it life,
here, now, is trapped — the victim of a plot.
The judge is judged, and shares a sinner’s fate,
while Pilate, at the warning of his wife,
evades his guilt with water and a towel,
delivering up the one who would deliver
the world that owed him all of its existence.
The very ones who call out for his death —
that he deserves to die — owe him their breath.

II
The eternal word now mutely keeps his peace
and opens not his mouth. The worthy one,
held worthless now, takes up his heavy cross.
The one who bore the weight of all the worlds
now wearily takes up a cross of wood.
The Lamb of God who takes away our sins,
in meekness his last pilgrimage begins.

III
A star shot from its place in heaven and fell
down to the depths of the abyss. Was Christ’s
descent less terrible, his humble stooping down?
Yet humbly he had washed the apostles’ feet,
so now he falls to wash away our sin.
Can we do less than kneel here and adore
the one who all our sin and anguish bore?

IV
A mother’s pain! to see her own child die —
tragic reversal, when age sees youth undone.
The heart that stored such hope, such promised joy
now breaks to see the ruin of that hope.
Yet breaking, that heart’s hope finds its release
and brings the world the promise of its peace.

V
Simon didn’t know who Jesus was;
just that he’d better do as he was told:
take up that cross and carry it a while.
What unknown hands lift crosses from our backs?
Who serves us? And what strangers do we serve?
Whom do we serve, if not our Lord himself,
who told us that as we each do unto
the least of them we do it unto him?
To follow him we must take up that cross —
to save our lives our lives must suffer loss.

VI
He came to show us all that we could be,
to stand displayed a perfect man, that we
might have a model for our lives. Instead
we turned away; and worse, we cursed and mocked
his beauty, so much greater than our own.
Yet all our hurts and harms could not deface
the inner glory of his perfect soul,
and his wounds only served to make us whole.

VII
How can he bear that weight? How can he bear
the gathered sorrows of a billion souls?
How bear these sins, since he is innocent?
It is no wonder he should fall, beneath
the heavy weight of all this unearned guilt.
All we like sheep are scattered, wandering, lost;
we set the price; and he has paid the cost.

VIII
What tears are these? Whence comes this grievous moan?
Is it for him, or for the loss of hope?
If this is how the world will treat its Lord,
what hope is there for anyone? For us?
If green wood burns so easily, what flames
will ravage those whose hearts and souls are dry?
It seems for our own sins we’d better cry.

IX
Where is the light? The candles have gone out!
There is no hope, no way to see the way;
the one we hoped would lead us has collapsed.
Yet in his fall, this third bone-weary fall,
his voice cries out, Remember me, O Lord;
and God, who hears the fallen, will not fail.
Up from the depths and darkness without light,
he calls on our behalf through our long night,
his prayer ascending God’s high throne unto:
Father, forgive; they know not what they do.

X
The night before, he’d spoken of his blood,
and blessed the cup of wine, removed his robe
and kneeling, washed their feet; and later, in
the garden kneeled again, and asked his God
to let the cup of bitterness pass by.
All comes together here: wine, blood and gall.
The garments are removed, the veil undone:
We see the naked glory of the Son.

XI
The carpenter of Nazareth is brought
at last to Skull Hill’s bloody, dismal mound.
Between two criminals, hemmed in by sin,
the sinless one is nailed upon the cross.
How many times had he with his own hands
wielded the hammer, pegging wooden frames,
or driven nails. He’d made good yokes, good yokes
for oxen at the plough, or at the cart.
Yet here he is undone with his own art.

XII
What legacy is this, what parting gift?
A mother loses one son, gains another,
as John, belov’d disciple, gains a mother.
The end has come; time for one bitter taste
of vinegar on a sponge, a gasping breath,
the words of commendation, and of death.

XIII
Long, long ago, an angel called her bless’d
and full of grace. Did Gabriel know the course
her life would take, the life of her womb’s fruit,
the Son of God — that it would come to this?
And did he know as well that this was not
the end, that there was more — far more — to come?
Yet Mary’s grief is not relieved in this,
as on his wounded brow she plants a kiss.

XIV
His foster father was named Joseph, too;
in death, he takes another Joseph’s tomb.
He had no earthly father of his own,
nor would he have a grave but as a gift.
His birthplace was a stable let on loan,
his burial in a tomb another built.
And all this was to free us from our guilt.
The Way is ended, now the tomb is sealed —
our eyes have seen the love of God revealed.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Disagreement, Good and Bad

The Church of England is in the process of exploring the limits of disagreement on matters of sexuality. One might say the Anglican Communion as a whole is doing the same. England already reached a settlement on the propriety of women bishops, allowing "both integrities" to flourish side by side in peaceful contradiction. (The nation that gave us Lewis Carroll has done itself proud in this.)

The goal, of course, is a peaceful detente, going by the name "good disagreement." The church has been plagued by disagreement -- good and bad -- from the days of Peter and Paul. Ultimately it is the object of the (dis)agreement that determines whether it can be (a) a peaceable willingness to bear with difference or (b) a cause for schism. "It seemed important at the time" is the watchword of warning for any church tempted to divide over what may turn out in the long run to have been a minor point of dispute. Remember the common cup, and vernacular liturgy? Or circumcision? The church's history is draped with conflicts that in retrospect have faded and lost their color; so much so one is tempted to ask, "What was the matter?" What matters — the living Text — is Christ, and him crucified, died, buried, risen and ascended. All the rest is gloss.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Duned, We're Duned

[satire on]

There can be little doubt that D J Trump of Old Terra thought of himself as the Kwisatz Haderach (“he who can be in all places at once”). His confidence in his eventual success was nourished by his uncanny prescience, supported by his devotion to melange, which he stockpiled in vast quantities, and the superhuman speed with which he could alter his positions. He had strong support for this belief based on passages of the Orange Catholic Bible, which he held to be descriptive of his personal features, the result of the blend of bloodlines (the characteristic red hair of the Harkonnens, and the eerie blue “Ibad” eyes of the Atreides, enhanced by consumption of the spice). Supported by the ghola Christie, his efforts were crowned with the success he presaged, leading, as historians have reconstructed, to the atomic war of the early 21st century.

— from Tales of Old Terra by Princess Irulan

[satire off, with a tip of the hat to Frank and Brian Herbert]

Tobias+

Political gloss on Mark 4:25

There used to be a joke among Anglican religious that people who came from money entered the Franciscans and people who grew up poor joined Holy Cross. With the electorate it is often the reverse. People with money want to keep their money, and so in self-interest choose the candidate less likely to increase the tax burden on the highest brackets. And vice versa. Cui bono, quid pro quo, and q.e.d.

TSH

Rare Political Outburst

As much as the GOP would like to pretend that Donald Trump is simply the crazy cousin that they hid in the basement all these years instead of providing adequate mental health care, this is not really the case. The truth is that the GOP has labored on this, though unwittingly, ever since Barak Obama came on the scene, even before he was elected. They have nourished falsehoods and suspicions; they have prejudiciously pledged themselves to obstruction of anything he might propose; they have been as good as their word and blocked actions not terribly unlike some they themselves proposed in earlier days; they have fostered unreasonableness and know-nothingism as if these were cardinal virtues, feeding denial of science and common sense at the capacious breast of religious quackery. In short, they have none other than themselves to answer to the charge that things have gone terribly wrong.

I rarely make political comments on this blog, but I could not resist at this point. Mea culpa.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Denature of Communion

My chum from New Zealand, Bosco Peters, has posted a very helpful essay on the nature of the Anglican Communion, focusing on the extent to which communion is an applicable term, given what it usually means — mutual recognition of ministers, and their ability to function within each other’s churches (mutatis mutandis).

The problem did not begin with the recent collapses and severances of recognition (and function) at primatial gatherings; nor in the disagreements in the wake of Gene Robinson’s election and consecration. Nor did the breaches start with the “impaired communion” (a term which has always reminded me of “partial virginity”) declared (or described) by Archbishop Runcie after Barbara Harris’ consecration (and concerning every woman bishop since, given the fact that a woman bishop can still not function as even a presbyter in some parts of the “communion.”)

For one could go back all the way to the 26th year of George III (1786), and the Act of Parliament that first permitted the ABC and ABYork (with others) to ordain and consecrate the Americans White and Provoost without the royal warrant, and absent the oaths normally required. Among other things, the Act stated:

...be it hereby declared, that no person or persons consecrated to the office of a bishop in the manner aforesaid, nor any person or persons deriving their consecration from or under any bishop so consecrated, nor any person or persons admitted to the order of deacon or priest by any bishop or bishops so consecrated, or by the successor or successors of any bishop or bishops so consecrated, shall be thereby enabled to exercise his or their respective office or offices within his Majesty's dominions.

So from the outset the Anglican “Communion” has been one in a (partially) shared spirit, a variable historical deposit, but lacking the uniform application of the standard mark of “communion” as it is used in ordinary ecumenical relations.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Anglican Cuisinart

I hope most people can at this point see that the recent Primates' gathering (or meeting, depending on who is speaking) was not a great success. There is little agreement on what it accomplished, who was actually there and for what parts of the meeting, what those who were there agreed to, and what it all ultimately means. I think it hard to argue that it has improved relations, or settled anything. Things were at a low simmer of discontent before, but now the pot has boiled over and there is pasta hanging from the ceiling.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Not of the Book

Christianity is not, properly speaking, a religion of the “book.” The distinctively Christian part of the Bible (what most people mean by “the book”) is a product of Christianity in its earliest days. The Christian faith is actually a religion of the Spirit of God, who, yes, infuses the text the writers of the early church were inspired to produce, and who continues to enlighten the minds of Christians as they read and hear that text. But God is not the text. God is God, and it is the Spirit of God that gives life, not the letter. The Scripture is testimony, a pointer and a witness; Jesus is the Truth to whom this witness points.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Fixing Easter

There is a move afoot in some ecumenical circles to find a common date for the observance of Easter. I won't go into the calendrical problems here — you can read about it on Wikipedia — but some churches follow the archaic Julian calendar, while others accept the Gregorian revision that brings the astronomical year into better sync. This leads to Easter being celebrated on different days by different Christian traditions. (There are also some splinter groups who don’t like either of these solutions, which further complicates things.)

Beyond that, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has suggested that not just a common date, but a fixed date, would be even better; which is to say, for instance, that Easter might always fall on the second Sunday in April. He has argued that this would be ever so much more rational and helpful for the business world and for the schools. He may be singing the lost number from My Fair Lady, “Why can't Easter be more like Michaelmas?” — but he also seems to me to be upending a longstanding tradition primarily so as to make the merchants more comfortable in the Temple precincts. Such a move might be more rational for the schools and banks, but, to paraphrase Jane Austen, "it would not be near so much like Easter."

While I certainly support the effort to settle on the calendar, Julian or Gregorian, to find a common date for the observance for Easter, I think in fixing a date we would miss something literally cosmic about the traditional dance of the sun and moon and earth that governs the commemoration.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Thought on Today's Gospel (Luke 4:21-30)

With regard to The Episcopal Church, the Primates of the Anglican Communion appear to have taken as their text, "...shut up for three years."

I would rather focus on the truth that the power of the Holy Spirit often lights on those who minister among the outcasts, poor and untouchable, of Sidon and Damascus. Prophetic words — which simply means “true words” — are not always welcome among the family, and those who utter them are sometimes dismissed from the table (or threatened with being thrown from a cliff) by those who do not wish to hear that God’s mysterious work takes place even where, perhaps especially where, it is unexpected and unlooked for.

So it has been, so it is now, so it will be: the water flows in the desert, and those who thirst find relief, while the proud will not stoop to the spring.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Church Management

The leadership of the Church of England, and by extension (since the majority are relatively recent products of English missionary efforts) many of the Primates of the Anglican Communion seem to have taken a managerial approach to the development of doctrine and polity within Anglicanism. One might observe this is better than the almost impossibilist approach of the Eastern Church or the heavily top-down of the Roman, but in recent years these leaders seem to have taken their cue more from those directions than from the more traditionally Anglican model of provincial autonomy to innovate and the process of reception over time.

This is not meant to give unqualified endorsement to the Gamaliel principle ("If it lasts, it is of God") if for no other reason than that things of God don't always last, and many things that are downright ungodly seem to endure very well! The danger in the "wait and see" approach lies in the fact that deferring action on what is later judged to have been unjust or immoral puts one in a bad light under that later judgment. C. S. Lewis long ago, in a children's book of all places, denounced the danger of taking a wait and see attitude in which, "The dwarves are for the dwarves." They end up unable to see, having refused to act.

Nor am I endorsing a free-for-all adoption of anything new because it is new. Both antiquarianism and novelty are poor guides to rightness. What I am suggesting is that rather than attempting to manage the process, the Primates and the members of the various Anglican churches allow the process of reception -- or rejection -- to take place over time. We are dealing, after all, not with a core doctrine of the faith, but a matter of marriage discipline -- and one far less troublesome than that of remarriage after divorce which the churches managed to gulp (with some discomfort) while gasping at the "bulk" of the recent gnat.

In the long run, the call to submit to such managerial policies runs counter to the history of how the church has worked over time. Almost exactly a decade ago (June 2006), I assembled the following "chain of events" that explores what might have happened had various parties given in to the putative authorities urging their submission. I don't think anything need be added:

• 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.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Me and My House

Were I a conciliar Christian, I would no doubt belong to a church that recognized conciliarism as part of its essence — as in the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox traditions. If I wanted to be part of a confessional church, I would join one of those that had a formal confession, such as that of Augsburg or Westminster. But as it is, I am an Anglican. As such I reject the notion that councils can be trusted always to be right in matters even of faith; and accept that confessions are basically just the work of relatively recent councils (or conventicles), and are just as prone to error, as well as being much too much concerned over controversies that later turn out to have been of no lasting importance.

As I say, I'm an Anglican — of the Episcopal sort — a "creedal Christian" if you want to give it a name. I'm happy to read the confessions and reflect on the decisions of councils, but am not hard pressed to adopt either. The doctrinal minimalism of the Anglican tradition — what C. S. Lewis called "mere Christianity" — suits my temperament. I'm able to recite the doctrine of the church every Sunday morning, in the words of the Nicene Creed. (Yes, I realize that was the work of two, count 'em, two Councils. But, as my mother said in her last words on this earth, "That's enough.")

So I'm puzzled by the efforts of some to drag Anglicans into some other form of either conciliar or confessional church. The ones that exist along those lines seem to do quite well, and I think we Anglicans will lose something of value if we seek to become more like one or the other. I had rather we continue as a somewhat rambunctious and not always agreeable family of interrelated national or provincial churches with a common heritage balanced by the freedom for considerable local adaptation. Oh, and the Gospel at the heart.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politicks

So what have we? On the one hand we have a body, founded in 1789 and in continuous existence since, with duly elected members called and assembled, which by its constitutional authority and in keeping with its governing law has adopted a policy which concerns no entity other than itself.

On the other hand we have a group, first assembled in 1978, meeting sporadically since, this time 'round in an irregularly convened ad hoc session; with at least one voting member improperly credentialed; having no constitutional authority whatsoever; described as recently as 2004 in The Windsor Report (¶ 104) as having until then "refused to acknowledge anything more than a  consultative and advisory authority" for itself — now presuming an enhanced capacity to deem the imposition of consequences upon the aforementioned body over whom they have no authority, because of their policy change.

This must be what some people mean by "Godly order." Seems relatively ungodly to me, and far from orderly. If this were the political realm, I'd call the latter a junta and their action an attempted coup.

As it is, their advice must be taken simply for what it is worth, as we in that first body continue to preach and practice the Good News. (The One who started it all also got into trouble with a hastily gathered assembly...)

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Addendusm: I was asked how much of a majority it takes to make such decisions. A very high standard is necessary when individual rights are being restrained or removed; the maxim "quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur" ("what concerns all must be approved by all") cited (though almost completely misunderstood) in The Windsor Report, essentially requires universal consent, or at the very least the consent of the ones "touched" by the decision. Since this is the nature of issues raised in the recent Primates' Meeting, it would seem that a reported less than unanimous decision falls short.

TSH

Limited Grace?

The recent actions of the Primates of the Anglican Communion — or at least a majority of them —have led to a good bit of discussion around the web. I will likely say more on that later. But for the moment, what strikes is how much they seem to have missed a truly evangelical moment. I understand they are exercised about homosexuality and think it is terrible. But clearly it is no more terrible, from a biblical standpoint, than fornication, whether that is understood narrowly as sex between parties who have no intention to marry (I think the soundest biblical reading) or more broadly as any kind of sexual immorality (a very subjective reading).

However, if we are to accept the Apostle's teaching (1 Cor 7:1-2, enshrined in Anglican formularies from 1549 on, though soft-pedaled lately) that marriage is a remedy for the sin of fornication, then the embrace of marital discipline of fidelity and permanence by same-sex couples ought rightly to be seen and celebrated as a "remedy" for any sin involved in same-sex sex, just as mixed-sex marriage is the remedy for the sin in unmarried mixed-sex sex.

This ought to be received as revolutionary as the saving grace to the Gentiles (Acts 11:18) when the early church set aside the biblical requirement of circumcision.

I understand that those who follow natural law arguments will place same-sex sex in the categorically irredeemable column, as intrinsically wrong in all circumstances. But if it is the circumstantial presence or lack of marital status that renders sex good or bad for heterosexual people, it does seem a bit perverse to hold that gay and lesbian couples cannot frame their lives as suits their condition, and sanctify their loves by the grace of God, a grace we have been told can do more than we can ask or imagine.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The Knot

The knot that perplexes the Anglican Communion (and the world) — the tangle of culture, sex, law, theology and sexuality — will not be undone by gently plucking at this raveled end or tugging that tight loop; this Gordian knot will only be untied through the bold and rigorous application of the sword of the Golden Rule. Only when each has radically embraced and experienced the life of the other — as God did for humanity in the Incarnation — can we end the ceaseless pulling to and fro that tightens the knot of our discontents, instead of blessing us with the freedom that only comes through love.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

A Thought about how we pray to God

One of the great divides in religion is between those who see God as Love and those who see God as Power. How many of our Anglican prayers address God as Almighty, Omnipotent, "of Power and Might" -- and how many as, "Loving" or "Giving" -- in spite of the fact that the Gospels show us God as Love, sacrificial and self-giving love; these same texts warn us against power over each other instead of love for each other, and bid us ask for daily bread and forgiveness as we would of a loving Parent rather than as petitioners to a Monarch? (It is true, of course, that the Gospels also portray God as King and Judge, but why is that so much reflected in our liturgy as opposed to God as Shepherd or Healer or Gift?)

It strikes me that the various Christian churches, and subdivisions within the whole church, seem to model different reflections of God -- the God who is Love vs. the God who is King. If we are to place ourselves in God's place, what we think of God will reflect how we act towards one another and the world. Jesus warned us not to seek to rule over one another. I hope the Primates Gathering next week takes this to heart.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Servant #238 — Epiphany 2016