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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Thomas Bushnell, BSG's LiveJournal:
| Saturday, May 10th, 2008 | |
| 1:05 pm | four kinds of people Type One: Wackos who think the Pastoral Epistles were written by Paul. Type Two: Non-wackos who have not seriously studied the Pastoral Epistles, and therefore think they were not written by Paul. Type Three: Non-wackos who have seriously studied the Pastoral Epistles, and therefore think they were written by Paul. Type Four: Non-wackos who have seriously studied the Pastoral Epistles, and don't think they were written by Paul. Now the odd thing is that Type-Two people think that Type-Three people are likely Type-One people in disguise. And, that the Type-Four people are very likely dead--because there is a diminishing list of living Type-Four people.And, that Type-Two people tend to write as if all non-wackos agree with them, while the Type-Three and Type-Four people know there is a lively controversy, even in 2008. What's really aggravating is the Type-Two people who fail to get what pseudepigraphy means. It means at least two things. First, the author was being deceptive, and deliberately so. (And the conclusive result is that there was no genre of pseudepigraphal letters, and everyone in antiquity regarded forgeries with horror.) You will look in vain for even a single clear example of a letter falsely attributed to a recent figure, which is accepted as valuable by a religious community despite their knowledge of its inaccurate attribution. And moreover, the modern folks agree. The very people who assure us in solemn (but unsourced) tones that this kind of stuff was perfectly ordinary, and acceptible, then use the results as an argument for ignoring or discarding what the letter says. If 1 Timothy doesn't tell us anything about Paul, so the thinking goes, it is no use for Christians. Second thing pseudepigraphy means. If you take the letter as canonical, and pseudepigraphal, you must deal with the fact that the author wants you to think of it as genuinely Pauline. Even if you drink the pseudepigraphy cool-aid, and believe that it's not really deceptive, you certainly still must grant that the author wants you to read it in a Pauline context, wants you to think of it as if it were Pauline. So when you read it, constantly reminding yourself, "not Pauline, not Pauline" as a kind of mantra, and insist on interpreting it as non-Pauline, you are, ipso facto, misinterpreting the letter. And if you doubt this, just go tote up the way Victor Paul Furnish treats "non-genuine" letters in The Moral Teaching of Paul; go look at what F. C. Baur wants to do: because the letter isn't Pauline, we can ignore the theology it seems to be teaching. And how is Baur so sure the letter isn't Pauline? Mostly it boils down to... you guessed it... the letter teaches a theology we deem to be "late" and we disgree with. Oh, there is Type Five, who find all this confusing, and have no opinions on the subject at all. |
| Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 | |
| 6:03 pm | A poem Meal What does a candle feel like as it burns on the dinner table, gently using its fuel, waiting, as a family quietly sits together, a roast is carved and prepared, and laughter erupts when a joke is told? The events of the day are retold and obligatory love gives way to like, memories for the future are prepared and customs established for another table. The noise of a family all together, each eagerly looking at dinner and waiting. Some want this promise and sit waiting, not quite finding what they've been told, searching for how to be together, with another, never being quite alike, transitory countertops serving as a table, always ready but never quite prepared. How has the candle been prepared, for this moment, on its shelf waiting, hoping someday to be on the table, and hear the stories get told? What are a candle's dreams like, and how does it keep itself together? Sitting in their box, aligned together, are the candles really prepared? Do they know what it will be like, this dream for which they are waiting, when the purpose long foretold, is done, and there they are, on the table? And some candles never find a table, and go to the trash heap, together. Nobody sings their song, nothing is told, for a waste it was they were prepared, an emptiness they were awaiting, do they know what that will be like? And on the table, like meets like, the meal prepared, the soul waiting, the story told, and the people together. |
| Sunday, April 27th, 2008 | |
| 4:58 pm | a thought about bigotry To the straight Christian--whether anti-gay or not--bigotry looks like an error in thinking. The bigot is incautious, controlled by emotion, etc. The bigot screams arrogantly, the bigot is impolite, the bigot is unscholarly. The straight Christian normally thinks it's possible in the twenty-first century in a country like England or America to be anti-gay from motives other than bigotry, because bigotry is being conceived of as an error in thinking: a matter of one's motives and the dynamic between emotion and reason. Someone who is anti-gay without those impolite motives and in calm and measured rational tones, can't possibly be a bigot, so goes the thinking. To the gay Christian, bigotry is an error in doing. It is not so much about what you think or the motives for what you think or do, it's about what you actually do. The gay Christian conceives of bigotry as a question "on the ground," so to speak. Bigotry is support for laws that discriminate and oppress gay people; bigotry is support for dehumanizing language about gay people, and so forth. In this view, it is not possible in the twenty-first century, in a country like England or America, to support such policies or engage in such activities without being a bigot, because bigotry simply is the engagement in such activities when one should know better. The distinction then trades on differing conceptions of what bigotry is. To those who feel the brunt of it, bigotry is something which one feels, one experiences, one bumps up against in the world. Straight Christians mostly don't notice it. They don't bump up against it. At weddings (we had a joyous one among our seminary community a week ago) they mostly don't reflect on the utter unavailability of that party to many of their friends. They don't need to worry about which people they might invite who would refuse to come, or who would use the wedding as an occasion to think less of them. So bigotry A, the bigotry that people-mostly-not-affected think about, is about motives, and internal states. And then bigotry B, the one that people-affected think about, is about actions and what causes pain and difficulty and hardship. I remember the day I learned the difference between racial prejudice (a form of bigotry A) and racism (a form of bigotry B). I'm gesturing at something like that. This helps me to understand why straight Christians don't get why I can't stand certain famous NT theologians, why I don't want to go hear them speak about anything, even when I would agree with the topic of this or that speech. They look at them, and their bigotry is so kind and gentle, so quiet, so "reasoned", so sincere, that they aren't really a bigot at all--at least, not in the bigotry A sense. But I look at them, and I think, "ah, a leading theorist trying to explain why Christians like me should be run out of the church, and society be structured to continue oppressing us." I don't doubt their kindness, their gentleness, their quiet, their appearance of reason, or their sincerity. It is their doings that are harmful. And I want straight Christian friends of mine to get it. But most don't. |
| Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 | |
| 8:47 am | self-knowledge In a reflective mood, I consider that there are times when I have known myself and times where I have not. At times where I have known myself, I am confident, sure. I see a happy future clearly, and I see my own present actions as connected toward bringing that future into being. I know others, and others know me. At times where I have not known myself, the future is out of my control. My own actions are not connected to it in any obvious way, but rather it seems to come on its own, without my participation or consent. I feel as if others are a deep mystery to me. They are unpredictable, and thus sometimes dangerous, and they seem to act toward me without knowing me or any desire to understand me. It might seem like it would be good then to know myself, wouldn't it? And heck, that's Socrates in a nutshell, isn't it? Know Thyself. Except that Scito Te Ipsum was not really Socrates' motto, it was the motto of the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle pretends to give knowledge, but instead is a manipulator of events on a large stage. There is no knowledge to be had at Delphi, and the motto, just as the oracular pronouncements, has a double meaning. One must truly know oneself in order to avoid being deceived by the Oracle, for it will use your desires and self-deceptions against you. But then again, the Oracle has no interest in warning you, and instead promises knowledge: "Come here, and you will know yourself." The times when I have known myself are times often of tremendous self-deception. Succeeding times of un-knowing are the exposure of the errors of self-deception into which I have fallen in a preceding time of knowing. But the times of un-knowing are no better. There is a correctness there: others are unpredictable, really, and the future really is out of my control. Yet these are not things which I know in my times of un-knowing, they are simply painful walls up against which I bump in ignorance. The Oracle's deceptive advice is self-serving, a way of promising and withholding, of seeming to be transparent while being opaque. The Oracle is a great deceiver. What it suggests is indeed good: self-knowledge is a good thing. But it is not achieved directly; it is only found indirectly. It can only be pursued by not pursuing it; it can only be caught by letting it go. One is only able to know oneself by being known; and perfect self-knowledge comes only in being known by the perfect knower. |
| Monday, April 21st, 2008 | |
| 9:48 pm | Anselm of Bec and Anselm of Canterbury Today is the feast of two remarkable saints, Anselm of Bec and Anselm of Canterbury. Anselm of Bec was the abbot of Bec, a Cistercian monastery in Normandy. There he was known as a kind leader and a good monastic reformer in the Cistercian vein. He was the inaugurator of Scholastic philosophy, and perhaps the first Christian philosopher in the modern sense, concerned with traditional philosophical topics in their own right as well as their relations to the convictions of the Christian faith. He made his contributions to the polemical issues of the day (writing on the Filioque, for example), as well as his famous exploration of soteriology in Cur Deus Homo. He explored philosophy of language and ethics, becoming one of the first to argue for a double-master-motivation theory of ethics, a view which was in opposition to the consensus of antiquity (whether Stoic, Epicurian, Socratic, Platonic, or Aristotelian), and which has successors in folks as diverse as Ockham, Kant, and even some modern virtue theorists. Around 1092, Anselm was essentially kidnapped by King William II in England, and drops from history. By a curious coincidence of dating, the second saint celebrated today enters a year later. Anselm of Canterbury was consecrated bishop and took his seat as Primate of All England. Anselm engaged in the usual tussles with the Norman kings, over typical issues. Eventually these conflicts would reach a head in the conflict between Thomas Becket and King Henry II, but those days were still a century to come. This Anselm engaged in typical struggles over investiture, travel rights, choice of bishops, clerical rights and privileges, taxation and so forth. He was a competent administrator, who did not leave any particular distinctive mark among the various Norman Archbishops of Canterbury. Things came to a real head in conflict with King Henry I, but no serious disaster happened, a political compromise was reached, and he died in 1109. When "Anselm" was canonized in 1494 it is unclear which is meant, the abbot of Bec or the bishop in Canterbury. Now the above is a little tongue in cheek, of course, for these two people shared the same body, the same mother, and the same soul. But there is a serious point in the last paragraph. It truly is unclear why Anselm was canonized by Alexander VI, himself one of the most controversial secular popes in history. The old Roman breviary does not give any details for his canonization (as it often does), but concludes with the following: He attained fame not only because of his miracles and holiness (especially his marked devotion toward the passion of our Lord, and the blessed Virgin Mary), but also because of his teaching, which it is plain to all was drawn up according to a heavenly standard, for the defense of the Christian religion, the good of souls, and all theology, which the holy writings pass on by the scholastic method.So what was it? His miracles and devotion, not really much remarked on, even by the very hagiography which mentions them, or his writings? And even if it's the miracles and devotion, might they not be just as strongly attached to the Abbot of Bec as to the Archbishop of Canterbury? I think the answer is clear: his fame, and as a result, his canonization four hundred years later owes to his work as a monk, not his leadership as an Archbishop. Yet the fact is that his sanctity, if not his fame, owe to his commitment to following where God led him. He was not happy about becoming Archbishop, and accepted the post only under great duress and after extracting many concessions from King William. But accept it he did. His fame may owe to his scholarly duties, but his sanctity comes from his willingness to leave them behind for a new task, a task which entailed no small suffering and difficulty for him. Perhaps this is the way all that was dross was burned away and he shone as he was intended to. |
| Sunday, April 20th, 2008 | |
| 11:56 am | God save us... ...from baby boomer liturgy. |
| Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 | |
| 11:01 pm | understanding one's experiences There are certain experiences one has which are only comprehensible in the light of Rene Girard. |
| Sunday, March 30th, 2008 | |
| 1:45 pm | why things are the way they are institutions are the way they are because the people in power want them that way. this simple truth is perhaps most important to understand when people in power lament the way the institution is. |
| Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 | |
| 11:45 am | new thoughts about hospitality: an application An application of my thoughts about hospitality from yesterday. A common fretful issue for folks in our churches arises around same-sex blessings. Many clergy and congregations who are generally supportive of gay and lesbian people, at least in a passive way, are fearful of what will happen if a couple requests a same-sex blessing of their relationship. In many places, it seems as if this presents a lose-lose situation: either the couple and their supporters will be alienated (if the answer is no), or other people will be angry and leave, or perhaps denominational structures will obstruct (if the answer is yes). Some clergy indeed try to fend this off at the gate, by proclaiming before any couple presents themselves that there will be no same-sex blessings. Sometimes this is a somewhat cowardly sop to those in the congregation who are made nervous by talk of inclusion, a sort of, "don't worry, we won't do anything really radical" assurance. Sometimes it's not cowardly. But regardless, it is almost always an attempt to avoid the hard situation even coming up at all. Nobody will bother to ask for a blessing if the word is out ahead of time that none would be forthcoming. So much of the dynamic works like that. The church is there, and people come--suppliants--asking for some hospitable arrangement. And the question then arises, "do we show this form of hospitality?" And--you knew it was coming, didn't you?!--then the alleged example of Jesus is trotted out: Jesus would show hospitality, after all, he ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners. Imagine however if our understanding were informed by the more correct exegesis I outlined yesterday of these episodes from the Gospels. The question is not, "will you invite us? will you include us?" Rather, the couple should have their wedding, wherever it will be had, and invite the church to participate. "We are having our wedding; we'd like to include you and the church in that process." It is arrogant for the church to think it is inviting others; Jesus himself didn't do that. The stories from the Gospels of his willingness to eat and drink with outcasts are not stories of him inviting them in: they are stories of him accepting their invitations. And, we find, that he pretty much always accepts the invitation. The question is not, "should we invite so-and-so in?" The question is, "when so-and-so invites us, will we attend? will we show up? or do we send signals that no, we will not attend?" And here's the risk: if folks invite us, and invite Jesus too, we know that Jesus will attend. If we do not join him and attend also, then it is we who have rejected him. |
| Monday, March 24th, 2008 | |
| 5:24 pm | a thought about hospitality Much Christian thinking about hospitality these days begins with a narrative in which Jesus welcomes us; in which Jesus shows us hospitality. And we are supposed to then extend that welcome further, etc. This is bolstered especially by Jesus' well-known unconcern with official social boundaries: he ate and drank with outcasts and sinners, as the Gospels have it, a friend of tax-collectors and prostitutes, at ease eating with Jews and Gentiles, social elites and the downtrodden, the good-hearted and the evil-hearted alike. This narrative is a key factor in, for example, the movement in the Episcopal Church to ignore the canons and abandon the expectation that baptism be received before communion. This narrative portrays Jesus as the Divine Host, welcoming all to a banquet. And this is supposedly bolstered by reflecting on Jesus supposed demonstrations of hospitality in the Gospels. And yet, this is monumentally incorrect, a giant misunderstanding of the entire context of hospitality in the Gospels. I submit that in the Gospels we never see Jesus as host: not once. We do not see Jesus hosting banquets, inviting people to dine with him, or anything of the kind. He does not invite outcasts and sinners to dinner, because in the Gospels, he doesn't invite anyone to dinner. What actually happens is that other people invite Jesus. Only three narratives in the Gospels--the feeding miracles, the last supper, and the disciples in Emmaus on Easter evening--have any different context at all. With those two excepted, every occasion in which Jesus is showing this "radical hospitality" is actually nothing of the kind: rather, each story is about Jesus accepting hospitality. And we never hear him telling his host to invite or not invite so-and-so. The most we get is that he cautions his hosts not to despise others. We do not ever hear of him writing invitation lists, whether limited or broad. It may be a theological truth that Jesus invites us, but the narratives of the Gospels do not portray him thus. Consider, for example, the wedding feast at Cana. Jesus is a guest. In Nikos Kazantzakis' Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus brings Mary Magdalene along, and demands that she be included in the party, even as the guy at the door tries to keep her out. But the actual Gospels never have such an event: we do not ever hear of Jesus demanding that so-and-so be invited. Instead, Jesus is a guest, and he accepts the hospitality, and increases the celebration of the feast by providing wine even when none seems to be available. The much touted fellowship with tax-collectors and sinners is not about Jesus inviting them in: it is about them inviting Jesus, and his willing acceptance. Even the story of Zaccheus in the tree, apparently one of Jesus including Zaccheus, begins with Zaccheus wanting to see Jesus, and not with Jesus issuing the invitation. The closest we get to anything resembling the Jesus-invites-everyone narrative is the episode with the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus tells her, "give me a drink." But notice: here we do not see Jesus inviting someone else; at most we see Jesus inviting himself, and instantly from then on, Jesus is the recipient of the others' hospitality, (presumably) taking the water, and then moving in with the Samaritans for a while. The feeding of the five thousand (or four thousand) seems to be a case where Jesus does act as host. But what does he do? Thrust into the role of host, he says, "You give them something to eat." Nor does Jesus go about inviting people--the crowd is portrayed as something of an inconvenience, and dealing with it, feeding the crowd, is the responsibility of the disciples, and further, the story features no invitations. The Last Supper of course does feature Jesus as host. But notice here, first, that the room is borrowed. It is not Jesus' room: something all three synoptics stress. He invites himself into someone else's house, who mysteriously allows this, and, notice this carefully, this one occasion where Jesus is clearly host, nobody else is invited. Finally, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus is walking with these two disciples who are trying to make sense of all that has happened, and their hearts strangely burning within them, they invite Jesus to dinner; and then in the breaking of the bread, they realize it is he who is with them. So let's assume that the "Jesus as radical host" people have collected the right stories, even as they have massively misinterpreted them. What does this tell us about hospitality? |
| Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 | |
| 9:54 am | alleluia Christos anesti! |
| Friday, March 21st, 2008 | |
| 4:03 pm | prayers it's a very difficult time personally. i can't go into the details here, but i would appreciate prayers from my friends. |
| Monday, March 17th, 2008 | |
| 2:56 pm | a caption for the record books So I have the hobby of reading appellate court decisions (I know, I know), and today the ninth circuit handed down its opinion in the case of United States of America v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins. The case is much less interesting than the caption, unfortunately. |
| Sunday, March 16th, 2008 | |
| 5:13 pm | ongoing legitimacy of the nicene canons? Doubt has been raised about whether the ancient Nicene canons are still binding. I take the perhaps unexpected view that they are. But not necessarily in their original form. Let me explain, by going through the list, and hopefully you will get the gist. There are twenty Nicene canons according to the traditional text. Canons about the admission of clergy Many of the canons are concerned with who may be admitted to the ranks of the clergy. Canon One says that those who are voluntarily mutilated may not be clergy. Number Two requires recent converts to be tested. Number Four requires bishops to have the consent of their province, and at least three in any ordination. Number Six says that the consent of metropolitans is necessary to the ordination of bishops, and the prerogatives of traditional metropolitans are maintained. Number Eight says that Cathars (a sect similar to the Donatists) may be received as clergy provided they live in harmony. Number Nine requires all clergy to be examined before ordination. Number Ten says the ordination of someone who was ordained without knowledge of their past apostasy is revoked. These seven canons are in large measure still observed. Number one addresses an issue no longer present, but most bishops would indeed require some serious counseling first if it came up! Numbers two, four, five, and nine are still clearly observed in the Episcopal Church. The Cathars are gone, but the principles in number eight are still observed, and number ten is now implemented by a more general disciplinary process. I would note that number six, in particular, is particularly relevent, insisting as it does that bishops are not independent, but stand under their metropolitans, and cannot simply declare themselves now under a different metropolitan one than is their traditional geographical superior. Canons about the behavior of clerics Now there are canons regulating the manner of life of clerics. Number Three prohibits clergy from cohabiting with women other than family, or "any person who is above suspicion." Number Fifteen prohibits clergy from moving to another city without permission and setting up shop there, without the consent of the local authorities. Number Sixteen is the converse, prohibiting presbyters and deacons from leaving their own diocese without their own bishop's consent. Number Seventeen prohibits clergy from usury. Canons three and seventeen is now implemented by the general disciplinary process. Numbers fifteen and sixteen are now implemented by regulations on clergy transfer; sixteen is also implemented by agreements between bishops and ordinands. Canons about the discipline of lay people and clergy Canon Five requires excommunications to be honored by all, and provides for hearings. Canons Eleven and Twelve concern the reception of apostates of various sorts. Canon Thirteen provides that those in danger of death are to be admitted to communion regardless of their status. Canon Fourteen provides for the administration of these rules in the case of catechumens. Canon Nineteen provides for the reception of those who participated in the schism of Paul of Samosata. We no longer maintain the strict sacramental discipline of the fourth century church, so these would seem to be in desuetude. But actually canon five is still fully in force, and the remaining canons are actually all still in effect, if we simply substitute the penitential system now in place for the fourth century version. What the canons were doing was making clear that such folks could be readmitted under the terms of that penitential system. And the same is still true. Liturgical canons Canon Seven gives a liturgical precedence to the bishop of Jerusalem. Canon Eighteen prohibits deacons from giving communion to presbyters, or receiving communion before bishops. Canon Twenty prohibits kneeling on Sundays and Easter season. The details of these liturgical arrangements are no longer kept, but the underlying principle for all three is. In each case, the canon is stressing that the "rubrics" of the day must be followed. Number seven requires that the newer practice of the metropolitan in Antioch, who was beginning to resent the liturgical privileges of the bishop of Jerusalem, would remain the metropolitan, but the bishop of Jerusalem was to retain his own distinctive role. (Later Jerusalem would be made an independent patriachate, solving the question for a while.) Canon eighteen insists that the rules for distributing communion be followed; today the conditions on the first full rubric on page 408 is frequently ignored and we could use a little Canon Eighteen today. And number twenty says that uniformity of liturgical practice is necessary and establishes a standard. The standard can of course be changed, but the principle remains: that all are enjoined to follow the practices which have been identified as ones we should all have in common, even about something so apparently trivial as kneeling or standing. So, Scott, yes, the Nicene Canons are still in effect. In effect, that is. |
| 12:31 am | God cares I think I could sum up my attitude toward liturgy by saying "God cares." This is striking, even dangerously heterodox, to some. So imbued with the spirit that liturgy is all about people, and that God is not benefited by our liturgy, they conclude that liturgy should be measured against its effect on people. From there it is only a few steps toward the conclusion that liturgy is really all about serving the people who come. (I am reminded of the visceral objection I have to the notion that "funerals are for the living." No, they are not. They are for the dead. The job of a funeral is not to manipulate the emotions of the living, or give them something to do, but to take time to remember and pray for the one we have lost. Funerals, like all liturgies, are really for God; and after God, they are for the dead. They are where we, the living, pay respects to the dead.) There is the old tired canard (I am tempted to say idiotic, but I think most of those who repeat it are just repeating it because it sounds good, with little regard for its truth) that "liturgy" means "the work of the people." No, it does not. The Greek word leitourgos means "public work," in the sense that a bridge or a statue or a donation to the symphony is a public work. Of course, none of that is relevant, because the English word "liturgy" does not mean the same thing as the Greek word leitourgos. Etymology is not meaning, and mistaken etymology still less so. But we have, I think, gone from "the work of the people" (at least, a work done for God), to "the work which is all about the people." Many things contribute to this. One certainly is the failed experiment of celebrations of the Eucharist facing the people. Even the very words "facing the people" shout clericalism, combined with altars set up as gigantic barriers between clergy and people, and the destruction of any sense that we are a united community facing and directing our energy and devotion toward God. But there are many other things too. I am not sure what a complete list might look like. But the point I want to make here is that God cares. Why? Because God cares what happens to us, and liturgy is central in the way that redemption works. God cares if clergy keep their ordination vows, and their commitment to stick to the rubrics and canons. God cares if clergy are obedient to their bishop. God cares if clergy approach liturgy with a spirit of awe and wonder. God cares if congregations are hungry for momentary excitement. God cares if congregations are hungry for God. Evangelicals tend to think I'm wrong here. Liturgy, for them, is not the place where salvation and redemption happen: salvation, redemption, these are all things that happen outside the liturgy. (Or, if they happen in the liturgy, it's accidental.) Liturgy is our response to that redemption. At its best, the response is still God-centered. But at its worst, redemption and salvation are considered as psychological states; as Newman puts it, "there are [some] who suppose they may be saved all at once by a sudden and easily acquired faith." And the job of the liturgy becomes the stimulation of this psychological experience. If you take away "evangelical" and replace "community" for it, you end up with so much of liturgy today. All is focused not on a "sudden and easily acquired faith", but on a sudden and easily acquired sense of community and belonging. If a good marriage is a real intimate relationship, and compulsive casual sex is a desperate attempt to produce it in a "sudden and easily acquired" way, then our liturgies have become the religious equivalent of casual sex. They are fixated not on the enduring relationship, but on the momentary experience of community which can be artificially stimulated for a while. The evangelicals are at least aiming in the right direction (if incorrectly). But our liturgies are worse than the evangelical routine, by and large: they are focused on the satisfaction of the momentary spiritual impulses of worshippers. And such liturgies do not satisfy. Not every parish is tarnished by this problem. Some do a wonderful job of celebrating God-centered liturgy. But what saddens me is the striking number of clergy who have never experienced God-centered liturgy. I used not to understand that, but now that I am in seminary, it is all clear why this is true. I think one of the key things a seminary could teach is what God-centered liturgy looks like. But the leaders of seminaries have often not experienced it either. How does this get rebooted? |
| Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 | |
| 9:09 pm | a quaint note From the eleventh edition of Ritual Notes: A room above a church should not be devoted to secular purposes; and if of necessity a chapel in a private house is underneath a bedroom, a canopy should be erected over the altar. |
| Monday, March 10th, 2008 | |
| 9:18 pm | tavener I know why the recording of The Veil of the Temple is only part of the whole thing. The recording is two and a half hours long, so that's nothing to sneer at, until you remember the piece is seven hours long. I do hope they will release the whole thing someday. |
| Saturday, March 8th, 2008 | |
| 5:23 pm | weepingness goodly a lovely poem by my brother Tobias. i commend it to you all. http://jintoku.blogspot.com/2008/03/sem |
| Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 | |
| 2:53 pm | i'm in the list Lookie here! |
| Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 | |
| 2:05 pm | rose Today is of course Rose Sunday. I attended services at All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church in Washington. They recently acquired a lovely rose colored fiddleback chasuble, and today a matching set of frontal and antependia were dedicated. The new stuff had this amazing rich rose-colored silk, and the chasuble had these simple but lovely cross-decorated orphreys. I suspect that this was all at the instigation of their new rector. How often do we hear that it's foolish to get anything in rose, because, after all, "you can only wear it two sundays a year." Of course, the same goes for red, and nobody skips that. Something else is afoot. But I can't guess what is afoot. I agree completely that if one is building a set of vestments one at a time, rose is probably the last set to purchase. But that's not quite the point. For example, I asked a fellow seminarian today who was there if the National Cathedral has rose, and he said that if they had them, they weren't wearing them. The National Cathedral can afford a set of rose vestments. The question is really about what you think of liturgical colors as doing. Are they merely cute decorations, the sort of stuff that silly sacristry rats fixate on, but with no meaning or importance? Surely it is true that liturgical colors are down on the list of Most Important Liturgical Questions, but there is a big difference between being down on the list, and being off the list entirely. And if a parish thinks about it, and decides that it is not in line with their sense of liturgical theology to mark those two sundays as lighter days within Lent and Advent, that's seems fine to me. But then one shouldn't whip out a pink candle for the Third Sunday of Advent either, right? Some have decided that rose vestments are vestiges of another age. They are old in a nation which prizes only youth. In the heady rush of the sixties to be relevant, even while flower power was all the rage, rose vestments often got tossed or abandoned. What I wonder here is the real attitude underlying such things. Those who object to rose, why? |