RatherNotBlog

RatherNotBlog (now Rather Not Blog) has moved (possibly temporarily, probably permanently) to here.

It is my hope to eventually restore all old posts to one site.

My thanks to you for dropping by, as well as to CaNN for sponsoring me in the first place.

From a recent column by Jonathan Chait in The New Republic:

The second problem is that the partisanship scolds are extremely vague about which chunk of Americans is being left out by the growing extremism in Washington. It is true that some broadly popular views are underrepresented in national politics. A detailed political typology released by the Pew Center in 2005 showed that Democratic voters are not as socially liberal as their leaders and Republican voters are not nearly as economically conservative. So there is a sizeable base of socially traditionalist, economically populist voters to be had. Unfortunately, the partisanship scolds invariably cater to exactly the opposite demographic: elites who favor free trade, open immigration, cutting entitlements, and social tolerance.

Just as I thought. So where are my candidates?

Please note: the “comments” section seems to have gone all weird on me. I have no idea how to fix it, or when the folks at CaNN can take care of it. My apologies if you wanted to scream at me after reading this.

Primatial elections in Canada . . . ACC General Synod votes on SSBs . . . who and who is not invited to Lambeth . . .

It all seems a world away. And in fact, it is. I’ve been in Italy with only intermittent (and often expensive) internet access for several weeks now. Until a few days ago, I was headquartered in Montepulciano in the heart of Tuscany, and this was the view from my window of the Val d’Orcia as I drank my morning espresso:

With such a view, is it any wonder that, say, the natterings of Giles Fraser or the votes of the General Synod of the Anglican Church in Canada take on a different perspective? It’s almost enough to make one believe that, if General Convention had just been held in, say, Pienza instead of Columbus, the outcome might have been completely different, and Jack Iker+ would be Presiding Bishop. I can no longer (if I ever did) begrudge ++Rowan Cantuar his sabbatical. He should join me here in Tuscany. Or perhaps we could have a drink at Harry’s Bar in Venice, and together we’ll solve all the Anglican Communion’s problems. Heck, I’ll buy.

As previously noted, I have spent the past few weeks dragging, er, leading students around Florence, Rome, and the bay of Naples and am presently spending a few weeks in Florence for some library work. Now, after five weeks of Internet-Semi-Starvation, I find that my hotel has a wireless network that allows me to check in when and as I choose.

So what do I find as I slowly re-enter cyberspace on a more regular (and less costly) basis? To give but one example, there is a double-thread on the “ordination” of women over on StandFirm (see here and here) that has reached, as of now, a combined total of 671 comments! Soooooooooo tempting . . .

But nope, I’m just not gonna go there. For now, that is. It is to Matt+ Kennedy’s credit that he has opened a discussion on such a contentious subject on such a popular site and managed to keep it pretty civil for so long. It is also to the credit of so many who have commented on those threads that, as best as I can tell from skimming, the true Catholic position has been upheld pretty well without any help from me. It is easy, when either running a blog or commenting on another, to believe that the Fate of the Universe or the Great Cause of Truth will be Betrayed or Lost for a Generation if one’s voice is not heard in loud opposition each and every time someone else publicly supports the insupportable. But that is a dangerous illusion, and I didn’t come (and I certainly didn’t get paid to come) all the way to Tuscany to launch myself into yet another cyber-war, however politely the contenders are duking it out over on StandFirm.

So for now I’ll content myself with recharging my batteries from a combination of gelato and such sights as the mosaics in the Baptistery of St John (when I’m not tearing my hair out over interpreting the equivalent of a doctor’s handwriting in a dead language in an obscure institute’s library, that is). Perhaps I’ll get around to Matt+ Kennedy’s dangerously deficient ecclesiology and seriously misguided hermeneutics some other day in the not too distant future. For now, though, I can only wish him and his fellow disputants on StandFirm well and remind them: Delta is ready when you are . . .

(The following piece was originally posted May 15, then destroyed by a hacker. I am grateful for the assiduous Karen B. for recovering the text for me. I am posting it again from an internet center near the main train station in Rome. When I have a chance, I will restore all the links and comments.)

Where have I been?

The last few days have been extremely hectic as I have prepared to leave the country for eight weeks until July. However, as part of some last minute blog surfing, I came across two pieces from the Anglican Communion Insitute, by Drs. Radner and Seitz respectively, each arguing for particular vision of the future of the Anglican Communion.

You can read Dr. Radner’s piece here. It has sparked comment from Fr. WB at Whitehall, Andy at AllTooCommon, and on Titusonenine. You can read Christopher Seitz’ piece here. It too has been linked to Titusonenine, and probably elsewhere as well.

Both articles were also linked to the StandFirm website, with discussion of Radner here and Seitz here. It was in this venue that I made a few comments on each of these respective articles.

Much to my (pleasant) surprise, Fr. Al Kimel thought sufficiently highly of my comments to quote from them on Pontifications. It is a strange feeling to wake up and discover that a comment on an article has itself become (unbeknownst to its author) a post in its own right on someone else’s blog! You can find that post (and the discussion it has generated) here.

I will confess that I have not fully digested all that Drs. Radner and Seitz have to say, and may return to discuss their implications at a later date. However, I thought I would post the principle (though not the only) comments I made concerning their work here, while taking the opportunity to clear up a few typos or other malapropisms.

First, in reponse to Dr. Radner’s piece (or, more properly, the discussion of it):

1 - One of the reasons that I said the William Tighe and I actually agree more than disagree about the Articles is the question “original intent,” if by that is meant an effort to recover, attribute, and enforce some meaning to the Articles extraneous to their “literal and grammatical sense” based on a supposed reading of the mind of their authors. Such an “original intent” hermeneutic is impossible for all sorts of reasons, and anyway it will quickly devolve into an argument over specifics of theology, perhaps disguised as as argument over the “true meaning” or “original intent” of the Articles, but in fact carried out in at least a spirit contrary to the Articles themselves.

2 - The contrast between “confessional” and “conciliar” models takes us right back to the original horns of the Anglican dilemma: in what sense is the Anglican Communion “protestant” and in what sense “catholic”? The more “confessional” we are—i.e., a church apart from others with documents written in stone, the betrayal of which means a sacrifice of identity (as with Lutherans and the Lutheran confessions) or with unique institutions and doctrines unknown to the catholic consensus (as with WO)—the more sectarian we are. The more “catholic” we are—i.e., a church which bases its authority to decide doctrine on claims to be part of a wider, visible catholic church in continuity with the church of the apostles (see Articles XIX and XX)—the less it is up to the Anglican Communion to determine anything doctrinal except on a provisional basis, and the more we must defer to the common consent of antiquity and the wider catholic community (i.e., Rome and Orthodoxy).

You cannot claim to be only a part and yet act as if you represent the whole. This keeps coming up again and again and again, and people keep avoiding it again and again and again, from the Thirty-Nine Articles to the Windsor Report, both products of committees that dance around this problem without ever settling it, that use the word “Church” ambiguously (local? provincial? universal?), according to whichever outcome they desire in advance.

WO is only one feature of this problem. I do not intend to send this thread off in the direction of discussing this specific topic, but it does serve to illustrate the problem. People such as Radner continue to evoke a conciliar model, but refuse to accept the implications of that model, i.e., that we (Anglicans) can have all the Communion-wide councils we want, and that may be better than having everything doctrinal decided at a provincial level, but such councils do not amount to a hill of beans unless we recognize that either they are local councils that must be submitted to the wisdom of antiquity and the wider church (bye bye WO), or we don’t give a fig for antiquity and the wider church (hello sectarianism).

Which is it?

Second, in reponse to the discussion of Dr. Seitz’ piece:

Much of this discussion misses the point, a point which I made obliquely in another thread.

The question is not, what are our articles of faith? Rather, they are “by what authority do we require submission to any article of faith at all?”

The problem of Anglicanism is the problem of TEC writ large: a claim to be autonomous from the larger church while yet claiming to belong to that larger church. All talk of “conciliar” vs. “confessional” models misses this essential point—if we are going to ask that TEC (and by implication other provinces in the future) submit itself to something bigger than itself as a condition for membership in the Anglican Communion, to what does the Anglican Communion submit itself as a condition for membership in the church catholic?

If the answer is some text in and of itself, seen as final, whether it be the Articles, or some proposed covenant, or whatever, then this is indeed a recipe for sectarianism, as Messrs. Radner, Seitz, and others have pointed out.

If the answer is “Scripture,” you will have the same problem, with all of the baggage that sola scriptura carries and something itself unAnglican.

If the answer is “the consensus of catholic, patristic antiquity, in consultation with the wider church catholic” (note, e.g., how many of the objections to VGR invoke our ecumenical partners), then it isn’t only TEC that must radically reconsider its nature and direction, but the Anglican Communion itself.

We can have all the councils we want, and it won’t matter if their authority only begins and ends entirely within the Anglican Communion. That is still a recipe for sectarianism. You will still have splits, alphabet soups, etc. Only by explicitly committing itself to something larger than itself; only by expressing a willingness to forgo some of its own desires for how to formulate doctrine, ministry, etc. (and many of you will realize where I’m going here) will the Anglican Communion as such survive and prosper . . .

(here I quote myself from the previous comment)

In other words, in order for there to be an Anglican Communion that means anything, the Anglican Communion must commit itself to something larger than the Anglican Communion, or else the Anglican Communion is just TEC writ large, led to some new innovation whenever “the Spirit is doing a new thing.” Anyone who thinks that the Anglican Communion would somehow be immune from this, just because the debates would be playing out on a bigger stage, is hopelessly naive.

This is, in fact, precisely what we said of the Church of Rome in the 16th century; the problem was, we were never very specific as to what we thought Rome, as well as ourselves, should submit to. At times the answer was “Scripture,” at other times the patristic consensus, and at other times the wider church (East as well as West). Well, it is time to get specific, and to ask of ourselves what we asked of Rome. Otherwise, debates over models are just a waste of time.

Of course, to fully understand what I have written, you need to read the original articles by Radner and Seitz and the comments on them that have been posted in various locations, especially StandFirm. However, I will add one more comment.

In the preamble to the Constitution of TEC, it is stated that the Episcopal Church is a “constituent member” of the Anglian Communion. Much of the debate over Gene Robinson and all of the issues that his election and consecration have brought to the fore have centered on just what that means, or should mean. (It is hardly surprising that, in the statement issued from the HoB of TEC meeting in Camp Allen a few weeks ago, the HoB asserted that the meaning of this clause could be determined solely by . . . you guessed it: themselves!) Opponents of the current direction of TEC have pointed out that, if you claim to be a member of something, then you are only a part of that something, and it cannot be up to you and you alone to determine the conditions of that membership. “Constitutent” does not mean “whole” and certainly cannot mean “sovereign in all matters” unless we are in Looking Glass land.

It seems to me that what those such as Radner, Seitz, the authors of the Windsor Report, and others have failed to consider adequately is, to what does the Anglican Communion belong? If we say “the Catholic Church,” then what does that mean? If we are going to criticize TEC for trying to set all on its own the terms of its own membership in the Anglican Communion, then how are we to set the terms for the Anglican Communion’s membership in the Church Catholic?

For both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, this is no problem. Each of them believes they are the Catholic Church. They are the whole, and therefore they can rightly (in their own eyes) define what that means. For Roman Catholicism, this wholeness, this universality, this catholicity, is active, alive, and summed up in communion with the apostolic see of Rome. For Orthodoxy, it is also alive, but latent, there to be drawn on if need be (in theory there could be an eighth ecumenical council next week, an idea floated from time to time but never greeted with much enthusiasm).

It is (or has been) the implicit claim of Anglicanism that this is not so, that, in the current divided state of catholic Christendom, the Roman Church, for example, cannot act as if it were the whole church, with various other “churches” treated as either (politely) “separated brethren” or (more bluntly) sects of varying approximations to the truth. Instead, we have pointed, most times implicitly, occasionally explicitly, to a model of catholicity based on patristic consensus requiring a fidelity to the early centuries of the church (a fidelity we claimed Rome lacked).

Moreover, this fidelity to catholic consensus also required keeping an eye on the wider Catholic community of today, in order to criticize other communions both faithfully and constructively, to maintain the hope of eventual, visible reunion, and to ensure that we ourselves did not stray too far from the moorings of the universal faith of the wider catholic community. As such, Anglicanism’s vocation was to witness both to the ancient patristic faith (though in a more-or-less western mode, a sort of Western Orthodoxy if you will) and to the apparent brokenness of fully Catholic Christendom. Such a brokenness has been summed up beautifully by Pope John Paul II (though from an admittedly different perspective) when he referred to the eastern and western traditions of catholic Christianity as the “two lungs” of the Catholic church.

In the words of the Windsor Report (emphases mine),

When “the Anglican Communion” describes itself as such, it is self-consciously describing that part of the Body of Christ which shares an inheritance through the Anglican tradition, that is, from the Church of England, whose history encompasses the ancient Celtic and Saxon churches of the British Isles, and which was given fresh theological expression during the period of the Reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Reformers of that time looked back explicitly to the Bible and the early Fathers, and had every intention that their theology would be ‘catholic’ in the sense of sharing the faith of the universal Church. The very fact that the family of churches which traces its roots back to the ancient churches of the British Isles should call itself an Anglican Communion is itself indicative of the twin fundamental concepts on which the community is built: our shared inheritance (’Anglican’) and our worldwide fellowship as God’s children (’communion’). That shared inheritance has itself included a developing understanding of communion, which has been expressed, for instance, in some of our ecumenical dialogues. It also makes us aware of a responsibility, not only to our contemporaries within the Communion, but to those with whom we share in the Communion of Saints.

In the words of Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher,

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ’s Church from the beginning.

Or Archbishop Arthur Michael Ramsey,

For while the Anglican church is vindicated by its place in history, with a strikingly balanced witness to the Gospel and Church and sound learning, its greater vindication lies in its pointing through its own history to something of which it is a fragment. Its credentials are its incompleteness, with the tension and the travail in its soul. It is clumsy and untidy, it baffles neatness and logic. For it is sent not to commend itself as ‘the best type of Christianity’, but by its very brokenness to point to the universal Church. (The Gospel and the Catholic Church)

Being thus only a part, but a part that exists to call the wider whole ad fontes, the Anglican Communion has no more authority to alter basic patterns of catholic faith and practice than does the Episcopal Church. To do so is to act as if it were we, and not the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches, that summed up in ourselves the fullness of the catholic church. It is to claim that we posses the authority of the whole, even as we claim to be only a part, which simply makes no sense.

Thus any Anglican Covenant must deal with this dilemma. Beyond determining the terms of membership in the Anglican Communion, we must determine the terms of our membership in the Catholic Church—and just as any claim to membership for a church in the Anglican Communion is meaningless without some form of mutual submission, so any claim to membership in the Catholic Church is similarly meaningless without some acknowledgement that we (the Anglican Communion) are not free to meddle with catholic faith and practice, that we are in some measure accountable to something wider than simply the Anglican Communion, and therefore that controverted questions of faith can only be answered within the Anglican Communion on a provisional basis.

Where am I going?

I have written three installments in a series “Anglican Formularies and Anglican Authority.” It is my hope to write two more installments under the heading of “prolegomena” before turning to the actual texts of our formularies (the Articles, the Prayer Book, and the Ordinal, particularly their Latin text) and considering such issues as the authority of Scripture, of the Church, of ecumenical councils, and other matters. However, this may have to wait a few more weeks. Why? Because . . .

Where am I now?

Italy. That’s right, I have returned to bell’Italia for another five weeks of teaching and three of research (I have to give a paper later this summer). So I hope to post something from time to time as I did on my last trip; but when you are conducting a study abroad class, such opportunities are very limited. So pray that I can do my job and, as God wills, post something to keep us all thinking, or amused, or both.

Ciao!

My apologies to recent visitors who were diverted to another site by a !!!£$%&éé%%!!! hacker. I have had to eliminate my last posting in order to get rid of him.

Since I am out of the country, I do not have the means to repost the last piece. If anyone by any chance made a copy of it and will send it to me in an e-mail (idrathernotsay123@hotmail.com) so that I can put it back up, I would be grateful.

More soon, I hope.

I went to the mall to get a haircut today, and since I had a little time to kill, I wandered (as usual) into the Barnes & Noble bookstore.

Among the various sections I regularly visit, I stopped by “religion” and noticed (again) that the Christian faith actually has three sections: one for the Bible (no suprise there) and then two others: “Christianity” and “Christian Inspiration.”

What, you may ask, is the difference? I wondered the same thing, and looked over the shelves to see if I could tell. It was not simply “theology” vs. “devotion,” although I suppose that’s more-or-less what is intended. However, two volumes caught my eye that neatly summed up the critical distinction between these two marketing ploys, er, aspects of Christian experience:

“Christian Inspiration” contained The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Prayer.

“Christianity” contained John Paul II for Dummies.

At last I understand . . .

I have hesitated before posting this because the subject seems to spark anger so easily, even between friends. I don’t mind ticking off someone when necessary, but it should be for a larger purpose than, say, just venting spleen. However, while I myself do not liked to be ticked off, I will admit that it has sometimes resulted in my most fruitful reflections. So read the following, if you choose, with that in mind, and if it upsets you, post a comment. But you are forewarned.

I am back in New York; not, as you might suppose, for the Tribeca Film Festival, nor even to join in the celebration of Spider-Man Week in NYC, but rather on academic business. As regards this blog, I have been frustrated of late by lack of time and resources for doing the sort of writing I would like—I have left off in the middle of a series, “Anglican Formularies and Anglican Authority,” to which I really want to return—while I chase about looking for the earliest editions of St Ephraim the Syrian.

However, that hasn’t stopped me from commenting elsewhere, particularly on a couple postings at Stand Firm. Perhaps it should have—I got so caught up in one that I have made a vow to limit my blogging time to my morning coffee so long as I am away from home (and perhaps after I get back as well).

The particular post that caught my attention concerned an article on an Episcopal church that wants to banish “Lord” from the liturgy—too hierarchical and sexist, it would seem. However, one commenter objected to another’s use of the term ‘priestess’ to describe female Episcopal clergy, comparing it to the ‘n’ word, and things really took off from there. You can judge the quality of the discussion for yourself here if you like. The thread would appear to be (mercifully) over, but the question remains: is the term ‘priestess’, when applied to clergy, inherently offensive? So some believe, no matter the protestations or explanations of others.

My means of dealing with this in the past has been to write ‘women “priests”’, thus using the favored term of those who want a neutral descriptor while employing scare quotes to indicate my dissent. But I will drop in ‘priestess’ from time to time, not to offend but to make the precisely the point that the term, with its pagan and Gnostic connotations, implies. Apparently it is just those connotations that so upset opponents of the word. To which I say, too bad.

I am not suggesting that there are no good, pious, and (in most respects) orthodox women “priests.” Unquestionably there are, and many of them have done their fair share of advancing the Kingdom of God. Nor is it a matter of being perfectly “orthodox” (although the term ‘orthodox’ has become depressingly elastic of late), because no one is. As with sin, if perfect orthodoxy is the test, we all fail. Rather, it is a question of, first, who they are and what they represent, and second, how to express that fairly and clearly in the English language, particularly if you believe, as I and many others do, that the phrase ‘woman priest’ (without the scare quotes) is an oxymoron.

But how did we get here, exactly?

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Some years ago, when I was still not long out of graduate school, I took a temporary position at a New England college that included teaching the second semester of first year Latin. I was surprised to learn from the professor who taught the first semester that he had stopped using the standard college introductory Latin textbook, known simply as Wheelock from its first author’s name. I was even more surprised when I found out why—objections had been made to Wheelock’s sexual bias. Apparently, practice Latin composition sentences such as “the sailor gives the flowers to the girl” were deemed offensive. Entire papers had been given at the American Philological Association on the problem of Wheelock’s alleged sexism. The book eventually went out of print, but has since been revised (all traces of sexism presumably removed) and has returned, now purged, to the college classroom.

This was not my first heads up on the effects of ideology on language, but it was the first time I had encountered it in the actual instruction of a classical language, one whose very logic, not to mention the culture whence it came, was deeply bound up with distinctions of gender. What, I wondered, will the sheltered minds of freshly minted Latin students make of real Latin authors? How will they cope with the shock of Catullus or Juvenal or Ovid, who would all rank pretty high on a scale of political incorrectness? Dear, dear.

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Of course, language changes, slowly or rapidly, over time. What is acceptable in one era is denounced in another, often rightly so. Thus using the notorious ‘n’ word, considered unexceptionable in, say, Victorian England (see the original lyrics of Gilbert and Sullivan, for example), is now justly condemned (unless you’re Chris Rock). Lenny Bruce was wrong; some terms are not “just words.” Don Imus got what he deserved.

On the other hand, some terms that ought to be offensive end up becoming innocuous on the sly, so to speak. Thus no one objects to ‘snafu’, despite its acronymic origins. ‘Snafu’ having lost its edge, Steven Spielberg needed something else sufficiently earthy for Saving Private Ryan and found ‘fubar’, which ironically, thanks to the movie, is on its way to becoming equally unexceptionable.

As well, some changes are inevitable, either due to usage or logic. ‘Data’ is now a singular noun, like it or not. Then again, some changes, particularly those imposed by, say, the style manual of The New York Times, are just ridiculous. In a recent column, David Brooks (or his editor) used both ‘milleniums’ as a plural (which will always make me cringe) and ‘epiphenomena’ as a singular.

Are the changes in gendered nouns demanded by today’s culture similarly foolish? Maybe, maybe not. ‘Fire fighter’ rather than ‘fire man’ seems pretty harmless to me, and there is some justice to making the change. I don’t care all that much if a woman declares that she is not an actress but an actor, which has become the norm.

But these examples—‘actor/actress’ and ‘fireman/fire fighter’—still indicate a profound change in our society. Sometimes language reflects change; sometimes it is used to effect—or, more ominously, to enforce—change. And when I hear ‘priestess’ denounced—a word that, in virtually any other context, would be completely unworthy of comment—well, George Orwell, call your office. The thought police are on the move, and another bit of human language is on its way down the memory hole.

******************

Of course, inconsistencies are inevitable. They have been there all along. In the example from the older version of Wheelock given above, the Latin for ‘sailor’, nauta, is in fact feminine in form, even while masculine in meaning (a ‘good sailor’ would be nauta bonus, not nauta bona). In Greek, ‘-os’ is usually a masculine ending, specifically the second declension, and many masculine second declension nouns have a feminine, first declension equivalent, such asdoulos for a male slave and doule for a female. However, ‘deacon’ in Greek is normally diakonos for both male and female (although the feminine diakonissa is rarely attested). Thus the famous deaconess Phoebe of Romans 16.1 is diakonos Phoebe in Greek, although she is clearly a woman. On the other hand, there is a gender distinction in Latin; the younger Pliny, in his famous letter to Trajan (10.96) of 111 AD describing his trial of Christians, mentions that he tortured two ministrae, which has always (so far as I know) been translated into English as ‘deaconesses’. But the Greek canons of the early church are quite clear on a distinction between male and female deacons (female deacons or deaconesses are to be numbered among the laity), and a foolish consistency in such matters would make Margaret Thatcher “the former Prime Ministra,” which would be ridiculous.

*****************

In any case. we are not concerned here with deacon/deaconess, which does not seem to generate so much heat (presumably because, despite its classical origins, it has become a uniquely Christian term), but with priest/priestess, which does.

Unfortunately, the word ‘priest’ in English—that is, the spelling p-r-i-e-s-t—must do double-duty in a manner that often causes confusion. On the one hand, it is a contraction of presbyteros, ‘presbyter’ or ‘elder.’ (As Milton, himself a Puritan but chafing under the ecclesiastical regime of Cromwell’s Commonwealth, put it in one of his more acerbic moments, “New presbyter is but old priest writ large.”) On the other, it has come to stand for the Greek hiereus (Latin sacerdos), ‘sacrificer’, as well. (Those who object to “sacedotalism” might consider that most Latin translations of the Prayer Book, including those given more-or-less official approval, translate “priest” as sacerdos. All Christian priesthood is but a reflection of, or participation in, Christ’s one final priesthood, just as the Eucharistic sacrifice is but an extension of his one final sacrifice.) And as with doulos/doule, there are feminine equivalents for both, presbytera and hiereia. If gender distinctions for clergy are inherently invidious, however, then there is no escape from our dilemma by using presbytera, which in any case has come to mean the wife of a Greek Orthodox priest. There were any number of hiereia or priestesses in the Mediterranean world (though none, it is worth noting, in Israelite religion), but that suffers from a similar difficulty.

There’s no getting around it. ‘Priestess’ is a completely unexceptionable word in virtually any other context. Any book on classical Mediterranean religion will have it, regardless of the author’s ideological bent. The complaint against ‘priestess’ in a Christian context ultimately requires bending language to fit an agenda, one that many will not accept.

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Is it possible, in the debate over the “ordination” of women, to come up with language that is necessarily and inherently demeaning? Sure. I have, in fact, seen at least one term that I will not repeat here because it is so inflammatory, and deliberately so. Perhaps its creator wanted to associate the “ordination” of women with fertility religion. But if that was its premise, the result is only an ugly neologism, insulting and pointless, designed only to express anger and pick a fight. That is the equivalent of the ‘n’ word.

But ‘priestess’? Not so, although I am sure there are those who would use it that way. ‘Actor’ or ‘fire figher’ or ‘Prime Minister’ are one thing; ‘priest’ is something else entirely. As C. S. Lewis put it, in Priestesses in the Church?,

As the State grows more like a hive or an ant-hill it needs an increasing number of workers who can be treated as neuters. This may be inevitable for our secular life. But in our Christian life we must return to reality. There we are not homogeneous units, but different and complementary organs of a mystical body . . . The point is that unless “equal” means “interchangeable”, equality makes nothing for the priesthood of women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful legal fiction. But in church we turn our back on fictions.

. . . and ‘woman priest’ is just such a fiction.

If there is anything inherent in the use of ‘priestess’ to describe female clergy, it is an objection to the very idea of a ‘woman priest’ (without the scare quotes), and those who complain about it are, ultimately, not really concerned with anything insulting or demeaning; they are simply objecting to our objection. To which again I say, too bad. We’re not going to stop. That many, most, or even all such women go about their business either not knowing the Gnostic or even pagan connotations we see in their work, or denying it if they do, is not the point. We won’t deny it, and we will not accept that it is, in any and every instance, impolite to point it out.

So I’ll stick to my scare quotes. I want to generate light, not heat. But equally, I will not shy away from a word just because someone does not like the shades of meaning that lie behind it. That’s why it’s there.

I’m on Fifth Avenue after a trip to the New York Public Library. I stopped off at an old haunt (St. Thomas at 52nd) before walking up to 59th and the Apple Store.

Wow. Way, way cool.

OK, so I’m a little slow . . .

However, the “math question” has now been added to the comments box. This means that, before you post a comment, you must do a simple problem of addition. You have a few minutes to do this, which means that, if your comment is long, you should either a) write it in another word processing program and then cut and paste it into the comments box, or b) highlight and copy your comment before you post it in case your time is up and it fails to post, thus allowing you to paste it back into the comment box and try again.

The purpose is to foil spammers. I am turning off the spam filter as of now. We’ll see how it goes.

It turns out there is a site called Blogger’s Choice Awards, which is hosting a vote for various “best” blogs. Included is a category for “Best Religion Blog,” and nominations include many of the usual suspects (although I discovered that there is a blog that calls itself “Titusoneten.” Puhleeze.) In fact, there are thirty-eight pages (as of now, anyway) of nominations to wade through.

However, now numbered among the nominees is . . . RatherNotBlog!

So why spend all that time working your way through the other nominees when you can just cut to the chase and vote for me? Just go here. And don’t worry, you’ll still respect yourself in the morning.

(Of course, that I, ahem, nominated myself should be no disincentive to anyone . . . )

And now for something completely different . . .

We could all use a distraction from our troubles. So . . .

I’m back in the Big Apple on academic and family business, and I’ve been planning to visit the “new” Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (hey, for me it’s tax deductible).

So what do I now discover on the internet before I even get there? Well, if you have a good, high speed connection, the New York Times has a way cool introduction to the new galleries, with graphics and narration that are a lot of fun.

Start here for a five minute video overview with Times critic Michael Kimmelman.

Then go here for the interactive graphics and further narration by Kimmelman. Visit the three interactive sites—the new exhibition space, panorama of the galleries, and history of the galleries—and then click on objects or views. Some are stills, others move when you use the mouse to grab them, others have a “rotate” button to swirl you around the item or space, and many include more narration by Kimmelman.

It is easy to get jaded about this sort of thing—amazing stuff can be done on the web—but I was impressed. It is in some ways especially impressive for those of us who have already known—or least thought we knew—the Met’s classical collection. However, to judge from the Times introduction, even old friends look new and different. It appears that the Met has made a major investment and done a good job.

Have fun.

(Warning: it’s not so easy to click back from the video to this blog for some reason, but you can go directly from the video to the interactive graphic, so there’s no need.)

Other Anglican bishops, indeed including some Primates, have violated our provincial boundaries and caused great suffering and contributed immeasurably to our difficulties in solving our problems and in attempting to communicate for ourselves with our Anglican brothers and sisters. We have been repeatedly assured that boundary violations are inappropriate under the most ancient authorities and should cease. The Lambeth Conferences of 1988 and 1998 did so. The Windsor Report did so. The Dromantine Communiqué did so. None of these assurances has been heeded. The Dar es Salaam Communiqué affirms the principle that boundary violations are impermissible, but then sets conditions for ending those violations, conditions that are simply impossible for us to meet without calling a special meeting of our General Convention.

— A Statement from the House of Bishops of TEC – March 20, 2007

If unity lies in the Apostolical succession, an act of schism is from the nature of the case impossible; for as no one can reverse his parentage, so no Church can undo the fact that its clergy have come by lineal descent from the Apostles. Either there is no such sin as schism, or unity does not lie in the Episcopal form or in the Episcopal ordination. And this is felt by the controversialists of this day; who in consequence are obliged to invent a sin, and to consider, not division of Church from Church, but interference of Church with Church to be the sin of schism, as if local dioceses and bishops with restraint were more than ecclesiastical arrangements and by-laws of the Church, however sacred, while schism is a sin against her essence. Thus they strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel. Division is the schism, if schism there be, not interference. If interference is a sin, division which is the cause of it is greater; but where division is a duty, there can be no sin in interference.

—John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1845

Off for a week, to travel, research and pray, so expect no postings until next week.

One last parting shot: vote for your view of Andrew Sullivan here. Then pray for his soul.

Here. I don’t weigh in on the comments until #142, but readers might want to wade through them anyway. Your call.

“Meanwhile, I seriously doubt that the Episcopal Church will overturn previous statements on issues of sexuality. In fact, as most of you know, I hope we do not turn back at all. We still have a long way to go in appreciating the gifts and talents of every member of Christ’s body; and we still have a long way to go in blessing wholesome and holy relationships. These issues will require time and patience before they are finally settled. I have no problem with The Episcopal Church, within Christendom, being in a minority on some issues. In fact, when one includes Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox, it is very much a minority position in Christendom even to ordain women.”

— From “Should the Anglican Communion Concern Us?” by the Rev. Sam Candler, Dean of St Philips Cathedral in Atlanta, March 8

And of course, there is no connection between these two issues. Just repeat after me. Nope, none at all. Nada. Zip. Just can’t be, nosiree . . .

OK, all ye Continuing Anglicans of whatever sort! Who will help Dr. Toon?

What I would like to do is to write a comprehensive essay in which I seek to state and to evaluate what it is that the growing number of “Continuing Anglican Groups” are looking to be and do. Maybe this is not possible but I think I ought to make an effort.

Precisely, what is it that each group is seeking to continue into the 21st century in terms of what was/is known in The Episcopal Church and in Anglicanism generally? And does this “what” include in the long term the hope of re-uniting with the Anglican Communion of Churches?

It may be that there is a greater harmony, amongst and between the thirty or more continuing groups, in mindset and intention than appears to sociological enquiry at the present, and if so I would like to discover what that basic harmony is—plus accurately report what it is that the Continuers are seeking to continue.

Send him your replies to his reasonable request! The imperative is greater now than it has ever been.

For that matter, feel free to drop a comment here.

While I’m at it . . . in case you hadn’t noticed, almost all comments end up on the spam filter these days because I still don’t have the “math question” and the list of key words used to filter out spam has grown very long. Please be assured that I check the queue whenever I can and try to include ALL genuine comments. If your comment is accidentally deleted, I apologize in advance. However, I think I have managed to include just about all, and I don’t erase comments I don’t like. I think that in the three years I have been running this blog I have deliberately deleted exactly one comment, and I regret even that one now. So if you leave a comment and it doesn’t show up right away, be patient.

Bishop John Howe had written his diocese following the meeting at Camp Allen. You can read his assessment here.

You can make of his remarks what you will. Their positive tone has caused some puzzlement among commenters on Titusonenine and StandFirm. I have written the following on Titusonenine (with one editorial correction) and repeat it here:

Bishop Howe writes

We were assured that no action would be taken at this meeting regarding the two major requests that were directed to us by the primates’ Communique (no more consents to the elections of partnered gay Bishops, and no more blessings of same-sex relationships).

There has been much discussion of both of these requests, and a number of individual Bishops have very clearly expressed their unwillingness to agree to either of them. But there has been no official action taken by the House as a whole regarding them. The tenor of the discussion makes it clear (to me) that whenever we do address them (presumably in our September meeting), there will be an overwhelming decision to say No.

On the one hand, Bp. Howe is to be commended for reading the handwriting on the wall. On the other, he makes two crucial mistakes.

First, there were not two requests, but three, the third being the Primatial Vicar scheme. This was voted down absolutely, and if the bishops had left it at that, the rest of Bishop Howe’s comments would almost make sense.

However, as to the other two, one need only read this from the statment issued by the House of Bishops:

We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church.

Can anyone doubt that 100% of those bishops who voted in favor of these sentences believe that the first sentence requires the “ordination” of women? And if so, then can anyone doubt the 100% of those bishops who voted in favor of these sentences believe that “gay and lesbian persons” should be ordained and their relationships blessed?

The other two request of the Primates, then, have been addressed, by a clear majority of the H o B, not individually, but collectively. Bishop Howe need not wait to September to get his “official” NO. It has already been given.

The Anglican blogosphere is vibrating with comments on the statement of March 20 from the House of Bishops of TEC meeting at Camp Allen. Comments are piling up rapidly on sites such as Titusonenine and StandFirm (where you can find the full text of the statement), but they are not limited to the heavily trafficked news sites.

The reaction of almost everyone I’ve read is startlingly similar. The House of Bishops actually spoke clearly. (See for example the comments of Matt Kennedy+ at StandFirm. I suspect that, with very little change, almost exactly the same conclusion will be found on those sites that usually take the view opposite of Matt+.) Just as there was much fear in the run-up to Tanzania that a massive fudge was in the works, but general surprise that the Dar es Salaam Communiqué was as clear and assertive as it was; so also most anticipated that the meeting of the House of Bishops this past week would produce some whiny, vague, kick-the-can-down-the-road effort at compromise, but instead received a statement that is surprisingly free of episcobabble.

Many are commenting on this or that aspect or line of thought of the statement: whether the Bishops truthfully represented the situation and events of the last three or four years, et cetera. However, what I find most interesting are the theological assumptions that underly the document. For we have here one of the clearest statements, almost to the point of pithiness, of the New Religion of The Episcopal Church. It is not too strong to say that this religion is not Christianity in any historically recognizable form.

I will quote the best bits, and further highlight parts within those, but to understand this document it is essential to read the entire text and see what was not said. After all, I cannot quote what they did not write, and the omissions are as telling as anything in the statement.

We would therefore meet any decision to exclude us from gatherings of all Anglican Churches with great sorrow, but our commitment to our membership in the Anglican Communion as a way to participate in the alleviation of suffering and restoration of God’s creation would remain constant.

It is incumbent upon us as disciples to do our best to follow Jesus in the increasing experience of the leading of the Holy Spirit. We fully understand that others in the Communion believe the same, but we do not believe that Jesus leads us to break our relationships. We proclaim the Gospel of what God has done and is doing in Christ, of the dignity of every human being, and of justice, compassion, and peace. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church. We proclaim the Gospel that stands against any violence, including violence done to women and children as well as those who are persecuted because of their differences, often in the name of God. The Dar es Salaam Communiqué is distressingly silent on this subject. And, contrary to the way the Anglican Communion Network and the American Anglican Council have represented us, we proclaim a Gospel that welcomes diversity of thought and encourages free and open theological debate as a way of seeking God’s truth. If that means that others reject us and communion with us, as some have already done, we must with great regret and sorrow accept their decision.

With this affirmation both of our identity as a Church and our affection and commitment to the Anglican Communion, we find new hope that we can turn our attention to the essence of Christ’s own mission in the world, to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19). It is to that mission that we now determinedly turn.

Really, this is so clear as to require little comment. It is a religion in which experience trumps revelation, good works trump penitence, asking questions trumps getting answers, and identities are either erased or affirmed (depending on your preference), but never transformed.

One other point: I find this comment on the Pastoral Council and Primatial Vicar proposed in Dar es Salaam especially rich.

Most important of all it is spiritually unsound. The pastoral scheme encourages one of the worst tendencies of our Western culture, which is to break relationships when we find them difficult instead of doing the hard work necessary to repair them and be instruments of reconciliation. The real cultural phenomenon that threatens the spiritual life of our people, including marriage and family life, is the ease with which we choose to break our relationships and the vows that established them rather than seek the transformative power of the Gospel in them. We cannot accept what would be injurious to this Church and could well lead to its permanent division.

This from the House of Bishops that led the way in the Anglican Communion in normalizing divorce to the point where, with its thrice-married “bishops,” serial monogamy is an episcopal commonplace.

In 1983, Gerald Kaufman dubbed the British Labour Party’s Manifesto for the parliamentary election that year “the longest suicide note in history.” It is tempting to say that this statement from Camp Allen is the second longest. However, I do not think so, quite. The Labour Party, after all, transformed itself into a powerful political force just a few years later. That TEC will not so transform itself I have no doubt; the incentive is just not there. Not one of the bishops who voted in favor of this “Mind of the House Resolution” will suffer either financially or socially for their decision.

Instead, I predict that TEC will limp on, hemorrhaging members, until it levels off at an “official” number of somewhere between one and two million, and pretty much go on as before, slowly becoming ever more eccentric, living off of the dead men’s money found in its trusts and the slow but steady sale of its assets. Not many people will attend its services. Why should they? There is nothing in this statement offered to any individual that cannot be satisfied by contributing to Habitat for Humanity and Medecins Sans Frontières except possibly a gooey, New Agey sort of feel-good spirituality, and even that you can get a pretty good dose of on cable these days. But so what? Someone once calculated the Roman Catholic Church in Italy has sufficient corporate wealth that it could maintain itself at its present level for over a century without receiving a penny from a single communicant. Given the size of the Pension Fund, I am sure that TEC can do at least as well.

As for me . . . well, I thank the House of Bishops for making my own path just a bit clearer. I do not know what my own parish will do, if anything, and God alone knows how the Anglican Communion will handle this. However, I know that whatever happens, while it is possible that I may (may, may, may) be some sort of Anglican in the future, before this year is out I will no longer be an Episcopalian. When the majority of your bishops not only vote repeatedly for heresy, but also spurn correction and communion, it is time to find the exit door.

The latest (March) issue of New Directions is now available online in its HTML form—for some reason the PDF file is not yet ready. In it, Fr Geoffrey Kirk raises a very good point about the potential poison pill hidden in the Dar Es Salaam Communique, the same Communique that conservative Anglicans are in general hailing as a great victory. (The same article by Fr Kirk was already posted on the Prayer Book Society’s website a short while ago).

The passage in the Communique that bothers Fr Kirk is this:

In particular, the Primates request, through the Presiding Bishop, that the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church 1. make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorise any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention (cf TWR, §143, 144); and 2. confirm that the passing of Resolution B033 of the 75th General Convention means that a candidate for episcopal orders living in a same-sex union shall not receive the necessary consent (cf TWR, §134); unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion (cf TWR, §134).

Please read all of Fr Kirk’s reaction. His central point is

What the Communique has done, couched as it is in the language of the revisionists themselves, is merely to draw another line in the sand. The Primates have requested, through the presiding bishop, that the House of Bishops of TEC make an unequivocal common covenant that they will not authorize any rite of blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention, and confirm that a candidate for episcopal orders living in a same-sex union shall not receive the necessary consent, unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the communion.

The deadline for the answer is 30 September 2007. ‘If the reassurances requested of the House of Bishops cannot in good conscience be given, the relationship between The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole remains damaged at best, and this has consequences for the full participation of the Church in the life of the Communion.’

No one could reasonably suppose that such undertakings will be given, or that the failure to give them will result in any specific action by any of the ‘Instruments of Unity’. But that is hardly the point. The heart of the statement is not in the requests, but in the terms in which they are made: unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the communion. With that proviso the game is up for the traditionalists.

For the grounds upon which traditionalists oppose gay bishops and same-sex unions is not that they go against previous Anglican practice, but that they contravene the plain teaching of Scripture, which applies in all times and cultures, and which neither individual provinces nor the Communion as a whole is competent to change.

By signing the Communique traditionalist bishops have conceded the very point they were striving to uphold. Having initially refused to sit at the same table as Katherine Schori, and shunned her at the Lord’s Table, they have signed a document which endorses her position and effectively outlaws their own - and elected her to their Standing Committee! To this observer it looks uncommonly like suicide.

I take it that, for Fr Kirk, a “new consensus” that could “emerge” in the Anglican Communion sounds suspiciously like that very “Spirit doing a new thing” that traditional Anglicans are so much up in arms about—and I think he has a point.

However, I do not entirely agree with Fr Kirk—I think the clause he is worried about can, and in fact should, be read, not as an implicit endorsement of the problematic notion of “reception,” but as simply descriptive of potential reality. After all, one can imagine the Roman Catholic Church declaring one day that the Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals when he speaks ex cathedra, then changing its mind the next. (That the RCC presently declares such an about face an impossibility is not the point.) Similarly, one can read the troublesome clause regarding the possible emergence of a new consensus as simply meaning that we will be orthodox until we become heretics (see Article XIX of the Thirty-nine Articles), just as we are alive until we are dead.

But Fr Kirk does point up what I am attempting to get at in addressing the question of authority, viz., that in Anglicanism there is not, and cannot by the very nature of Anglicanism be, any such thing as a “new consensus” or “development” of doctrine. For if Anglicanism claims to hold only what has been received at all times, everywhere, and by all; if by doctrine we mean “a teaching of the Church which ought to be received by all Christians”; and if the Anglican Communion is, as it has always said, only a part of the whole Church Catholic; then the Anglican Communion has no catholic authority in itself to develop doctrine, regardless of any “new consensus” that emerges purely within the Anglican Communion.

This is why the Windsor Report had to tie itself in knots to somehow justify the “ordination” of women and yet declare that consecrating Gene Robinson and blessing same-sex “unions” were out of bounds. (See “Gone With the Windsor Report Part one” and “Part Two”). The uncomfortable truth, the truth that so many either cannot or will not see, is that both sets of innovations rise and fall together, since both are enabled—the one in reality, the other in potential—by the very notion of “reception,” by the appeal to wait for an emerging new Anglican consensus, and both are equally dismissive of any truly catholic authority.

Thus the very power which we denied to Rome in the 16th century we have arrogated to ourselves in the matter of the “ordination” of women in the 20th, and we hold out the potential to continue to do so in the matter of same-sex blessings in the 21st, even on the terms set out in the Dar Es Salaam Communique—that is, unless (as I wrote above) the clause that so troubles Fr Kirk is read as a simple statement of fact and not a prescription for “reception” or “development.”

What say ye?

Lent is not ordinarily the time to go to the movies; however, with all the buzz around Amazing Grace (which I have yet to see), I thought I should mention two films I have seen recently that are worthy of Lenten viewing, both of them now on cable or in your video store.

Bee Season

Richard Gere plays a professor of religion whose particular interest is in a form of kaballah. However, he is confronted in his own family with a daughter whose mystical experiences with words suggest that his studies are more than merely an adademic pursuit; a son whose own religious explorations take him in unexpected and dangerous directions; and a wife whose pathology cannot be explained away or dealt with adequately by the purely intellectual approach to religious phenomena that has been at the center of Gere’s life. An exploration of contemporary American religious life that does not quite reach profundity, but certainly borders on it and leaves a great deal of food for thought.

Longford

I am always wary of a movie that states right up front that it is “based on” real events and people, although I accept that some adaptation is essential to bring such a story to the screen. With that caveat, however, Longford tells the story of Francis Pakenham, Lord Longford (played by the wonderful Jim Broadbent), and in particular his relationship with the notorious child serial killer Myra Hindley. Longford, a convert from Unitarianism to Catholicism and from Conservatism to Socialism, made it part of his life’s work to visit people in prison and help them to adjust to their eventual return to society. His involvement with Myra Hindley threatens to destroy him publicly, personally and politically, and yet he persists in his belief that forgiveness is possible for anyone. The story is not in the least maudlin, not graphic (though there are some minor bits of nudity due to his campaign against pornography), not triumphalist, and it does not insist on an easy, saccharine ending, but it does succeed in making one believe that even men in public life can act on religious principle in the face of public anger and humiliation while it raises profound questions of sin, repentance and forgiveness.

Check them out. You can click on the various links in the posting now if you like, but I would suggest that you see the films first, then return and see how your reaction lines up with the information and opinions expressed at the various sites linked here.