The Fog of Despair

It’s exactly eleven days since I was ordained as a deacon in the service of The Church of the Advent in Atlanta, GA, under the Bishop of the Diocese of the South, within the Province of the Anglican Church in North America, a part of the global Anglican Communion and ultimately the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Today I spoke (as if into the Void, only partly as a prayer) something to the effect of, “If angels who stood in the very presence of God could rebel, how then am I, who cannot see God with my eyes, supposed to faithfully walk the path of trust and submission without being overthrown by the multitude of distractions, temptations, passions, and hindrances I’ll undoubtedly encounter? How is it reasonable to expect me to carry on tirelessly the endless process of becoming divine [that is, partaking of the divine nature -- 2 Peter 1:3-8] when the very opposite of that feels so much more natural. Why was I not created differently, so that becoming divine felt natural? Why was everything not created differently so that sin never occurred? And if that’s to be the reality in the New Creation when people are to experience God’s presence directly, then, again, how could angels attending the throne of God rebel?”

It’s been a busy month. It’s been a busy season in general. This whole year -no, two and a half years- has been hectic/stressful. I keep setting up milestones and saying, “When I reach that, things’ll be better.” It’s not even that things have been bad. I’ve planted a church, built a house, been ordained…

I’ve learned now that you can do all that and never feel on top of any of it. Underneath the current of achievements, markers, and milestones, you can still begin your mornings neglecting to say your prayers. You can smile, laugh, chat, and play while your heart sulks. You can reassure others in their faith while feeling a nagging doubt. You can be surrounded by good friends and feel profound loneliness. You can counsel wisdom and practice folly, desire truth and ingest lies, want to do good and do bad. You’ll begin to wonder how frequently you can have a double mind before you become a double-minded man, or in general at what point your actions become you. You’ll wake up eleven days after your ordination and feel a fatigue, a sudden desire to retreat, to hibernate, until the thick fog manifesting all at once the omnipresent, palpable reality of all the stuff in your life overwhelming you hopefully blows away and dissipates. But you can’t. You get up and go to work and fling gripes out into the Void.

But then you listen for a response. Because you’re a Christian. You know there’– I know there’s no void. I know the process of partaking of the divine nature -the process Peter describes in 2 Pt 1:3,4- is hard because I fail to do the hard work of cultivating the virtues in verses 5-7. I’m lazy and selfish. I read that passage and know it’s a simple cause/effect formula, but distract myself from the honest work of attaining those qualities by inventing a fiction wherein I should naturally have them, and then complain that’s not the reality. I might as well complain that I wasn’t born as tall, fit, and educated as I would ever be. I know a lot of basic principles that, though I’ll challenge them from time to time, will always stand, stalwart and secure. Of these, the most reliably comforting (and the most fundamental) are God is real and God is good. I affirm these precisely because God comforts me with them. Then, when I ask, he tenderly forgives and restores me from my grievous sins and rebellion, and strengthens me when that thick fog of despair envelopes me. Thanks be to God.

According To The Whole – Part 2: Distinction And Dislocation

Before getting into this post, I want to interject this disclaimer.  This series on the faith “according to the whole” is a product of my ongoing labor to better understand the nature and significance of the Church.  The impetus behind this labor was my realization that there is much more to the Church (its history, practices, and even its own founding understanding of itself) than I had been aware of most of my life.  My awakening to this reality put me on a road to learning as much as I can about the Church, a pursuit that has changed and continues to change my perspective on both the nature and significance of the society for which the New Testament writers used names like Body of Christ, Bride of Christ, and House of God.  I don’t aim to lay out all my thoughts about this here, but rather I want to present some information and some basic principles that I think are pertinent to American protestants with similar backgrounds to my own.  I want to do this in a spirit of camaraderie, not pompousness or pretentiousness, acknowledging my own limited education and experience.  So I submit these thoughts, aware of the disunity of the people of God and of the various ecclesiological perspectives out there, not to present a systematic plan for unity, but just to diagnose part of the problem … and hopefully to give a nudge in a better direction. 

And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baale-judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who sits enthroned on the cherubim… And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled.  And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:2, 5-6)

… complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  (Philippians 2:2)

During my undergraduate work at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary I took a “Reformation to Present” church history course.  The course material essentially started with the 16th century Protestant Reformation and worked its way up through the complicated divisions and subdivisions of subsequent Protestant branches.  There was Luther and Calvin and Zwingli in the magisterial reformation, then the congregationalists and the puritans, some anabaptists here and there, the rise of pietism, the holiness movement, pentecostalism, and any other group or movement you can think of.  I tried to make sense of it all, trying especially hard to remember how my particular branch got it more right than the others.  As I mapped all the doctrinal distinctions and tracked the formation of new schools of thought, I remained committed to the notion that the starting point – the Reformation – was good.

The Reformation, by virtue of its name, maintains that it was a reform movement.  The entity which provoked this movement  was the Roman Church of the late medieval era, which solely represented Christianity throughout Europe via widespread parishes and monasteries maintained by a network of governing clergy.  These parishes and monasteries weren’t just united in governance; they were also united in liturgy, meaning their worship was basically the same whether you were in northern Ireland or southern Italy.  The Roman Church’s remarkable uniformity of praxis across geographical and language barriers, its highly organized infrastructure, and the weighty nature of its work (being of eternal, not just temporal significance) gave credence to it being not only the spiritual authority of Europe, but also a great arbiter of socio-political matters.  As the influence and authority of Rome was consolidated and centralized within its increasingly autocratic magisterium (and ultimately in its Popes), blatant corruption occurred which ranged from the enshrinement of doctrinal fallacies to the abusive feudal-like power of the clergy over the laity.  By the 1500′s, the conditions were right for mass protest, and a German priest named Martin Luther would ignite the spark that set the blaze.

We would do well, I think, to observe this blaze from space, i.e. at a distance in a vacuum.  A cursory glance at the Protestant Reformation and its aftermath reveals that it began with a few national churches, rapidly fractured into more and more divisions, and now currently has resulted in scores of denominations and splinter groups (into the thousands).  In 500 years Christians have partitioned themselves off into profusely more divisions than in the previous 1,500 years.  It’s from this perspective that I began to question my long-held assumption that the Reformation was a good thing.  It’s certainly not that I think the medieval Roman Church didn’t need to be reformed — it absolutely did.  It’s the method of protest I question, because [brace yourself] I thoroughly disapprove of the result.  (Remember Christ’s prayer that “they all may be one”).  In other words, I disagree with the implicit claim in the name “Reformation.”  Because it didn’t reform the one, single, unified Western Church of the age, it ought more properly to be called the Protestant Revolution.  Without looking at the specific doctrinal or ecclesiastical grievances of the movement, I want us to distinguish between the rationales behind reformation and revolution.

Put in the simplest terms, reformation is accomplished when the reformers are committed to the continued existence (and indeed thriving) of the institution, whereas revolution occurs when the proponents of change are willing to abandon or overthrow the institution in order to establish a new one.  Those first 16th century Reformers became Revolutionaries when they set up on their own apart from the Church that had baptized, reared, and ordained them.  When attempts at reformation from within the Church apparently failed, their logic ran, “Amendment of the faith by necessity means abandonment of The Church.”  It was this willingness, this felt necessity, to separate from the whole of the Christian West in order to practice the faith differently that became the fiery thrust of the new Protestant movement.

Something interesting happened to the revolutionaries, though, as they separated themselves.  The blaze of Protestantism changed not just the doctrines and traditions, but the very spirit and general outlook of those it ignited.  The cleft between the spirits of Catholicism and of the new Protestantism was devastatingly deep.  H.A. Hodges put it this way: “The Catholic principle is that of fullness or comprehensiveness. … The true Catholic Faith is that faith which embraces the whole revelation of God for all sorts and conditions of men, and the true Catholic Church is that Church which is the right one for all men everywhere and always. Catholicity means holding to the fullness of the Faith, and heresy is the substitution of partial views for the whole.”  Wherever it erred and despite its transgressions, this was (and is) the ancient and venerable ethos of the Roman Church.

Protestantism, on the other hand, chose purity as its central principle — purity of faith and purity of life.  Says Hodges, “The idea of purity is in itself a necessary and a noble idea. It plays a great part in the Catholic scheme of things also, especially in the discipline of the spiritual life. But it is not the ruling principle of the whole Catholic system. Protestantism makes it the ruling idea, with revolutionary results.”  This principle of purity “expresses a questioning attitude, a disposition to sift and judge, a readiness to hold aloof or even to reject. At its best it is manifested as a spirit of critical caution, of wise suspension of judgment and creative skepticism; but when it is given chief sway in the mind it sets up a fixed habit of suspicion and incredulity.”

This posture of suspicion and incredulity first drove a wedge between Protestant and Catholic, but then between Protestant and Protestant.  The drive to divide along ever-multiplying fault lines of disagreement resulted in a sectarian landscape within the Protestant world (though denomination is much more palatable than sect).  In short, the Protestant’s orientation shifted from ‘fullness and unity‘ to ‘distinction and dislocation‘, and that is the fundamental problem of Protestantism.

Is there an answer to this devastating dislocation?  In Part 3 we’ll look at what the first steps on the road to fullness and unity might look like, and why it won’t and can’t be a “lowest common denominator” non-denominationalism.

Irony And Paradox

I love looking at life, nature, and reality through different lenses from time to time.  If you pick an idea, a “meta-concept,” to look through, you can be amazed at the colors it brings out all around you.  For example, irony and paradox are good meta-concepts.  David Wright, a Fellow at the CIRCE Institute, spoke on these ideas this past February at the (St. John) Climacus Conference in Louisville, KY.  Here’s an excerpt from his opening remarks.

“Paradox just may be the key to reality.  And that, of course, is itself a paradox.  Let me define a couple of terms here.  A paradox is an apparent contradiction – but when looked at or experienced more closely, we see that it’s not a contradiction.  Irony is a discrepancy.  Irony is when words say one thing but mean another, when the audience knows more than the character knows.  The paradox is God; the irony is us.  Paradox contains no discrepancy; irony does.  But notice how close the two of them are together.  They seem to be separated by the thinest line, yet at the same time they’re two worlds apart.  For example, irony is everywhere around us.  We seem to create it, then live in it — but then avoid it or deny it or doubt it.

For example, the more conscious we become of our consumption, which we have in the last thirty years or so, the more we have consumed.  The more money we make, the more we spend, actually making our finances less stable.  The more available time, the more wasted time.  The more we hold on to things, the less we retain.  The more ‘me’ we do, … the less of ‘me’ that we get.  The more we feed the body and its passions, the less pleasure and fulfillment we receive from the body.  Over-stimulate the senses, and they sense less.  The more we judge, the more we condemn ourselves.  What lies just over that thin line of love that we have for our spouses or friends?  What lies just next to that line?  Anger and hatred.  The more knowledge we gain, of course, the less wise we become often times.  The more we know, the bigger the ego becomes.  … The fact that all scripture and the Law hangs on two simple commandments – to love God and to love others as yourself – is the apex of irony.  It’s a paradox that all we need to do is love, and that’s the last thing that we need to do.  And finally for these examples, it’s paradoxical that we come to know God more deeply when we suffer, when we have trails.

In the words of St. John [Climacus], ‘There is only one false turning: self-direction. And if that is avoided, even in matters seemingly good, spiritual, and pleasing to God, then straightaway one has reached the journey’s end.  For the fact is that obedience is self-mistrust, up to one’s dying day in every matter – even the good.’  Is that paradoxical irony or what?  … So my calling then this morning was simply to call this conference out to recognize it for its ironic potential.  So if you see any of these speakers but miss the truth, then we’ve created irony.  If this is about the good life, the enlightened life, then it will be long forgotten and turn into nothing.  And if we leave here and cannot love, then we have failed.  What would St. John think of this conference if he were here physically today?  I think he may say something to this effect: … ‘If it has dispelled irony and embraced paradox, then it is good.  For you see, the remembrance of death is what brings life.  It is a polarity without duality, the resolution of all contraries.  It is where we meet God, unknowable in his essence, knowable in his energies.’ “

Faith And Sight

Today is the 4th of July, the 235th birthday of our nation, as it were.  I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be doing yet, but I anticipate various grilled and delicious foods, a lot of relaxing, and hopefully some illegal fireworks.  Among our current Federal holidays, Independence Day is one of the more straightforward and worthy of the days to close our banks and post offices, I think (Washington’s b-day, Labor Day, and Columbus Day I have my reservations about).  The beginning of a nation, especially one founded on a set of principles and not merely geography or a distinct racial identity, is monumental.  It’s even more so when that beginning is intrinsically bound with the ending of its prior identity as a set of colonies belonging to another nation, hence Independence Day.  Though we often memorialize that set of principles on the 4th as the basis for declaring independence, the holiday is primarily for celebrating the reality of independence itself.  Since independence is a reality, a definite and verifiable situation or condition, and if it were not always so, it must logically have an origin or starting point.  I think it’s interesting that we commemorate that starting point on the anniversary of the ratifying of the Declaration of Independence.

Why?  There are a couple other dates we might recognize as the official beginning of our nation’s status as independent from Great Britain.  We might recognize the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the “official” document recognized by both the U.S. and Great Britain, in 1783 as our moment of independence.  We actually commemorate the ratifying of that document by our congress in 1784 as “Ratification Day.”  We might hail the American military victory of the revolutionary war in 1781 as our moment of independence.  The signing of the Declaration could have been viewed as merely the declaration of intent, with the successful accomplishing of that goal lauded as our truly realized independence.  But we chose to recognize the 4th of July, 1776 as Independence Day.

It’s interesting that as a society that values data, results, and empiricism so much, we still instinctually understand the concept of creating a new reality with a symbolic act — even if it’s a reality that seems to contradict the current observable data.  For example, British redcoats policing American cities at the moment of the signing of the Declaration hardly supports an objective assertion that America was then independent.  But again, it’s the date of our declaring independence that we celebrate as the changing of our country’s status to independent.  There are other claimed realities in the world that seem to contradict observable data.  For the Christian, of course the grandest and most obvious claim is that Christ is the ruler of this world.  And the Church just recently commemorated the commencement of that reality on the Feast of the Ascension.

The Feast of the Ascension marks the beginning of Jesus’ current reign, because the ascension of Jesus was nothing less than his ascent to the throne.  We affirm that “he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father,” which is another way of saying that he took his place as the ruler of this world.  Ascension Day is the anniversary of Christ’s coronation.  So why is the ascension often seen as Jesus’ going away for a while and leaving everything up to his disciples?  In other words, why is Jesus perceived as absent?  Well, the observable data regularly seems to support that notion.  Wars, sickness, injustice, and depravity of all kinds not only exist but are prevalent throughout the world.  The Church, however, maintains that the presence of these evils does not change the status of Jesus as the reigning king of this world.  What grounds does the Church have for making such an assertion?

For one, the same narrative that describes Jesus’ ascension subsequently describes his active engagement with the world.  Stephen the protomartyr, just before his death, sees Jesus standing in heaven beside the Father, and later Saul is spoken to by Jesus and is blinded while on his way to persecute believers.  Luke clearly communicates that Jesus is not absent or disengaged.  The rest of the New Testament bears this out as well.  The community of the Church throughout the ages has likewise affirmed the presence of Jesus and his status as King, despite everything that remains resistant and rebellious toward his rule.  Scripture and Tradition assert this reality though it’s impossible now to substantiate it empirically.

When we look out the window or glance at the headlines and it’s hard for us to apprehend this reality, faith is what drives us to affirm it anyway.  Even John the Baptizer, forerunner to the Christ, from his prison cell where he awaited his own execution, struggled to reconcile his expectations regarding the arrival of Israel’s messiah with the actual circumstances of Jesus’ ministry.  Faith helps us affirm truth when empiricism fails us.  More than that, faith moves us to act, to work, to struggle for the realization of that truth — to see the reality of Christ’s lordship implemented through our obedience to him.  We make Christ’s rule evident in the world by living out our lives as people who belong to his kingdom.  Before independence was obvious, the colonials reckoned themselves citizens of a new nation.  As Christians we reckon ourselves citizens of heaven, remembering Christ’s ascension, affirming even now his kingship, and eagerly awaiting the consummation of that reality, when our faith shall be sight.

Reflection On Lent And Pascha

After observing Lent, and especially the last days of Holy Week, it’s absolutely amazing how exciting the arrival of Easter is.  At The Advent, we had a service every night of Holy Week, including a vigil at 11:30 Saturday night in order to celebrate the Resurrection literally first thing in the morning.  By the time of our vigil, the mounting anticipation was intense.  I was weary from fasting and annoyed at my own shortcomings that the fast had revealed.  The powerful Good Friday service the day before had forced me to experience our Lord’s death new ways.  The fact that Saturday itself is part of Holy Week — the fact that I had to observe it too, to think about Jesus’ cold body lying in the dark on a slab, me hiding uncomfortably with the scattered disciples — made me want to jump ahead to the resurrection I knew about from history.  The emotions that kept bubbling up didn’t match my circumstances, like when a sad dream affects the tone of the next day.  I was present in Saturday, April 23 2010, but was to some extent feeling that Holy Saturday when Jesus was dead, not as with residual emotions from the past, but with a current, in-the-moment sort of nervous sadness.  The hours leading up to 11:30pm crept by.

Then the vigil began.  The service itself was called the Pascha (Greek Passover) Vigil because Christ is our Passover lamb (1 Cor. 5:6-7, Rev 5:6-8), and because his death/resurrection actually happened at Passover time.  The beginning of the service was illuminated from light spread from the Paschal candle, representing the light of Christ.  Though pure and compelling in the dark, the candlelight shown appropriately dim as we listened to the Old Testament readings describing God’s work in the world leading up to Christ.  We stood for the duration of the nine substantial readings, as in expectation of what was to come.  Finally, after hearing all of Scripture pointing toward the crucified Jesus as the Christ, messiah, and giver of life, our waiting came to an end.  In triumphant song, the church declared “Christ is risen!” and every light came on, fully illuminating every fatigued but smiling face.  This was the moment of resurrection, liturgically.  And it was followed immediately by the declaration, “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” “The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” The rest of the service consisted of an amazing and refreshing Paschal homily by St. John Chrysostom, singing, readings from the epistles and Matthew’s gospel, a brief sermon, and of course, the Eucharist (Greek Thanksgiving).

Now after a week of extravagantly breaking my fast in celebration of the Resurrection, I’ve been reflecting on my Lenten journey and the arrival of Pascha.  I think the most striking thing about it all was just how much I was put into the reality of Christ’s work through my fasting and participation in the services of Holy Week and Pascha.  Throughout Lent, the lectionary readings followed Jesus through the Gospels on his last trip to Jerusalem.  On Palm Sunday we followed Jesus into Jerusalem in royal procession, but quickly recognized the darkness looming in our hearts.  Holy Week was all preparation for the crucifixion on Friday, and Saturday marked both the “resting” of Christ’s body in the tomb, and his “work” in the harrowing of Hades (the setting free of the prisoners in 1 Peter 3:18-20). If you attend all these services it would be hard for you to miss this progressive journey through the texts, but at our church, we strive to make what’s happening abundantly clear by constantly reminding everyone how it works.  Participating in the story has been immensely helpful for me.

The fasting, on the other hand, was not as pleasant.  I’m not going to lie — I don’t like fasting.  What I gave up was not too monumental, and I actually followed the rules of my fast very well.  But the point of fasting is not to give up food or whatever; that’s the method of fasting.  The point of fasting is to use the utility of hunger and inconvenience as a way of increasing prayer and self-examination, and building the virtue of self-control.  Sadly, hunger and inconvenience produced in me anger, self-pity, and the practice of self-indulgence in other areas such as my use of free time.  That doesn’t mean that fasting didn’t work, but rather that fasting revealed to me problems within myself that otherwise may have stayed hidden.  I’m sometimes asked by people who have never practiced the Lenten fast what the point of it is, and if it isn’t just some unhealthy form of self-loathing.  My response is that Lent is primarily an opportunity to fast, as all Christians should.  In Matthew 6 Jesus said “when you fast,” not “if you fast.”  And Jesus wouldn’t advocate any form of self-loathing.  Fasting means “self-learning,” and it’s meant to be productive, increasing our dependence on God and spurring our charity toward others. Secondly, Lent’s an opportunity to fast corporately, meaning we get to join with countless other Christians while doing it, drawing on them for strength and practical advice.  Finally, the Lenten fast is colored the specific tone of the journey to the cross.  Our context in Lent is our preparation to go and die with Christ (John 11:16).

Just as the lectionary moves us through the text toward the cross and the Lenten fast prepares us for the cross, observing Good Friday and Holy Saturday holds us underneath the cross.  They pin us down so we can’t rush ahead.  We have to wrestle generally with pain, sadness, loneliness, and death.  We have to wrestle specifically with our own sin, the weight and ramifications of that sin, and the intolerably personal demonstration of love displayed on the cross.  As I said above, after participating in all of that, the moment we celebrate Christ’s resurrection is filled with amazing elation and joy.  I’m not saying that in an artificial or cheesy way.  I mean, I was absolutely filled with joy as I proclaimed aloud with my church family that Christ had defeated death.  That’s what a disciplined corporate fast, a systematized reading plan, nightly services for a week, and an elaborate midnight Pascha Vigil accomplish.  They don’t change the reality of what Christ has done, but they unite us to the work of Christ in a profound and unique way.  I have a stomach, two ears, two knees, a mouth, two eyes, and an imagination, and it takes engaging all of those to more fully immerse me in the glorious death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, son of God and son of man.

Good Friday

The horrors of the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus, had we the eyes to see them, would undoubtedly haunt us for our entire lives.  Every year on the Friday before Easter, Christians try to have the eyes to see that horror.  Good Friday is the day “to know nothing … but Christ and him crucified.”  Because reconciliation with our loving maker came at the greatest cost imaginable, the Church unites in the personal work of trying to feel that pain as acutely as possible.  We visualize the scenes from the accounts we have — the trail, beating, mocking, and crucifixion of Jesus.  We don’t eat much food, because, since we’ve put ourselves there in Israel on that day, we wouldn’t desire food anyway.  While full time ministers and monastics are more fully able to enact their own presence at and participation in the events of that day in the early 30′s A.D., the rest of us have to try while we’re at work or otherwise interacting with a thoroughly secular world that can’t grasp what this day is.

I really hope we can all try this year in particular, because both Eastern and Western Christians are doing this together.  The difference in the calendars of the eastern and western churches often separate our observances of Holy Week and Easter, but this year we’re all aligned.  Thanks be to God.  Tens of millions of Christians around the globe are praying together this Good Friday, fasting and holding services to make present the reality of the death of Christ.  Join in with the Church yourself; join your family in mourning.  Tomorrow we wait in quiet sadness, aware of God resting on the seventh day.  May a hush fall over the bustle of the world as it uncomfortably becomes aware that the entirety of the Church has fallen silent in mourning.

According To The Whole – Part 1: The Phenomenon of Non-Denom

… that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you — that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.      -John 17:21

I was talking with a friend the other day about his church and about how he helps out with the youth program there.  He told me about a recent weekend event where the kids had several opportunities to worship in a group setting, and about how enthusiastically they sang and worshiped.  He contrasted the enthusiasm of the kids with some older, stodgy churchgoers he’d experienced, noting that there weren’t many of those at his church.  And he went on to tell me that though his church has “Baptist” on its sign, in many respects, “It doesn’t look like your typical Baptist church.”  By typical, he of course meant that, at least in generations past, most all Baptist churches, or any churches of a particular denomination, all looked alike.  This led us to talk about the phenomenon of non-denominationalism, and about how many churches belonging even to the mainline denominations are beginning to hold on less tightly to their denominational identities and distinctives.  In fact, my friend disclosed that he would just prefer we do away with all the denominations and titles and just be Christians.  I agreed (with a caveat), lamenting that denominationalism is a blight on Christianity.

I’ve heard the sentiment “I’m a Christian, not a denomination” affirmed by all sorts of people in all sorts of churches.  This sentiment seems to be beaming with that virtuous charity that despises prejudice and segregation, instead bridging chasms of ignorance and misunderstanding to unite people that were never so very different to begin with.  It was that charity, along with a healthy dose of biblical anthropology, that bolstered the civil rights movement.  It seems a good and proper basis for tearing down denominational walls, too.  I suspect, however, a less commendable motive for the desire to do away with denominations.  If I had to guess, I’d say that 60-80% of regular church-going people couldn’t tell you some basic doctrinal differences between the major denominations — not just the obvious exteriors like Baptists dunk and Methodists sprinkle, but real core differences.  That’s because doctrine doesn’t matter like it used to.

Doctrine certainly mattered to the charismatic Reformers who started and lead their denominations.  It mattered to the European magistrates, princes, and governors who risked civil war and war abroad for their nations by aligning with this or that Reformer.  In fact, doctrine even mattered during that obscure, prehistoric period between the 28th chapter of Acts and the 16th century at the birth of denominationalism.  But from where we’re standing, all this doctrine has been responsible for the perpetual fracturing of the Church into a bewildering cacophony of differing opinions, angry accusations, and self-righteous declarations.  We may be aware of a few brave and noble representatives of our denominations making ecumenical attempts at unity, but obviously they haven’t worked, because we still have denominations.  We still see Larry Lutheran and Betty Baptist passing like ships in the night, guided by their own doctrinal stars, and think to ourselves, “What a shame they can’t get on board with one another.”

Because we blame doctrine for the fracturing of the Church, and because it’s difficult to follow the heady doctrine in ecumenical dialogue, we’ve diminished its importance by ignoring it altogether.  We’ve extended the olive branch to members of other denominations and established congregations based not on contrived dogmas, but on simple Gospel truths.  We think because Christianity has gotten too complicated and too much doctrine has muddied the living water, we’ll solve the problem by getting back to the basics.  Denominations with their dogmas are the problem, so we have invented “Non-Denominationalism.”  But what we don’t realize, because we’re too short-sighted, is that this model is unsustainable.

Because no official doctrines unite any two non-denominational churches (or they would be a denomination), the local congregation becomes the locus of the Church.  Sometimes this breaks down even further to the house church, just a handful of people, or even the individual.  When a pastor encounters some one saying something he perceives as being contrary to the “basics” of the faith, the only authority to which he can appeal is the Bible, or rather his interpretation of his translation of the Bible.  The problem is, the pastor of the next non-denom church down the street has interpreted this particular issue differently in the Bible, and welcomes the dissenter into his congregation.  Or, if the dissenter can find no one who agrees with him, he will simply start his own church, insisting to everyone that he still affirms the “basics” of the faith – he just affirms them differently or affirms different ones.  Just like those early charismatic Reformers who gathered whole masses of people to their school of thought, the local congregational dissenter gathers his Sunday School class to his.  Non-denominationalism is not the solution to denominationalism; it’s the natural result – the next evolutionary step.

This brings me to my earlier caveat when I agreed with my friend in wishing to do away with denominations.  I think divisions among Christians are contrary to what Christ prayed for – “that they may all be one.”  Though denominations show our clear dividing lines, dissolving into autonomous congregations does not make us one.  There is a word the Church has used to describe itself as one: Catholic.  That doesn’t mean Roman Catholic, magisterium and all.  It’s a word Ignatius of Antioch (student of the Apostle John, and martyred around A.D. 110) used to describe the Church.  It’s a word that in New Testament Greek (katholikos) means kata (with respect to/according to) + holos (whole).  Looking at the Church according to the whole is something we as heirs of the Reformation haven’t regularly done in centuries.  But it’s something that is absolutely essential, and, I think, a mandate if we call ourselves followers of Christ.  Let’s not cheapen unity by ignoring each other’s doctrines and hoping heresy won’t happen.  Let’s fully engage our brothers and sisters, including those in other parts of the world and all those who have gone before us.  We can learn from generations past, which is why I’ll look at the Reformers of the Western Church next time in Part 2.

Epiphany

Today, January 6, is the feast of Epiphany.  For four weeks prior to Christmas we moved through the season of Advent – a season of hoping and expectation.  The essence of Advent reflects our intuitive assessment that the world isn’t the way it should be.  It speaks hope into our situation because of our after-the-fact perspective on the nativity.  We know the savior of the world was born.  But Advent also gives occasion for our explicit hope for the savior’s re-appearing.  Then we finally reached Christmas (from the Old English Cristes Maesse, or Mass of Christ), the season for celebrating the reality of the nativity, the birth of God in flesh, the Incarnation.  And though we may feel exhausted physically, mentally, and liturgically, Epiphany must not be skipped over as a superfluity at the end of this long journey.

If you think about it, the fact that an actual historical birth of a Jewish baby in Bethlehem two millennia ago is cause for a weighty religious, if not cultural, celebration today is astounding.  How in the world did that happen?  What happened was that the news spread; the word got out that this baby/kid/man was monumentally exceptional.  And fundamentally, Epiphany is about the word getting out.  We often take the word getting out for granted.  That after-the-fact perspective of ours sometimes makes it hard for us to inhabit the depth and width of the story.  We telescope the timeline, making sure we hit the big events and cover the important doctrines, but allow that pithy reality to escape our imaginations.  The event of the nativity was important (and primary), but its significance would never reach us were it not for the epiphaneia (ἐπιφάνεια) to us.  Epiphany distinguishes the fact of the Incarnation from the revealing of that fact to mankind.

The origin of the feast is shrouded in ambiguity and splotchy historical sources.  If you want to know more about it, good luck making your way through this article.  It seems that from very early, and for various possible reasons, on or near January 6, different corners of the church were celebrating different events in Jesus’ life that revealed his glory.  His baptism was an important event (with the Trinitarian theophany of the Spirit dove and the Father’s voice), as well as his first miracle at Cana, the angels’ revelation to the shepherds at the nativity, and the visit of the Magi.  All of these events were manifestations of the glory and/or the Divinity of Christ.  But over time, and especially in the West, the visit of the Magi became the primary event linked with Epiphany.

The angelic announcement to the shepherds, Jesus’ baptism, and the initiatory miracle of turning water into wine were all events that spoke directly to the context into which Jesus was born.  Jesus had a specific national and religious identity, and those events all connected him to an implicitly Jewish context.  There was a specificity, even an exclusivity to Jesus’ ministry in Israel (Matt 15:21-28), and the majority of the Gospel accounts bear witness to the revelations of Jesus’ glory to Israel.  The account in St. Matthew’s Gospel of the visitation of the Magi is of an entirely different nature, however.  The Magi, of course, weren’t Jewish.

The significance of (traditionally three) men from so far away recognizing Jesus as a king so early in his life cannot be overstated.  From what we know, chronologically, the shepherds were the first to “recognize” Jesus, then Simeon in the Temple at Jesus’ circumcision, and then this extravagantly trimmed caravan of Gentile astrologers that had been traveling for months from the far, far East.  The long awaited King of Israel was revealed first to paupers and heathens.  But what about the exclusivity to the Jews?  Early in Acts the question was raised by many in the Jerusalem church, “Is Christ also for the Gentiles?”  The answer of course was yes.  Though the Gospel had to land first in Israel, it was always meant for the whole world.  Even in Jesus’ own ministry there was a sense in which he, as N. T. Wright put it, was smudging the borders, going around to the Gerasenes and Samaria, places very much on the outskirts of Israel proper.  Then in his great commission to his disciples he made the charge explicit, to go into all the world.  But before all of that, the proof that Christ’s light would break through national boundaries and light up the world was when uninitiated, unworthy Magi worshiped a baby as a King.

Just like Advent beckoned us to agonizing anticipation, and Christmas to a marathon celebration of the Nativity, Epiphany calls us to work out the ramifications of Christ being made known in all the world, and specifically to you and me.  The sign that drew the Magi to the Christ child was a gift from God, a grace, just like God’s call to us is a gift of grace.  We have no “right” to be called by God.  God went to the trouble of arranging for a star in the heavens for the occasion, and the Magi weren’t too distracted to notice it or too lazy to follow it.  How attentive and willing are we?  Because the Magi knew they had sought out a king, they were aware he was deserving of valuable gifts.  Is our search for Christ for our benefit or for his?  And just like Advent and Christmas, Epiphany is a season, stretching forward all the way to Lent.  So take advantage of the time to meditate on these things and more.  And praise God for making himself known to us.

The Lord has shown forth his glory: Come let us adore him.

“I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation shall reach to the end of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6b

O Come Lord

Speedily cause the offspring of David, Your servant, to flourish, and lift up his glory by Your divine help because we wait for Your salvation all the day. Blessed art thou, O L-rd, who causes the strength of salvation to flourish.”

That’s one of the eighteen traditional Jewish benedictions (Shemoneh Ezreh) which were prayed for centuries in the Temple of ancient Israel and are still prayed in synagogues today.  It’s a prayer for the promised one of God, the Messiah, to come and establish his rule and authority, which was always accompanied by the expectation of the ultimate rule of YHWH.  Though there was arguably no expectation that the Messiah would actually be God incarnate, Israel did expect the kingly figure promised of old from David’s line to usher in YHWH’s final salvation.

At the time of Jesus’ birth, the nation of Israel was under the reign of the Roman empire.  Though they were force-fed the empire’s rhetoric of “peace and security,” the Israelites were reminded through taxation and a constant military presence that Rome was in charge, and Caesar was their king.  They longed for a strong king of their own who would make everything as it should be – that is, that Israel would be free from all oppression and would be governed by God himself.  The nation prayed this would be so, and benedictions like the one above were offered daily.  They prayed for the coming, the advent, of their king.

The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth convinced hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of people that he was that promised king.  The establishment of his reign didn’t look like what people had expected, but turned out to be exactly what the world had needed.  Almost from the moment of Jesus’ ascension, the Church began praying “O Come Lord,” — “Maranatha” in Aramaic.  What God had established in Jesus’ first advent, he promised would be consummated or fulfilled at his second advent.  The Church, busy at its task of implementing the reality of new resurrection life within a world still sleepy with death, prayed earnestly for the return of the king to finish the task in a radical and absolute way.

There is an already-but-not-yet quality to our current situation.  In a very real sense, the benediction has been answered.  The incarnation of God and his subsequent defeat of death changed the universe ontologically.  But things look very much like they always have.  There are earthquakes in Haiti, famines in Ethiopia, floods in Pakistan, genocides in Sudan, and wars all over the world.  Even in the “enlightened” nations everyone is stressed and depressed.  What do we do with that?  If Jesus truly is God and the Church truly is his body, his acting agent on earth, shouldn’t things look different?

Though it’s sometimes hard to see, partly because it’s rarely reported in the media and partly because much of it is invisibly played out in people’s hearts, the Church is still implementing the work of Jesus.  Just like the work of Jesus while he stood among men looked different than people expected, so the work of the Church has always looked different than the world expected.  Our call is to walk in the way of the cross – a tough, unassuming, unglamorous path that leads to sacrifice and emptying.  What we accomplish with this path is more powerful than we realize, but it hurts horribly.  So we pray, O come Lord.

The season of Advent is complicated, just like real life.  Dark blue or deep, bloody violet are the colors that came to the mind of the Church to represent the mood of the season.  Any joy during this time is a muted bi-product of the hope of what we’ve been promised.  We hope for Christmas, putting ourselves in the expectation of a nation looking for a king and finding a baby.  We hope for the new advent, the final, wondrous appearing of Christ the King.  Maranatha.

The Truth Of The Story

When I first began this blog I had aspirations of developing a site full of relevant, thought-provoking, and entertaining short articles upon which an ever-growing reader base could rely for weekly to biweekly-ish updates.  Clearly that goal was a bit optimistic as I regularly go weeks and months between posts, and my WordPress-provided little line graph proves my traffic is not and has never been steadily increasing.

If only I had more discipline, I’d …..

Alas – the reality is I probably won’t be a very reliable updater any time soon.  So the best I can do is try to maintain some semblance of a cohesive theme, a solid spirit to my blog.  I’ve named it the Grand Narrative, and I gave a personal rationale for this theme in my very first post.  I framed the world and all of reality in the context of a story, a grand, over-arching yet penetrating narrative.  I’ve observed in other posts that viewing life, societies, and even global history as story is the most practical – even the most real – way of looking at it all.

We often don’t look at things, especially ourselves, in terms of story, not because we’re opposed to stories, but because we have a hard time admitting that we’re already part of something above and beyond us from birth.  As self-determined individualists with that characteristically American work ethic, we suppose we can just make our own story.  From scratch.  Nothing that has come before me will determine who I am and what I can accomplish.  This is even true on a national level.  Our still relatively young nation decided to write its own story in many ways, and I think that’s kind of been a mixed bag for us.

But countless cultures before us throughout the world have understood themselves by the stories they tell.  From native american folk legends to African tribal lore to old European fairy tales, stories have taught morality, formed world views, and even described how and why we got here.  I’m not going to elaborate more in this post about all this because I’m going to pass you off to a podcast episode I recently listened to.  It’s short – 15:30 – and by a guy who goes by Steve the Builder.  He’s an Orthodox fellow who’s podcast I follow because I appreciate his perspective and the fact that he’s so relatable.  It’s also cool to hear my whole theme here affirmed by an Orthodox layman/construction worker.

http://audio.ancientfaith.com/stevethebuilder/stb_2009-2-27.mp3

You can find more of Steve the Builder at Ancient Faith Radio in the podcasts section.

ancientfaith.com