“Lord, to whom shall we go?” With this question, in the face of many who misunderstood Jesus, who wanted selfishly to profit from him, St. Peter is the spokesman of his faithful followers. The disciples do not seek the worldly payoff of those who were satiated (cf. John 6:26) and who, nevertheless, worked for bread that does not last (cf. John 6:27). Of course, Peter too knows hunger; for a long time he was unable to find the bread that filled him. Then he met the man from Nazareth. He followed him. Now he knows his Master not only from hearsay. Being with him every day Peter has developed a trust without reservations. This is faith in Jesus; it is not without reason that Peter expects the longed for “life in abundance” from the Lord (cf. John 10:10).

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” We too, who belong to the Church today, pose this question. Even if it is more hesitant on our lips than on Peter’s, our answer, like that of the Apostle, can only be the person of Jesus. Yes, he lived 2000 years ago. But we can encounter him in our own time when we listen to his Word and are near to him in a special way in the Eucharist.

Read it all.

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Leaders of Catholic and Reformed churches have signed an agreement to recognize each other’s sacraments of baptism, a public step toward unity among groups that are often divided by doctrine.

“Baptism establishes the bond of unity existing among all who are part of Christ’s body and is therefore the sacramental basis for our efforts to move towards visible unity,” reads the “Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism.”

The document was signed, after seven years of discussion, at a worship service Tuesday (Jan. 29) at St. Mary Cathedral in Austin, Texas, which opened the annual meeting of Christian Churches Together in the USA, an ecumenical network created in 2001.

Read it all.

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[My friend] Tom asked whether on Saturday afternoon I would accompany him to celebrate a Mass in Hitchcock's house.

I was dumbfounded, but of course said yes. On that Saturday, when we found Hitchcock asleep in the living room, Tom gently shook him. Hitchcock awoke, looked up and kissed Tom's hand, thanking him.

Tom said, "Hitch, this is Mark Henninger, a young priest from Cleveland."

"Cleveland?" Hitchcock said. "Disgraceful!"

After we chatted for a while, we all crossed from the living room through a breezeway to his study, and there, with his wife, Alma, we celebrated a quiet Mass....

Weighing one's life with its share of wounds suffered and inflicted in such a perspective, and seeking reconciliation with an experienced and forgiving God, strikes me as profoundly human. Hitchcock's extraordinary reaction to receiving communion was the face of real humanity and religion, far away from headlines . . . or today's filmmakers and biographers.

One of Hitchcock's biographers, Donald Spoto, has written that Hitchcock let it be known that he "rejected suggestions that he allow a priest . . . to come for a visit, or celebrate a quiet, informal ritual at the house for his comfort." That in the movie director's final days he deliberately and successfully led outsiders to believe precisely the opposite of what happened is pure Hitchcock.

Read it all.

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In a previous...[written piece] I sketched the ancient Catholic roots of Anglicanism, and its 16th and 17th century development under the influence of the Reformation, such that the 17th century opposition of Presbyterian and Episcopalian reflected differences not so much about Faith as Polity (form of church government), Order, and Liturgy. The 17th century division points in two ways. On the one hand, Anglicans may and do hold reformed or evangelical convictions substantially the same as those found in Protestant churches. On the other, Anglicans of all stripes accept as parameters certain distinctives of Liturgy and Order - including ordination of presbyters (priests) by a bishop in historic succession. Thus alongside (and sometimes, as in the case of John Wesley, mingled with) the reformed or evangelical legacy Anglicanism is shaped by “high” churchmanship as well – “high” in its regard for the church, its
worship, and ministry.

There were impeccable precedents among the 16th century reformers for the high churchmanship of the 17thcentury. Cranmer’s reformed theological views were grounded in a extensive and careful study of the ancient Catholic Fathers; Calvin’s influential teaching promoted a high view of the Sacraments and the Church (on which he took the same view as the St. Cyprian, extra ecclesiam nulla salus, “outside the church is no salvation”); Archbishops of “Calvinist” views like John Whitgift (d. 1604) vigorously defended episcopacy against presbyterian criticisms; and the Prayer Book and the Cathedrals maintained the Catholic liturgical tradition in its essentials. To these the high churchmen of the 17th
century added a concern for the outward beauty of the liturgy, as well as reverence for catholic antiquity.

In the 19thcentury Anglo-Catholic revival, such “high church” views were sharpened further. Against secularizing, utilitarian views, it affirmed the divine institution of the Church, its ministry and sacraments. Its faith, worship, and ministry are not something to be reinvented according to human agendas or utility. There followed a revival of medieval ceremonial (to a greater or lesser extent) as a means to express the sacred nature of the priesthood and sacraments, and also a sympathetic engagement with medieval doctrine and devotion.

These were developments of permanent value to Anglicanism. Unfortunately Anglo-Catholics became embroiled in a narrow and often unhistorical and untheological polemic against the Reformation, with the result that Evangelicals (and indeed High Churchmen of the old school) came to regard it as a betrayal to popery. The hostility and suspicion that warfare engendered has lived on long since.

My own theological mentors were Anglo-Catholics and Anglican Evangelicals who had not abandoned their core convictions, but were determined to look beyond party warfare, and discerned a shared heritage of ancient catholic faith,
as articulated in the western church chiefly by Saint Augustine, but enriched by countless others, including the great theological tradition of the Eastern church. Within that common heritage, western Catholics and Evangelicals have
much to share and to learn from one another.

Outside Anglicanism, the same acknowledgement of common ground in doctrine and mission has animated the religious conservatives in the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” movement. The Roman church, long a bastion of embattled polemic against other churches, has engaged sympathyetically with Christians outside its jurisdiction, including (explicitly) the churches that emerged from the Reformation, in which it acknowledges the presence of “elements of sanctification and truth”. In documents like the Papal Encyclical of John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, the Roman Church, without giving up its historic claims, has committed itself to work for ecumenical reconciliation both theologically and
practically.

I do not take the Roman view of these matters as definitive: but they are suggestive. If we are secure in our identity as Anglicans, including our commitment to the legacy of Catholic Faith and Order as set forth in the 16th century Prayer Book and Articles of Religion, we can afford a generosity of spirit that looks beyond denominational or party lines.

I think this generosity of spirit is necessary to Christians both catholic and reformed. We do not commend one side by the disparagement of the other. Nor can we speak as if there are first- and second-class Christians. God bestows
the gifts of his grace in ways that confound our the boundaries of denomination, taste, and custom: it is surely a hint that we are meant to seek a deeper unity in the truth, both theologically and practically. God must give that unity, in and when he wills: it is not something we can fabricate or negotiate, nor do we have the right to surrender the distinctive of our patrimony - but it does mean that we are to acknowledge the unity that already exists, by learning from and
working with Christians who stand within the common inheritance we have received from our fathers in the faith.

---The Rev. Gavin Dunbar is rector of Saint John's, Savannah, Georgia

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond has told the nation's only blended Catholic and Episcopal parish it must change its worship services so Catholics and non-Catholics meet in separate rooms for Holy Communion.

The parish, Church of the Holy Apostles, is led by Catholic and Episcopal co-pastors and has worshipped together for more than 30 years.

It's an arrangement, parishioners say, that over the years has allowed families in mixed marriages to worship side by side and has helped build bonds that transcend denominational boundaries.

Read it all.

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"This is the Lord’s Table. It is not Grace Church’s table. All are welcome to receive communion.”

It is not unusual to hear or read these or similar words—with the local parish or its denomination named—at a service of worship in which the Eucharist will be celebrated. Such an announcement reflects the practice commonly called “open communion.” To say that a church has an open communion policy has generally meant that persons who are not formally members of that church are nevertheless allowed or encouraged to share in the eucharistic meal.

Open communion in that sense is not universal, of course, and never has been. Some denominations as a matter of principle allow only their own members to commune and in practice take pains to ensure that the restriction is observed. But among churches of the Reformation, open communion has long been a custom widely accepted and fairly uncontroversial. Hence the invitation.

Lately, however, what is or might be meant by open communion has shifted....

It is imperative that we keep our terms clear and I have noted before it is curcial that we NOT call the increasingly common practice of TEC of inviting anyone no matter what their situation to communion open communion but instead communion of the unbaptized. With that said, read it all.

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The Eucharist is central to the identity, doctrines, and practices of the Catholic Church. As canon 897 of the Code of Canon Law puts it, “The most august sacrament is the Most Holy Eucharist in which Christ the Lord himself is contained, offered, and received and by which the Church continually lives and grows. The eucharistic sacrifice . . . is the summit and source of all worship and Christian life, which signifies and effects the unity of the People of God and brings about the building up of the body of Christ.”

Canon 898 adds: “The Christian faithful are to hold the Most Holy Eucharist in highest honor, taking an active part in the celebration of the most august sacrifice, receiving this sacrament most devoutly and frequently, and worshiping it with the highest adoration....”

Participation in Holy Communion is achieved by two related but distinct acts: the action of a member of the faithful in seeking Communion (reception) and the action of the minister in giving Communion (administration). These two actions are not only performed by different persons, they are governed by different canon laws. Virtually all confusion over Communion can be traced to the failure to keep these two actions distinct.

Read it all.

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Read it all.

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The first reading comes from the Book of Kings, with an angel nudging an exhausted and distraught Elijah, telling him to get up and leave.

The Rev. Tom Sanford and his congregation have done just that.

Sanford left the Catholic priesthood more than a quarter century ago. But now he's back behind the altar. He's pastor of a new spiritual community, born out of his frustration with what he believes is the philosophical backsliding of the Catholic Church.

Read it all.

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Read it all.

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The level of support for C029 when it was presented to the House of Bishops on 12 July 2012 was markedly different. The Rt. Rev. William Gregg, Assistant Bishop of North Carolina, was the first to rise and offered a strong statement of rejection of the resolution.

It was “not up to one denomination” to change the universal church’s teaching on baptism, Bishop Gregg said.

The Bishop of Southern Ohio, the Rt. Rev. Thomas Breidenthal, agreed the issue needed further study and urged defeat of the resolution....

The Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, Bishop of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, urged his colleagues not to refer the matter to committee but to vote for adoption. There were large numbers of non-baptized people in Europe, he noted, and by recognizing the need for pastoral sensitivity this permitted bishops to address local needs. Without this recognition the hands of bishops were tied, he said....

Read it all.

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Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that The Episcopal Church reaffirms that baptism is the ancient and normative entry point to receiving Holy Communion and that our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to go into the world and
baptize all peoples. We also acknowledge that in various local contexts there is the exercise of pastoral sensitivity with those who are not yet baptized.

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(It is very important that you read the previous thread on this as well as the comments there first). Here again is the full text--

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 77th General Convention direct the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies to appoint a special commission charged with conducting a study of the theology underlying access to Holy Baptism and Holy Communion in this Church and to recommend for consideration by the 78th General Convention any amendment to Title I, Canon 17, Section 7, of the Canons of General Convention that it deems appropriate; and be it further Resolved, That the General Convention request the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance to consider a budget allocation of $30,000 for the implementation of this Resolution.
Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that The Episcopal Church reaffirms that baptism is the ancient and normative entry point to receiving Holy Communion and that our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to go into the world and baptize all peoples. We also acknowledge that in various local contexts there is the exercise of pastoral sensitivity with those who are not yet baptized.

You can find a copy of it here. Please note that in the House of Deputies debate today there was an attempt at an amendment that failed. The vote totals as announced were--Lay Order 85 yes, No 16, divided 9; Clergy 70 Yes, No 24, Divided 16.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • TEC Polity & Canons • * Theology • Anthropology • Pastoral Theology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Eucharist

Here is the latest from the committee--amended C029--

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 77th General Convention direct the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies to appoint a special commission charged with conducting a study of the theology underlying access to Holy Baptism and Holy Communion in this Church and to recommend for consideration by the 78th General Convention any amendment to Title I, Canon 17, Section 7, of the Canons of General Convention that it deems appropriate; and be it further Resolved, That the General Convention request the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance to consider a budget allocation of $30,000 for the implementation of this Resolution.
Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that The Episcopal Church reaffirms that baptism is the ancient and normative entry point to receiving Holy Communion and that our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to go into the world and baptize all peoples. We also acknowledge that in various local contexts there is the exercise of pastoral sensitivity with those who are not yet baptized.

You can find a copy of it here.

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Episcopal bishops have approved an official prayer that blesses same-sex unions.

Church leaders on Monday voted 111-41 in favor of the liturgy during the Episcopal General Convention in Indianapolis. The plan now goes to convention deputies for final approval.

Read it all and a longer version is there.

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I am reminded of what I was taught by the Rev. Dr. Marion Hatchett: "never break a rubric unintentionally". I think most priest have given communion to an unbaptized person. Hospitality and compassion may require it. But the doctrine of Baptism remains.

A personal example may be helpful. When I was ordained a priest, my father, an ordained Baptist minister, preached at my ordination. When the time came for the ordination, the Episcopal clergy gathered around to lay hands on my head along with the Bishop. My father remained in his seat, because there is no agreement between the Episcopal and Baptist churches on ordination. Just before the Bishop said the words of ordination he stopped, removed his hands from my head, and motioned for my father to come over and lay his hands on my head as well. This was contrary to the teaching of both the Episcopal and Baptist churches. This was poor doctrinal theology, but it was perfect pastoral theology. Bishop Patterson was a good bishop, and my dad was a good Baptist pastor. And yet, the doctrine remains.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Eucharist

I consider this a moment of sanity and light--KSH.

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Read it all (and there are over 50 comments as well).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • * Theology • Anthropology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Eucharist

(Please note the headline is ENS' not mine, I intensely dislike the Open Table language and use Communion of the Unbaptized [or Communion without Baptism] instead--KSH).

Emma Grandhauser, from Minnesota, a member of convention’s official youth presence, testified that she didn’t attend church until she was six, and she was baptized at 13.
“I still remember my first Sunday in church at St. John the Evangelist in St. Paul,” she said. “It’s a church with their own open table policy.
“I was blown away by how welcoming the community was,” she said. “They didn’t just tell me about God’s love, they showed me that God’s love is for everyone....

But the Rev. Jason Wells, a deputy alternate from the Diocese of New Hampshire, said that to the unbaptized he offers a blessing at the altar rail “and prepares them for baptism, to make their first communion immediately after that. I don’t do that because there’s a canon on the books. I do it for the theological and biblical rationale. To remove this one line from our canons does not change what my practice would be in the church.”
He called the resolution’s language “confusing and somewhat self-defeating.”

Read it all.

Update: An Anglican Ink article on this may also be found there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • * Theology • Anthropology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Eucharist

Word is there are a large number of speakers trying to address this matter. The hearing began at 7:30 est.

Make sure to be aware of the text of the resolution and go back also to reread this earlier blog thread on the subject.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • * Theology • Anthropology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Eucharist • Theology: Scripture

The subject of confirmation stirred passionate testimony July 5 before General Convention’s Education Committee. Clergy and laypeople addressed the committee on Resolutions A041, A042, A043 and A044, all of which address the nature of confirmation as a necessary step in becoming Episcopalian.

The Rev. Canon Robert Brooks, vice president of Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission, said the canons conflict with the Book of Common Prayer (1979), which describes Holy Baptism as full initiation into the Church. The resolutions seek to resolve that conflict, he said.

The Rev. Danielle Morris of the Diocese of Central Florida opposed the resolutions, saying confirmation helps create loyal members of the Church through education. She cited an example of a woman in her parish who wanted to serve on the vestry but had not been confirmed. “She said, ‘I’ll go through the classes,’” Morris said. “By the time she ended those classes, she said, ‘I had no idea. I’m an Episcopalian because I am now a part of all of that inheritance.’ She will be an Episcopalian for life.”

Read it all.

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"Renouncing the glamour of Satan in today's age means rejecting a culture where truth does not matter" and where "calumny and destruction" reign, he said. Christians reject "a culture that does not seek goodness, whose morality is really a mask to trick people and create destruction and confusion."

"Against this culture in which falsehood presents itself as truth and information, against this culture that seeks only material well-being and denies God, we say, 'no,'" the pope said.

Read it all.

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The president of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress Archbishop Diarmuid Martin paid warm tribute to other Church leaders in Ireland today for the support they had shown him in his role as Archbishop of Dublin....

"Relations between the churches are extremely good here in Ireland," Dr Martin said, "and the amount of personal support I have received from Archbishop John Neill (retired Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin), Archbishop Jackson (the current Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin) and the other church leaders has been astounding."

He said: "We are doing things together. We are, literally, walking together."

Read it all.

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It is important to stress here that the ecclesiology of communion promoted by the Council takes its inspiration from the Eucharistic ecclesiology of the Orthodox, especially Afanassief, who is cited in the texts. The Council’s ecclesiology is thus of great ecumenical import. The intervention of John Zizioulas, the Metropolitan of Pergamon, at the 2005 Roman Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist, testifies to this: “The ecclesiology of communion promoted by Vatican II and deepened further by eminent Roman Catholic theologians can make sense only if it derives from the eucharistic life of the Church. The Eucharist belongs not simply to the beneesse but to theesseof the Church. The whole life, word and structure of the Church iseucharistic in its very essence.” Walter Kasper agrees wholeheartedly and holds that “eucharistic ecclesiology has become one of the most important foundations of the ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches.”

Read it all.

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Bookmark it and then follow the links and read it all.

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The weeklong 50th International Eucharistic Congress, which gets under way in Dublin June 10, will be Ireland's largest religious event since Pope John Paul II visited in 1979.

The celebration of faith offers a lively mixture of prayer, reflection and liturgy with participation from some of the leading voices in the Catholic world.

Organizers promise an estimated 12,000 overseas visitors the traditional Irish "cead mile failte" --"a hundred thousand welcomes." Many Dubliners have opened their homes to pilgrims.

Read it all.

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Ascension theology turns at this point to the Eucharist, for in celebrating the eucharist the church professes to know how the divine presents itself in our time, and how the question of faithfulness is posed. Eucharistically, the church acknowledges that Jesus has heard and has answered the upward call; that, like Moses, he has ascended into that impenetrable cloud overhanging the mountain. Down below, rumours of glory emanate from the elders, but the master himself is nowhere to be seen. He is no longer with his people in the same way he used to be. Yet he is with them, in the Spirit.

--Douglas Farrow, Ascension Theology (New York: T and T Clark, 2011), p. 64

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The challenge is not that we have a ministry of the baptized and Communion as our central act of worship – the challenge is that we have clergy ill-trained in Sacramental theology administering them. We have laity that we have failed to form in Sacramental living. We now have a wide body of our priests that do not believe anything much actually happens in the Sacraments.

Do you believe the Holy Spirit descends upon a person and transforms their very being in Baptism so that they are united with Christ? Do you believe that Christ is truly present in the Body and Blood we receive at the Altar? Are the Sacraments God’s action or ours? I have heard far too many talking of Baptism as an entry rite rather than as transformation just as I have heard too many speak of Communion as a “meal” alone rather than the very Presence of Christ among us.

If you have a clergy addicted to modernism and reformation charged with carrying out the catholic Sacramental life of the Church then you will, indeed, have tension. But the tension should not between upending the Sacraments or administering them faithfully as they have been across the centuries. The tension should be between doing or not doing them. You can choose other ways of ministry that do not involve undoing the historic Sacraments of the Church if you are not comfortable with the faith and order we have been welcomed into as both baptized and ordained leaders.

Read it all.

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This article, a theologically thick description of opening the eucharistic table to all, is rooted in Aidan Kavanaugh’s conviction that liturgical theology is primarily that “knowledge” of God generated by the encounter of Christian congregations with God in the liturgy. Thus, this work began with a working group of four Open Table Episcopal parishes reflecting together on what they have found of God, Christ, church, and grace within their practice. The vision that emerged from this reflection was centered in a complex theology of grace and response inherent in Christ’s parable of the Prodigal Son. This central commitment was, moreover, structured around intuitions concerning the universal status of all persons as God’s children, the relational character of grace, the communal character of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, a Christocentric ecclesiology defining the church by the commitments at its center, and a missional understanding of baptism.

Read it all carefully.

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As Christendom was waning, the Episcopal Church ratified a new identity in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. This new identity brought us to practice baptismal ministry and made the Eucharist the central part of our Sunday worship. Now, after living this theology for over 30 years, we are faced with the growing practice of Open Table in the Episcopal Church. The two are not unrelated. Perhaps we did not anticipate that we would arrive at the place where we are considering the reversal of the traditional order of Sacraments. Yet, as more and more congregations practice Open Table, we are called to confront the incongruity between practice and traditional theological thinking.

Read it all carefully (Word document). [Please note if you have any trouble go there, then go down to resolution C040 and you will see the document link on the far right (you can get it as a pdf if you prefer)].

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Eucharist

The young woman who called St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Hood River, Oregon, was upset and asked if the church offered communion.

“I really need some support right now and I feel like it starts there,” she told the Rev. Anna Carmichael, the parish’s rector.

The wrinkle was that while the woman had attended various churches she had “never formally been baptized and yet somehow this needing to be in community and needing to be supported, in her mind, had something to do with communion as well,” Carmichael recalled.

Read it all.

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(I am taking the liberty of putting this on in full text since this is soon to be lost to posterity, I am sorry to say. Please remember that I intensely dislike the terminology of "open" baptism [or ""open" communion] because it confuses the practice being advocated by some in TEC with something altogether different; this is why I plead for what some TEC reappraisers advocate to be described as "communion of the unbaptized" --KSH).

Seminary ruined my ministry. By this I do not mean what we tired old priests often mean by this statement. I am referring here very specifically to the understanding of Holy Baptism that was beat into my head. Actually, it wasn’t beat into my head at all. I drank it in and embraced it in the heart. I was taught and have ever since believed that Baptism is the foundational sacrament of the Church and therefore must be attended to by as much prayer and catechetical preparation as is possible. The key influences here were my liturgics professor, Fr Louis Weil; the Lutheran theologian, Robert W. Jenson; but most especially the writings of the Catholic liturgist, Fr Aidan Kavanagh. Later on William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas would come along to reinforce what I had already learned, that we no longer live in a Christian culture and therefore can no longer rely on the culture to transmit to our children the beliefs, values, and practices of Christian faith. The Church must become what it once was–a disciplined community.

Ecclesial discipline begins with the sacrament of Holy Baptism, the gateway into the community of faith. If we do not practice discipline at this point, we cannot effectively foster discipline later down the road. Baptism is not a right. It is a privilege and gift that the Church is authorized to administer under very specific conditions.

I remember years ago hearing an apocryphal story of Catholic missionaries to Indonesia who would beat drums and make a lot of noise in a village, so that its inhabitants would come out of their huts to see what was going on–at which point they would be met by the missionaries, water buckets in hand: “Ego te baptizo …”

When may the Church baptize? The Scriptures are clear. The Church may baptize an individual when that individual has responded to the gospel in faith and repentance. The Church does not baptize everyone indiscriminately. Faith and conversion are necessary conditions. In the second and third centuries, we see the Church developing a catechumenal process to prepare adult converts for baptism. This process would often last one to three years, concluding with examination by the bishop and sacramental initiation at the Great Vigil of Easter. Kavanagh describes this catechumenal process not so much as intellectual instruction but as “conversion therapy.” He notes that the early Church was not interested in indiscriminately baptizing the multitudes. It wanted to make Christians.

Tertullian had already observed that Christians are not born but made. Augustine and his colleagues over a century later would have agreed, perhaps extending the epigram to say that they do not just wander in off the streets either. They are honed down by the teaching and discipline of the catechumenate until their metal is tough, resilient, sharp, and glowing. The “enlightenment” of baptism was not a flickering flame but a burst of God’s glory in those whose capacities to receive it had been expanded to their utmost. And although things were different since the pagan Celsus had written archly in 168 that “if all men wanted to be Christian, the Christians would no longer want them,” being prepared in the fifth century to absorb a whole society did not mean that the churches would do so indiscriminately. The fathers’ catechetical homilies suggest that they still needed more Christians less than they needed better ones, even as they wished and worked for the conversion of all.

What about the baptism of children? They are the exception, not the norm. We risk the baptism of children only because their parents are practicing Christians and have demonstrated that they will raise their children within the household of faith, in the fear and admonition of the Lord. If their parents are not practicing Christians, then the Church has no authority whatsoever to baptize their children, no matter what the grandparents want!

And so this young priest took this understanding of Baptism and catechumenate out into the world. No other issue has caused me more trouble than this in my ministry of twenty-four years! Indeed, it is probably safe to say that it destroyed my ministry in one parish and has caused me nothing but grief in my present parish. How I wish I could in good conscience offer “open baptism.” Disciplined baptismal policy always offends, no matter how gently and graciously it is articulated. No one wants to hear that there are conditions and requirements that must be fulfilled if baptism is to be administered with sacramental and spiritual integrity. No one wants to hear that the faith and commitment of the parents necessarily and rightly affects the Church’s decision to baptize a baby. No one wants to hear the word no.

So when I read about “open baptism” I am filled with both envy and anger. I am envious, because these priests are able to avoid all of the grief and problems of trying to communicate to nonbelieving parents they must begin to take their baptismal vows seriously if they wish their children to be baptized into the Church. The open baptism policy makes everything so easy. There are no conditions to be imposed. No requirements are insisted upon. Difficult conversations are avoided. We just toss the water and say the magic words and everyone is happy. Oh if only I could in conscience offer open baptism. How nice it would be for me and everyone else if I could just adopt a no-conflict, no-grief, no-aggravation policy like St Bart’s in Poway, California:

We are an open and affirming church. No classes are required and no judgments are passed at St. Bartholomew’s. If you wish to be baptized and become Jesus Christ’s own forever, just ask and you can be.

But as I said, I was ruined in seminary. When I read a baptismal policy like the above, I become angry. These open baptism priests are prostituting the gospel. Baptism is not a spiritual tonic that we dispense to everyone who asks for it. Baptism is conversion, the renunciation of evil, and the embrace of love, self-denial, and the way of the cross. It’s all so cozy for these open baptism pastors and their congregations. No judgments are made. No discipline is imposed. No one has to say “no.” Baptism becomes a nice little ceremony of cultural affirmation. Everyone is blessed. Everyone feels good. But the identity and mission of the Church is sold out for a bowl of pottage.

(Please note that for now you can find the original post there. You may be interested to read the comments--KSH)

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Anthropology • Ecclesiology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism

This morning the smoke of incense is still dissipating from thousands of churches around the country and the world where, last night, the Great Vigil of Easter was celebrated. This service — which begins with a bonfire and continues with readings, psalms, prayers, baptisms and the first mass of the Easter season, all ending (typically) with a big late-night meal to break the fast of Lent — was, in the first centuries of Christian history, the central event in the worshiping life of the Church. Today it’s an observance that appeals primarily to liturgy geeks (myself very much included), an unwieldy and time-consuming festival that dramatically complicates one’s plans for baked hams and Easter baskets.

Strange as the Easter Vigil may seem today, it hasn’t lost its original purpose: welcoming new believers into the body of the faithful. What is so powerful about the Easter Vigil, apart from the sheer sensory experience of it, is the way it intertwines the whole story of the Bible with the passing over of Jesus from death on Good Friday to resurrection on Easter. And the men and women who have been preparing for baptism (called “catechumens,” or hearers) step into these entwined stories on Saturday night, just as men and women did back when Christianity was a minor cult of the Roman world.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Easter • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Orthodox Church • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism

(In case some readers are not aware, A.K.M. Adam [AKMA] is currently serving as a Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Glasgow--KSH.)

Obviously Rwandan canons don’t affect the canon law or interpretation of the US Episcopal Church — but this interpretation of ‘orders’ and ‘transferring’ appears to make more sense. The bishops in question must (on this interpretation — I’m not arguing anything about their side of the disagreement) have a canonical relationship with one or another Anglican province, but that’s a separate question from whether their orders as bishops are valid. If on the other hand they have no relationship to another recognised Anglican body, the status of their request to withdraw from the Rwandan Church is canonically intelligible only as a request to be removed from the roll of actual bishops. If my situation were interpreted on this basis, we would say that I wish to move (‘transfer’) my vows of obedience and allegiance to the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway and the Scottish Episcopal Church — not to renounce my orders altogether.

If I understand the interpretation of canon law from the US Episcopal hierarchy, my priesthood is not in question — they’re interpreting my ‘orders’ as sort of ‘the ordered relationship that binds me to my bishop and the doctrine, disciple, and whatever of this [US Episcopal] Church’. On their account, then, it would be possible for me to maintain my ordained status without having a canonical relationship with a particular Church (and, by extension, so would the US-Rwandan bishops, if in fact the US Episcopal Church recognised their episcopal orders in the first place) — though I would not be authorised by any Church to exercise that priesthood. The Rwandan interpretation (again, if I understand it correctly) is that apart from a relationship with a particular Church, the idea of ‘orders’ is incoherent; the validity of orders depends on a living relationship of authority and accountability with a Church.

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Now that the Anglican Covenant is dead in the water, those who seek to revise what it means to be the Church have no need to worry about the process set out in the fourth section of that document (assuming that they would have needed to worry if the Covenant was adopted anyway). Regardless, the drive for CWOB is a manifestation of commitment to an "autonomous ecclesiology" rather than "communion ecclesiology."

Read it all and yes, follow all the links.

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Read it all.

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A technological crackdown, telegraphed by Mormon leaders, has effectively blocked the pre-eminent whistle-blower of controversial proxy baptisms from accessing the LDS Church’s database that chronicles so-called baptisms for the dead.

LDS officials defend the move, saying it helps prevent overzealous Mormons and mischief-makers from violating church policy by submitting the names of prominent Jewish figures, such as Anne Frank and Daniel Pearl, both discovered on the baptism rolls in recent weeks.

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Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo said he is delighted to have first-hand papal approval for changing the order by which children in his diocese receive the sacraments.

“I was very surprised in what the Pope said to me, in terms of how happy he was that the sacraments of initiation have been restored to their proper order of baptism, confirmation then first Eucharist,” said Bishop Aquila, after meeting Pope Benedict on March 8.

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What do George Washington, Albert Einstein and Stanley Ann Durham (Barack Obama's mother) have in common? Mormons have baptized each of them by proxy, performing a temple rite they believe gives human beings a posthumous opportunity to obtain salvation.

Researchers recently discovered that Mormons had similarly baptized the parents of famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, whose mother died in a Nazi extermination camp in 1942. And one Mormon recently proposed for proxy baptism the still-living Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.

This esoteric practice doesn't always provoke complaints—President Obama refused to comment on his mother's case, for instance—but it has strained Mormon-Jewish relations over the past two decades.

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The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced the news.

"We are outraged that such insensitive actions continue in the Mormon temples," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, a spokesman at the centre.

The Mormon religion allows baptism after death, and believes the departed soul can then accept or reject the baptismal rites.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • Other Faiths • Judaism • Mormons • * Theology • Eschatology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism

Since the New Year, I've been stopping at the Chicago Temple on Wednesday mornings for communion. For at least 40 years, this downtown United Methodist church has offered communion to city dwellers and commuters during the morning rush. At 7:30, Phil Blackwell--who inherited the tradition--consecrates the elements with whomever happens to be in the room at the moment. For the next 90 minutes, communion and a simple prayer are offered for anyone who walks in.

The communion, offered without a traditional liturgy, could very well have an "express lane" feel. When I first heard about this communal rite, I wondered: theologically, what is communion absent community? Culturally, why do I and others imagine we don't have time for liturgy? Ecclesiastically, what is communion that is all take (on my part) and no give?

But Blackwell and associate pastors Claude King and Wendy Witt all say the early-morning communion is a personal highlight of their ministries....

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In France, an elderly man is fighting to make a formal break with the Catholic Church. He's taken the church to court over its refusal to let him nullify his baptism, in a case that could have far-reaching effects.

Seventy-one-year-old Rene LeBouvier's parents and his brother are buried in a churchyard in the tiny village of Fleury in northwest France. He himself was baptized in the Romanesque stone church and attended mass here as a boy.

LeBouvier says this rural area is still conservative and very Catholic, but nothing like it used to be. Back then, he says, you couldn't even get credit at the bakery if you didn't go to mass every Sunday....

Read or listen to it all.

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Let us return again to the theme of witnessing. In the second reading the Apostle John writes: "It is the Spirit who bears witness" (1 John 5:6). He is referring to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, who bears witness to Jesus, testifying that he is the Christ, the Son of God. This is also seen in the scene of the baptism in the Jordan River: the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove, revealing that he is the Only Begotten Son of the Eternal Father (cf. Mark 1:10). John underscores this aspect as well in his Gospel when Jesus says to his disciples: "When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me; and you too will bear witness to me, because you have been with me from the beginning" (John 15:26-27). This is a great comfort to us in educating others in the faith because we know that we are not alone and that our witness is supported by the Holy Spirit.

It is very important for you parents and also for you godfathers and godmothers to believe strongly in the presence and the action of the Holy Spirit, to call upon him and welcome him in you through prayer and the sacraments. He is the one in fact who enlightens the mind, who makes the heart of the educator burn so that he or she knows how to transmit the knowledge of the love of Christ. Prayer is the first condition for educating, because in praying we create the disposition in ourselves of letting God have the initiative, of entrusting our children to him, who knows them before we do and better than us, and knows perfectly what their true good is.

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[Sara] Ritchey provides some useful historical background that outlines the early medieval shift to an all-celibate clergy. But I was struck by her naive ignorance of the recent history of the Catholic Church. The existence of Priests’ wives should, she tells us, provide the occasion on which “a real conversation about the continuation of priestly celibacy might begin.”

Might begin?...

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The priest’s nuclear family was also seen as a risk to the stability of the church. His children represented a threat to laypersons, who feared that their endowments might be absorbed into the hands of the priest’s offspring to create a rival clerical dynasty. A celibate priest would thus ensure donations from the neighboring landed aristocracy. Furthermore, the priest’s wife was often accused, along with her children, of draining the church’s resources with her extravagance and frivolity. Pope Leo IX attempted to remedy this problem in the 11th century by decreeing that the wives and children of priests must serve in his residence at the Lateran Palace in Rome.

Given this history, I caution the clerical wife to be on guard as she enters her role as a sacerdotal attaché. Her position is an anomalous one and, as the Vatican has repeatedly insisted, one that will not receive permanent welcome in the church. That said, for the time being, it will be prudent for the Vatican to honor the dignity of the wives and children of its freshly ordained married priests. And here, I suggest, a real conversation about the continuation of priestly celibacy might begin.

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Dearly beloved in the Lord, ye that mind to come to the holy Communion of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ, must consider what Saint Paul writeth to the Corinthians, how he exhorteth all persons diligently to try and examine themselves, before they presume to eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup. For as the benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart, and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament; (for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood; then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us; we be one with Christ, and Christ with us;) So is the danger great, if we receive the same unworthily. For then we be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour; we eat and drink our own damnation, not considering the Lord's body; we kindle God's wrath against us; we provoke him to plague us with divers diseases, and sundry kinds of death. Therefore if any of you be a blasphemer of God, an hinderer or slanderer of his Word, an adulterer, or be in malice, or envy, or in any other grievous crime, bewail our sins, and come not to this holy Table; lest, after the taking of that holy Sacrament, the devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you full of all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul. Judge therefore yourselves, brethren, that ye be not judged of the Lord; repent you truly for your sins past; have a lively and stedfast faith in Christ our Saviour; amend your lives, and be in perfect charity with all men; so shall ye be meet partakers of those holy mysteries. And above all things ye must give most humble and hearty thanks to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for the redemption of the world by the death and passion of our Saviour Christ, both God and man; who did humble himself, even to the death upon the Cross, for us miserable sinners, which lay in darkness and shadow of death; that he might make us the children of God, and exalt us to everlasting life. And to the end that we should alway remember the exceeding great love of our Master and only Saviour, Jesus Christ, thus dying for us, and the innumerable benefits which by his precious blood-shedding he hath obtained to us; he hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries, as pledges of his love, and continual remembrance of his death, to our great and endless comfort. To him therefore, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, let us give (as we are most bounden) continual thanks; submitting ourselves wholly to his holy will and pleasure, and studying to serve him in true holiness and righteousness all the days of our life. Amen.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Theology • Pastoral Theology • Sacramental Theology

The Pope has recently issued an invitation to Anglicans to move into full communion with the See of Rome in the Ordinariate where it is possible to enjoy the “Anglican patrimony” as full members of the Roman Catholic Church. Three priests in the Diocese have taken this step. They have followed their consciences.

For those who remain there can be no logic in the claim to be offering the Eucharist in communion with the Roman Church which the adoption of the new rites would imply. In these rites there is not only a prayer for the Pope but the expression of a communion with him; a communion Pope Benedict XVI would certainly repudiate.

At the same time rather than building on the hard won convergence of liturgical texts, the new Roman rite varies considerably from its predecessor and thus from Common Worship as well. The rationale for the changes is that the revised texts represent a more faithful translation of the Latin originals and are a return to more traditional language.

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The outcry over the Bishop of Cashel & Ossory’s support for an Irish dean’s gay civil union has forced the bishop to skip the consecration of the Bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry.

Church leaders in Northern Ireland told The Church of England Newspaper that the Rt. Rev. Michael Burrows had been advised to stay away from the Sept 8 consecration of Bishop Patrick Rooke at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh. The bishop had been told his support for clergy gay civil unions had broken the collegiality of the church and his presence would cause some participants in the ceremony to refrain from receiving the Eucharist with him.

Bishop Burrow’s office did not respond to questions from CEN, but the Church of Ireland’s press officer did confirm that the bishop “did not attend and that this was his own decision. I have no knowledge of any advice from anyone about staying away or concern with regard to receiving communion.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Ireland • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Sacramental Theology • Eucharist

As the Diocese of Central Florida searches for its fourth bishop, seven nominees reflect its primarily evangelical identity. Both Anglo-Catholic and broad-church piety also are evident, but the nominees’ answers to questions posed by the diocese’s standing committee leave few doubts on what they believe about blessing same-sex couples or offering the elements of Communion to the unbaptized.

The standing committee asked all nominees to answer five questions [PDF] (including those on sexuality, Eucharistic practice, and how the diocese relates to the Episcopal Church). It also asked nominees to choose three of seven questions that dig deeper on theology and pastoral skills. Most nominees chose to answer this optional question: “How might you respond if a friend who was not a practicing Christian approached you and said, ‘What would I have to do to be a Christian, and why would I want to do it?’” Most of the nominees cite specific and tangible moments of becoming Christian or deepening their relationship with God.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Polity & Canons • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Eucharist • Soteriology

Let greasy spikes be caught in halos
thrown from chapel windows
and the lazy shuffle of saints
trace the body of Christ down the chapel alley.

Let this one,
paper late,
eyes avoiding mine
like two blackbirds in sudden flight,
receive.

And let this one,
absent a week
only to resurface
as the sinking vessel rises
one last time from ocean's deep midnight,
also receive.

Let greasy spikes be caught in halos
thrown from chapel windows
and the lazy shuffle of saints
trace the body of Christ down the chapel alley.

Let this one,
paper late,
eyes avoiding mine
like two blackbirds in sudden flight,
receive.

And let this one,
absent a week
only to resurface
as the sinking vessel rises
one last time from ocean's deep midnight,
also receive.

--Benjamin Myers, Elegy for Trains (Bellingham: Village Books Press, 2010) [You may find further information about the book here if you are interested--KSH]

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Education • Poetry & Literature • Religion & Culture • Young Adults • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Eucharist

Members of the IALC present at the meeting told The Church of England Newspaper the US delegation led by Prof. Ruth Meyers of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific and Bishop Thomas Ely of Vermont offered a theological rationale for same-sex blessings and offered a sample of one rite, with two female members of the US delegation serving as the spouses. After the ceremony the American team solicited comments from the gathered IALC, but asked for the return of the service leaflet as the rite remained a work in process and was not ready for publication.

While some members of the IALC, including its new chairman, Canadian-member the Rev. Dr. Eileen Scully, were generally supportive of the US view, the majority were not. One participant told CEN the objections fell in two general groups: those who believed the concept of same-sex blessings was un-Biblical, and those who were perturbed by the “aggressive” push by the US team to seize control of a study process on rites for traditional marriage to include their own agenda.

The Bishop of Bolivia, the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons explained the “theme of blessings for same sex partners was not in the purview of the IALC which is preparing a forthcoming study based upon marriage between a man and a woman.”

Read it all (requires subscription).

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Culture-Watch • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Anthropology • Sacramental Theology

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One can certainly share the sense of frustration and, indeed, quite patent anger and irritation of the Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, in his recent criticisms of the Vatican. In the face of overwhelming evidence of sexual and physical abuse by clergy, religious and Catholic institutions in Ireland, the Vatican seems reluctant to accept its share of responsibility. It also seems unwilling to co-operate without reservations with the Irish government's proposals to prevent such abuse in future.

The most startling new measure in a system of mandatory reporting is the obligation for priests to violate the sanctity of the "sacramental seal" of Confession when a paedophile reveals that he or she has been involved in such activities. Senator Nick Xenophon has proposed a similar measure for Australia.

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The Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut
June 30, 2011

Dear Colleagues in Ministry:

We are writing to remind you as sisters and brothers in ordained ministry that the new Title IV disciplinary canons go into effect this coming Friday, July 1. For the past year we as a diocese have been preparing for the new Title IV. At our diocesan convention last year we voted in members of the new committees needed to support the Title IV process. Robin Hammeal-Urban has been leading educational offerings throughout the Diocese and in Province One, helping all of us to understand the new process and intent of the canon.

Further information on the new Title IV can be found on the Diocese of Connecticut website at:
http://www.ctepiscopal.org/Content/Clergy_Disciplinary_Process_Title_IV_.asp

The goal of the new Title IV is to embrace a form of clergy discipline based on restorative justice rather than retributive justice. We have moved away from a model of discipline based on the code of military justice (on which the outgoing Title IV was based) hoping to embrace more a process of collegiality and accountability amongst peers.

The new Title IV both broadens the guidelines of what needs to be "reported" with respect to actions that contravene the doctrine and discipline of The Episcopal Church and also includes more participants in disciplinary process. It thus requires that offenses to the doctrine and discipline of The Episcopal Church be reported by clergy to the Diocesan Intake Officer when they arise. Lay people may also report offenses, but since they are not "in orders" they are not required to do so. Robin Hammeal-Urban will be serving as our Intake Officer as an extension of her role as the Diocesan Pastoral Response Coordinator for the next year as we live into this new model.

One topic which has come up at almost all of the trainings and educational offerings that Robin has lead is the question of Open Communion. Canon 1.17.7. restricts eligibility to receive Holy Communion to persons who are baptized. The new Title IV presents us with the circumstance to consider what we believe about "open communion" in light of what the doctrine and discipline of The Episcopal Church is at this time. Some deaneries and delegates in the Diocese of Connecticut are thus looking at offering a resolution to our Diocesan Convention that will ask us to engage in a diocesan-wide conversation around "Open Communion". In the meantime, your bishops are called to uphold the canons of the church as outlined in the Constitution and Canons voted at General Convention 2009.

The implementation of the new Title IV might cause some anxiety as we learn to live with the new canons. Still, if we can stay centered, open, and as well informed as possible, we trust that in time the new Title IV will serve all of us well as we seek always to be faithful to our ordination vows.

Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas
The Rt. Rev. James E. Curry
The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Polity & Canons • * Theology • Anthropology • Sacramental Theology • Eucharist • Soteriology

(Please note that parts one and two were posted earlier on the blog--KSH).

There can be little doubt that the Order of Holy Communion in the English Prayer Book tradition – starting with 1549, and moving through 1552 to 1559 where some slight recovery of Catholic ground was modestly extended in 1662 – is hostile to ideas of Eucharistic Sacrifice and even Eucharistic Presence. At the high point of radical Protestant influence, under Edward VI, it appears to have been because Bishop Stephen Gardiner of Winchester, a conservative on the Edwardine bench of bishops, argued that the First Prayer Book was susceptible of a Catholic interpretation that Cranmer determined to embark on making a more thorough job of it in 1552. The great Anglo-Catholic liturgiologist Dom Gregory Dix describes in the final chapter of his The Shape of the Liturgy his own dismay on looking into the context of the two Edwardine Prayer Books in Cranmer’s other theological writings. ‘[I]t is only painfully and with reluctance that have brought myself to face candidly some of the facts here set out, and I cannot but fear that they will bring equal distress to others’.[1] The benign view of Cranmer’s liturgical revision taken by most High Churchmen (though isolated critical voices had never been completely lacking), and, after the Oxford Movement, by ‘Prayer Book Catholics’, was, so Dix concluded, historically unsustainable. For Cranmer the Eucharist was instituted by Christ not so that his death might be offered to the Father but with the simple aim of its being remembered by us. The Second Prayer Book is the Eucharistic counterpart of the magisterial Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone: in Dix’s words ‘the only effective attempt ever made to give liturgical expression to [that] doctrine’.[2] Or as the then bishop of Ebbsfleet, Andrew Burnham, writes in his highly appealing study of the Liturgy, Heaven and Earth in Little Space, Cranmer was concerned to ‘consecrate the congregation and not the eucharistic elements’.[3]

All this explains the rise of the Anglo-Catholic demand for the supplementation of the English Prayer Book and indeed its quasi-replacement by some version of the Western Missal. As to its content, the demand was doctrinally motivated, though it often took the form of a legal argument – namely, that the proper authorities of the two provinces of the mediaeval Church which formed the Ecclesia anglicana, the Convocations of Canterbury and York, had neither initiated the Prayer Books nor even authorized them except in the sense that they advised the clergy to make use of what was sometimes referred to as ‘the Parliamentary book’.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Eucharist

Should the Marriage Act allow two people of the same sex to be married?

Over the years, I’ve said little about same-sex relationships. My opposition is known but I hope I put my views with respect. I have supported legislation to register relationships and to extend economic rights. I condemn violence against homosexual people. Like most Australians, I prefer to live and let live. Furthermore, I am all too aware how close to home this is for a number of us, either personally or through family members and I appreciate that this discussion can be painful. Nonetheless, since change is being actively advocated we need to be clear that what is at stake is not simply an extension of marriage ‘rights’ but a change to the definition of marriage itself.

Think what marriage is. Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, from different families, publicly joined through an exchange of promises committing them to life-long exclusive fidelity. That marriage involves a man and woman is by design.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Australia • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Sacramental Theology • Theology: Scripture

...the church that knows Christ risen and ascended and takes up the challenge of confessing Christ coming to judge and to reign will not only be renewed in its sense of mission, but will also (of this I am confident) find there open before it new possibilities for an ecumenical understanding of its own sacraments and order, and for resolving differences related to its privileged participation in the present and future of Jesus. Moreover, it will not falsify or evade its special eucharistic participation in the past of Jesus, it will gladly exchange the heavy yoke of heroism for the lighter yoke of martyrdom. There is no better articulation of its faith in the Coming One than that.

--Douglas Farrow, "Confessing Christ Coming" in Nicene Christianity, ed. Christopher Seitz (Brazos Press, 2001), p. 148

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Ascension • Missions • * Theology • Christology • Sacramental Theology • Eucharist

For Ben baptism was all about making a commitment. He said: "The words that were said in the children's baptism made me realise that you couldn't be a Christian without making a commitment. It was a personal thing on one level, but it is also a public statement that you're going to follow Christ."

Shortly after he was baptised Ben started going to church every week and soon stepped into the role of Sunday School leader. He realised that he had very little knowledge about his faith and the Anglican church, so five years ago he enrolled on the Bishop's Certificate (a course run by Southwell and Nottingham Diocese) and then trained as a Reader.

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The Episcopal Church’s national office has given a backhanded blessing to the practice of allowing those not baptized to receive Holy Communion—a practice forbidden by canon law.

Supporters of Communion without Baptism (CWOB) have argued that relaxing the church’s Eucharistic discipline will serve as a recruiting tool for those outside the faith. However, traditionalists have rejected the practice as uncanonical and contrary to church teaching.

Last month the Episcopal Church Office of Congregational Vitality posted a video to the national church’s website highlighting the ministry of parish of St Paul & the Redeemer in Chicago. The congregation “exemplifies transformative work,” the Rev. Bob Honeychurch, the Episcopal Church’s officer for congregational vitality, said, adding that the parish “sees its primary point of contact with the wider community through its Sunday morning experience. The worship becomes its witness to the world.”

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The House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada has rejected calls to permit those not baptized to be allowed to receive the “sacrament of the holy Eucharist.”

At the close of their April 11-15 meeting in Niagara Falls, Ontario the bishops reaffirmed the church’s canons and traditional practice stating only those baptized would be permitted to receive. “We do not see this as changing for the foreseeable future,” the bishops said.

The bishops’ debate follows a March 7 “Guest Reflection” published in Canada’s Anglican Journal by Dr. Gary Nicolosi who argued for a relaxation in the church’s Eucharistic discipline as a way of attracting more people to church.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Eucharist

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[Herbert] McCabe’s starting point in the essay “Transubstantiation and the Real Presence” is a straight affirmation of standard Catholic teaching. He contrasts it with an understanding of the presence that is, at one extreme, metaphorical, and at the other extreme, materialistic. He talks about the food and drink of the Eucharist being “radically or as we say ‘substantially’ transformed”, and about it not “remaining ontologically the same”.

Early on he makes an important distinction between what it means to say “Christ” is present in the Eucharist and to say “the body of Christ” is present. It is by speaking of “body of Christ”, rather than just of “Christ” that he can make the most of the word “sacramental” that defines the mode of presence that is believed to occur in the Eucharist.

His theology of the Eucharist is a theology of it as sacrament of the body, and blood, of Christ. His concern with the bread and wine will not be directly with what happens to them, but with what it means to say they are sacraments of the body and blood of Christ.

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Consider the fact that most Anglican churches now celebrate the eucharist every Sunday at every service. Yet many people are not baptized. How do we reach them? Do we invite them to church for Sunday dinner and tell them they cannot eat the food?

How, in our multicultural and pluralistic society, can our churches be places of hospitality if we exclude table fellowship with the non-baptized? This is not an academic question. In Canada, a growing number of the population is not baptized. Included are people from different religious traditions or people with no religious affiliation at all. Quite likely, some are our grandchildren or great-grandchildren, whose parents neglected or refused to have them baptized.

How can the church effectively minister in a post-Christian world where a significant percentage of the population is not baptized? Some Anglican churches are attempting to meet this challenge by becoming open and inclusive faith communities, ready and willing to support people in their spiritual journeys. They understand that the Anglican tradition has never been content to adopt a sectarian mentality, to insulate itself from culture or to refuse to connect with an unchurched population.

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About 500 people gathered at Central Moravian Feb. 10 to celebrate the full communion of the Episcopal Church and the Northern and Southern Provinces of the Moravian Church. The Episcopal Church approved the full-communion agreement at General Convention in 2009, and the two Moravian provinces approved it in 2010. The churches had practiced interim eucharistic sharing since 2003.

This historic occasion featured a prelude with music by the Central Moravian Brass Ensemble, and opened with a procession of nearly a dozen Episcopal and Moravian bishops. For this event, the Central Moravian choir merged with those of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity and Trinity Church, Bethlehem.

Yet for all its importance, the service was less than two hours long, including the singing of 11 hymns. The service honored both churches’ traditions on the elements of Communion, offering worshipers a choice between wine or grape juice. Recitations were short but heartfelt, stressing fellowship and unity.

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...while the Church debates baptism here in Britain, far away in a Kabul jail a solitary Afghan prisoner is living out its implications. Said Musa is under threat of execution because he was attracted to the Christian faith nine years ago. He was baptised by someone pouring a jug of water over his head and saying some words from the Bible, and from then on he became a marked man. Like the first Christians he is now paying the bitter price of his decision.

Of course it is unlikely that children baptized here will find themselves in prison for being Christians, but I don't think you can take the hint of sacrifice out of baptism any more than you can protect a new born baby from the tears and torments of growing up. St Paul said, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?" That is a shocking thing to say, and it's fine not to want this ceremony for yourself or your children, that's a choice for everyone to make.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism

Herewith the BBC blurb:

The Church of England is considering whether to scrap some of the more archaic language used in the baptism service, following a drop in baptisms in recent years.
Moira Astin, the vicar of St James in Berkshire, and Father David Houlding, an Anglo-Catholic member of the General Synod, debate whether the ceremony needs improving.

Listen to it all (about 5 1/4 minutes).

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The number of adults baptised in Staffordshire in the Anglican Church has shown a 15% increase in 2010.

The figure for the Diocese of Lichfield, which covers most of the county, is twice that for the rest of the Church of England.

However the number of baptisms overall fell slightly, as did the numbers of people attending services regularly.

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The author also claims (incorrectly) that the Anglican Reformers were Zwinglian in their eucharistic theology. Once in awhile, one comes across these attempts to interpret the Anglican Reformers as Zwinglian in their eucharistic theology, whether by those of catholic leanings (who are attempting to do demolition work) or by low-church Evangelicals, hoping to score points against Rome.

It does not work. Neither Cranmer nor Jewel (and certainly not Hooker) were Zwinglians, and they repeatedly go out of their way to make this clear. What they rejected was transubstantiation, particularly the notion that the substance of bread and wine ceased to exist as bread and wine after consecration. It is not terribly clear what they meant by “spiritual presence,” whether a presence through the Holy Spirit (as in Calvin and Eastern Orthodoxy), or rather “something else.” Most commentators interpret them as “virtualists” or “receptionists,” who believed that Christ communicated himself really and truly in his full humanity and deity, in the very act of eating and drinking, when the communicant received the consecrated bread and wine, with faith.

What they clearly believed was: the risen Christ is really present, in his full humanity and deity, when the elements are received with faith, and, in participating in the Lord’s Supper, Christians genuinely participate in Christ’s risen life through the process of eating and drinking. Both Cranmer (against Gardiner) and Jewel (against Harding) were emphatic that they disagreed about the manner of Christ’s presence, not the reality of Christ’s presence.

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The Rev Dr Tim Stratford, from Kirkby, said a group of clergy from deprived parishes in the Liverpool Diocese had discussed their misgivings about some of the language in the baptismal service.

He said the tension between understandability and historic theological references was “as sharp as ever” in rites such as baptism involving large numbers of people including parents and godparents who are “unchurched”.

One of the passages highlighted by the group was the Prayer over Water, during the baptismal service, which speaks of the children of Israel being led from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.

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Church of England baptism services may be re-written to remove some references to Christianity.

The plan for a new ‘baptism lite’ service designed to make christenings more interesting to non-churchgoers will be considered next month by the Church’s parliament, the General Synod. Supporters say the baptism service should be ‘expressed in culturally appropriate and accessible language’ that is readily understood by ‘non-theologically versed Britons’. But traditionalist clergy said the idea amounted to ‘dumbing down’.

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It is no longer possible, it would seem, to leave the Catholic Church. Although the church in Ireland has been accepting applications to defect, many on foot of applications printed from the user-friendly CountMeOut website, it said on Tuesday that it would no longer process them. The website, which has helped disillusioned Catholics leave, has suspended offering the defection papers “until the situation has been clarified”.

In a somewhat ambiguously worded statement the Dublin archdiocese set out the situation for all dioceses: “The Holy See confirmed at the end of August that it was introducing changes to canon law and as a result it will no longer be possible to formally defect from the Catholic Church.” But, it continued: “This will not alter the fact that many people can defect from the church and continue to do so, albeit not through a formal process. This is a change that will affect the church throughout the world.”

It said the archdiocese planned to maintain a register “to note the expressed desire of those who wish to defect”. Last year, it said, 229 people had defected formally from the church through the archdiocese; the figure for this year so far is 312.

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If you are born into a poor community you have less of a chance of graduating from high school and you may never attend college or trade school. If this is you, this means your school does not have new materials or textbooks, your school may be crowded and stress-filled, and your school may have a reputation for poor performance and low morale. Consequently, new school teachers will be reticent about choosing your school as their first job out of college. Teach for America places dynamic, motivated college graduates in some of our nation's underprivileged schools. Teach for America trained me and found work for me here in South Dakota. But, only God would make that work holy.

On my confirmation day, I sat in that huge cathedral, ready to make promises I didn't fully understand. Now in this realm, in my new career of educational leadership, I truly see what it means to seek and serve Christ in all people. For me, it means that every little miracle that shows up at my classroom door represents a sacred mystery. For me, it means if I look closely into the eyes of the student I am teaching, I might catch a glimpse of the divine looking back at me. For me, it means that I will let my hands, feet and legs say my prayers for me and my every act of service will be a hymn of gratitude.

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Charges the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has abandoned the historic episcopate by receiving a bishop from the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches (CEEC) without re-consecrating him are unfounded, the traditionalist province-in-waiting tells The Church of England Newspaper.

On July 31, American church commentator Robin Jordan charged the ACNA with having abandoned the historic episcopate when its Provincial Council of Bishops voted on June 9 to receive the Rt. Rev. Derek Jones as a bishop in good standing. Formed in 1995, the CEEC is an American Protestant denomination that has found a niche blending charismatic worship with liturgies drawn from the Book of Common Prayer, and is not normally numbered among the Anglican breakaway churches in the United States.

However, a review of Bishop Jones’ episcopal antecedents by the CEN finds that while a number of his consecrating bishops would not be recognized by Anglicans, his descent from a Brazilian bishop whose episcopal orders were recognized by Pope John XXIII places him within the apostolic tradition.

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When I was in seminary, I wrote a killer essay on baptism. The assignment was to write a detailed parish newsletter column explaining baptism and the process for preparing infants, children and adults for the sacrament. I pulled out all the stops, wrote just what my liturgics professor wanted to read, and, had the essay actually been printed in the newsletter, I would've had to officiate at far more funerals than baptisms as a result of boring parishioners to death.

It's safe to say there's a difference between theory and practice, between seminary and ministry. I know this because the past few baptisms I've celebrated haven't exactly followed the outline I dazzled my professor with. They've been better.

Working as a chaplain for Hospice at Home has reminded me that at life's end, people think about tying up loose ends, and for some that loose end is baptism. I was working with a family and two of the daughters of a man who was dying said that he, his wife and another daughter hadn't been baptized and they thought that the three of them should receive the sacrament before their father died. One thing that's very important in providing spiritual care for the dying and their families is not to push any agenda or bias I (or the family) may have; rather it is to explore what's meaningful for the patient and assist him or her in finding it. So we talked about baptism for a few minutes, and they decided they wanted to be baptized; and with the patient in bed and his wife and their daughter at his bedside, I asked the other daughters to find the nicest bowl in the kitchen and fill it with water from the tap. Then we gathered in a circle, and I blessed the water and baptized them.

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The decision of the Appellate Tri­bunal rejecting lay and diaconal presidency at the eucharist is the latest setback for the diocese of Sydney in its quest to find a means of allowing lay people and deacons to fulfil this function.

Since the 1990s, numerous at­tempts have failed, but this decision is the most serious, because the dio­cese’s current ordination policy is based on the premise that deacons can (in Sydney’s preferred termin­ology) administer the Lord’s Supper.

Under the policy that has been introduced in recent years, ordination as priests (or presbyters, as Sydney calls them) is restricted only to rec­tors of parishes. At least one newly appointed rector has been ordained priest in the same service in which he was inducted into his first parish.

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(--Per the diocesan website, the Rt. Rev. Edward Lee is Assisting Bishop for Ordinations and Coordinator of Campus/Young Adult Ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania).

Since 1976 when the current Book of Common Prayer restored the sacramental significance and centrality of Holy Baptism to the liturgical and ministerial life of The Episcopal Church, an interesting and exciting movement has been emerging and bubbling up in congregations and dioceses. Simply stated it’s called the “Ministry in Daily Life” movement. It has no formal national organization. Rather, it has local manifestations generated by people who are convinced that the Baptismal Covenant is the basis for intentional baptismal living and ministry every day of the week.

In the Diocese of Pennsylvania this movement has been spearheaded for over 20 years by the Center for Baptismal Living (CBL), a group of lay and clergy persons who have been committed to finding ways to raise the awareness of
both individuals and parishes to the question, what does it mean to be “sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever” (BCP, p. 308)? Or put another way, what does baptismal living look like Monday through Saturday after the Christian community has gathered on Sunday and exited to the dismissal, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”?

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Our Lady’s body is not John Brown’s body: it had a higher vocation; there is no tradition, as there is with other saints, of relics: what happened? Historians have little to go on.....

Since Vatican II, it has proved a lesser obstacle than expected. True, Barthians do not like it. But John Macquarrie’s Mary for All Christians (1991) gave a positive C of E critique; and the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, in 2005, affirmed “the teaching that God has taken the Blessed Virgin Mary in the fullness of her person into his glory as consonant with Scripture, and only to be understood in the light of Scripture”. When Anglicans speak of unwarranted developments these days, they are more likely to be talking about disputes among themselves. Indeed, the charge of setting the bar too high for communion, levelled against Rome in 1950, has a topical ring to it....

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The ten year average for POF is 2638. We have surpassed the ten year average over the past two years. Among most Conferences, the goal is simply to slow the decline. North Alabama has dared to pray for more. And it is deeply gratifying to see visible evidence of the Holy Spirit moving among us. Behind every one of these numbers is a family reached, a person saved, a soul that is welcomed and included into the family of faith. And behind every number is a congregation and a pastor who is not threatened by our Wesleyan ethos of accountability and growth but is excited that we are focused on “the main thing” – salvation of the world in Jesus Christ.

“You only count what is important and whatever you count becomes important,” says one of our slogans. By counting every week the new life that God gives us, we are making that new life the engine that is driving our church life. Not content to care for the needs of who is already there, our churches are reaching out to those who are not.

Take a look.

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An Anglican church in Canada has caused an outcry after a dog was given holy communion. The Revd Marguerite Rea gave a consecrated wafer to an Alsatian-cross breed named Trapper, at St Peter’s, Toronto, last month.

It was the first time the dog and his owner, Donald Keith, had attended a service there. The Bishop of York Scarborough, the Rt Revd Patrick Yu, who oversees St Peter’s, emphasised that it was against the policy of the Anglican Church of Canada. “I can see why people would be offended. It is a strange and shocking thing, and I have never heard of it happening before.”

He said he believed Ms Rea was overcome by “a misguided gesture of welcoming”. He has received assurances from her that it will never happen again. The matter was now closed, he said, as “we are, after all, in the forgiveness-and-repair business.”

On Sunday, Ms Rea apologised for her action, which had been a “simple act of reaching out”.

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I cite here the exhortation:

Dear friends, and you especially on whose souls I have cure and charge, on --- - next I do intend, by God's grace, to offer all such as shall be godly disposed the most comfortable sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, to be taken of them in remembrance of his most fruitful and glorious passion: by the which passion we have obtained remission of our sins, and be made partakers of the kingdom of heaven; whereof we be assured and ascertained, if we come to the said sacrament with hearty repentance for our offences, stedfast faith in God's mercy, and earnest mind to obey God's will, and to offend no more. Wherefore our duty is to come to these holy mysteries with most hearty thanks to be given to Almighty God for his infinite mercy and benefits given and bestowed upon his unworthy servants, for whom he hath not only given his Body to death, and shed his Blood, but also doth vouchsafe, in a sacrament and mystery, to give us his said Body and Blood to feed upon spiritually. The which sacrament being so divine and holy a thing, and so comfortable to them which receive it worthily, and so dangerous to them that will presume to take the same unworthily: my duty is to exhort you, in the mean season, to consider the greatness of the thing, and to search and examine your own consciences, and that not lightly, nor after the manner of dissimulers with God, but as they which should come to a most godly and heavenly banquet; not to come but in the marriage garment required of God in the Scripture; that you may (so much as lieth in you) be found worthy to come to such a table. The ways and means thereto is, first, that you be truly repentant of your former evil life; and that you confess with an unfeigned heart to Almighty God, your sins and unkindness towards his Majesty committed, either by will, word, or deed, infirmity or ignorance; and that with inward sorrow and tears you bewail your offences, and require of Almighty God mercy and pardon, promising to him (from the bottom of your hearts) the amendment of your former life. And amongst all others, I am commanded of God especially to move and exhort you to reconcile yourselves to your neighbours, whom you have offended, or who hath offended you, putting out of your hearts all hatred and malice against them, and to be in love and charity with all the world, and to forgive others as you would that God should forgive you. And if any man hath done wrong to any other, let him make satisfaction and due restitution of all lands and goods wrongfully taken away or witholden, before he come to God's board; or at the least be in full mind and purpose so to do, as soon as he is able; or else let him not come to this holy table, thinking to deceive God, who seeth all men's hearts. For neither the absolution of the priest can any thing avail them, nor the receiving of this holy sacrament doth any thing but increase their damnation. And if there be any of you whose conscience is troubled and grieved in any thing, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned priest, taught in the law of God, and confess and open his sin and grief secretly, that he may receive such ghostly counsel, advice, and comfort, that his conscience may be relieved, and that of us (as the ministers of God and of the Church) he may receive comfort and absolution, to the satisfaction of his mind, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness; requiring such as shall be satisfied with a general confession not to be offended with them that do use, to their further satisfying, the auricular and secret confession to the priest; nor those also which think needful or convenient, for the quietness of their own consciences, particularly to open their sins to the priest, to be offended with them that are satisfied with their humble confession to God, and the general confession to the Church: but in all things to follow and keep the rule of charity; and every man to be satisfied with his own conscience, not judging other men's minds or consciences; whereas he hath no warrant of God's Word to the same.

Do please consider looking at it all (Another link may be found there).

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Thirty members of the United Pentecostal Church of Gretna, La., made the two-hour drive to Grand Isle to baptize new parishioners on the beach where they usually conduct the ceremony. But sheriff's officers riding four-wheel-drive dune buggies blocked the entrance.

Pastor Vidal Galvez, 40, and the caravan of the faithful drove a few hundred yards away to the bay-side waters and got on with the service. They strung a tarp between two vans, put a few beach chairs in a circle and set up a card table for the altar. Two Guatemalan guitarists started off the service with baptismal hymns.

After the 30-minute service, Galvez led congregants into the calm backwaters, where Diana Perdomo and Danilo Garcia were baptized with song and prayer.“This contamination is bad for the fishermen, and the animals," Galvez said in Spanish. “It ruins the environment.”

Go here to read it all and see the wonderful picture.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Economics, Politics • Energy, Natural Resources • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Pentecostal • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism

Being in the Episcopal Church these days means entering a vertiginous journey into the corruption of language. You see language which used to mean x, and in one Episcopal Church setting it is used to mean y, and then in another the same words mean z. One thinks immediately of the scene in Alice Wonderland (written as I hope you know by an Anglican deacon):

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

For a recent example of this manipulation of language to mean what it does not mean consider a piece on chastity by Richard Helmer .

Chastity, technically, is the refraining from sexual activity outside its proper context. For Christians, this has meant abstinence for those who are single and faithfulness for a wife or a husband who is married. This has been the standard for Christians throughout church history and still is for Christians worldwide today. None of this is to suggest that Christians have not struggled with sexuality, or that the understanding of sexuality and its proper use has not gone through interesting developments in the church's life. It is also not to suggest that a very small minority of contemporary mostly Western Christians have not sought to challenge this standard. The leadership of TEC of course is part of this very small minority.

Richard Helmer is certainly correct to observe that "chastity deserves a thorough study by everyone presently involved in the tired crisis of the Anglican Communion." It is just my hope that in doing so words are allowed to mean what the words mean and not what we want them to mean, whether in fact they mean what we say they mean or not.

One of the things you will hear in some circles of TEC is "sexuality is a sacrament." This was actually explicitly said in a national church resource a while back.

It isn't true, but like a lot of TEC leadership assertions these days, it contains partial truth. You may know that heresy is part of the truth masquerading as the whole truth--which is therefore actually an untruth. This statement about sexuality being "a sacrament" is an example of such a definition of heresy.

The truth is sexuality is like a sacrament and has sacramental dimensions, and it is from this vantage point that an important response to Richard Helmer can emerge.

You may know that in sacramental theology there is sometimes a distinction made between sacramental matter and sacramental form. The matter is the "stuff" or physical material involved in the sacrament, and the form is the words said and (sometimes) the sayer of such words, etc. Thus in baptism the matter is water, and the form is God's threefold name (it can be by an authorized minister, but it actually doesn't have to be).

We do not need to veer way off into sacramental theology at this time, the point is that in sacramental theology there is involved a what, as well as a who and how. This is not dissimilar to Thomistic ethical considerations, which tell us that any act's moral determination comes from considering the act, the intention and the circumstance.

When these kinds of dimensions are considered, and one realizes that sexuality has many sacrament-like qualities, one can argue that sexuality is best understood by considering all its aspects, the what and the who and the how.

Now consider Father Helmer's essay. Already one grows uneasy when one watches the essay begin without entering into the long stream of christian history in this area. What, one wants to ask, have all the Christians who have gone before us on whose shoulders we now stand, understood by this term chastity? One might have liked some Scriptural study and work as well. Instead we get a reference to chastity which has to do with "fidelity" and then a working definition as follows:

Chastity means setting aside dominance and control and seeking instead a new way to relate to the world and to God. He then goes on, quite revealingly, to say he is concerned about "a failure of chastity" which he then clarifies this way: "...I don't mean sex outside the marriage. By chastity in marriage I mean the challenge of setting aside the stubborn drive to control or change person we most cherish."

Now please understand that there is much in this discussion with which I would wholeheartedly agree. My concern here, though, is what this definition of chastity represents. It typifies the gnosticism present is all too much Episcopal Church thinking these days, where the how takes all precedence over the what, where form triumphs over substance. We hear talk of mutuality and faithfulness and encouragement and life enhancement and on and on and on. These are good things. But we cannot allow the how to bypass the what. We cannot allow intention and circumstance to dominate, and not ask about the act itself.

Alas, we are in a church which claims to be sacramental, but which is too often reductionistic.

Look at this paragraph from Father Helmer and see how it is all about the adjectives, is is all a world where how triumphs over what:

Chaste behavior has been in the quiet but transformative story-telling and building up of authentic relationships across the divides of gender, class, race, culture, sexuality, and ideology all across the Communion recently. Chastity allows us to be ourselves by allowing others to be themselves. Chastity makes it known when we are encountering oppression and articulates our needs as they arise. Chastity seeks honest accountability. Chastity sets aside the weapons and metaphors of war for an honest, authentic justice. Chastity endeavors to shed the harbored resentments and unmet wants of our brief lives and move forward in renewed relationship.

And what is the Alice in Wonderland outcome of such reductionism? Helmer asserts:

"Chastity has long been in evidence by those courageous, oft-threatened "firsts" of our faith who inhabit dangerous positions not for power or the quixotic pursuit of perfection, but simply by being who they are and following God's call as best they can. The consecrations in the Diocese of Los Angeles are some of the most recent examples of this form of chastity."

The problem here is that a woman in a same sex partnership by definition cannot be chaste, and would never have been considered chaste by our forbears. It flunks the test based on the what, no matter how much Father Helmer wants us to focus on the how. It is not just about the "form" of chastity, to have chastity one needs both form and substance.

In the world where words mean what they were given to mean, this isn't chaste at all.

One more observation, as a kind of final irony. Even if I were to grant that it is all about form (and I don't), this flunks the chastity test. Chastity is about "setting aside dominance and control" says Father Helmer. So many see in TEC's actions exactly those two things, they see American unilateralism writ large.

Lord, have mercy on us.

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Reacting to questions raised recently in the media, the bishops said the Church loved such couples in the same way as it loved all its members. It would continue to offer them spiritual help and it encouraged them to go to Mass and participate in the life of the Church.

"However, the Catholic Church insists that couples who live together without being married should not receive Holy Communion.

"The Church does not impose this as a punishment, but because the way of life of such people goes against the sacrament of marriage," the bishops said.

Furthermore, the bishops said, such behaviour went against Church teaching that those who received the Eucharist had to be one in unity with Christ and the Church.

Read it all.

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Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury who wrote and compiled the first two editions of The Book of Common Prayer, wanted laity — not just priests — to participate in the Holy Eucharist regularly, as was done in Jesus’ time.

“The 1979 prayer book has gotten us back to our Reformation roots and to our ancient roots,” [the Rev. Dr. Patrick Malloy, professor of liturgics at the General Theological Seminary in New York]... said.

Returning to early Christian roots is beneficial and can help parishioners know that they, as well as priests, can draw near to the holy, Malloy said. He cautioned, however, that with more frequent celebration of the Eucharist some reverence and humility, the “balanced Eucharistic piety” that should attend the sacred, may have been lost.

“I cannot read your souls, so I don’t know if the fact that the Eucharist is now the normative Sunday pattern has changed people,” Malloy said. “Cranmer did not take Communion lightly. Today, I fear that sometimes … many of us do approach the sacrament very lightly.”

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The argument for direct ordination meets its biggest challenge, I think, on grounds of tradition, which are strong. In contrast, "it works for me" is prone to counter-examples of "it doesn't work for me," "this other way could work for me," and "if transitional ordination is your call, that's great, but it isn't mine."

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That way, just like the other sacraments, whether a marriage was legitimate or not would rest entirely in the hands of the church. But alas, for the church this was deemed impossible to enforce. It rightly recognized that people would continue to marry without the blessing of a priest, much like they had, well, for thousands of years before the church ever came along. This would have entailed the church deeming void from the outset far too many working marriages for any reasonable person to take its pronouncements on the institution seriously.

The upshot of all this is that the celebration of marriage is still the only sacrament that is enacted by the couple and only presided over – merely witnessed – by a priest. I like reminding myself this when I'm doing weddings: I'm just an accessory. The power is in their hands. And it was nice to remember as I was getting married, too. All this may sound slightly odd coming from a Christian priest who represents the institutional church and routinely performs marriages. But that only made such small consolations that much more important. A public apology tacked onto the liturgy may still be worthwhile for some, but, thankfully, I found something of the same thing – written right into its history.

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It's horrible—or, cynics might say, fortuitous—timing for Ms. Sarandon, who has been busy promoting "The Lovely Bones," in which she plays the glamorous grandmother of the dead teenager who narrates the film. In Alice Sebold's book, on which the movie is based, Grandma Lynn wears lots of makeup and a secondhand mink and swoops in to rescue a family collapsing into grief and despair. Along the way, she endeavors to stop her daughter from blowing up her marriage via an affair with a brooding detective. "I know something is going on that isn't kosher," she tells her daughter. "Capisce?"

Capisce, we do. Ms. Sarandon, whose seemingly golden "domestic partnership" with Mr. Robbins was the stuff of Hollywood legend, is desirous of preserving marriages on screen, but not so much in real life. She famously declined to wed Mr. Robbins, the father of her two sons, because she worried such a stuffy and archaic ritual might harm their relationship.

'"I won't marry because I am too afraid of taking him for granted, or him taking me for granted," she once said. "Maybe it will be a good excuse for a party when I am 80."

Read it all from today's Wall Street Journal Weekend Journal section.

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Oddly enough for a person who yearns for the unity of Christendom, I have come to think that our abandonment of the distinctively Anglican “flavor” of worship and devotion, an abandonment variously justified as bringing us closer to other liturgical churches as well as making worship more accessible to moderns, has enormously harmed our witness and compromised our evangelism. A wise Bishop of Michigan, now in glory, once remarked that our contribution to unity had to come from the depth of our own tradition. That tradition was intimately anchored in our liturgical heritage and in its patient pastoral application.

Instead we seem to have morphed into “denominationalism”. By that I mean that the institution itself now claims our allegiance, a form of genealogical affirmation to structure as opposed to content. As I am not a “Receptionist”, one who believes that the faith of individuals or institutions enables God to act through Word and Sacraments, I am loathe to unchurch contemporary Anglicanism, as it is practiced in the US and perhaps even more alarmingly in England. Having said that I am confounded by the sort of lowest common denominator sacramentalism we offer to the communities where we minister....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Commentary • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Ecclesiology • Pastoral Theology • Sacramental Theology

As a husband of 28 years and as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, which has 110 congregations in eight counties in northern New Jersey, including Morris, Sussex and Warren, I strongly support the marriage equality initiative that will come before the state Senate this week. Last Thursday in Trenton, I joined 650 people (many of whom were clergy from a variety of faiths), to witness to the need for marriage equality.

I pray that the marriage bill passes — so that all couples who have engaged in a lifelong union can have their unions recognized. It is one thing to have the relationship blessed; it is quite another thing to have that relationship legally recognized in emergency rooms or on insurance policies or in a courtroom. The introduction of the 2007 Civil Union law was intended to support these rights. It hasn't. Instead, it has exposed a separate but equal mentality in the state, which is indeed separate, yet anything but equal.

There is formidable opposition to this opportunity, which also needs to be acknowledged and honored. There are religious convictions that are deeply held and longstanding. People who are opposed to marriage equality often cite the tradition that marriage should be between a man and a woman. A closer look shows that the historical tradition of marriage is that of a contract between two men: the groom and the father of the bride. When a woman was "given away" in marriage, she was given by her father to her husband, and in this exchange the woman surrendered her name, her rights and her property.

Read it all.

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In July of this year, the 76th General Convention adopted resolution C056, “Liturgies for Blessings.” It allows that “bishops, particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church.”

Your bishops understand this to mean for us here in the Diocese of Massachusetts that the clergy of this diocese may, at their discretion, solemnize marriages for all eligible couples, beginning Advent I. Solemnization, in accordance with Massachusetts law, includes hearing the declaration of consent, pronouncing the marriage and signing the marriage certificate. This provision for generous pastoral response is an allowance and not a requirement; any member of the clergy may decline to solemnize any marriage.

While gender-specific language remains unchanged in the canons and The Book of Common Prayer, our provision of generous pastoral response means that same-gender couples can be married in our diocese. We request that our clergy follow as they ordinarily would the other canonical requirements for marriage and remarriage. And, because The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage in The Book of Common Prayer may not be used for marriages of same-gender couples, we ask that our priests seek out liturgical resources being developed and collected around the church. We also commend to you the October 2008 resource created by our New England dioceses, “Pastoral Resources for Province I Episcopal Clergy Ministering to Same-Gender Couples,” available at http://www.province1.org.

We have not arrived at this place in our common life easily or quickly. We have not done it alone. This decision comes after a long process of listening, prayer and discernment leading up to and continuing after General Convention’s action this past summer.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • TEC Bishops • TEC Conflicts • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Sacramental Theology

Five years after same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, the local Episcopal bishop yesterday gave permission for priests in Eastern Massachusetts to officiate at same-sex weddings.

The decision by Bishop M. Thomas Shaw III was immediately welcomed by advocates of gay rights in the Episcopal Church, who have chafed at local rules that allowed priests to bless same-sex couples, but not sign the documents that would solemnize their marriages.

The decision is likely to exacerbate tensions in the Episcopal Church and the global denomination to which it belongs, the Anglican Communion, which has faced significant division in the wake of the election of an openly gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

“The time has come,’’ Shaw said in a telephone interview. “It’s time for us to offer to gay and lesbian people the same sacrament of fidelity that we offer to the heterosexual world.’’

Read it all

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Sacramental Theology

In the 19th and 20th centuries, however, the relationship of the spouses assumed new importance, as the church came to understand that marriage was a profoundly spiritual relationship in which partners experienced, through mutual affection and self-sacrifice, the unconditional love of God.

The Episcopal Church's 1979 Book of Common Prayer puts it this way: "We believe that the union of husband and wife, in heart, body and mind, is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God's will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord."

Our evolving understanding of what marriage is leads, of necessity, to a re-examination of who it is for. Most Christian denominations no longer teach that all sex acts must be open to the possibility of procreation, and therefore contraception is permitted. Nor do they hold that infertility precludes marriage. The church has deepened its understanding of the way in which faithful couples experience and embody the love of the creator for creation. In so doing, it has put itself in a position to consider whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

Theologically, therefore, Christian support for same-sex marriage is not a dramatic break with tradition, but a recognition that the church's understanding of marriage has changed dramatically over 2,000 years.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology • Sacramental Theology

If not, why not? Write a sign up to try it for a year.

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One of the best known texts from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer is the Baptismal Covenant. We often refer to it by title – "Our Baptismal Covenant calls us to work for justice and peace," or "the Baptismal Covenant makes us all evangelists" – with the expectation that our audience knows exactly what we mean.

The commitments we make in the last five questions, particularly the last three, show up in mission statements and on church websites as summaries of what it means to be Christian, and I suspect that they have been the basis of many a sermon series or Lenten study.

It is gratifying for a liturgist to see such a clear example of our worship, our common prayer, sinking so deeply into our consciousness. Praying does shape believing.

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In many Roman Catholic churches across the country, lay people no longer receive wine at Communion, and some Catholic clergy have advised congregants not to shake hands or hug at the moment of the liturgy known as "the passing of the peace," when parishioners typically greet someone in, and offer embodied signs of, the peace of Christ. In my own Episcopal parish, I was greeted by a neighbor last Sunday with an elbow bump. At a United Church of Christ congregation in the suburbs of Chicago, Communion servers now slice up bread into bite-sized bits before distributing Communion; they no longer offer congregants a loaf from which to tear a hunk of bread. In the interest of keeping fingers away from communion wine, communicants at All Saints' Chapel in Sewanee, Tenn., are now instructed not to dip their Eucharistic bread into the cup but rather to sip the cup directly, since hands are often more infectious than mouths.

At Cornell University, the Episcopal chaplain, Clark West, has reminded worshippers that they will receive the fullness of the Eucharist if they receive only "one kind"—that is, the wafer and not the wine. "We have alcoholics among us for whom this has been the practice for years without any noticeably adverse effects," quips Mr. West. To emphasize this, he has, on occasion, used a longer liturgical formula, which names the host as itself both "the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." Less reverently, Mr. West has taken to calling the bottle of Purell hand sanitizer, which now sits prominently on the credence table, the post-modern lavabo. (A lavabo is the bowl a priest uses to wash his or her hands in the Eucharist.)

Read it all.

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On 2 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 30 at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Cambridge, Mayor E. Denise Simmons shall be marrying her longtime partner, Ms. Mattie B. Hayes, in a celebration of love, acceptance, and togetherness. The couple shares a passionate interest in advocacy and support work for children and families, and their wedding ceremony shall touch upon those themes. This is certainly a joyous milestone for the Cambridge Mayor and her family, which is to be expected of a loving union; however, this same-sex marriage is also important on a broader scale, as it seems indicative of a more accepting, more tolerant society.

The wedding will take place at the historic St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, which has predominantly been serving Cambridge’s African-American community for over 100 years, and is presided over by the Rev. Leslie K. Sterling. The wedding ceremony shall be conducted by Rev. Irene Monroe, who has cultivated a reputation as a progressive and nurturing spiritual leader, and who has conducted extensive outreach efforts to the GLBT community. The Reverend writes religion columns for In Newsweekly (the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender newspaper in New England), for The Advocate, and for The Witness, a progressive Episcopalian journal. Mayor Simmons is honored to have this progressive spiritual leader preside over her wedding, and to have the ceremony take place in such a historic and inclusive house of worship.

Read it all.

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • Sexuality • --Civil Unions & Partnerships • * Theology • Sacramental Theology

* FINAL VERSION - Not Completed
Resolution: D089
Title: Invitation to Receive Holy Communion
Topic: Doctrine
Committee: 13 - Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music
House of Initial Action: Bishops
Proposer: The Very Rev. Ernesto R. Medina

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 76th General Convention direct the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons to review and provide a recommendation to resolve the conflict between Article X of the Constitution, specifically, the invitation offered in the Book of Common Prayer "The Gifts of God for the People of God" and Canon I.17.7, restricting communion to only the baptized; and be it further

Resolved, That the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons consult with other appropriate Standing Commissions, as needed; and be it further

Resolved, That the Standing Commission report back to the 77th General Convention.


EXPLANATION

There appears to be a conflict between the Constitution of the Episcopal Church and the Canons of the Episcopal Church with respect to who is able to receive Holy Communion.

Constitution - Article X
The Book of Common Prayer, as now established or hereafter amended by the authority of this Church, shall be in use in all the Dioceses of this Church. BCP clearly states in the invitation to receive Communion "The Gifts of God for the People of God." The question we ask is "who is the People of God?"

Canon 17 - Section 7

No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.

We are asking the Standing Commission on Constitutions and Canons to help resolve this conflict.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Eucharist

A headline in the Thursday, May 7 Post and Courier has been followed by at least three additional articles since then about the legalization of what the media calls ‘gay marriage’. The article on May 7 began, ‘In a banner day in New England for advocates of gay marriage, Maine legalized the practice Wednesday, and the New Hampshire Legislature voted to do the same… (New Hampshire) would be the sixth state overall… to allow gay marriage.’

Meanwhile, Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California, continues to make the news as the contestant who has spoken out opposed to gay marriage. And, the every-three-year General Convention of the Episcopal Church, convening in less than a month, may have something to say about this, too. Since this issue seems to be gathering more and more momentum and headlines, I sense the need as a priest of Christ’s Church to say something regarding this.

The news articles are making reference to these states that are declaring that a same-sex relationship—a union between two men or two women— are of the same character, order and quality of what the Christian faith, other world faiths, and world cultures have recognized for millennia as reserved for the special relationship between one man and one woman that we call marriage or in the church, Holy Matrimony. (Attempts in some cultures to make it a relationship of more than one man and one woman (polygamy) has never achieved positive acceptance.)

I am moved to ask, ‘How can this be?’ I am sympathetic for those who identify themselves as gay or lesbian seeking to have the rights and privileges due any person anytime. I also understand an individual’s desire to have the legal right to bequeath or empower another individual, any one he or she chooses, to be an advocate for that individual’s rights, or a recipient or a beneficiary for that person. Our own baptismal covenant which asks us to respect the dignity of every human being and the Biblical call to love are certainly all the warrant one needs in terms of all of our relationships to be rooted in fairness and concern for others.

Nevertheless it astonishes me that the institution of marriage is now being re-defined ostensibly for the sake of legal rights. If marriage is defined as anything, any relationship, then marriage is no longer marriage as it has been known through the ages. The procreative role in the union of a man and a woman, in itself, make this relationship unlike any other kind of possible union. Further, there is the unique complementarity of a man and woman that the Biblical narrative in Genesis speaks of so powerfully. Mankind is made in the image of God, and as male and female, they most ideally represent the full image of our Creator God.

It seems to me that it is like this: there are some inherent realities that simply are what they are by their nature and their very essence. For example, no matter how much I as a man want the ‘right’ to become pregnant, it will not happen. It does not matter what I think about the idea or what a court says about the idea or what law is passed. I cannot bear a child, whether I like it or not. Is it possible that there are some fundamental realities, like the institution of marriage, that carry the same inherent givenness? This is where some of us may disagree, but I believe marriage bears this sort of weight and truth. It is what it is—no more and no less.

For Anglicans, whether it is the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the 1928 Book of Common Prayer or the Prayer Book of 1662, the service has begun with these or similar words, ‘…We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony. The service continues with the collect that reads, ‘O gracious and everliving God, you have created us male and female in your image…’ Our liturgy gives clear expression to whom the sacrament of marriage is available.

It is equally clearly defined in the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. There is currently no wiggle room here for this particular innovation of same gender relationships! Canon 18, Section 2b: Of the Solemnization of Holy Matrimony—Before solemnizing a marriage the Member of the Clergy shall have ascertained: That both parties understand that Holy Matrimony is a physical and spiritual union of a man and a woman…with intent that it be lifelong.

I am grieved that this particular agenda is being pressed so fervently by the GLBT (Gay-Lesbian-Bi-sexual-Transgender) lobby. Rick Warren, the pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church in Orange County, California, spoke in the fall of 2008 in opposition to California’s Proposition 8 which had as its goal to universalize the institution of marriage. Spoken with compassion and sensitivity but also with clarity, his words are worth noting. Here are some excerpts from his comments last fall:
• There are about 2% of Americans who are homosexual or gay and lesbian people. We should not let 2% of the population change the definition of marriage…
• This is not even just a Christian issue. It is a no to gays using the term marriage for their relationship….
• While I believe the gay view of sexuality is contrary to God’s Word, I do believe that God gives us free choice and he gives us a choice to obey his word or to disobey it….
• Some people feel today that if you disagree with them, then that’s hate speech. If you disagree with them you either hate them or you’re afraid of them. I’m neither afraid of gays nor do I hate gays. In fact I love gays but I do disagree with some of their beliefs.

May our politics, our courts, our legislatures be moved to see the wrong path that is being taken when it universalizes the marriage sacrament for any and all. May the Church, all denominations, even other faiths, speak with one voice affirming that marriage, by its definition, is to remain as a relationship establishing the union of one man and one woman. May we find a better way forward that protects an individual’s civil rights without using the institution of marriage as the means to those civil rights. May those of us who have this same conviction speak our convictions with clarity; yet continue to respect the dignity of every human being.

In Christ’s love,

--The Rev. Michael Lumpkin is rector, Saint Paul's, Summerville, South Carolina

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The sense of the Committee is that our work is not yet complete and that we have not had sufficient time to discuss all of these matters as fully as we would like. We offer this document to the House of Bishops and the larger General Convention as an initial reflection. In this document we try to reflect some of the issues around which our discussions have coalesced, though often without resolution. We also raise several issues and questions regarding the practice of “open communion.” These are issues that have either come up in our face to face discussions or from our examination of essays written on this topic or from conversations at various levels in our own dioceses. There may be need in the future to produce a more substantial document after further discussion and consultation with the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music and after receiving responses to this paper.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • * Theology • Sacramental Theology • Eucharist

To reiterate my on view of the nature of the church’s blessing, there is a kind of “test” that needs to be m[ad]e, which resolves around answering positively the following kinds of questions:

* Does God “do it”, and does it accord with God’s being and character and will?
* Is it in conformance with creative life?
* Is it obedient according to the common Christian understanding of divine command?

The human blessing of a marriage, understood traditionally, according to this scheme is rather obviously not only congruent but almost necessary. If we take the very language of blessing in the OT as we saw it, the notion of divine blessing is in fact essentially bound to the act of God’s creating human beings as male and female and ordering their existence procreatively within the earth. “And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Gen 1:28). And when, subsequently, we are given the shape of this creative ordering, we are told: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). The fact that someone – a priest, the church – “blesses” this reality is but the human reflection of something truly already present. “All your works praise you, O Lord”: one could look at a marriage service as this kind of inevitable praise, “ascribing” to the Lord the honor due to His own work.

The contested issue with same-sex coupling is: is this in fact the “work” of the Lord? If our blessing of something “displays” what God has already more fundamentally enacted in His creative purposes, how would one know, thereby to “bless” it? The question, obviously, has got to get way beyond the silly claims that “the Church blesses all kinds of things – fox hunts and submarines – why not this?” Because, as we have seen, the Church ought not to bless all things, if in fact some things are not aspects of the creative purposes of God’s life-giving and life-extending character and will and do not accord with God’s “command”. If the Church does this, she becomes like the false prophets, trading in lies and ultimately engaging the deep “rebellion” against God: divine blessing and curse are humanly and woefully reversed.

And in this light, I believe that the issue of blessing same-sex unions cannot be construed in terms of whether this is a moral or a doctrinal issue. The distinction between the two, while it may have some canonical bearings within the Church’s decision-making process, has no theological rationale: there is no clear difference, Scripturally speaking, between “moral” and “doctrinal” reality, whether in the OT or NT as a whole.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Sacramental Theology • Theology: Scripture