"NO THEM ONLY US"

"No Them Only Us", a double-sided sculpture/painting by Mark Titchner.

Bishop Alan Wilson gets to the heart of the matter on the wisdom of adopting the Anglican Covenant in his post titled Only us, redeemed. General Synod of the Church of England will decide on Wednesday of next week whether to adopt the covenant.

When I become a follower of Jesus Christ in baptism, when I receive the bread and wine, I am swept up personally into a process of reconciliation between heaven and earth in which all principalities and powers are disarmed, all sins forgiven, all and, in the end, every tear wiped away from all eyes. The ordinary business of worship is my point of contact, now, with that glorious reality where Christ will one day be all in all.

I really believe this stuff, and, it has, for me, unmistakable “relational consequences” of its own that are far deeper than any merely human falling out however justified. I exercise saving faith when I allow Jesus to break down barriers that divide people, not when I define them. Any label I slap on others who disgust me (what a comical concept in itself) will be torn off anyway, on the day of unveiling. Any dividing wall has been fatally undermined by the earthquake that came after Jesus died. Any protecting veil for what human beings hold, rightly or wrongly, to be holy, been torn in two.

Therefore, in the end, if we take the cross seriously, there can no longer be “us” and “them.” There is only “us,” at the foot of the cross, even though, confronted with the other people involved, some of us find that distasteful for now. (My emphasis) Defining people by their acts, gathering them into self-validating camps within which they can huddle fantasizing about their own righteousness and the opposition’s faithlessness is childish, unworthy and sub Christian. All we have to do to find healing and grace is stop doing it. And designing hidiing places where anyone can hide from the true implications of the cross is the silliest and most perilous policy for Christians to contemplate. It really is alien to our best tradition.

I really believe this stuff, too. So far as I know, Bishop Alan is the only bishop in the Church of England to publicly question the wisdom of the adoption of the covenant, which I believe to be a heroic stance on his part. A decision to stand alone amongst one's peers is not easy. I've heard, but not firsthand, that other English bishops privately express doubts about the covenant but think that they must go along and vote to adopt because Archbishop Rowan Williams wants the covenant so badly.

The words on the artwork pictured above are taken from Bill Clinton's acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic Convention:

And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other - all of us - we need each other. We don’t have a person to waste, and yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what’s really wrong with America is the rest of us - them.

Them, the minorities. Them, the liberals. Them, the poor. Them, the homeless. Them, the people with disabilities. Them, the gays.

We’ve gotten to where we’ve nearly them'ed ourselves to death. Them, and them, and them.

Substitute "every member of the Anglican Communion" for "every American" and the words serve us well at the present moment.

When I was in Leeds in England last year, I saw the sculpture pictured above in an exhibit. In my post on the exhibit, I said:

I was intrigued by the sculpture/painting the moment I read the words. It is a large block with all sides painted, taller and wider than it is thick, like a domino. At first, I thought the words were quite satisfying - if only the world was like that - but, as I thought about them more, I realized that more than one meaning was applicable.

The other interpretation of the artwork is that we close ranks and exclude "them", and we are left with only "us". We seem to be at a point of decision as to which way the Anglican Communion will go.

You know what I think: No Anglican Covenant!

PRAY FOR POOR MADPRIEST

MADPRIEST UPDATE:

This is just typical of my life.

Having gone through a course of antibiotics a few weeks back to get rid of a tooth abscess, I was persuaded by my dentist to have root canal work on the offending premolar to stop the abscess returning. This morning, after a fitful sleep, I woke up to find my jaw had swollen up (not quite like a melon but certainly resembling an average size satsuma). So, off I went to the dentist to discover that the surgery to stop me getting another abscess had given me, yes, you guessed it, an abscess.

This has been why I have been in such agony since Monday. Unfortunately, because my dentist had warned me that I might get some toothache for two or three days, it hadn't crossed my mind that it could be anything other than post surgery pain.

Anyway, it's back on the horse tablets for another week. I hope they take effect soon as, at the moment, I look like a lopsided hamster.

Lately, the poor heart has had trouble upon trouble. I wrote in the comments:

If I could draw, I'd make a cartoon of a lopsided hamster, dressed in clericals, with a black rain cloud over his head, if I could draw....

Of course, perpetual prayers for your troubles without end.

Well, I can't draw, but I drew a lopsided hamster anyway.

O God, the strength of the weak and the comfort of sufferers: Mercifully accept our prayers, and grant to your servant Jonathan the help of your power, that his sickness may be turned into health, and our sorrow into joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

ST. JAMES ON THE AMERICAN WAY

From the Epistle of James 4:13-5:6:

Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge said:

“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these the moving impulses of our life.”

Coolidge's words apply today. That the great majority of those who presently support giving businesses and corporations free rein do not benefit from such policies does not seem to concern them.

THAT WICKED PLURALIST!

If you're not reading Pluralist's satirical pieces on the commentary surrounding the Daft Anglican Covenant, perhaps you should. The English folk who follow the discussion of the covenant will have an easier time of it, because they will recognize the similarity of the cast to real life people, whereas, since I am not English, I have more difficulty. The names have been changed, not to protect the innocent, but to protect Pluaralist from litigation. Therefore, if you comment, perhaps it's best not to name names. Below is an excerpt from his most recent offering titled Covenant On Midweek.

Virginia Lake: I am the Director of the Anglican Confrontation Organisation called Unity Faith and Order that operates under SHADO - the 'Secretive Hierarchical Anglican Doctrinal Organisation'. I operate underneath Lambeth Palace and Rowanov Treetri carries the operational name Commander Straker, as he is the 'Ed Bishop.

Melvin Blagg: Not very zecretive den.

Virginia Lake: Well everyone knows about it. The secret part, as with all Anglicanism, is in the actual rule book as opposed to the formal rule book; it's an acquired taste, what you find out after joining. It's part of the Sense Inference Detector, or SID.

Melvin Blagg: So what is du dispute about den?

Virginia Lake: To cut a lot of representational conversations short, the upshot is that Harold Wilson here wants the UFO to be renamed DMC; indeed he thinks John Sendmehome could Run DMC.

Melvin Blagg: DMC sdands for?

Virginia Lake: It would stand for...

Harold Wilson: Disunity, Mistrust and Chaos.

Another offering is titled Five Go Down - Chadderbox and is beyond wicked.

QUANTITATIVE EASING EXPLAINED

What the Federal Reserve is up to, and how we got here.

As I said to Paul (A.), the cartoon video would be hilarious, if it did not make you want to cry.

Thank/Blame Paul (A.)

STORY OF THE DAY

finally stretching out into his life
because it doesn't look like there are any
real alternatives

From StoryPeople.

THE BAVARIAN LUTHERAN CHURCH SHOWS HOW IT'S DONE

From The Christian Century:

BERLIN (RNS) Gay and lesbian Lutheran ministers in the conservative German state of Bavaria may live with their partners in parish parsonages, but only if they enter into a state-sanctioned civil union.

Although the move may seem bold for what is generally considered one of Germany's most traditional states, Bishop Johannes Friedrich of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria said it was no great departure from existing policies.

He noted that the church had already welcomed openly gay ministers and same-sex unions. "We had only left out that a couple could live in a civil union in the parsonage," he said.

H/T to Box Turtle Bulletin.

WAXING GIBBOUS MOON

This is what I saw when I walked tonight.

Waxing gibbous moon
The words themselves a poem
Turning full moon soon

Grandmère Mimi - 2005

Reposted from last year, but true tonight.

HOW CAN THIS BE?

Rmj at Adventus on the millions Sarah Palin has made from resentment and discontent:

It's an interesting, perplexing, and finally sad kind of resentment that while not particularly American, certainly seems peculiarly American. Sarah Palin has achieved more in less time than most of us will achieve in a lifetime. I understand she's made $12 million since she left the governorship of Alaska. She's famous. Her tweets and Facebook posting makes national, if not international, news. And still, apparently, she is not happy. Or, at least, she's not content.

Sarah Palin embodies the Zeitgeist in a way that is amazing to me. The longer the Sarah Show runs, the more I am astonished. Have I been transported and plunked down in alien territory without at all being aware of the transition?

Photo from Stand Up For Our Nation.

TRANSGENDER AWARENESS WEEK - NOVEMBER 14-20

According to Religious Dispatches:

The Human Rights Campaign estimates that transsexuals represent approximately .25 to 1 percent of the US population. That number does not include the transgender people who haven’t undergone sex reassignment surgery (a process many people call “the transition”), so the number of transgender-identified people is likely much higher. The term “transgender” encompasses anyone with a gender identity that is different from his or her birth sex. A transgender person could be someone who just cross-dresses from time to time in private; someone who identifies as gender-queer (that is, neither male nor female); someone who is just taking hormones but not undergoing any surgical modifications; or someone who is undergoing or will undergo full sex reassignment surgery, including genital modification. Such differences vary according to socioeconomic status, age, and cultural context, but, in general, transgender people are sprinkled across every color and creed.

Transgender people, though, are much less likely to take part in an organized religion than non-transgender people, according to researchers. In their article “Understanding Spirituality and Religiosity in the Transgender Community: Implications for Aging,” authors Jeremy Kidd and Tarynn Witten posit a reason:

“The tendency not to identify with a formal religion may reflect an affirmation of one’s own dignity that these religions fail to honor, an expression of protest against certain religious tenets, and/or a refusal to align oneself with institutions contributing to the marginalization of gender and sexual minorities. The difference in religious identification appears to reflect thoughts and feelings toward religious institutions more than it does spiritual behavior or beliefs.”

Of the groups included in LGTB, it seems to me that transgendered persons receive the least attention in promotion of awareness and understanding. The statement below by Pope Benedict demonstrates awareness but not understanding.

Shortly before Christmas in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said in a speech to the Curia (the administrative arm of the Catholic Church) that our gender was a gift from the creator and denounced those who would try to change it. “It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation,” he said, “the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God.” In other words, he threw down a transgender gauntlet.

For the Pope and many others, it all comes down to a literal reading of the Bible’s book of Genesis which says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” They say that means God created man and woman, separate and distinct.

So then, a cleft palate or a club foot is also a gift from the creator, and to have surgery to correct either condition would be self-destructive. Do I have that right, Your Holiness?

Lynn Walker is a transgender priest in the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America. In photos, she sports her priest’s collar, but in her day-to-day work at a transitional housing program for transgender sex workers, she’s all jeans, T-shirts, and blond hair pushed back. She says she doesn’t push her religion on anybody. Just like she doesn’t mention her transgendered status unless she wants to.

Walker looks at it this way. Being transgender is not a sin or a pathology; it’s about variety. “Based on science, this is uncommon, but normal and natural,” she said. “Somewhere in the Book of Job, it say all things come of thee, oh Lord.” Walker said that yes, transgender people take advantage of scientific advancements to change their bodies. But she doesn’t see why that should be wrong or controversial or an abomination in the eyes of God. “If science is a gift from God,” she asked. “Why don’t we listen?”

I prefer Lynn's take on God, creation, and transgender to the pope's. How about you?

Ann Fontaine at The Lead posted a video featuring Dee Ellen Dressler, who made the transition to a transwoman, along with several links to other sources of information, including suicide-prevention amongst transgendered youths and Day of Remembrance events.