Watch your mouth: On truth, friendship, and character

For though we love both the truth and our friends, piety requires us to honor the truth first.

-Aristotle

A buddy of mine on Facebook-- a fellow Episcopalian who belongs to another parish-- disagrees with me on many things, often political in nature and he loves to engage me on my social media feeds.


He adores President Trump. I don't.
He thinks Brexit is a great idea. I don't.
I think he thinks a wall along the southern US border would solve a lot of problems. I think it's a fool errand.He thinks climate change is either a hoax or just nature doing it's thing. I'm worried and believe that humans have had a profound impact on the environment.

But we engage each other as people, and so when we agree, we do, and when don't, we say so!

What we don't do is call each other names. One element of our periodic debate is that he is always respectful towards me and this encourages me to continue to be respectful to him. He'll never change my mind (or at least I don't think he will) about certain issues and I will never change his. He has corrected me when I've been wrong, and I accept that. But we talk (at least electronically) and we know that, even in our separate churches, we share the same communion table and follow the same Lord. 

One thing I avoid doing on the interwebs is reading the comments. For every little clever gem that gets posted there is a dump-truck full of dross. Call me a hypocrite... I will periodically comment, and I suppose that my gem is someone else's dross. But this does lower my blood pressure, it also means that this just adds to my digital isolation.

So he does me a service, for which I am grudgingly grateful. You see, I am like a lot of users of the internet. I have my favorite sites and either by answering certain questions or liking certain sites and posts, the almighty algorithm has figured out what I like and feeds me more of it. If it weren't for my buddy, I might think that the whole universe agrees with my obviously enlightened and well-reasoned positions on nearly everything.

Call it an echo-chamber. Or a silo. Or whatever, I live there. 

My pal helps me see the world a bit more broadly. And sometimes that reveals to me some things that are pretty darned ugly. 

Yesterday my twitter and FB exploded with posts claiming that Greta Thunberg, who spoke at the UN this week, and the thousands of young people who went on climate strike last week have somehow been brainwashed by, I don't know, somebody. And their objections come down to something like "Isn't it terrible to use a child in this way!" 

This appeared in the New York Times today:

Fox News apologized after a pundit, Michael Knowles, called her “a mentally ill Swedish child” on one of its programs on Monday. (Ms. Thunberg, who is 16, has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, and has called it “a superpower.”) The network called the comment disgraceful, and a spokeswoman said Fox had no plans to invite Mr. Knowles back.

Mr. Knowles, who writes for the conservative news site The Daily Wire, defended his remarks on Twitter, where he accused Ms. Thunberg’s supporters of exploiting her. The notion that she was being used as a puppet was repeated by others, including the conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza.

The day before Ms. Thunberg’s United Nations speech, Mr. D’Souza likened her image to ones used in Nazi propaganda, posting a photo on Twitter of Ms. Thunberg, wearing her signature long braids, next to an illustration of a young woman with a similar hairstyle standing in front of a swastika flag.  

Other outspoken figures on the right sounded similar notes. Sebastian Gorka, who worked in the White House briefly under President Trump, wrote on Twitter that Ms. Thunberg’s remarks were “disturbingly redolent of a victim of a Maoist ‘re-education’ camp.”

Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host, called Ms. Thunberg’s United Nations speech “chilling” on her Monday night show, and ran a segment about how climate change “hysteria” is changing American youth.

The segment included a clip from “Children of the Corn,” the 1984 movie based on a Stephen King novel in which children in a farm town murder adults. 

Now nothing gets me riled up quite like seeing otherwise adult people piling on a kid. Even a kid as articulate and media-savvy as Greta Thunberg. But just as I was getting the most riled up, I have had to stop myself. If it is wrong for people to treat Thunberg this way, then why is it okay for me or the people I happen to agree with to do it?

Ethics are pesky that way. 

Case in point: yesterdays address to the United Nations by President Donald Trump. He basically said that the way of the future is nationalism unleashed. Every nation for itself. Never mind that both fascism and communism were defeated by the concerted, combined efforts of the nations of the world (at the cost of a great many lives along the way). Never mind that everything from international travel to mailing a postcard overseas to being able to telephone or e-mail a person across the globe or share information in the internet are all possible with international cooperation. And you would think that being such a fan of capitalism, the idea that international markets--and the possibility of making and selling lots of things--are only enhanced by these international relationships. 

But no! According to his address at the UN yesterday, It is every nation for itself. Borders are beautiful. Cooperation is for losers. 

Now it would be easy for me to fall into the same trap... I think that the idea of decreasing international cooperation and feuding with other nations over more and more things we used to work out together in places like the UN and the dozens of international conventions that govern our global common life is is a very bad idea. These conventions and organizations have done much to preserve peace and extend prosperity over the past 75 years. They are not perfect but they sure beat the heck out of the alternatives! 

It's when we fall into the trap of resorting to name-calling and character assassination that trouble me. It is easy to do, and so difficult to stop. 

When we are start being strident towards our neighbor, filling our language with bluster, implied threat, and imputed motives that the seeds for disharmony and misunderstanding grows. We might feel the short term rush of having silenced the other guy or putting our opposition in its place, but we have created the seeds for future conflict that will eventually consume us all. 

I firmly believe that one of the ways we overcome the games, manipulation, and the drama is to keep cool. So just as I think people shouldn't beat up on Greta Thunberg, I think it is unhelpful to only pile on insults and characterization on the President or anyone else we disagree with.

Everyday ethics, not to mention being faithful to the Gospel of Jesus, means that we tell the truth, and we that we respect the people we are telling it to. We must name evil for what it is. We must not think that doing evil to fight evil will somehow result in a good. We must do the things that evil hates.

Don't get me wrong. Satire and humor are essential. The best satire gets us to think about issues differently. And one of the first signs that a person is too wrapped up in themselves or that their view of the world is too constrained is when they lose the ability to laugh at themselves. So keep it up Trevor and Stephen! 

I have a feeling that as we move into this new phase, with talk of impeachment in the air, we won't need to exaggerate or pontificate. We need to stay cool and focused. The true character of a lot of people will come to fore all on their own. And while bringing out the worst in people might create a short term gain, in the end the people who build themselves up by tearing others down will ultimately be crushed under the weight of their own debris.

And the same thing is true for responding to climate change and caring for our environment. Do what we must to get the conversation going: protest, petition, organize, teach the science, plan realistic responses, and all the rest. Yup, even satirize. We won't need to exaggerate or beat up on those who either disagree with us or, especially, on those who don't understand the problem. 

At the same time, we will need to deal with the fact that there will be those who won't mind or care if their behavior is unethical or sensational in order to make their points or to stop this movement. Don't let them deter you. 

As we move into a new phase, with both impeachment and global warming in the air, and with an election just around the corner, we will have to deal with a lot of hype, a lot of emotion, and a lot of spin. Opportunities for hate and division abound. 

Scripture is filled with good advice about watching one's mouth. These days it's not just the tongue that can get us in trouble but our keyboards and our memes. First Peter 3:10 comes to mind which reads “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit.” 

I am reminded over and over again that the line between being a prophetic witness and a total jerk is pretty fine. So it is important to speak truth and also to mind my mouth. 

If we are going to get anywhere on effecting real change when it comes to climate, poverty, racism, and social division, it will be essential for us to balance our clarity with our charity. Speak the truth. Hold fast. Lead with love.

The thing that I am learning from my pal is how to listen and how to be more articulate, and how not to resort to cheap shots, distracting accusations, or easy characterizations. If a cause is worth the struggle, it is worth doing honorably.

Jack Chick's mangled witness

Word has come that Jack Chick has died. Maybe you have heard of him, or perhaps read one of his tracts?

From 1964 on, Chick Publications produced little comic style tracts designed to lead a person to Christ in a fire-and-brimstone style. The tightly written and illustrated little vignettes portray a fundamentalist Gospel so stark that even Christianity Today and the Christian Booksellers Association shied away from them as being too harsh and over-simplified.

I first encountered these booklets when I was a teenager in the 1970's. Generally speaking, I found them to be a kind of theological car wreck. Too gruesome to watch, but strangely irresistible. 

They followed me around. Many hours of hospital ministry was spent scooping these (and other) tracts designed to scare the infirm and their loved ones into heaven. I used to keep a bulletin board in my office for such material under the banner "For THIS we had a Reformation?!?"

Every now and then, I will find them left around our parish's soup kitchen, or some kind soul will include them in an unsigned letter designed to correct the theological errors of my preaching or writing. 

My colleague on the Episcopal Cafe, Jon White wrote:

Chick was known for his Chick Tracts; controversial comics rooted in his own fundamentalist Protestant worldview.  His tracts were notoriously anti-Catholic and also attacked Freemasons, Muslims, Jews, and  other groups whose views he deemed contrary to his own evangelical brand of faith.

Chick fell for every religious conspiracy possible; rarely ever relying on actual history or fact...

Los Angeles Magazine reprised a 2003 profile on the news of Mr. Chick's death.

Chick’s most popular book, This Was Your Life!, was published in 1964. At 21 pages, it is a masterpiece of shorthand horror. By the second panel, the Scotch-swilling, ’Vette-driving protagonist has dropped dead of a heart attack. “Review his life!” the Lord commands, and an angel produces a massive CinemaScope screen in the night sky. The man watches scenes from his wasted life, in which he tells filthy stories, leers at blonds (“ummm nice!” he says to himself), and thinks about a ball game in the middle of church.This Was Your Life! created a template—sin, damnation, the possibility of redemption—for scores of future tracts.

The artist’s formula and drawing style have changed little in five decades. When an archivist at the Pasadena Playhouse began rooting through old boxes in the late ’90s, she discovered drawings that he had done in 1948. The single-panel cartoons revealed the same perspiring characters, pop-eyed faces, and 1940s Sunday-comics sensibilities of his current tracts. “He’s not worried about impressing other cartoonists, which is kind of what motivates a lot of cartoonists to pick up their chops a little bit,” says Clowes. “There’s something really interesting about seeing a cartoonist not develop at all.” Art Spiegelman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust, is less kind. “It makes me despair about America,” says Spiegelman, “that there are so many people who read these things.”

Chick’s choice of medium was not that odd—for the 17th and 18th centuries. He comes from a grand tradition of pamphleteers, writers like Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Thomas Paine, who exploited the new technology of movable type to reach the masses in previously unimaginable numbers. Starting in the 1640s, pamphlets about everything from religious reform and phrenology to the injustice of the Stamp Act were everywhere, their authors at the forefront of the world’s first true media boom. In many ways the pamphlets of that era functioned much like today’s Weblogs. Chick, however, has done bloggers one better, finding ways to get his message to places still untouched by the Internet. Missionaries regularly take his tracts into the world’s most isolated regions—and pay Chick for the privilege, at about 14 cents a tract.

Chick's work angered many people, as the comments downstream in The Episcopal Cafe piece illustrates. The Progressive Secular Humanist blog at Patheos was typically unsparing in its criticism of his work, saying: "The comics promoted an extreme conservative Christian message filled with hatred and justified with ignorance."

Anecdotally, at least, I know of as many people driven away from faith in Christ because of these booklets as those drawn towards Him, maybe more. At the very least, it portrays a theology and approach to evangelism as subtle as a sledge hammer breaking up concrete and about as compassionate. 

Christianity Today wrote:

Among comic artists, Chick rose to a level of fascination as one of the bestselling underground publishers in the world. Early news of his death on the site Boing Boing launched Chick’s name as a national trending topic on Twitter on Monday afternoon.

In the late 1990s, a media watchdog site described the secular fascination with Chick: “To some, Chick tracts are American folk art, or even a form of religious pornography, titillating and somewhat dangerous. Chick is the ultimate underground artist: single-minded and self-published, passionately committed to his message without regard for external social forces.”

Chick’s 150-plus tracts center around distinguishing the “saved” from the “lost,” the latter represented by various culture war targets over the years. 

The temptation to schadenfreude is almost irresistible. A lot of people have imagined that Chick has gone straight to hell without passing "Go." These imaginings have been often as cruel as they claimed his tracts were, masking the cruelty as cheap jokes. Like this one:

Over the years, a few Christians have attempted to take on Chick's theology and his narrow view of salvation. Given that the only English Bible he accepted was the King James and his view of the church excluded virtually all other Christian traditions but his how, this could only get one so far. 

It seems to me that maybe the best refutation might come in the form of a little comic book in the style of, well, a Chick Tract. Here is the musing I came up with for a comment I wrote in response to the story on The Episcopal Cafe (full disclosure: I am a member of the Cafe news team):

Personally, and perhaps in response to my own sense of schadenfreude, this is what I imagine might have happened to Jack Chick after his death:

Mr. Chick arrives in heaven and while walking around spots a little booklet on a table and picks it up. Simply drawn and simply written, he is drawn into the story and begins to read.

Titled “Surprise!” the little booklet tells the story of a very religious and zealous man named Jack who, after a lifetime of popularizing a fundamentalist vision of the Gospel, dies and is confronted by God.

In the booklet, we see Jack looking around a wondrous place filled with light. As he enters, he finds the place filled with Catholics who ate “Death Cookies” (along with Orthodox and Coptic Christians, who all look the same anyway), gay couples holding hands, Muslims, Jews, kids who bailed on Sunday school to play Dungeons and Dragons, and even run of the mill agnostics. He looks over and sees Mother Theresa and Ghandi chatting while elsewhere the Pope and Charles Darwin are taking a walk, admiring the view. 

Jack is startled and confused, and asks a passing angel if this is really heaven.Without a word, the angel accompanies Jack to God’s throne where he will receive final judgment.

In the next frame, we see a magnificent but faceless person sitting on the throne drenched in blinding life. The One on the throne begins to describe to Jack that Christ died once for all while we all sinners (Romans 5:6-8) and all along it was God’s will that all God’s sheep would come to the shepherd (John 10:16), even the ones who do not know God’s voice. God tells him that there is no law against a holy life but there are clear signs of holy living for all to see (Galatians 5:22-26). Jack will learn that God desires mercy not sacrifice (Matthew 12:7), love over judgment (Luke 6:37) and wants us do justice and walk with God (Micah 6:8). Finally, in a thunderous voice, God tells Jack that he will be judged according to how he met Christ in the hungry, the naked, the outcast, and the imprisoned (Matthew 25:31-46).

As Jack falls to his knees, shocked at what he has learned, tormented by his failure to heed God’s word, and fearful that he might be cast into eternal torment, he looks up to find Jesus helping him to his feet and welcoming him into a Kingdom more glorious…and more populated…than Jack ever imagined.

In my imagination, I see Mr. Chick finishing the booklet, and looking around, as if for the first time, comprehending the love that drew him in the first place.

At least, that is my prayer.

For those who think that I am being too easy on a person who spewed such hatred and who so badly misrepresented the Gospel to so many, all I can say is that I am mindful of the various ways that I have mangled my own witness in my lifetime. The fact that Chick's reach has outstripped my own doesn't absolve me of the call to humility in the face of the call to serve at once as an messenger of the Good News and as an ambassador of reconciliation. 

Tax exemptions for non-profits promotes the public good.

A recent article in Time by Mark Oppenheimer reminded me of a conversation that I have from time to time with folks about our taxes and the Church.

One interaction took place about a year or so ago, when a neighbor started parking his car overnight and for much of the day in our church lot. It probably seemed okay to him…like many centers of small cities, parking is a constant problem…and our lot was empty most nights. But we rent space to people who work downtown during the week and we kept coming up a space or two short especially in the mornings. People who paid rent for a space or who work in our church or volunteer for activities at church were growing frustrated. 

Like the Sesame Street song, we set about finding out which car was different. When we figured it out and tracked down the owner,  I explained our situation and asked him to refrain from using our spaces. (This was one of those “they didn’t teach this in seminary moments,” for sure!) 

He said that he did not know we rented spaces. I pointed to the sign that said just that. He said that he’d like to rent a space. I said, sure, but there’s a waiting list. Still, I was sure we could work something out. When he asked how much our rate was, I told him. He was aghast!

Never mind that our rate was 35% of what our city charges for a monthly on-street permit, and 50% of what other area property owners charge downtown workers to park in their spaces. He was still aghast.

“What kind of a church are you to charge this much for parking?” he sputtered.

“Well, we’re the kind of church who has to pay taxes, insurance, maintenance, and staff time to have a parking lot, that’s what.”

Less apparently aghast, but still not mollified, he said “Taxes? You pay taxes?” Clearly, he didn't believe me.

Yes, I sighed. We may be a tax-exempt, non-profit organization, but we still pay taxes. We pay property tax to the city and county for this very parking lot. We pay business privilege tax. We pay all the employee taxes and benefits that we are supposed to. And we pay fees in lieu of taxes that is tacked on to our water bill just like other local, private, non-profit, tax-exempt  groups in our town. 

Besides, we return to our community a whole host of goods and services that make our city a better place to live and work, while saving local, county, state, and federal government both the direct and indirect costs of providing those services—assuming that they would provide them at all.

Which leads me to the basic argument in Oppenheimer’s post: that charities take from the community far more than they put back in. It is an old argument...one that goes back decades. He cites a study that shows all of the potential tax revenue that is lost to all levels of government through the charitable tax-exemption. The author lives in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, and he points to the exemption that benefits Yale University, with its large endowment, as a net cost to his city. 

I suppose that chart could just as well be read another way. It is just as much an indicator of how much value tax-exempt non-profits add to their communities. Are there trade-offs? Of course! But these are trade-offs that the communities themselves have chosen to make.

Besides the fact that I will bet that between the hospital and the University, Yale is probably one of the biggest employers in the area and adds to the economy in all kinds of ways, the tax rules governing charities and charitable giving create a kind of market place that at once serves a civic purpose and is in keeping with our democratic traditions.

Tax exemption is a way for the government to promote worthy social ends without running or "owning" the project. Non-profit arts groups, charities for children and youth, senior centers, educational programs (both private and public schools/colleges, after school programs, church and non-church charitable day schools and nursery schools), housing, non-profit healthcare, and more all reflect worthy society aims. The system allows society to promote civic and social values of ethics, artistic expression, mercy, scholarship, and spirituality in a way that is at once democratic and market-based, because it is the donor who gets to choose which cause to support.

Tax exemptions for religious institutions, in addition to the charitable and NGO work they do, in and of themselves provide a worthy social aim. Many times religious and non-profit charities will go places and do things that government won’t or cannot do. And they will stick with the task longer, with closer ties to the local community, than government can. When Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the whole array of emergency response was activated. Now, ten years later, it is the charitable community, many of them religiously based, who are still on the ground doing the long-term work of recovery and redevelopment.

In our country, we have found that the best way to promote this general good without establishing a religion… or banning religion (which would be, after all, a form of religious establishment)… is to treat every religious group (no matter what their flavor...including the non-theistic ones) as a voluntary society and to give them the same tax-exemption that is given to schools, arts groups, health care, and other charities. 

Our congregation gives back to the community as an essential and basic part of our mission. So, in addition to the religious instruction, pastoral care, and worship, which is at the core of our work, we do much that aids the community we live in. Our own parish hosts a weekly soup kitchen that feeds between 65 and 75 people a week. The Soup Kitchen is the base for other work: periodic health screenings from an area non-profit university who send nursing students and physician assistants to run the program. We practically donate our space when it serves as a public polling place because the donation that the county offers is well under what other groups collect and pay us. And that’s okay. Because we see it as part of our mission to the community.

Oppenheimer was not just picking on churches in his essay. His thesis is that there should be no tax-exemption for any non-profit institution. He cites The Church of Scientology or the tension between Yale University and New Haven as examples as to why charitable tax exemption do not work. But these examples really point to problems of management and town-gown relationships. For every corrupt or incompetent religious group or non-profit you show me, I can point to a corrupt or incompetent government agency or private sector company. This kind of argument gets us no where. Bad management and corrupt practices needs to be addressed for what they are: incompetence and dishonesty. If you can't prosecute them for their dishonesty, at least monitor them for their effectiveness. And if they won't be monitored or can't be prosecuted and you don't like how they use their money, then don't give to them.

Imagine what our society would be like if he got his wish and both the tax-deduction for charitable donations and the tax-exemption for charitable groups (including but not limited to churches) were to suddenly go away.

First, a portion of money that people give to charities would go, right off the top, to the government in the form of taxes. More than just a cost of doing business, charities would have to treat their donations the same way that businesses deal with receipts, sales, and interest income. In the non-profit world, the majority of donors are small donors. The most money comes from a few large donors, but the vast majority of the people who send money to charities are small donors. This means that people, who have already paid taxes once on their income, get to see another portion of that money go off as taxes.

Second, many small charities would simply disappear. The cost of property taxes, business taxes, etc. would simply make most small charities too expensive to operate. Only large charitable groups that have large endowments and active development programs would remain.

Most of all, what would disappear is the kind of charitable marketplace that the tax-code now encourages. Right now, people voluntarily choose to support the charitable work that appeals to them. People choose to support the charity or special cause that appeals to them. Sometimes that can go viral where everyone is jumping on board, as with last years ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, but most of all that shows up with the average donor chooses to tithe to their church or give to their alma mater or give to a local hospital or orchestra. Philanthropists have the freedom to support their favorite charity with their big ticket gifts but more often it is the small giver who chooses to support a tangible public good with a voluntary gift.

What would be the alternative if this were to go away? Well, before there was an income tax, especially in the late 19th century Andrew Carnegie went around the country building libraries, schools, and, yes, even churches. Voluntary societies abounded. But government did less and taxation worked differently in those days. Under the current tax structure, the loss of the charitable deduction and tax-exemption for charities would at worst kill off the charitable sector but most likely shrink that marketplace dramatically. 

And this isn't just any marketplace! It is a marketplace of social concern, of civic participation, and social good. It is made possible, in part, by the way we exempt charitable work and the donations that support them. This frees up the capital (yes, capital) to do the necessary charitable work (including religious, artistic, and academic work) that our society claims to value but which is not part of the job of government.

Tax-code or not, charities and charitable giving provides to the public basic social benefits where people vote with their time, their dollars, and their energy. Protecting donations to charities from excessive taxation and encouraging donors to give promotes a marketplace where social good is provided on all kinds of levels with a minimum of government interference. And in a free society, it allows people to choose their level of participation and what social good they will support through their giving. 

The Myth of the Decline of the Episcopal Church

The Very Rev. Ian Markham, Dean, Virginia Theological Seminary, spoke to the annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware in 2013. He said that the myth of the decline of the Episcopal Church is at once inaccurate and mis-placed.

Part One of Two.



So, the first issues he cites is that up until 2002, the Episcopal Church and the ELCA (and it's predecessors) generally bucked the trend of decline in the Mainline Protestant Churches.

Second, he says that we have a very fluid notion of membership and that ASA does not capture the reality of people who attend regularly but who "take turns." (An issue those in my parish have heard me puzzle about for years, btw.)

Third, most Episcopal Churches automatically appeal to a variety of groups because most parishes have two services: one traditional and quiet, and one either more musical, more contemporary, or more family oriented.

Part two of two



He talks about the narrative of despair which is used by those who have a real problem with our tradition. In Part One, he cites a Conservative/Reasserter bishop and a Liberal/Progressive Bishop who both need the narrative to despair to reinforce their particular prescriptions for saving the Church.

Markham says we need to change how we think of things. For example, how we count. We don't count the 38,000 people who take part in Episcopal liturgies in our schools at every level from pre-school through college. We don't the ones who live in our 156+ retirement complexes and who take part in Episcopal liturgies every day if not every week, about 16,000 every week.

(We also don't count the people that we send people out and bring communion to via our lay Eucharistic visitors, deacons and priests. We send them out from our liturgy "to share with us in the communion of Christ's body and blood" as an extension of our common worship. In my parish, that's four to five people every week. How many is that across the whole church? We don't count them either.)

We need to tell the story that we are in fact a church that proclaims Jesus Christ, effectively disciples our members, and allows people to explore and live that faith in creative, meaningful ways that makes a difference in our world.

Video by Danny N. Schweers

A visionary for reconciliation

 Corrected.

Roman Catholics aren't the only ones looking for signs and signals that indicate where the church is going next. While we didn't look for white smoke, we Anglicans have just gone through our own somewhat arcane process of changing spiritual leaders.  Looking at nothing more than what’s on the internet, here is what one American Episcopalian thinks of the new Archbishop of Canterbury and what might be ahead for the Church.

In the last month or so, Archbishop Justin Welby has posted exactly two blog posts on his new blog and announced that many appointments to his staff so far. We have heard him give a few sermons and, I am sure that some people read over everything he ever wrote or preached as Bishop of Durham or before.

I think we have learned a few things about Archbishop Justin so far, and I have some hunches about the man and his leadership style and where he would like to take the Anglican Communion.

We know about his business background and his conversion to Christianity. We already know that he is familiar with both Central Africa and North America, in particular Nigeria and the United States. This familiarity will be very useful in dealing with Christians from these countries who have at times been both partners in ministry and opponents in conflict.

But there are some hints as to his style and his values that allow us to form some hunches about his leadership style.

1. He thinks about systems and is savvy about how they work.
Both his business background and his theological interests indicate that he understands the church as an organic system and that he appreciates both the gifts and the challenges that this brings.

2. He thinks about the relationships within the system and understands how  relationships make organizational and informal systems work.
His first two appointments are very instructive. Choosing a Canon whose sole ministry will be reconciliation, and who has worked in Northern Ireland, a woman priest who has worked  in America and knows well both Episcopalians and members of the breakaway Anglican-related churches, along with his own African experience, tells us that he is not only interested in the nuts-and-bolts of running an organization or in simply getting people to agree on ideas, he is interested in that relationships that make organization not just tick but have a soul.

3. As an evangelical, he is very interested in redemption and salvation but he casts through the lens of reconciliation--that the work of the Gospel is reconciling God to humanity and that shows up in reconciled relationships and systems that promote healing.
When Americans hear the word “evangelical” one picture pops into our heads. We should put that aside. Certainly Welby is interested in people coming to a personal, living relationship with Jesus Christ that is intentional and life-changing. He is interested in a lived faith grounded in scripture. He is also interested in vibrant communities that communicate the Gospel and invite people into faith in Jesus Christ.  But what is interesting is his emphasis on reconciliation. An important role for the church is that we represent Christ and effect the reconciliation Christ brings in practical terms. If Christians live the reconciling love of Christ, then we will witness to the unity God brings to humanity through the cross and resurrections. Agreement, in this context, is much more than agreement to propositions, but the decision to live and pray with Christ as the center.

4. Because he values relationships and emphasizes reconciliation, Welby sees partnerships as the means to practically and effectively witness to the Gospel of Christ. 

4. He is an establishment guy...either because it's the starting point we have or because he believes in the essential goodness of system, I don't know. My hunch it is the former, his tip of the hat to the integrity of people he disagrees with indicates  that he sees that faithful people are doing the best they can with the tools, assumptions and experiences they have. But I am still waiting to learn more.

5. Because he is an establishment guy, he has not lost faith in the power of institutions, including the church, to do good. As an evangelical, he is aware of the power of personal faith, but like evangelicals of another era, he believes that society, not just persons, can be transformed and so institutions can and should seek to become agents of the Gospel, or put in other ways, God’s reconciliation.

I want to make some observations about implications for our common life arising of Archbishop Welby’s style and values by contrasting that a bit with what came before.

Williams is a deeply spiritual man but I think that he saw the Anglican Wars mainly as a contest of competing ideas. This is why he played into the hands of some conservatives because if only one idea can win, why would one compromise?  So he understood that the church was to stand for The Central Idea around which all other ideas are measured and organized.

At the last Lambeth Conference, Williams broke with recent tradition by eschewing legislation and attempting to build community by way of the “Indaba” process of listening and reflection. At the end of the day, though, he gave in to the need to control the outcome by allowing a final report to be issued that reflected less than the relationships being built and more on the disciplinary lens through which he still viewed the situation. Ironic since the Bishops most interested in punishment stayed away and those most interested in dialogue were still frozen out of certain communion functions.

“Communion as a consequence of our choices” was at the heart of the Anglican Covenant project—something we have heard nothing about since Welby became Archbishop. That project failed not only because it could not garner the votes. The Anglican Covenant hasn't worked as a means of clarifying relationships. If anything it has muddied the waters because some members of the communion and their bishops are punished for acting according to their church’s conscience while others have moved into their own circle and refused to commune with anyone with whom they might differ. The present archbishop brings a different sensibility and understanding of communion to his office.

Welby also appears to be deeply spiritual man who is interested in building relationships. He assumes that the issue that counts for the church is faithfulness to Jesus Christ. I think that the folks at Truro, Fairfax, VA,   who think that he is on “their side” because he speaks their language are mistaken, especially if they think that by waiting long enough that they will "win." My bet is that Justin will shock them by reminding them of what the apostle Paul had to say about staying in communion with people about whom you believe are just plain wrong.

Archbishop Justin, though, is more than a mere pragmatist. Both Williams and Welby share a vision of the church as a reconciling force in the world. Welby appears to bring to the task a different vision of the peace that  happens when people who were once far away are brought near by the blood of Christ how that distance might be bridged.

Open season

It seems that it's open season on the Episcopal Church.

I guess that's to be expected since we've just finished a General Convention, and while every report I've read and heard tells me that this was one of the most forward looking and hopeful conventions in recent memory, some have taken this as an opportunity to take pot shots at the Episcopal Church.

Most of these attacks are ad-homenum, based on old canards, myths, false assumptions and in some cases inaccuracies and--dare I say it--outright, ahem, lies. All of these are designed to stir up feelings disguised as throughful critique.

Two articles appeared, one in BeliefNet and a similar op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (Friday, July 13, 2012). I wrote about the WSJ op-ed on the Episcopal Cafe today. What is said about the WSJ piece, which has been roundly refuted by a wide spectrum of Anglican writers, equally applies to the BeliefNet piece.


Another op-ed was written by NY Times op-ed columnist Russel Douthat (Sunday, July 15, 2012). A thoughtful writer with a conservative, center-right, bend, Douthat this time resorts to generalizations and falsehood. Maybe he has never really read theology nor studied American church history? I don't know. He romanticizes the current Roman Catholic Church while ignoring huge--obvious--trends in the American religious scene and then blames all the problems on "liberal religion", the Episcopal Church being the case in point.

And, in what must be a violation of a sub-set of Godwin's Law, he trots out Bishop Jack Spong in the opening paragraph.

Here is what I submitted to the comments under the column tonight:

Mr. Douthat uses the Episcopal Church as an example of the dangers of liberalism to Christianity. Too bad that the Episcopal Church he describes is largely mythical as is the kind of church he longs for. 

Ironically, Bishop Spong's theological roots are found in the very 19th Century Social Gospel that Douthat commends.  

Here is the fact that Douthat avoids: Every American denomination, liberal and conservative, evangelical, mainline, Catholic and Protestant is declining. Here is another truth, "correct" doctrine won't by itself return us to a glorious past. 

Our culture has changed, including our relationship to religion.  

We live in a free market of ideas. Personal spirituality is more central than corporate religion. Society no longer calls on churches to mediate our values. Less than 18% of American adults attend church, synagogue or mosque. Is it any wonder that the institutional forms of religion have to change? 

The Roman Catholic Church has chosen to shut out modernism and suppress dissent. 

Evangelicalism covets the mantel formerly held by mainline Protestantism as arbiter of American values and chaplain to the powerful.  

As for the Episcopal Church, we seek to follow Jesus Christ by living the Gospel with an attitude of respect, humility and openness. 

I invite Mr. Douthat to spend time with us and watch the variety of ministry and the vitality of our communities instead of resorting to assumptions and stale characterizations about the state of American religion.

Here is another rebuttal to Douthat's column.

Elmer season.

It only takes a girl

Radical prayers, radical declaration, radical theology

Easton, Pennsylvania was one of the first places to hear the Declaration of Independence read in public, on the Sunday after its' passage. So the first Sunday after Independence Day is celebrated in our town as "Heritage Day." Trinity, Easton does a ton of activities for Heritage Day: after an ecumenical worship service, we go hear the Declaration read. Trinity will hold a Festival of Patriotic Songs...and we'll open the church for tours, we have a concession stand on Center Square and in the evening is Sitgreaves Coffee House in the parish hall followed by fireworks.

So for us in Easton, our celebration of Independence Day is a kind of tip of the hat to mass communication, 18th Century Style...acknowledging how long it took for the document to make it's way up the Delaware from Philadelphia.

What I did not know was that "The first reading of the Declaration of Independence outside of a governmental setting was in William White's living room, to the vestry of Christ Church, Philadelphia."

My bishop, Paul Marshall of Bethlehem, included this factoid in a reflection on the special and radical nature of the Episcopal Church's inclusion of Independence Day as one of our main feasts of the Church as well as the radical nature of the Declaration itself.

Here are some excerpts:

Monday is a red-letter day in our calendar (=holy day of obligation), although sadly, it is not observed by some rectors.

I BELIEVE THAT THE PATRIOTIC OBLIGATION of our time is return to Stoic values of character rather than epicurean characteristics of greed, narcissism, or entitlement, as the defining mark of an American citizen. We are really not called to be an extension of the British bourgeoisie, the Gilded Age notwithstanding. If you want to observe the long weekend meaningfully, deny yourself something big, spend time relating to your loved ones, and do not purchase anything except food and a little fuel. If your town has a patriotic exercise of some kind, attend it--with your children and grandchildren. If you possibly can, make something by hand or personally pack a box for Good Will.

If you don't have a church service available on Independence Day, you might set aside a moment to give thanks for this extraordinary land and to contemplate for a moment the collect for the day:

"Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant, we beseech thee, that we and all the people of the this land may have grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord," etc.

What I like about this prayer it that it assumes that the perception of liberty (as opposed to mere freedom) is an evolving concept, and one that needs diligent preservation as it develops and spreads. Democrat or Republican, the last two administrations and five congresses have trod heavily on our liberties and need a bit of patriotic smacking down. (I imagine a sherry- not a tea-party here.) Politics is about the acquisition of power; democracy is about its dispersal, and there is no middle ground. I predict that my grandchildren will live under a kind of plutocratic fascism (with small hints of socialism as a sop to the masses) unless our citizens have a spiritual and social revival. The Koch brothers and the tax-and-spend people all need to be controlled. The legislature needs to reign in a rogue Supreme Court. A thoughtful church could lead such a movement toward self-control...

...Those of us who have lost loved-ones, or seen them maimed, in the defense of our national values cannot let our nation further decay into hedonism, socialism, or oligarchy. Unlike most of the UK's former colonies, we were formed as a nation on theologically self-evident principles. We need to insist that those whom we elect begin once again to honor those principles without sensational rhetoric or scapegoating.

In a post-script, Bishop Paul reflects on the Declaration of Independence itself.

Of course, the writers of the Constitution weren't quite happy with that "abolish" part--it is illegal to speak of overthrowing our government the way we overthrew the colonial oppressors, no matter how far the government strays. 'Twas ever thus. Thus the need for the sherry party. Or Harriet Beecher Stowe. Or both.

Conservative Christians of course choke on the idea that government gets its power from the governed, rather, than directly from God (so much for Paul and Luther). To be an American patriot is to be a theological revisionist. And we all know what that leads to.

Read it all here.

It's simple. What he did was harassment.

Okay. This is the first and last time I am going to weigh in on this. Now that Anthony Weiner has resigned...after one of the weirdest three weeks in American politics (and that's sayin' something)...I am amazed that all these writers, pundits and politicos have missed the core of what the former congressman did wrong.

Everyone, including Mr. Wiener, agrees that what he did was sleazy, wrong and stupid. Most think it was sleazy. Most put the wrongness in with the stupid because he both left a trail and got caught. But I have only heard one commentator and only one blogger (granted, I can't read them all) say clearly why Wiener needed to resign--if not go to jail.

It was not just the "sexting." Nor was it the pictures. It wasn't even lying after being caught. None of these things were "the problem" for which he needed to step down.

One can debate if he broke his marriage vows (I think he did) but even that is not the issue.

The problem was sexual harassment.

How did the congressman get the e-mails or twitter addresses of the women to whom he sent his pictures? They contacted him with a note saying "I really liked your speech" or "I really admire your stand on health care" or "Thank you for taking this or that stand on the House floor." And his response? A lewd text, tweet or picture.

He had access and opportunity to do what he did because of his position of power, and he abused that power for his own gratification.

A week ago, Wormwood's Doxy said it much better than me.

Anthony Weiner is a sexual harasser. He sent 21-year-old college student, Gennette Cordova, an unsolicited sexual photo of himself.

Unsolicited.

That’s really important—because it goes to the heart of what so many people do not seem to “get” about sexual harassment.

I’ve had this argument with more than one person over the last couple of days. I’ve argued with intelligent people—intelligent women, no less!—who have basically said to me, “I like his politics, so what he did doesn’t matter.” Or…even worse to me, in some ways: “It’s not sexual harassment unless you tell him to stop and he refuses.”

No.

NO.

HELL NO!!

Unless that young woman sent him a message saying “I want to see pictures of you naked,” he had no business sending her suggestive photos. She says she didn’t. Even he admits she didn’t. He says he sent the photo as “part of a joke.”

That makes him a sexual harasser.

That's why Weiner needed to resign.

O...M...G...!!!

Martin Rowson on the row over gender and sexuality in the Church of England:

Health care is mercy in action

This is my latest column for the religion section of the Morning Call of Allentown, PA, and it appeared last Saturday, September 12. I am indebted to the blog conversation started by Steve Hayes at Khanya (which I found in creating this post for The Lead at the Episcopal Cafe) that got me thinking in this direction. From there, it became my homily for the feast of Constance and her Companions which then became this column.

What do The Good Samaritan, Ebenezer Scrooge and characters in Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus have in common? Each of these stories involves compassion or the withholding of compassion.

We all know about the Good Samaritan, the story of the man who was attacked on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A priest and a Levite passed, but offered him no help -- no health care. It was a Samaritan who cared for him.

Jesus told that story because a lawyer asked, ''Who is my neighbor?'' but Jesus turned the question around: ''to whom should we be a neighbor to?''

We all know who Ebenezer Scrooge is, the nasty old skinflint who turns aside every opportunity for charity. Thanks to the three ghosts sent to him by his late but condemned friend, Jacob Marley, Scrooge changes his ways and not only learns to celebrate Christmas, but, most important, learns how to be a charitable person. The chief sign of his changed heart? The care, the mercy, he makes possible for Tiny Tim Cratchett.

Jesus told another version of the same story 1,800 years before Dickens. He tells of two people, one poor and one rich. The poor man sits outside the rich man's house begging, and suffers from poor health. One day they both die. The poor man sits at Abraham's bosom in heaven, finally seen and comforted, while the rich man is in the place of the dead. The rich man is thirsty and asks Abraham to send the beggar down to give him some water. No dice, says Abraham! Well, the rich man says, at least send the beggar to go and warn my brothers so they don't end up in the same pickle as me. Again, Abraham refuses. ''You had your chance for mercy, and your brothers still have theirs!''

In all three stories, mercy is given or withheld. The Samaritan, unlike the rich man in Jesus' other story, did not walk past the injured man, but went out of his way to care for him. All three of the stories remind us that the way we care for ourselves is to care for others, especially when that care is at once spontaneous and, on some level that really matters, costly.

There has been a lot of fear and loathing on the health-care trail. The debate this summer has been disappointing in so many ways. It has been rancorous, loud and demeaning. People at meetings shout down their representatives. Politicians, lobbyists and interest groups have no trouble telling lies to win a political point. So while we may talk about policy, costs, ethics and theory, what is driving the debate is fear. Too much fear, left unchecked is paralyzing and can bring out the worst in all.

Christians and other people of faith have been quick to line up behind one policy approach or another, but few have taken the time to think about the most basic question: What is health care for?

What does it mean that we spend time, money, energy and talent working to make sick people well? Why do we set up hospitals, do medical research and train so many people to learn medicine except that we want competent people, using the best tools, to make mercy and compassion a visible reality to people who need it the most?

It was a long time coming -- generations -- but we have managed to move health care from a moral obligation borne by the community and turned it into a commodity to be packaged and marketed. We have sliced and diced our capacity for compassion as a commodity to be sold.

We have put a price on our mercy. So, like the priest or the Levite in Jesus' story, we weigh whether it is convenient or too costly to care for those who are ill, injured or dying. The debate this summer has revealed that we are fearful that no one will care for us, or that someone will take away what we are due. We have forgotten the ancient truth that the care we get is directly proportional to the care we give.

This past week, in Episcopal and other churches, we remembered a nun named Constance and her companions who died in 1878 in Memphis, Tenn., when Yellow Fever ripped through that city. Everyone who could leave did, but those who were too ill or too poor or connected to a person who was sick stayed.

Sister Constance, an Episcopal nun, along with her Episcopal and Catholic counterparts, some clergy, doctors and some lay minister from other traditions stayed in the city at the height of the outbreak. Many of them died and they became known as ''the martyrs of Memphis.''

Health care is front-page news. There are many vested interests, and lots of people whose livelihood--from the janitor pushing a broom, to every doctor, nurse and health care professional to the CEO making a decision to the investor wanting a return--depend on what gets decided. People of faith are tempted to jump in an take sides. But before we dive in and take sides, people of faith need to remember what health care means. Health care is mercy in action and we are all called to be merciful and compassionate to anyone in need.