ABC’s Advent dance

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According to Fr. Mark Harris, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter to the primates is “filled with affront and seeming offense. It is not a letter of blessing.” I agree, though I’m not sure I entirely agree with Fr. Harris’s assessment that finds the letter merely “something of a mess and a disappointment.”

It seems to me that the heart of the letter is its evocation of what the Archbishop asserts to be a common understanding of scriptural tradition against which The Episcopal Church has made “a decisive move that plainly implies a new understanding of Scripture that has not been received and agreed by the wider Church.” To this framing the Archbishop adds:

Where such a situation arises, it becomes important to clarify that the Communion as a whole is not committed to receiving the new interpretation and that there must be ways in which others can appropriately distance themselves from decisions and policies which they have not agreed.

Moreover, it seems to me that while the Archbishop grants that “it is part of our Christian and Anglican discipleship to condemn homophobic prejudice and violence, to defend the human rights and civil liberties of homosexual people and to offer them the same pastoral care and loving service that we owe to all in Christ’s name,” the weight of his rhetoric supports those in the church who agree that there is a “deeper question . . . about what we believe we are free to do, if we seek to be recognisably faithful to Scripture and the moral tradition of the wider Church, with respect to blessing and sanctioning in the name of the Church certain personal decisions about what constitutes an acceptable Christian lifestyle” [italics original]. In other words, as faithful anglicans we are free to minister to “homosexual people,” but we may not legitimate their behavioral choices if they do not choose to lead celibate lives.

To be sure, the Archbishop has said these things before, but in this letter he says them with a particular stated intention.

[I]t is historically an aspect of the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury to ‘articulate the mind of the Communion’ in moments of tension and controversy, as the Windsor Report puts it (para. 109). I do so out of the profound conviction that the existence of our Communion is truly a gift of God to the wholeness of Christ’s Church and that all of us will be seriously wounded and diminished if our Communion fractures any further; but also out of the no less profound conviction that our identity as Anglicans is not something without boundaries. What I am writing here is an attempt to set out where some of those boundaries lie and why they matter for our witness to the world as well as for our own integrity and mutual respect.

It has long seemed to me that the Archbishop is politically and theologically a tory and that he characteristically frames the questions that confront the Anglican communion in a Burkean frame. I see this letter as no exception, except that the ABC makes it clear that he is speaking on behalf of a “mind of the communion” that is articulated in the Windsor Report, a written document, and that he speaks so as to make participation in the upcoming Lambeth conference contingent upon “willingness to work with those aspects of the Conference’s agenda that relate to implementing the recommendations of Windsor, including the development of a Covenant” [italics original]. I’m quite disturbed by this language, and I think the ABC, while he may understand the polity of The Episcopal Church, does not respect that polity. And hence, it seems to me that the ABC’s letter is more confrontational that Fr. Harris’s metaphor of a “slow dance around the issues troubling the Anglican Communion” implies.

And there are two other aspects of the letter that disturb me. the first is the Archbishop’s plan “to pursue some professionally facilitated conversations between the leadership of The Episcopal Church and those with whom they are most in dispute, internally and externally, to see if we can generate any better level of mutual understanding.” the ABC says he “will not seek any predetermined outcome,” but I strongly suspect he has a pretty good idea already “about the future pattern of liaison between TEC and other parts of the Communion” since he says as well:

This will feed in to the discussions at Lambeth about Anglican identity and the Covenant process; I suggest that it will also have to consider whether in the present circumstances it is possible for provinces or individual bishops at odds with the expressed mind of the Communion to participate fully in representative Communion agencies, including ecumenical bodies.

Finally, I think it is really too bad that the ABC includes the following exhortation in his discourse:

. . . I have said that the refusal to meet can be a refusal of the cross – and so of the resurrection. We are being asked to see our handling of conflict and potential division as part of our maturing both as pastors and as disciples. I do not think this is either an incidental matter or an evasion of more basic questions.

Perhaps, but this language is an appeal to force, akin to questioning the patriotism of a political opponent. And if somebody throws theology back at me, I must reply that the history of preaching is full of informal fallacies, and much worse. I wish I could think of something positive and uplifting to say here at the end, but I can’t. I think the ABC’s offering of this discourse as an Advent message is more than unfortunate. It makes me sick at heart, and it utterly contradicts and erases the inclusiveness of the ABC’s Christmas message I so loved yesterday. I feel tricked and betrayed.

+Rowan’s Christmas Message, and mine

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Episcopal Cafe reprints Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ Christmas message today. the original was delivered on BBC Radio and may be found at the Archbishop’s website.

One of the main things that Christmas means to me is that God actually likes the company of human beings, God starts living a human life in the middle of the world when the life of Jesus begins, and that suggests that as the Bible says – God actually loves the world, he likes to be with us, he likes us to be with him. And what flows from that for Christians, is the sense that human beings are just colossally worthwhile. God thought they were worth spending a lifetime with and all that spills over into how we see all kinds of human beings; the ones we don’t like or the ones we don’t reckon very much, the ones we don’t take very seriously. But they are all to be taken very seriously, they are all to be loved. And so Christmas, as I see it, is the very beginning of that sense of huge human dignity in all the people around us, and that’s what I think we are celebrating, that is the most important thing. I hope everyone listening has a very happy Christmas.”

I’m struck by the simplicity of this message, by it’s generosity, and by the way it parallels +Katharine’s Christmas message. I’m wishing I could put my arms around them both.

John 3:16 has long been a chief Christmas text for me. I like it best in Luther’s German: Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt . . . , of thich there is a wonderful paraphrase by Heinrich Schütz. You can hear a fragment of it here that concludes with my favorite passage, auf das alle die an ihn glauben, nicht verloren werden . . . , “so that all who believe on him might not be lost.”

auf das alle: alle, alle, alle . . .

I love this text. It is part of the fabric of my being. I could no more separate myself from it than from my own name. Perhaps the psalmist meant something of the kind in writing, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem . . . .” This is not belief in the modern sense. It has nothing to do with what is today sometimes called a belief system. But I think it may be belief in the sense the gospel writer meant in the centuries before Irenaeus; not what Luther meant–Luther was too much of an individualist on his own part, if not for others. But I believe Schütz loved the text as I do: as musicians, perhaps, love the word of God.

auf das alle: alle, alle, alle.

+++

+Katharine’s Christmas message

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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s Christmas message is poignant, lovely, and strong. “In what form will you find the Christ child this year?” asks +Katharine, a question that is so familiar as to be almost iconic. I’ve read the message very carefully, though–it’s short–because I first read a critique of it, a particularly vicious and mean-spirited critique, I might add, that was featured at Stand Firm. The original includes some sneering at the Spanish text claiming that it is pidgin Spanish, which it isn’t, and is published at MJC (The Midwest Conservative Journal – Copyright by Christopher S. Johnson), where it is followed by a long piling-on of vituperative comments.

But it is the Stand Firm commentator who deserves some first prize for gratuitous nonsense–I can’t quite think of a good name for it. That eminent critic removes from its context a sentence that reads, “Indeed, Jesus is understood as that helper for all who fail, by the world’s terms, to save themselves,” and uses it as the opportunity to deliver a lesson in “theology,” to wit:

No one can save themselves, Kathryn [sic]. NO. ONE. While terribly old fashioned of me, may I recommend Romans 3:21-26 for devotions this week?

I am imagining a scenario in which the presiding bishop turns to her critic and asks without rancor or any touch of irony, “Master, what must I do to be saved?”

I am also thinking that +Katharine is now the target of a hate campaign similar to the one that has dogged the footsteps of Hillary Clinton . . . .

jim’s diner

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[Thinking about Fry Street reminded me of this piece I wrote about Jim’s Diner, a Fry Street institution of some years back, when it closed. I thought I’d repost it here for nostalgia’s sake and because Jim’s is really gone now, if there’s such a thing as more gone than gone. I was wrong about a couple of things. The Delta Lodge did rebuild, and the mural I thought would disappear remained at the time I left Denton.]

Friday, March 20, 1998

I wandered to my office today along empty sidewalks. Denton gets pretty deserted around campus during breaks. As I was returning home I passed what had once been Jim’s Diner, a local institution on Fry Street where I live in the heart of the funky district of this funky little town, which I mostly love for its funkiness. Jim’s is no more, and as I passed the place it used to be I noticed that the new owners are redecorating. Let me tell you about Jim’s and why this makes me sad.

Many an afternoon I have walked into Jim’s, taken a cold Shiner out of the ice locker on the counter, paid my buck and a quarter, and sipped my beer in the shade of the porch on the north side of the place; sat at a big aluminum-topped picnic table, watched the street people and the dogs, been entertained by the art deco mural on the wall depicting the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, and Elvis, talked with my student friends and others about the neighborhood being destroyed by police moving into a new station nextdoor, maybe a little about Zen (old farts don’t know much about Zen, but we like to learn whatever we can) or whether it would ever rain. I belong to an informal old farts club. We eat breakfast together on Tuesdays, and we used to eat at Jim’s, enjoying the fifties awful food, laughing about the Elvis cup you could rent for $100 (something the original Jim had left behind), soaking up the decor consisting of a couple of mannequins dressed in funky costumes, posters and newspaper articles from the fifties framed and unframed on the walls, signed pictures of movie and rock stars, a large foot wearing a two-color shoe, and other objects d’art which might have appealed to P. T. Barnum. No old gas pumps or longhorns in the place, no deer trophies, no branding irons, nothing gauche like that.

About eight months ago, Jim’s was sold. Right off the bat, they quit serving breakfast. The fellow who had owned the place for the last ten years, bought it from the original Jim and kept its tradition, had sold out to a couple of Italians, whom I have nothing against, but among things Denton doesn’t need more of are Italian, Chinese, and Tex-Mex restaurants. Greek would have been nice, we only have three Greek places; or Thai maybe, we have two of those. My favorite Italian restaurant is just around the corner, maybe a block away, and get this—the same guys own it who bought Jim’s. I guess I just don’t understand capitalism. As I say, I live in this neighborhood by choice. I like it, and it’s cheap, but I have terrible dreams of gentrification some nights now, of rents being raised to drive out the old farts and cops chasing away the street people. Now that Jim’s is gone, an anchor of my life no longer exists.

If you think I’m an alarmist, consider these facts. The Delta Lodge at the corner of Fry and Oak, just across the street from Jim’s, which used to be the Sammy house before the Sammys got in trouble with the wowsers, is no more. A fire took it three years ago, and I don’t think the Lodge will ever rebuild. How could they replicate what they had anyway?–a ramshackle old three-story wooden house, a firetrap some said, decorated in Halloween-carnival awful. The Fry Street Fair, which the Lodge sponsors, has moved back to the street for a weekend in April, having been kicked off by the city for a while, but it’s a shadow of its former self. A jazz club in an old convenience store building was evicted, not because its music was loud but because its clientele included lots of grunge-dressing, tattoo-wearing young folk; and where there’s fire there’s smoke, if you get my drift. Soon somebody will decide it’s time to ban appearances by Brave Combo, or evict the folks from the beer and wine shop on the corner, or arrest me for jaywalking or loitering. The cops now regularly stop young folk on the street without real probable cause, just because they look strung out or homeless.

So the demise of Jim’s makes me sad because it comes as part of a perceptible trend, and today was especially sad as I walked past my old haunt, closed, as it was for spring break. The windows had been covered with paper, but I heard hammering and looked in an open door to see what was going on. All the old decorations had vanished, the mannequins, the foot, the old pictures of Tom Mix. The new owners had left things pretty much as whey were until just last week, but now I see stucco-like stuff on the walls, all the wonderfully ugly fifties booths gone. I fully expect to see silk flowers and red checked tablecloths when the new Jim’s opens next week. A spanking new set of outdoor furniture, metal mesh painted green, sits on the porch. The Beatles mural has big holes in it now; they’ll probably just paint over it.

Ubi es, ubi es, O my good place, Jim’s—I miss you old buddy! But they’re not getting me out of here just yet. Us old farts have moved to Ruby’s on the square, where we are protected by domino players, a senior citizen’s buffet, and a stuffed alligator. It is here that an old friend who went crazy used to like to give tourists copies of a photograph of the last hanging in town. Ubi es, O my good place! The stuffed alligator is nice, a real piece of culture, but I have often wondered about the fate of Jim’s Elvis cup. I have heard the last Jim’s owner is now a race car driver in Florida. He probably took it with him.

[Originally posted at Howard Rheingold’s Brainstorms.]