Who Wouldn't Want Vestments Like These?

The picture below represents the 2007 Ordination Class of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this one is priceless:

If you like pina coladas...

Now here's a story for the record books. A Bosnian couple has decided to divorce. In and of itself, that's not big news but read on to find out why. In a copyrighted news story yesterday, Ananova reports that the couple had met each other on an online chat room using assumed names. They shared their deepest concerns, fantasies and marital problems with each other never knowing that they were each talking to their own spouse!

When they arranged to meet, they were greeted with a shock. However, a Rupert Holmes moment (the creator of the song Escape) was not in store. They were so angry that they are now suing each other for divorce. The grounds? Adultery.

The woman said: "I thought I had found the love of my life. The way this Prince of Joy (his screen name) spoke to me, the things he wrote, the tenderness in every expression was something that I had never had in my marriage."

The man said: "I was so happy to have found a woman who finally understood me. Then it turned out that I hadn't found anyone new at all."

I say: This is absolutely nuts! This couple's problem is obviously one of communication not compatibility.

What do you say?

Old Masses Made New: Implications for Anglican Catholics

Recently Pope Benedict XVI issued a document (called a motu proprio) releasing priests from any restrictions in offering the Latin Mass that had existed in the Roman Catholic Church prior to the Second Vatican Council. His stated wish was to provide a sense of continuity between the old rite and the Novus Ordo (or New Order) of Mass that was promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969. The purpose, according to Benedict, was to demonstrate for Roman Catholics that there is only one Roman Rite but two forms of this rite, one old and one new.

The reaction of liberal Catholics and others was amazing. They immediately sought loopholes to prevent this implementation and in several cases have made it plain that any priest who dares to offer the old form would face an ecclesiastical banishment, or whatever it is that Romans do these days. I find it interesting that it is perfectly acceptable in the Roman church to celebrate any one of a number of rites and variations thereof except the rite that has existed in their church for 1500 years!

This reminded me of the actions in the Episcopal Church over the 1979 revision of the Book of Common Prayer. When the '79 Prayer Book was introduced, the only books that were forbidden were books derived from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (including the Anglican Missal). Liberals understood quite clearly the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi or "The law of prayer is the law of belief." They understood that if we can change the grammar by which people offer their prayers to Almighty God, then they will by definition have changed what people believe about Him.

Hence, prayer books and Missals that had set forms of prayer (such as the 1928 Prayer Book) that did not deviate from week to week presented a vision of God that was stable and orderly. They presented a God who ruled the cosmos in an methodical way and who gave an objective standard of faith. This was a worship that was primarily God-centered with little concern for the needs of men, needs of which God was very much aware before they could even be uttered.

The new "prayer books" and Missals took a different approach. With a multiplicity of options, it became possible for each community to pray in a way that best suited it. While this sounds nice in theory, it is unsatisfactory in practice because it has destroyed - or seriously damaged - the connection that exists between different churches. Where churches previously had prayed essentially the same things in essentially the same way, that is, in common, now the prayer of the church reflected a focus that was more on the person praying then the Person being prayed to. This approach has been rightly called "man-centered" in that it takes as its starting point the needs of the people rather than the worship of God. This style of worship leads rather easily to a view of God as changing and subjective and, further, the "man-centered" style assaults any notion that there is an ultimate source of divine order, an "uncaused cause" in the world. It also undermines the concept of an ultimate source of morality.

One of the many reasons that I'm pleased to be a priest in the Anglican Catholic Church is because we hold steadfastly to the first form of prayer, that which is based on a theology of a stable and unchanging God. While we allow differences in our church concerning level of ceremonial (some use an unaltered prayer book service, others use the Missal), we have a remarkably consistent understanding of the Eucharist as sacrifice and the Real Presence of Christ offered for our sins. Our approach to prayer, then, is very definitely God-centered. By maintaining the traditions of those who have come before, by holding fast to the 1928 Prayer Book and the Missal, we tether ourselves to the Tradition of the Faith, which has nourished saints and converted sinners. Interestingly, although there are other issues that divide us, on this point we are in agreement with Benedict: We recognize a difference in ceremonial but not a difference in theology. We hold with the ancient Church that God is one, holy, catholic, apostolic and unchanging.

Am I the only one who sees a contradiction here??

Last week, when I was heading home from church, I saw an interesting pair of bumper stickers, both on the same car and the same bumper. The one on the left said, "Freedom of speech means freedom to disagree." The one on the right said, "Friends don't let friends vote Republican." As many of my friends on the Left never tire of reminding me, they are the most tolerant people in the world...as long as you agree with them.

Another Great Article from American Thinker.

This interesting article neatly summarizes something that I have suspected for some time: Namely, that science is accepting the post-Darwinian theory of evolution with little scientific evidence. Here's the link:

http://www.americanthinker.com
/2007/09/julian_huxley_and_the_idolatry.html

Words versus Action

Here's the link to a great article from AmericanThinker.com:
(http://www.americanthinker.com
/2007/08/courage_cowardice_and_the_word_1.html).

This one concerns the tendency of liberals to want to talk things out versus the more conservative propensity to decisive action. The nugget in this one, to me at least, is the notion of the development of psychoanalysis. The author makes the valid point that Freud's initial view of analysis was the amelioration of suffering and the ability of the individual "to love, work, and tolerate common human misery." In the new world, psychoanalysis has assumed the broader role of helping people achieve what Maslow would later call "self-actualization." This change in focus from removal of symptoms to enhancement of quality of life probably has lead to what has been called by the late Christopher Lasch, "The Triumph of the therapeutic." Another way to view it from a Christian perspective is the denial of the effects of original sin. Pelagius would be proud.

Who is Allah?

Great article on the problem of Islam and Christianity. Similar to the one I wrote last week.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/who_is_allah.html

God = Allah????

Once in a while a story comes along that is so outrageous that reports of chin injuries skyrocket. These injuries occur when a sensible person reads a report that is so daft, so outrageous, that the reader’s chin strikes a hard surface following an uncontrolled jaw drop. Such was my reaction after being confronted with this headline from Catholic News Service from August 14, 2007: “Pray to Allah, Dutch Bishop Suggests.” Apparently, Roman Catholic Bishop Martinus (“Tiny”, yes, that’s really his nickname and it fits) Muskens of Breda has suggested that Christians should refer to God as Allah as a way of promoting better relations with Moslems. He further predicted that, in a century or two, Dutch Catholics would be addressing prayers to “Allah.”

It’s very hard to take a report like this seriously, but I think it is highly instructive that we do so in order to understand why no thinking Christian could ever refer to God as “Allah.” As a first step, we have to understand that Muslims use the term Allah because they consider God to be utterly transcendent and unknowable. The title “Allah” is not God’s name, but is, rather, a derivative of the Arab word for “Lord”, something closely akin to the Hebrew elohim. God cannot be known for the Moslem unless and until the world has been made pure for him and this can only occur after people do one of three things: (1) convert to Islam, (2) agree to live under sharia (Islamic Law) in dhimmitude, or (3) die. Only then will Allah reveal himself to his creation.

Christians have a very different view. We believe in a God who is not only knowable, but also desires to be known by his creation. He yearns to share his love with his people and stands steadfastly by them. In juxtaposition to our Islamic friends, we do know the name of God. In Exodus, Moses asks the Lord for his name and God replies, “I am who am.” The Hebrew language has a word for it that translates YHWH (Hebrew has no vowels). To this day, faithful Jews will not pronounce the name of God and evidence for this can be found in the Bible. You may note in the King James and other versions that you will see the word LORD in small capitals. This denotes a reference to YHWH and acknowledges the Jewish practice of substituting the word elohim for the name of God. Notice that devout Jews and Christians know the name of God but only use elohim as a sign of respect.

Now let’s move forward to the New Testament. We know the name of God in the New Testament. God has revealed himself through Jesus Christ, the second Person of the blessed Trinity. God has given us this name and Jesus tells us that through him we see and know the Father. He further states that through Him (Jesus), the Father knows us. Jesus goes on elsewhere to give us another name for God. In the Lord’s Prayer, he refers to the Father (and instructs us to do this as well), as Abba, or “Daddy.”

We could expand any one of these references, but I think the point is clear. For a Christian under any circumstances to refer to God as “Allah” is unthinkable in that it is a rejection of basic Christian doctrine which is founded both in the Bible and in the Tradition of the Church. We are blessed and privileged to know the name of God and to be marked as His own forever. Perhaps Bishop “Tiny” needs to revisit a theology text instead of the dessert bar.

The Heart of Prayer

One of the problems of the utilitarian society in which we live is that we tend to think of things in terms of their usefulness to us. We need technological advances because they make our lives more efficient and convenient. Certain people are good to know because of what they can do for us. And on it goes.

Interestingly, we can even see evidence of this utilitarianism in our discussions about prayer. A walk through most any Christian bookstore will yield remarkable evidence for this. The phenomenally popular “Prayer of Jabez” hints that if you practice this Old Testament prayer regularly, then you will prosper beyond your wildest imaginings. Other books point to formulas for prayer that, if recited properly, will yield whatever result for which you are praying. Still other books, especially ones that focus on centering prayer, talk about the benefits of their prayer to the body, i.e., if you practice their prayer form, you will have lower blood pressure, be less prone to depression, and have more focus and alertness.

Now I’m not saying that God won’t bless people with prosperity, nor am I intimating that God secretly wants people to be hypertensive, depressed, and anxious. But I think that the people who write these volumes and the marketers who promote them are barking up the wrong tree (or the wrong totem pole, as the case may be). I suspect that what has happened in these cases is that many of these writers have witnessed the popularity of things such as the New Age Movement and quasi-religious organizations such as Science of Mind and Unity, and they are trying to say that Christianity in its more traditional form can offer something similar.

However, to make this claim is, to my way of thinking, a serious error. False mysticism is dangerous because it is a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) attempt to entice a Christian to embrace clearly heretical paths. All of the movements noted above each share a common error: They seek to raise man to the same plane as God, or, at worst, seek to find ways that force God to do man’s bidding. This is a serious problem and it is one to which serious Christians should be alert and from which one should run at all costs.

Having spent some time talking about what prayer is NOT, let’s take a few moments talking about what prayer IS. Although I do not profess to be an expert in prayer, I believe that prayer is the process by a person or a community develops a relationship with God. It is noteworthy that all men were created in the image and likeness of God. Prior to Adam’s fall, man enjoyed an intimacy and a communion with God that was lost with the transgressions of our first parents. It is this intimacy and this communion that we seek to regain through the life of prayer. Prayer is the desire of the human heart for intimacy with its Creator.

Saint Augustine says it very well in his famous Confessions: “...Man, being a part of Thy creation, desires to praise Thee, -- man, who bears about with him his mortality, the witness of his sin, even the witness that Thou 'resistest the proud,' -- yet man, this part of Thy creation, desires to praise Thee. Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

The true purpose of prayer, according to Augustine, is a response to the goodness of God. We respond to God’s gift of life in us and we express what our deepest, fundamental desire is: To draw closer to the God of our salvation. In fact Augustine, goes further when he says, “Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.” The saint implies that until our hearts are filled with God, until we are conformed to his will through our life of prayer, then we can never know true rest. This is why, in the end, these fads of prayer do not satisfy and ultimately wither and die. They seek to force God to change to suit us, rather than forcing ourselves to change to suit God. Until the human heart does the latter it cannot know true peace. Let us each pray that God will open our hearts to conform ourselves in His image and likeness.

Power versus Service

A couple of weeks ago, a friend forwarded an article from the National Catholic Reporter (http://ncrcafe.org/node/1172). The NCR is one of the more militantly liberal papers in the Catholic world and, as you might expect, it isn't normally at the top of my reading list. However, this particular article did catch my interest. It was written by John Allen, a thoughtful man, who, though theologically liberal to the core, tends to write with a balance and grace that is worth reading. His column this time was on the just-concluded annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America. For those of you who are not familiar with the CTSA, it is probably safe to say that the society is an organization of liberal academics who spend much of their time challenging church doctrine. I'll admit that the last sentence borders on the "catty", but a quick perusal of the documents of the CTSA will show it to be true.

Allen wrote of the speech given by Daniel Finn, the President of CTSA, in which Finn described the changing approach of the CTSA. Finn stated that, in the past, CTSA had issued position papers that openly debated points of church teaching. Now, Finn says, this has become an ineffective strategy. He says that this type of direct, confrontational approach is no longer effective and that Vatican congregations will not even pay positive attention to this type of activity or use it to facilitate dialogue (which simply translates, "We'll talk until you agree with me.") Instead, Finn stated that dealing with theological opponents and with the Vatican calls for a new understanding of "power" and its exercise.

Allen writes, "Finn’s comments came as part of a broader analysis of power, in which he argued that theologians have been insufficiently attentive to the way that power operates, which he described as 'part of the software of daily life.' He drew on his experience in community organizing, as well as in higher education, to lay out a theory of how power – in both good and bad forms – works in daily human interactions.

"An understanding of power, Finn suggested, among other things leads to an appreciation for the importance of maintaining relationships in obtaining one’s aims. He quoted a maxim among community organizers that the most powerful person in a community is usually the one with the longest list of phone numbers."

This problem of power highlights what, I think, is one of the major sticking points between liberal Christians and more traditionally-minded ones. That one could even frame a discussion in these terms suggests that liberals see Christianity in terms of the Hegelian Dialectic. For those who do not recall the dialectic, it is the theory that suggests that life is a series of unending conflicts between a dominant thesis against which is developed an antithesis. These two engage in a struggle for power until a synthesis emerges which then becomes a new thesis. And so on. Karl Marx used the philosophy of Hegel to create his Communist Manifesto. In this line of thinking, the struggle is everything because the synthesis is most often written by the winner.

For a liberal Christian, then, the idea of a fixed Revelation is ludicrous because Revelation is constantly being modified and expanded as it goes through ever more syntheses. This is why a liberal Christian can support women's ordination or homosexual marriage and do so with a straight face. To them, as Christianity has developed, its understanding of itself and its place in the world has changed. Christianity, then, must modify itself to accommodate these changes or risk irrelevance. Power for them is a tool to be wielded in order to shape the faith for a new generation. The faith is not a deposit to be protected and cherished, but a lived experience that is ever-changing according to the time.

Now compare that with what a traditional Christian, such as an Anglican Catholic, believes. We believe that God has acted definitively and for all time in the person of Jesus Christ. We believe that the faith which has been given to the Apostles has been passed on and lives through the bishops, whose primary obligation is to see to it that the faith is preserved whole and entire for future generations. The primary task for the traditional Christian, then, is not the exercise of power in order to shape the faith. It is, however, the exercise of service to the Tradition, a submission to it, if you will. For Christians like us, our concern is to see to it that the faith that our children receive is the same faith that we received. This means that we place ourselves at the service of the Scriptures; we resist changes in liturgy and worship. We don't do this because we are clutching at ecclesiastical power. Rather we do this in order to maintain that which was given to us.

Liberal Christians seek to exercise power to bring about change. They seek to remake the Church in the world's image. Traditional Christians seek to exercise service to the Word and Tradition. They seek to remake the world in Christ's image. I'll side with the traditional.

Welcome to my blog!

My name is Father Bob Jones. I'm an Anglican Catholic Priest and a Clinical Psychologist in Private Practice, hence the blog name, "The Shrinking Cleric." In my church life, I am a priest in the Diocese of the South of the Anglican Catholic Church. We are one of the largest of the continuing church bodies, having remained strong in the faith since the Episcopal Church separated from us about 30 years ago. I am currently the Priest-In-Charge of St. Stephen's Pro-Cathedral in Athens, Georgia. For the Diocese of the South, I serve on the Commission on Ministry and on the Consistory Court. As a psychologist, I practice in Conyers, Georgia, a bedroom community of Atlanta, located approximately 30 miles east of the city. In my practice, I see people of all ages with a wide variety of concerns.

Everybody's blogging now, or so it seems, and I thought I should join the crowd. On this spot I'll publish occasional comments, links to articles that I find interesting, and other assorted bits that strike my fancy. Most will relate somehow to either church matters, psychology, or their interplay. However, given that my attention span is somewhat short, there's really no telling what might show up on this page.

Feel free to comment on anything you see. Please avoid personal invective or any comments that you wouldn't make to your mother. Remember, as my French-Canadian Nana used to say, the Blessed Mother sees everything that you do. This is especially true on-line.

Thanks for visiting.