The Questioning Christian

May your delusions be benign and your compulsions useful - Scott Adams, author of Dilbert

From Crazy or Disciplined? at Scott Adams's blog; he's the author of the Dilbert comic strip:

A Muslim, a Christian, and a crazy guy walk into a room. The one thing you can know for sure is that at least two out of three of them organize their lives around things that aren't real. And that's the best case scenario. ...

[¶¶]

The best you can hope for in this life is that your delusions are benign and your compulsions have utility.

It's a worthwhile read.

Episcopal bishops should shut up about politics, says liberal scholar Walter Russell Mead

Liberal foreign policy scholar Walter Russell Mead, whose father is an Episcopal priest, excoriates the Episcopal Church's hierarchy for dabbling in politics while failing at their basic work:

There’s nothing like Lent for reflecting on the sins of other people; I thought I’d start at the top — with the bishops of my own church.

As the Episcopal church along with the other mainline Protestant denominations diminishes, we don’t have to look far to see bishops and leaders who are largely failing in their core assign­ments: to tend to the health and promote the growth of the congregations in their area.

Yet even as we have fewer and fewer effective and successful leaders, we have no shortage of political, ‘prophetic’ bishops. When they can, they meet with world leaders and jet off to exotic locales to bring peace and fight for justice. When they can’t do that, they sign statements of concern, issue reports and other­wise tug on the skirts of an indifferent public seeking attention for their political views. * * *

. . . Trivial and predictable are not news, and the political stands that the mainline clergy take are almost always both.

A statement by an Episcopal bishop will not change one mind or one vote; at least in all my years in the pews I’ve never met a single Episcopalian who said that the opinion of a bishop does or should have the slightest influence on how Episcopalians vote and if the churchgoers aren’t paying attention to the bishops I can’t imagine anyone else is.

I’m not urging the bishops to change their politics. I’m urging them to shut up. More precisely, I’m urging them to base their ministry on a clearer understanding of their situation and their role.

Let me nail some cyber-theses to the virtual door.

1. Nobody cares what you think while your tiny church is falling apart. * * *

... [W]hy, exactly, would any sane person today pay attention to the political pronouncements of an Episcopal bishop? Episcopalians are a tiny minority of the population and the church long ago lost its social power and cachet. The Episcopal church today is in the worst condition it has been since the aftermath of the Revolution; its clergy has visibly failed to keep the church together or prevent its ongoing decline. I’m afraid that the penchant to make political pronouncements proceeds less from a true prophetic vocation than from a nostalgia for a time when it mattered what Episcopal bishops thought.

In any case, there is nothing more ridiculous than a proprietor of a failing concern who officiously lectures everyone else on how to manage their affairs. Please, for the sake of what remains of the dignity of your office, give it a rest. * * *

3. In the contemporary world the job of the clergy isn’t to provide political leadership. It is to help laypeople grow into better, wiser political leaders. * * *

... The job of a bishop isn’t to make statements about the minimum wage or the Iraq war. It’s to help the clergy in his or her diocese form communities that produce dynamic, committed and intelligent laypeople who will shape political debates on these and many other matters.

A bishop isn’t here to inject Christian values into public policy debates; a bishop is here to inject mature, thoughtful and committed Christians into public life.

The Diocese of Long Island shouldn’t be taking stands on the minimum wage; it should be producing people who transform the life of the region at every level of engagement.

If the bishops were already doing this pretty well I would be much more tolerant of their occasional ventures into public debate. But it’s as plain as day that en masse the American bishops are catastrophically failing at that core task — as indeed are their colleagues in the other mainline denominations.

In the parlous state of today’s Episcopal church, every dime a diocese spends and every minute of a bishop’s working day needs to be focused on local congregations. The church is melting before their eyes and many bishops seem to be passively watching it happen; at most they hope to manage decline as smoothly as possible.

Sunday Jeremiad: Petty Prophets of the Blue Beast, at The American Interest, Feb. 21, 2010 (bold-faced emphasis edited, extra paragraphing added; hat tip: Stand Firm in Faith - I must have signed up for their email updates at some point, because I don't read their blog).

I wonder whether Jesus really meant for our Eucharists to focus on his body and blood as such

I was intrigued by this passage from "Kitchen Communion - From the food pantry to the table," by Sara Miles, in The Christian Century, Feb. 9, 2010, p. 24, at 29:

[After the benefit dinner, we] celebrated Eucharist at midnight in the middle of the [restaurant] dining room .... My feet hurt more than they had in 20 years, and my shirt was slippery with grease.

The waiters and dishwasher came out, curious, as I handed Paul [the parish rector] a loaf of French bread. He held it up, saying the ancient Hebrew prayer. "Blessed be God, ruler of the universe, who brings forth grain from the earth," he chanted.

"Now we share the bread with each other," Paul instructed. He was still wearing the kerchief [to cover his hair while cooking] and his face was shining. "It's Jesus' table, so the bread is for everybody."

* * *

I remember how Deb had told me she didn't think communion was a good idea. "It's not gonna fly," she said. "At the end of a shift everyone just leaves as fast as they can or maybe goes out to get drunk. But nobody wants to hang out in the restaurant."

We passed the bread around, then a plastic glass of wine. ... I was a little embarrassed and unbelievably happy. ...

(Emphasis and extra paragraphing added.)

I was struck by the priest's omission of the traditional words of consecration, "this is my body" and "this is the cup of my blood."

Instead, he said the traditional Hebrew blessing of the bread — quite possibly using the English counterpart of the very words Jesus himself might have spoken at the Last Supper.

I wondered: How necessary were the body-and-blood words of consecration, really?

So I re-read the ancient accounts of the institution of the Eucharist.

• Mark 14, Matthew 26, and Luke 22 all give the impression that Jesus used the bread and wine primarily as stage props, a teaching aid, a visual metaphor to emphasize what he expected was in store for him — which would be followed by the coming of the kingdom of God.
• Of the four gospels, only Luke quotes Jesus as instructing his followers that they should "do this in remembrance of me"; Paul's earlier account in 1 Cor. 11, based on church tradition, does likewise.
• The Fourth Gospel, of course, doesn't mention the institution of the Eucharist at all.
• Apart from the canonical New Testament documents, chapter 9 of the Didache makes no mention of Jesus' body or blood; its emphasis is on thanking God. It twice mentions Jesus simply as God's servant, not as a son of God, much less as God incarnate. (The Didache was an instructional text, thought to have been written by Jewish Christians, sometime near the late first century, for their gentile brethren.)

This makes me think we need to read the command, "do this in remembrance of me," in context with the rest of what Jesus reportedly said on that occasion.

The command appears to be a direction for a simple ritual that will help Jesus' followers stay focused — not so much on Jesus himself, nor even on his death, but on his imminent return and the coming of the kingdom — so that his followers won't lose heart during the times of trouble.

Hmm.

 

Where we do church matters, sometimes

In a comment to one of my earlier postings, Todd writes:

I have to ponder sometimes why it is that a well-crafted ceremony within an environment of arched doorways, stained glass, wooden pews, and pillars can bring me to reverence in spite of myself.  ... Perhaps - just perhaps - God speaks to us as much through our art and architecture as through our texts and intuition.

Agreed; I've had similar experiences — we do have (at least) five senses, after all ....

That said, though, two of the most moving liturgies in which I've ever participated were outside a church building.

• One was a ten-minute stand-up Eucharist, in a corner of the parish hall early on a Sunday morning, as the usher-captains guild took a break from setting up the kiddie rides, etc., for the parish's annual Rally Day festivities.
• The other was with some other Boy Scout adult leaders, on a Sunday morning of a troop campout — a few of us came out of our tents before dawn on a freezing morning, climbed by flashlight to the top of Enchanted Rock (a 425-foot-high pink granite boulder), and read an abbreviated Morning Prayer service as the sun came up.

Thanks for stopping by, Todd. If you haven't already, you might take a look at my post from a few years ago on Why I Still Call Myself a Christian and an Episcopalian.

The unreliability of eyewitness accounts - Scientific American article

From Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld, Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on Eyewitness Accounts, from the January 2010 Scientific American Mind:

The uncritical acceptance of eyewitness accounts may stem from a popular misconception of how memory works. 

Many people believe that human memory works like a video recorder: the mind records events and then, on cue, plays back an exact replica of them. 

On the contrary, psychologists have found that memories are reconstructed rather than played back each time we recall them. 

The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is “more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.” 

Even questioning ... can alter the witness’s testimony because fragments of the memory may unknowingly be combined with information provided by the questioner, leading to inaccurate recall.

(Extra paragraphing added.)

Puritan advice for the unemployed - Amy Henry in WSJ Online

From a piece by Amy Henry in WSJ Online:

Much like modern work is separated into white and blue collar, 17th-century tradition held that sacred occupations (like priest or monk) trumped secular ones (like farming or blacksmithing). 

The Puritans, however, rejected such a distinction. Holding to "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might" (Ecclesiastes 9:10), the Puritans sanctified the common, believing that all work, however lowly, if done for the glory of God, was good. ... 

 The farmer's plow became his altar, his tilling an act of service to God every bit as holy and valuable as the priest's, reminding the unemployed that temporarily taking a step down in pay or status does not equate to failure.

Amy Henry, Idle Hands: Some Puritan Advice for the Unemployed, Wall Street Journal Online, Nov. 19, 2009 (extra paragraphing added).

Episcopal Church statistics don't look good - "Catholic lite" just doesn't sell as well anymore

See this one-page statistical summary at the Episcopal Church Web site, saying among other things that, over the past five years:

• average Sunday attendance (ASA) is down 16%
• active baptized membership is down 10%
• 55% of parishes have seen their ASAs decline by 10% or more
• 18% of parishes have seen their ASAs increase by 10% or more
• the increases in plate-and-pledge contributions have been less than inflation

(Hat tip: Kendall Harmon.)

Why this trend?  Here's my hunch (and that's all it is):  

1. Americans are constantly reminded to be prudent consumers, to critically assess what they're offered. 
2. What TEC has to offer these days is, mainly:  a questionable Catholic-Lite theology that has some obvious holes in it; a puffed-up pride that we continue to use a variation on a monarchical-bishop model of governance; and a risible claim of universality.
3. To modern consumers, TEC's offering doesn't have quite the same appeal as some of the more streamlined church "packages" out there, with minimal theology and high entertainment value. 
4. Recall that "none of the above" is one of the fastest-growing religious choices in America. 

Israeli ‘settlers’ torch Palestinian property in retaliation for being evicted by Israeli troops

When you and your friends and family are implacably convinced that you know God’s will beyond question, you can do some evil things:

On a hilltop, blankets, pots and broken chairs are strewn where the Israeli army tried to demolish an illegal Jewish settlement outpost. In the fields opposite, 70 olive trees are scorched and blackened after the settlers took revenge — not on the army, but on the local Palestinians.

It is a new and effective settler tactic known as the “price tag”: if the Government sends police or soldiers to dismantle an outpost that is being built, the settlers make the Palestinian population pay the price.

“It’s quite simple and smart but evil,” said Michael Sfard, a lawyer with the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din. “They attack Palestinian property, people, and blockade roads every time the Israeli security forces do something they don’t like” — such as demolish outposts.

Many settlers in the West Bank are religious hardliners who believe that they are fulfilling a biblical prophecy by taking over the land that they call Judaea and Samaria.

* * *

“It’s not a war, it’s our right,” he said, brushing aside the issue of what might happen to the Palestinians if his movement succeeds in settling the land.

“It’s not my problem, it’s not something I have to solve. This is a land that was promised by God, that’s all I know,” he added.

Mr Sfard said that there were anywhere between a few dozen and a few hundred settlers using the violent tactic, which was proving to be effective.

“It’s slowing down the security forces and demanding much larger and heavier forces,” he said. “It’s such a big headache that many of the relevant authorities give up without trying.” The outposts are rebuilt quickly by determined settlers once the army leaves.

From James Hider, West Bank settlers use ‘price tag’ tactic to punish Palestinians, The Times [UK], Oct. 15, 2009 (bold-faced emphasis added.)

Karen Armstrong: Itinerant prophet of the Golden Rule

My wife and I enjoyed hearing renowned religious historian Karen Armstrong last night at Houston’s Wortham Center, as part of a Progressive Forum of Houston lecture series. Some observations:

• Armstrong is delightful.  Her lecture style is passable; to me, though, the most enjoyable part was her living-room conversation afterwards, in the style of Inside the Actor's Studio, with Progressive Forum founder Randall Morton, who posed questions previously submitted via the Web.
• Armstrong emphasized the commonality of the Golden Rule in world religions. That resonated with me, of course (see my various postings here on the fundamental importance of the Summary of the Law in human cultural evolution).
• She claimed that it’s only been in the last few hundred years that people took the Bible’s creation accounts lit­erally. She said that those accounts used to be re­garded — correctly, in her view — as mythos, a story setting out a program for action, as opposed to logos, a description of the way things really are. (Doubtless this one-sentence summary fails to do her justice.)
• Armstrong pitched the Charter for Compassion movement that it sounds like she’s spearheading.
• She pronounces her first name CAR-rin.
• The event looked to be sold out – I saw only a handful of empty seats here and there in the Cullen Theater, probably from no-shows. We ended up sitting in the mezzanine, which I think was our first time ever in that section. The seating there is pitched incredibly steeply, more so than any stadium I’ve ever been in.
• It was announced that Armstrong would do a book-signing for her latest, The Case for God, being sold on-site by co-sponsor Brazos Bookstore. I wanted a signed book, but the line was at least 30 minutes long, so we headed home.  I’ll check with the Brazos to see if they have any signed books there.
• I’ve never seen so many Toyota Priuses in one place as there were in the parking garage afterwards; draw your own conclusions about the audience ....
• Armstrong is not without her critics – see that section of her Wikipedia entry.

Tunnel vision is the source of so many of our troubles

David Broder writes that President Obama’s quest for rational, evidence-based public policies is likely to be derailed by the tunnel vision of people acting like heat-seeking missiles, pushing and shoving in their single-minded struggles to get what they want:

… [This highly rational, comprehensive approach fits uncomfortably with the Constitution, which apportions power among so many different players, most of whom are far more concerned with the particulars of policy than its overall coherence.

The energy bill that went into the House was a reasonably coherent set of trade-offs that would reduce carbon emissions and help the atmosphere. When it came out, it was a grab bag of subsidies and payoffs to various industries and groups. Now it is stymied by similar forces in the Senate.

Schambra's essay anticipated exactly what is happening on health care. Obama, budget director Peter Orszag and health czar Nancy-Ann DeParle grasp the intricacies of the health-care system as well as any three humans, and they could write a law to make it far more efficient.

But now it is in the hands of legislators and lobbyists who care much less about the rationality of the system than they do about the way the bill will affect their particular part of it.

Everyone has a parochial agenda.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, for example, wants to be sure a new cancer treatment center in Nevada has favored status.

(Emphasis and extra paragraphing added.)

Of course, at an individual level this tunnel vision makes perfect sense. Harry Reid knows full well that his chances of reelection hinge more on his being able bring home the bacon than on whether he enacts policies good for the country as a whole.  (On a related note, see also this post about a mother whose tunnel vision enabled her to rescue her child from a polar bear.)