That Open Letter to the Church from My Generation

My Facebook feed the last two days has been filled with postings of An Open Letter to the Church from My Generation. The supposed money quotes are

I’m writing this because I’m worried about the safety of the Church. The Church keeps scratching its head, wondering why 70% of 23-30 year-olds who were brought up in church leave. I’m going to offer a pretty candid answer, and it’s going to make some people upset, but I care about the Church too much to be quiet.

and

So, my advice to you, the Church: if you’re looking for some intelligent biblical liberal opinions on the subject, have a little coffee chat with your local Methodist or Episcopal pastor. Christians can be all about gay people, it’s possible. People do it every day with a clear biblical conscience. Find out if you think there’s truth in that view before you sweep us under the rug. 

This author self-identifies as a "A College Kid Who Misses [the Church]." I actually really don't like this letter at all and don't like how much it's been shared. I am making the assumption that it makes some big assumptions as it uses a plural pronoun to cover 23-30 year-olds. I'm in that category. In some ways I am certainly an outlier: I am a priest at 26 which is not the typical 23-30 year old, and the author makes some assumptions about me based on my age. Making assumptions about people based on similar demographics to our own and is just as dangerous as making assumptions about people based on demographics different from our own.

I am glad this author found truth in Macklemore's song, but I fear that her blog has a tone of "If the church would just get on board with the gays everyone would come back." [Edit: It's not just a tone, it's explicit, "But my generation...will not stick around to see the church fight gay marriage against our better judgment," and "We want to stay in your churches, we want to hear about your Jesus, but it’s hard to hear about love from a God who doesn’t love our gay friends (and we all have gay friends)."]

My favorite line, rather than the ones I've seen quoted is "I’m saying this: we cannot keep pitting the church against humanity, or progress." That's true. More of what I've encountered about people my age who are interested (or disaffiliated) from the church is that there isn't much about Jesus from the Right or Left but a lot of hot button political/social issues.

I am glad that this experience of truth in song rang true for her in her Midwestern town where there are churches that preach only hate or things the author doesn't like. I am from the rural south and know all too well messages of queer exclusion and feminine submission. I am frustrated as mainline protestants (many of whom are clergy) who share this letter highlight this author's encouragement to have coffee with mainline protestants. I am frustrated at this author's candid answer that we're scared of change.

Yeah, sure we are, but there are a lot of real studies about formation and discipling as followers of Jesus that affect people's attendance rates. I find these ten reasons (link) more compelling based on my own experience. As I encounter people my age who are really willing to commit to a faith tradition they are looking for authentic expressions of that faith tradition. The author says we can smell fake a mile away. A sudden shift about teh gai is going to look really fake the same way politicians' all suddenly, as Chief Justice Roberts put it, falling all over themselves to endorse marriage equality. A friend of friend said, "I almost respect Muslim and Catholics the most because at least they go big and stay nuts." I don't agree with that assessment, but this person isn't religiously affiliated and has some hints at how those religious traditions are seeing their own authenticity.

An authentic expression of Christianity is that things take time. Sometimes more than they should, but sometimes not as much. We look beyond ourselves to the larger and we look to our future. I don't fear for the Church, though. I trust in grace and the guidance of the Spirit. Mainline Protestantism has been on a journey about dealing with queer people for a while, and not every branch of it is on the same page. The remaining denominations not onboard have been struggling for decades like those who do endorse marriage equality.

I am a gay man and my faith was the biggest impediment to my coming out to myself, to my family, my friends, and my faith community. Others' interpretation of my faith was an impediment for years after many of those coming outs. The author signs the blog entry "A College Kid Who Misses You" while also encouraging talking to United Methodist and Episcopal clergy, which is exactly what I did. Rather than leaving the church though, I left the church of my past, and in so doing I learned a lot more about Jesus than I had before. I started encountering parables that I didn't remember and words of Jesus that felt fresh and new. I left the church of my past and discerned a vocation to ordained ministry in another church.

I never missed the Church. I sometimes miss the people I grew up with, but I think it's anachronistic to say that one is scared for the Church's decline while also identifying with the statistic of 23-30 year-old's who've left the Church (compared to leave the church of one's past). Being fearful for the church (which I don't think is necessary) I think necessitates a staying in it and speaking to it. I feel like a curmudgeon as I say all this, but saying you miss the church reads to me like you've left it and are armchair quarterbacking to speaking to it on your blog rather than making or maintaining relationships with church people.

So, no, this isn't a letter from my generation. It's well-written and has some good sentiments, but I think needs some more depth to it to get the kind of sharing it's gotten. I continue to pray for the church to be discerning and to be focused on the message and person of Jesus — which doesn't exclude social concerns, but must be the starting point rather than an after thought for how we engage with society.

JpM

Ritual, Religion, and Relationship

Last week I posted a link on Facebook to the article “The Truth About Salvation”.  I excerpted the end:

“Shouldn’t it alarm us that such simplistic pathways to Christianity are nowhere to be found in God’s Word? Shouldn’t we who follow Christ be concerned that the Scriptures contain no references to people asking Jesus into their hearts or reciting a prayer of salvation?...It’s a lie. With good intentions and a sincere desire to reach as many people as possible for Christ, we’ve subtly and deceptively minimized the magnitude of what it means to follow Jesus.” 

I concluded by saying that sounded like Mainline talk (or talk that I’ve heard from Mainliners) from an Evangelical. Someone commented on my post and said, “It's a horrible lie...that one only need to walk an aisle and quietly repeat a prayer. And it is a horrible lie that the rituals of any religion will bring salvation, too. Relationship not ritual!”

I think it would be a horrible lie that the rituals of any religion will bring salvation if I had ever heard someone say that; I just haven’t. Growing up I heard similar things about more liturgical traditions, “They think that if they just go to Mass they’ll get to heaven.” Not quite. It’s a lot more nuanced than that because the approach is different. Rather than being about praying a prayer, there is an understanding that grace is conveyed not through rituals, but through materials. Grace and salvation don’t come from what we do (receiving communion, being baptized), but what God does in the bread and wine, in the washing water, in the healing oil So much are these actions about God and not us, that the Church long ago decided that the state of grace of the person doesn’t matter for them to be efficacious. (For those who say otherwise, see donatism).

I whole-heartedly reject the notion that relationship is not ritual. Ritual is an invitation to or expectation of relationship as the Body of Christ does something as one. Baptism gives people with five senses a way to engage their senses as they make promises to Christ and are brought into a community. When asked, “Will you do these things that we’re all trying to do?” the baptizand replies, “I will, with God’s help.” In that moment we have a relationship with Christ. Like all other relationships it takes work, but we are marked as Christ’s own forever. When we come to the table of grace we are continually joined to Christ as Christ continues to take up residence in us. The practice of it may be different than some others’, but God is active, even if we don’t always understand how.

These moments of relationship bring us to salvation. For a long, long time the Church (for the most part) has believed that grace is conveyed in these acts. The Nicene Creed explicitly says, “We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” That statement is inherently relational because it’s what we believe. It was put into the Nicene Creed in A.D. 381. Rather than being “just a symbol,” the Church believes that something happens. Because something happens from God and not from us, we only have to do it once at that.

There are a lot of things that seem like equating relationship and ritual, but those are often from a place of a very narrow definition of what a ritual is. Disciples are also rituals, from keeping a prayer journal to having a daily quiet time. Doing it over and over again is a ritual that is used to build relationship. I have been critical of the “Praying that prayer” model because although there is an expectation of relationship, there isn’t necessary follow-up — and often the statement that it’s okay. You prayed that prayer and that’s all you’ve got to do.

For this very reason I’m critical of drive through baptisms, where the parents have no intention of bringing their child back and are not in relationship with the community. The difference in my mind, though, is that God is active either way. When done well both models have safeguards built in, but the one I prefer is one that is about God’s action and then the community promising to be a part of the ongoing life of the newly baptized. Because it’s the Spirit present in the water, though, it sticks.

“Asking Jesus into one’s heart” is arguable a ritual in and of itself, and that’s not a bad thing. Letting that be the stopping point (which Platt is arguing against in his work) is what bothers me — but that’s not the ideal. What also bothers me, though is an outright rejection of ritual based on one’s preference (which, in my experience, often comes from lack of exposure over time, so hard to understand) rather than wondering how someone else’s practices may be formative for them.

How might we wonder with others about their practices? Through asking questions rather than making assumptions based on our outsiders’ perceptions. Through asking ourselves how our practices are formative for us and inviting others into them with us. How else?

Keeping Mass in Christmass

For the first time this yea,r I didn't get invited to one single "Keep the Christ in Christmas"Facebook group.  I might have had one page suggested to me for becoming a fan, but that's it.  Starting two years ago I invited everyone who invited me to one of those groups to a "Keep the Mass in Christmass."  When we talked about the Reformation this year in liturgics, our professor pointed out that most of the people who are most vigilant about keeping the CHRIST in CHRISTmas and not saying "Happy Holidays" are the theological descendants of those people who got rid of Christmas all together (namely hyper Protestants).

The (heavily cited!) Wikipedia article says this

Following the Protestant Reformation, groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast."...Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647...In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England shared radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. The ban by the Pilgrims was revoked in 1681 by English governor Sir Edmund Andros, however it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region...Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom.

Washington Irving wrote short stories about Christmas, and that made it fashionable again.  The wikipedia article addresses that, too.

What I've gathered, as well, is that the people who want to KEEP CHRIST in CHRISTmas don't actually care about religious celebration, other than not wanting to feel dominated or ignored...and they prefer to dominate others.  (I'm not talking about everyone, but the most vocal people.)  I tweeted a few weeks ago that for there to be a war on Christmas happening, the music at Starbucks was awful Jesusy.  The religious celebration they want to do isn't so much celebrating, as maybe remembering that Jesus was born.  That's great, do some remembering.

But I think that another way of maintaining Christmas as a religious holiday is to celebrate it with religion.  When I've tweeted something to the effect of keeping Mass in Christmas, I've gotten the response (and I'm not the only one) to get "Isn't keeping Christ in Christmas more important?"  Well, like I said above, I haven't actually noticed an absence of Christ....and if you celebrate Mass (or some other communal celebration of the holiday, gathering around Word and preferably Sacrament) it's hard to not have Christ in Christmas.  And I'm willing to have a pretty vague and generous definition of mass, namely a gathering of the religious faithful, regardless of their tradition, to celebrate a feast day.

Thom, SFO offers the following about keeping Christ in Christmas:

Instead of inaugurating the Christmas season at Thanksgiving or Halloween, try living the mysteries of Advent. Try preparing yourself for the coming of our lowly king. Try not spending 6 months salary on gifts to impress friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors. Instead, take that money and do some real good. Try tempering the joy of the season with the stark reality that we are still in darkness.

I like it.  To it I'd add not just waiting until Christmas to celebrate, but also keeping all of Christmastide.  Twelve days instead of one is a lot more celebration!  I've also heard people say (often in response to the statement "It's only Advent!") "It's never the wrong time to celebrate Christ's birth."  Well...maybe.  As TBE says, you wouldn't sing "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" on Good Friday...and you don't say "Merry Christmas!" in July.  I don't think Christ is really absent from Christmas, not even in secular settings; certainly not absent if Christians actually celebrate (especially together) the mysteries of the Incarnation (which is not celebrating Jesus being born to die; cf John 1....and I don't think singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus is quite it, either).

If we keep the Mass in Christmass, Christ will surely follow.

Gardner Execution

Last night @MarkShurtleff tweeted:

I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims.

And that infuriates me. Certainly it was not the Attorney General's place to decide at the last minute not to go through with the execution. The Rule of Law has to should be followed by elected officials at all levels of government. But damn what an inappropriate thing to say. "May God have mercy on him, even though he didn't have mercy on his victims, and we're not having mercy on him. While the AG couldn't decide at the last minute there is a major disconnect in Tweeting a statement about mercy while explicitly denying mercy.

I don't know much about the Utah AG. I do, however, know that the Attorney General in Alabama is a blood-thirsty supporter of state-sanctioned murders. He mentions the "liberal elite" aka people who are educated and might be qualified for his job, people who may have actually tried cases before being appointed to a position and then running for re-election. He advocates "using the death penalty to keep Alabama families safe from the most violent criminals" by killing them after they've already done something; who does that protect? That's about vengeance, not safety. He also mentions "recent studies" that aren't cited. Recent studies by whom? When? That's not science, that's politics. Then the view zooms to his wedding ring which says "See, I'm a straight married man."

Troy King first got me riled up in December of 2007 or 2008 when I heard on Alabama Public Radio a brief news snippet about king wanting the death penalty to continue in a case where the evidence doesn't line up and everything has changed. It doesn't matter to King if people are actually guilty of the crimes they commit, just that they get killed if they're accused of something serious. Evidence? Who needs that? It's not a matter of justice or anything. While this certainly has an agenda -- and this is my blog, I can do that -- look at the defense's side of Thomas Arthur's ongoing battle against the retribution-"justice" of Alabama politics.

Let us truly pray for mercy, for those who have been executed, for victims of violent crimes, and for electorates that enable such unjust systems to continue functioning.

Inverse Relationship

My charitable feelings toward the Roman Church's hierarchy are developing an inverse relationship to the continuing news breaking about sex abuse, cover-ups, and re-assignments that have gone on from centuries ago to today. I have for a few years made it a standard practice not to go to Mass because I can't receive, except with people or for respite from a hectic week and there is a Mass (whose structure will calm my nerves) being offered on a weekday. Now, however, that's intensifying. If the person I wind up spending the rest of my life is Catholic I won't be going to church with them.

Our children will not take part in that Church, and that's not even entirely about protecting them. I will not expose them in any way to a Church system that does not even try to give the appearance of true repentance, and I won't endorse it by any sort of participation. I am losing more and more faith in the management of that historic expression of Christianity. I don't even want to point a finger at someone to hang; I'm not looking for someone to blame or someone to get blamed or be a fall guy (and it's only guys in this case). I want to hear "We're sorry. This has been a problem. We are fixing it. What can we do to help?" Rather than "We're sorry, but this was someone else's jurisdiction," or "We're sorry, please don't talk about this, here's some money for damages," or "We're sorry, but these things happen. What can you do?"

What I don't want to hear is accusations and people's fury being dismissed as "petty gossip." I don't want to hear comparisons of uproar about abuse compared to anti-Semitism. And apologizing after the fact for saying it doesn't make it okay. When you posit yourself as the arbiter of truth, opposing gay marriage and reproductive rights and rallying thousands of dollars to those campaigns, and talk about things tearing the fabric of society but then are as corrupt, if not more so, than other large corporations, you've surrendered your self-indignation, particularly when the accusations are about some of the least of these, defenseless children who trust in authority.

"Trust us" is too late. The faithful have been trusting you...and are met daily with new accusations, more people coming forward. And rather than helping the people move forward, the Church is saying "Just trust us. We've got this under control. Don't listen to those people at the New York Times. They're trying to make us look bad because they just don't like Catholicism. Nothing really has gone wrong." Dismiss and deny isn't working out anymore. WE no longer live in an age where we just trust authority figured. And clinging to a bygone era just gets you left behind -- with everyone mad at you.

On Brainwashing

Apparently I've been brainwashed, by the "Jewish lobby" no less, because I prefer to date things CE and BCE. My objection is not to the Church dating things AD (certificates of ordination, letters from people, etc.), but I really don't think that objective historians )or people from other religions for that matter) should be dating things from an exclusively Christian perspective...unless, of course, they want to.

I'll Have a Serving of Grace, Please?

h/t to MadPriest for pointing this out from the Dutch News (emphasis added)

On Sunday, dozens of gay men and women attended mass at the St Jan cathedral in Den Bosch to protest at the local bishop's decision to exclude homosexuals from the ceremony. And many of them left the church is a noisy protest after priest Geertjan van Rossem told the congregation that in order to receive communion people needed to have the 'correct' experience of sexuality.

'Homosexuals are welcome in the church. But we ask practising homosexuals not to take part in communion out of respect for the sacrament,' he said.

The protest follows the refusal of a local priest to give communion to the carnival prince in the nearby small town of Reusel during the pre-Lent celebrations. The decision caused an uproar and led to newspaper Gaykrant urging gay Catholics to head to Reusel en masse and attend church. The refused communion to everyone who attended the service - regulars and newcomers alike.

The part I've bolded is a contradiction. They might as well say, "You're welcome to come, but you need to not stand, sit, or kneel when we do, and you don't need to say the prayers or sing. Actually, we'll build you a balcony. You can come, but you can't participate in the point of the service. Frankly, that's how I feel about going to Mass as a Protestant (and thus why I stopped going so frequently in Troy, particularly when when I heard talk that some people weren't happy about my continued attendance but not seeking to join). You don't invite someone to dinner and not serve them.

Additionally, what does this say about sacramental theology? If the Eucharist is a way that grace is conveyed, why does someone have to be either straight or celibate to receive it? Not that I agree with the idea that queerfolk are disordered, but really, do the healthy (in the church's eyes) need a doctor? That's something I've failed to understand from this mindset. If you think they're wrong, how are they going to get "right" if you shut them out? That goes to any group. And maybe we've forgotten, but Jesus ate with tax collectors and prostitutes. "They're cool now. Thus saith me."

And finally, what's with singling this group out? I mean, really? As someone at MadPriest pointed out, you can't look at someone and tell if they're having sex with someone of the same sex. But that's not the only requirement to receive in the Roman church, from what I recall. When are priests going to start having a sign in during the twenty minutes a week they offer reconciliation, and if you don't make it not serve you the following Sunday? Those who miss on Holy Days of Obligation during the week? Missing Mass then is a mortal sin, but I don't see headlines about priests turning the droves of people who don't come to those days away.

I understand a church having its teaching, regardless of what I think about that teaching. I don't understand it choosing to hit hard on one point and ignore things that actually matter in their theology, like needing to be in a state of grace after having been absolved to receive the eucharist, or in the instance of a protestant denomination, denying someone membership to the local church while ignoring sacramental theologybeing smashed to pieces around the jurisdiction.

We all come to the table as broken-being-healed sinners being redeemed, all of us in need of grace. I think Jesus said something about people who are eligible to throw stones. The church has a role in our lives. We certainly need the church to teach us and to guide us as we are made more perfect through this life into the next. I don't, however, need the church to restrict those who are eligible to receive outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual graces. The people the church wants to (at least in theory) bring into the Kin-dom of God are going to be less and less tolerant of it throwing stones from its glass houses as abuses continue to be covered up the world over and the Church doesn't really try to rectify the situation or find real reconciliation.

Helping of grace, anyone?

What Praying Isn't...and How I pray

I unfriended someone on Facebook either Saturday or Sunday night. I suppose I could have hidden this person from my newsfeed, but we really weren't friends. This person and I did a two-week program together in high school and haven't seen each other since. The only real interaction this person and I have had since then was a discussion/debate on the difference between sex and gender, and how one is biologically structed and the other is socially constructed. That wasn't his perspective of course.

That aside, we haven't really talked, so neither of us (to my knowledge) had much investment in the other's Facebook friendship. However, he posted something the other day and I clicked on his page and I saw the following status updates that had imported from Twitter.

"Pray for Andrew, freshman at AU, who described himself as a 'relativistic Catholic.'
"Pray for Bart, Ph.D. student at AU, who is agnostic; knows the Bible but doesn't believe it.
"Pray for Zach, freshman at AU, who is tired of being enslaved to sin and wants to trust Christ and repent but is scared to do so.
"Pray for Evan, freshman at AU, who chose a chicken sandwich over trusting Christ and surrendering his life to him today.
" Pray for Nick who has the choice of continuing to live w/ his girlfriend or surrendering to the gospel and finding somewhere else to sleep."

I was incensed when I read it, and I decided that if there's potential for that to come up in my newsfeed, it's better (as Bishop Robinson said concerning protestors outside General Convention) for me to not have that kind of input in my life. As far as I'm concerned that twitterfeed is very far from prayer. When your requests or petitions are "Pray for ____________ because I don't like that they're doing ____________ or they disagree with me about __________________," I think that has fallen from prayer into something between gossiping and passing judgment, maybe both at the same time. I grew up in an environment (and am exposed to it some still) where this was part of prayer, but by no means the only part of praying for others!

I think that's what praying and prayer aren't. But if I'm going to say that, what is prayer?

"Q. What is prayer?
A. Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.
Q. What is Christian Prayer?
A. Christian prayer is response of God the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit...
Q. What are intercession and petition?
A. Intercession brings before God the needs of others; in petition, we present our own needs, that God's will may be done." -BCP, 856-857

Prayer is responding to God. Intercession is bringing others' needs to God on their behalf. The tweets were, I suppose in themselves legitimate. Pray for these people. Okay. What're we praying though? I think the implication with some and the explicit statement of others is "pray that they will be like me" (i.e. "...who has the choice of continuing to live w/ his girlfriend or surrendering to the gospel and finding somewhere else to sleep."). I think that when we pray these kinds of things we are putting ourselves in a place higher than we should think of ourselves.

When I was in the seventh grade, I used to go through this kind of litany at night before bed for people who made decisions that I wouldn't agree with. "God, be with x and y, that they not be lustful and control their hands when they're alone and with other people. Be with z, that he will not listen to (name of band I don't remember that HomeLife had said was bad), and that he'll really love you." In the course of a conversation with a very wise young woman (now a beautiful married adult woman) quoted Mt. 7.1 to me. It was a slap in the face the weight of a ton of bricks that I needed.

And now I pray for a list of people, which certainly isn't the "right" way to pray, nor is it the only way. I keep my list personal and don't generally broadcast it on Twitter or Facebook, although I do sometimes share concerns or joys via those media or the OSL CyberChapter. Most of the time it's just names of people that I think about, many of whom I don't know all their situations or specific needs to be prayed for. But I pray for them. If they've asked me about something special or I know something going on I'll remember it specifically in prayer. I pray for Bishop Robinson then Archbishop Peter Akinola. This method of praying was lately heavily influenced by Bonhoeffer. Praying for people just by name most of the time puts me in a place of humility that "God, please make Peter Akinola accept me, and Bishop Robinshon and Presiding Bishop Jefferts-Schori" doesn't. Praying for people by name as people I care about and want God to guide puts God, not me, in the place of determining what guidance they need.

That doesn't even mean not praying for people to become Christians or preclude evangelistic praying. Examples: "For those who do not yet believe, and for those who have lost their faith, we that they may receive the light of the Gospel, we pray to you, O Lord" or "I ask your prayers for all who seek God, or a deeper knowledge of him.Pray that they may find and be found by him." What these do is still pray for people who have not come to Christianity. What they don't do is call people out by name as a way of intimidating, making fun, or casting stones or criticize people for having a different understanding of Christianity than you do (critique of personal label, critique of non-submission to the Gospel).

Show us your mercy, O Lord;
And grant us your salvation.
Clothe your ministers with righteousness;
Let your people sing with joy.
Give peace, O Lord, in all the world;
For only in you can we live in safety.
Lord, keep this nation under your care;
And guide us in the way of justice and truth.
Let your way be known upon earth;
Your saving health among all nations.
Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.
Create in us clean hearts, O God;
And sustain us by your Holy Spirit.