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The Lord is Risen!

The Lord is Risen!

Will my child have faith?

A reader writes in:

"My question is do you have any advice for how to raise kids in a spiritual sense when both parents have very different beliefs?

I was raised in the Pentecostal tradition. My husband was raised loosely Catholic, but when I met him he was more agnostic. Now he has said he is almost sure he is an atheist. This problem didn't come up until my father wanted to take my son (5 yrs old) to church with him. My husband has flat out refused saying he doesn't want his kids indoctrinated at such a young age.

Now there is a tug of war between my parents who try to teach him bible stories and my husband who tells my son that Jesus doesn't exist, and it's all in your head."

That's a really difficult position to be in as a parent. It used to be that an "Interfaith" marriage meant one between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant. But these days, it is likely to be between a Christian and a non-Christian theist or even, as in your case, an atheist. How do you handle a conflict between parts of your family as you describe? It's going to be different for each family, but here are some pointers:

1. The Child's welfare comes first. Children are sometimes used as pawns in family conflict, and faith conflicts are often covers for deeper things. Make sure the conflict is really about what they say it is. If it's something else that's actually causing the conflict, none of the rest of this is going to have any impact. Also, make sure that if one party is talking about the others faith or lack therof in front of your son, it's not in a derogatory way. A child will benefit from watching adults resolve conflict, but only if it's carried out in an adult fashion.
2. Determine what it is you want for your son. What do you want out of religion for him? Do you want him being raised within a faith community, or do you want him to just learn the stories? What level are you comfortable with? What do you think he wants?
3. Determine how to achieve that. If you want the support of a faith community, what would work? Catholicism and Pentecostalism are probably both out. Can you find a faith community that will encourage critical thinking? Use the Internet to look around.
4. Plan on how you are going to approach each party. Try to put yourself in each party's shoes and see what is important to them. What's negotiable and non-negotiable? Writing down talking points is a good idea.
5. Approach them in love, not in anger. Try to be reasonable and find something that works. This can be achieved, assuming that there's not an underlying problem as in point one.

In your specific situation, here are a few things that might help:

1. For your husband, emphasize the value of a Biblical education. Completely apart from the spiritual content, the Bible is one of the most important literary influences of western culture. English literature is full of references to both Old and New Testaments. Not understanding the stories puts one at a distinct disadvantage in appreciating literature, art and music. Also, determine whether the problem is faith itself, or uncritical faith. There are several denominations that see no conflict between critical thinking and faith. I'm partial to mine, but there are many others as well.
2. For your parents, make sure they understand that you are the parent of your son. You have to negotiate this situation and not them, so make it clear that whatever compromise you arrive at needs to be respected. Your son is WAY below the age of accountability, so even from their perspective, salvation should not be an issue at this point. I suspect it has more to do with them wanting to share what is important in their life with him.

My prayers are with you. This is one of the stickiest wickets of parenting.

 

David+

 

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Paul, The Bible and Submission (Not 50 Shades of Grey)

An old friend of mine, noticing the press the Episcopal Church has been receiving over the approval of Provisional Same-Sex Blessings asked me a question about how I would go about preaching Ephesians 5:22, one of Paul’s famous passages about the place of women.

Eph. 5:22 For example, wives should submit to their husbands as if to the Lord. (CEB)

How you interpret this passage has a lot to do with how you read scripture. The “Common-sense” approach is the default American method of scriptural interpretation. As Mark Knoll writes in The Civil War as a Theological Crisis:

By 1860 a substantial majority of articulate Americans had come to hold a number of corollary beliefs about the Bible-specifically, that besides its religious uses, it also promoted republican political theory, that it was accessible to every sentient person, that it defined the glories of liberty, that it opposed the tyranny of inherited religious authority, that it forecast the providential destiny of the United States, and that it was best interpreted by the common sense of ordinary people. [loc 308, 1]knoll

That last sentence is the part that can be especially problematic in the context we are exploring. While scripture usually has a “plain sense,” it’s a plain sense in the culture of the time in which it is written. "Common Sense" readings of scripture are an attempt to box the Bible into the cultural framework we are comfortable with.  For instance, in the context of the theological arguments around the Civil War, “Common Sense” readings of scripture heavily supported the institution of slavery. The entrenched nature of the “peculiar institution” as well as a near universal belief in white superiority (even among abolitionists) made the anti-slavery argument difficult. To quote Knoll again:

(the) nuanced biblical attacks on American slavery faced rough going precisely because they were nuanced. This position could not simply be read out of any one biblical text; it could not be lifted directly from the page. Rather, it needed patient reflection on the entirety of the Scriptures; it required expert knowledge of the historical circumstances of ancient Near Eastern and Roman slave systems as well as of the actually existing conditions in the slave states; and it demanded that sophisticated interpretative practice replace a commonsensically literal approach to the sacred text. … In the culture of the United States, as that culture had been constructed by three generations of evangelical Bible believers, the nuanced biblical argument was doomed. [loc 647, 1]knoll

Writers on this subject routinely point out that the Christian anti-slavery argument never got a lot of traction until after armed conflict broke out and people needed to make sense of the vast slaughter. The abolitionist argument made sense if you considered the sweep of the Bible towards mutuality and respect, but it could not overcome the entrenched “common sense” interpretation that supported the status quo, as such interpretations invariably do. Yet yesterday’s common sense is today’s folly. You would be hard pressed to find a modern biblical literalist who would support the idea that American slaveholding was a Biblically just institution. This is because a “common sense” interpretation has more to do with us and our context than the Scripture and its Sitz im Leben (That’s Biblical geek speak for the original cultural/historical setting of the passage).

There are two ways to read Ephesians that do this passage a grave injustice. Both of them involve this “common-sense” reading that ignores literary and historical context. One is the “literalist” interpretation that insists that this passage requires a wife to be subordinate to her husband in all things. Feminist theology has rightly criticized this reading as being a tool of repression. A more basic criticism might be that using it in such a way completely ignores the rest of the chapter (see below), as well as assuming that Paul is writing in a universal sense without examining his Sitz im Leben.

A second way to do injustice to this text by a “Common-Sense” reading is to try to judge what Paul is saying by our vantage point, which has been shaped by postmodernism, marxism and feminism. To be condescending to ancient writers because they didn’t have the same default point of view that we as postmodern Americans have is just as destructive as a literalist position and would result in the loss of much of the world’s collected wisdom were it universally applied.

To do justice to Paul, we need to ask the questions of context:

1. What is the literary context of this verse? What happens in the letter around it?
2. What is the cultural and historical context? What is he saying to HIS culture?

Only after answering these questions can we begin to ask interpretive questions for ourselves. If Paul was saying this to his culture, what might he say if he was writing within ours? Scriptural interpretation in this full sense is not of direct application. Let’s think of this in pseudo-algebraic terms. X would be the application of Galatians for us today. A is the cultural setting of Paul’s time. B is the scripture. C is our cultural setting. A literalist might say that there is no algebra. Scripture is universal and timeless and all you need is a direct correspondence:

B = X

Those of us who believe scripture is the Word of God, but are literary works that bear the imprints of culture and personality would say it is more complex. It’s more like solving the proportion:

A/B = C/X

So if we avoid the so-called “common sense” position (although that’s really a misnomer. It’s not common-sensical to think that Paul’s culture and ours are similar.) and use this approach that is more sensitive to context, what can we say about this passage?

Where does Paul get his position that wives should submit? The Epistles are older than the Gospels, but anything that wound up in the Gospels would be circulating as stories and proverbs of Jesus at the time of Paul. It’s hard to find anything attributed to Jesus that would support such an assertion. In fact, Jesus seems to be surrounded by “uppity” women, such as the Syro-Phonecian woman, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany who don’t seem to know their “proper place” and routinely scandalize the disciples. Did Paul invent all this?

As he would say, “By no means!” There is a long tradition in Greco-Roman and Hellenized Jewish writing (such as Philo and Josephus) of “Household Codes.” These codes lay out how a male head of household should manage his affairs. The Roman head of household (Pater Familias) was an absolute ruler within his domain. The Household Codes instruct a young Pater Familias on how to conduct his household in order to preserve honor and avoid shame in a culture in which such things were paramount for survival. The failure of a householder to abide by these codes could mean ruin and ostracization from the culture for him and his entire family.

When Paul states that wives are to submit, he’s not stating anything new. He’s stating anything that any writer of Household codes in his culture, Roman or Jewish, would agree with. Most members of a household in Ephesus hearing the letter read aloud, be they male or female, would have been nodding at this point. But look at what comes later. This is where Paul goes way off track from a standard household code.

Eph. 5:25 As for husbands, love your wives just like Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. (CEB)

Non-Christian Household codes of the time do not speak of the duties of the Pater Familias to his “subordinates” at all. Paul goes on for six more verses exhorting husbands to show the same respect to their wives as Christ does for the church. Think about that. Paul goes to great pains in his letters to show how much Christ sacrificed for his church. It is an absolute, self-sacrificing love, completely incompatible with the self-centered idea of the householder as absolute monarch.

I think Paul is using the household code as a subversive rhetorical device. He uses some throwaway lines, such as 5:22, to lull the hearers into a receptive state, then hits them with something demanding and new (the rest of the chapter) where women are given the same value as the church. Paul is by no means an egalitarian in our terms, but it’s unfair to criticize him by those terms. To discard Ephesians because Paul does not articulate perfect egalitarianism would be like discarding the Emancipation Proclamation because Lincoln still retained ideas of white superiority. We are all products of our culture, and I have no doubt that some in the future will judge US with harshness.

However, holding up Paul’s writings as scripture does not mean we have to come to it uncritically. Paul’s instructions to wives in Ephesians does not support domineering, abusive gender relationships any more than Peter’s parallel instructions to slaves (1Peter 2:18) supports modern human trafficking. Paul’s culture and assumptions were very different than ours, and our reading of his writings need to reflect that reality. While not a modern egalitarian, Paul’s views of both slavery and the place of women was much more progressive than those of contemporary writers. He was a careful but passionate rebel, and he upset the establishment enough that he was eventually executed for it.

It is for this reason that even though some continue to use Ephesians to repress, I think that if we read it with eyes open to context, we can find an example of someone transforming his world bit by bit for Christ. God’s plan does not happen in one lifetime, or even in a hundred. This is not a failing of God, but a result of human intransigence. As Jesus said to his disciples, “I have much more to say to you, but you can’t handle it now. However, when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you in all truth. He won’t speak on his own, but will say whatever he hears and will proclaim to you what is to come.” (John 16:12–13 CEB)

Those of us who claim to follow Jesus in the church continue to seek the guidance of the Spirit together as we read our scriptures. God can indeed be found in the Bible. There are those that claim that this should be an easy endeavor, and that the Bible reads like some sort of instruction manual. But many of us believe that the Bible is a complicated work that requires study, work, thought, prayers and discussion in community to begin to understand.

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Other blogs on this topic:

Rachael Held Evans has an excellent post on this.

A great sermon by Frank Logue.

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Related Posts on AskThePriest:

The Heresy of Literalism

The Bible and Chronological Accuracy

Taking the Bible Seriously, not Literally

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1. knoll

   Noll, Mark A., 2006, The Civil War As a Theological Crisis. The University of North Carolina Press.

Marriage, Matrimony, and Same Sex Blessings

One of the questions everyone is asking about the approval of a provisional rite for same-sex blessings is how it changes our understanding of marriage. It's a complex question, and I'll start with defining "Marriage" and "Matrimony. " These are often used interchangeably in both the culture and the church, but I'm going to define these just for use within this post.

"Marriage" is a civil affair binding two individuals together legally. This is the ancient definition of marriage which predates Christianity.

"Matrimony" is a sacrament, or sacramental rite, or has no religious status at all, depending on your time period and which strain of Christianity you belong to. It's important to note that matrimony can be seen as kind of a "Junior Sacrament" due to its relative newness.

Jesus spoke of the of the permanence of marriage, but not the moral goods. Paul saw marriage as a poor second to celibacy, as did most early Christians. Gregory of Nyssa (d. 385 or so) was one of the first to see a possibility of divine work within marriage equal to that of celibacy, in that it trained people in impermanence.

The role of the church in marriage only began to pick up when it became the established religion of the Roman Empire. As ministers became civil officials, they took on civil roles, including solemnizing marriages. The church slowly began to develop a sacramental theology of matrimony. By the early Middle Ages, marriages begin to be celebrated in churches. By the late Middle Ages, marriage and matrimony combined as the church took over many of the civil functions of the defunct empire and became the sole purveyor of marriages.

This is the confused understanding of marriage and matrimony that we inherit - one born of a confusion of religion and civil government. Clergy in the United States that perform marriages function simultaneously as religious and civil officials. It's important to note that the center group of one of our most cherished American myths, the puritans fleeing religious persecution, believed that marriage was a purely civil affair and rejected any sacramentality around it.

In the modern situation, we face our old confusion. While Europe has separated civil marriage from religious matrimony, The United States continues to conflate the two. This gets especially difficult as the civil authorities redefine (or one could say refuse to define in specific gender terms) what marriage is. In many states, same-sex marriage is legal, while in others same-gender unions are legal, while in others constitutional amendments make such civil recognition impossible.

It is into this morass that the Episcopal Church wades. There is a cultural expectation that when you celebrate the sacramental rite of matrimony in church, you are married in the eyes of the state. Our canons state that matrimony is between one man and one woman. So what exactly is happening in a same-sex blessing? Is it matrimony or not? Is it marriage or not?

The response of the church with a proposed rite allows us to address the varied situation in the United States. It seems to me that the rites are clearly NOT matrimony. For them to be so, we would have had to alter the canons. There are those that say, "if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck." This line of reasoning points out that since there are vows and an exchange of rings, it looks too much like matrimony to be anything else. But this completely disregards a regular part of our religious life in the Episcopal Church, namely that of monastic vows. Those rites within the various religious orders of the Episcopal Church also have vows and sometimes include a ring but almost always include some token of the vows. While matrimonial language is sometimes employed metaphorically (I.e. "Bride of Christ") no one would claim that such vows are the sacramental rite of matrimony. Saying that liturgical similarity implies sacramental correspondence ignores this important part of our tradition. Saying that monastic rites are not sacramental just because they are not matrimony would be a rather startling assertion. The same could be said of same-sex blessing rites. Just because they don't fit the category of one of the sacramental rites does not mean they are not sacramental in nature.

What the rites definitely are is a recognition of a covenanted relationship between two people, of which there are many precedents in history. How they interact with marriage and matrimony will vary from place to place. In places where same-sex marriage is legal, it will mean that a clergy person will not be celebrating matrimony, but MAY be solemnizing a civil marriage. In places when same-sex marriage is not legal, a Clergy person will neither be celebrating matrimony, nor solemnizing a civil marriage, but simply blessing a covenanted relationship. In many places, the rites will not be used at all because the diocesan bishop will not authorize their use. This flexibility is necessary at this time, not only due to theological diversity, but due to legal issues with civil marriage in many states.

There may be those, both for and opposed, that will insist that this really IS matrimony. There could be truth in that, since matrimony is a sacramental rite in which the couple itself are the ministers. The priest only adds the Church's blessing to their sacramental action in the vows. Thus, it could be matrimony whether the church believes it or not. (Though technically, if the church does not recognize it, it may be sacramental, but it is not a sacramental rite.)

What the church will do in the future is unclear. We may move towards accepting same-sex rites as being matrimony by adapting the Prayer Book rite and changing the canons. Or the GLBT community may decide that what they are doing is something other than matrimony (A position I have heard articulated by several GLBT individuals.) In any case, the current rites provide something for a time in which we need to address various needs in multiple contexts.

David+

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Tweeting from the Anchorhold

This is an article FrDavid wrote about contemplation, community and social media for the Order of Julian of Norwich.

We are in a new age of connectivity.  The technologies that have given us the personal computer and the internet are creating as large a sea change in our society as the Gutenberg press did.  While the Protestant and Roman Catholic Reformations formed and were formed by the new technologies of the printing press, whatever the church is heading into at the end of this  emergent “Rummage sale” (as Bp. Mark Dyer puts it) is being fundamentally shaped by these new communications technologies that were unthinkable just a few decades ago.  One person recently pointed out that if a modern teenager were to be handed one of Captain Kirk’s communicators, they would play with it for a minute and then ask, “Is that ALL it does?”  (Click link below to go to full article)

via www.aiyailuvatar.org

Personal Lord and Savior

A reader writes in:

"I am a lifelong Episcopalian and spend a lot of time with a diverse group of people from different branches of Christianity. As the lone Episcopalian in this setting, I am hoping you can answer a question causing confusion for me. My question is this: They (non-Episcopalians) are insistent that everyone must accept Jesus as their own "personal Lord and Savior". I was always taught that He is our Savior but that He belongs to everyone and is not our "personal" God. Which is correct, according to the church as Episcopalians? Thank you."

The language “accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior” is indicative of certain traditions within Christianity in America. Evangelicals and revivalists often speak of conversion using these terms. By “personal” they mean you as an individual as opposed to you as a member of a group. By “accept” they mean to emphasize you choosing, you deciding (or not) to be a disciple of Jesus and verbally and publicly acknowledge Jesus as your “Lord” (the master of your life) and “Savior” (the one who rescued you from sin and death). Once you have made such a public profession of your faith, then you are a candidate for baptism (called “believer’s baptism”).

Most Episcopalians don’t use the jargon of evangelicalism (but there are a few who do). Tell your evangelical friends that you are a follower of Jesus and you are putting yourself in God’s hands, trusting in Jesus, and receiving God’s mercy, love, and grace. They are apt to be skeptical. Generally, unless your spiritual journey mimic’s that of an evangelical and you are skilled in the use of the jargon of evangelicalism--they will be skeptical of your relationship to Christianity. Don’t let it bother you. Neither the thief on the cross nor Paul on the road to Damascus had read the “Four Spiritual Laws” (an evangelical pamphlet) nor prayed its “sinner’s prayer.” Yet, it is correct to say that both were saved. Tell them you are depending on Jesus to save you. Speaking their language may calm their fears for your soul. 

To answer your question more directly: the emphasis on the individual has more to do with American individualism than it does biblical faith and Episcopalians try not to fall into that way of thinking, emphasizing instead the community of faith, the people of God, and the Church. Likewise, the emphasis on the decision of the individual and the importance of making a choice, sounds to our ears like a “salvation by works.” That is to say, that you are only saved because you did something. We tend to want to place the emphasis on what God does regardless of our lack of appropriate response (we call it “grace”). Finally, at some points this way of talking and thinking can move from religious to magical. If you don’t say just the right words (the “sinner’s prayer”) and have an emotional experience, and then follow it with baptism by full immersion, then you are not a real Christian. Thoughtful evangelicals would never say such a thing. But, people who are naturally superstitious and engage in magical thinking and who are evangelicals are apt to speak that sort of nonsense.

Charles+

Anastasis

The Lord is Risen!

Holy Saturday: Hell's Bonds are Broken

Meditation

From the Holy Saturday Matins service of the Byzantine Rite

A fearful and marvelous mystery is today beheld being accomplished: The Incorporeal is conquered; he who freed Adam from the curse is bound; he who tries the hearts and reins of humanity is unjustly tried by them; he who shut the abyss is shut up in prison. He before whom the powers of heaven stand with trembling, stands before Pilate; the Fashioner is smitten by the hand of him whom he fashioned; he is adjudged to the Tree of the Cross, who judges the living and the dead. He is shut up in the tomb, who is the purger of Hell. O you, who with compassion did endure all things and has saved all from the curse, most patient Lord, glory to you.

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

When you, the redeemer of all, had been placed for all in the new tomb, Hell, the respecter of none, saw you, and crouched in fear. The bars broke, the gates were shattered, the graves were opened, the dead arose. Then Adam, thankfully rejoicing, cried out to you: “Glory to your humiliation, O merciful Master.”

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

When you, the deathless Life, did come down to Death, then did you destroy Hell through the dazzling brightness of the Godhead; and when you did raise up the dead from the abyss, all the powers of heaven cried aloud: “Christ our God, Giver of life, glory to you.”

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

Creation was moved with intense astonishment, when it beheld you hung in Golgotha, you who did hang all the earth free in the midst of the waters; wherefore it cried: “None is holy except you, O Lord.” He who closed up the abyss is seen as dead, and wrapped in linen and spices; he the Immortal, as mortal is laid in the tomb. O Lord, Creator of the world, and Conqueror of death, glory to you.

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

Today the grave holds him who holds creation in the hollow of his hand. A stone covers him who covers the heavens with virtue. Life sleeps, and Hell trembles, and Adam is set free from his bonds. Glory to your dispensation, O Lord, through which, when all things were accomplished, you presented to us an eternal rest – your most holy Resurrection from the dead.

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

The great Moses mystically foreshadowed this day, saying: “And God blessed the seventh day.” This is the blessed Sabbath; it is the day of rest, and on it the only-begotten Son of God rested from all his works; through the dispensation of death, in the flesh he rested. Joseph of Arimathea begged the body of Jesus, and laid it in his own new tomb, for it was fitting for him to pass from the grave as from a bridal chamber. You who has destroyed the power of death and to humanity has opened the gates of paradise, glory to you.

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

Most blessed are you, O Mother of God, for through him who was incarnate from you, Hell was made captive, the curse was annulled, Eve was set free, Death was put to death, and we are endued with life. Therefore, we cry, “Blessed are you, O Christ our God, who did so will; glory to you.”

Glory be to your cross, O Christ, and to your Resurrection.

He who has ears to hear, let him listen.  Today Hell cried out, groaning: “Would that I had not received him who was born of Mary, for he came to me and broke my power; he shattered the gates of brass, and as God, raised up the souls which before I had held.”

O praise the Lord, all you nations of the Earth.

Today, Hell cried out, groaning: “My authority has been broken down; I received one dead, as one of the mortals; but against this one I prevailed not.  I perish with him and with those I had ruled.  From eternity I had held the dead, but behold, he raises all.”

For his merciful kindness is ever more and more towards us; and the truth of the Lord endures forever.

Today Hell cried out, groaning:  “My power has been trampled on; the Shepherd has been crucified, and he raised up Adam; I have been deprived of those over whom I ruled, and all those I swallowed in my strength I have disgorged.  He who was crucified has emptied the tombs, and the power of death avails not.”

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  Amen.

 

For more on the Harrowing of Hell, see Jesus' Harrowing Experience.

A Humane Humanity

A Good Friday Sermon from Fr. David Simmons, ObJN

To: My beloved people

From: Jesus Christ, Son of the living God
on Good Friday

I was listening to the stations of the cross you were celebrating today in my honor, and I heard an interesting prayer:

“Teach your Church, O Lord, to mourn the sins of which it is guilty, and to repent and forsake them; that, by your pardoning grace, the results of our iniquities may not be visited upon our children and our children’s children; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I’m glad you’re praying to me, and I’m glad you’re thinking of the future, but I’m concerned how you might take this prayer. You almost might think from it that my father is into punishing you for the things you do wrong. You might even think that he’s into punishing your children and your grandchildren. While there are plenty of bad fathers in the world, please rest assured that my father is not one of those. My father loved you all into existence and called you very good. He knows your limitations. In regards to those things you have done and have left undone, he looks at you with pity and not with blame. He cannot forgive you, because he never blamed you, or hated you, or wished harm to you and never will.

The prayer could also be read in a very good way, in that by asking that your iniquities not be visited upon your descendants, that you are finally admitting that it is your own actions that are causing lasting harm in the world. I was listening to NPR the other day, which I do a lot. A journalist was talking about the time he went to Somalia to cover the great famine there. He said they walked into the hotel to find great mounds of food welcoming them, while people were literally starving on the streets below. In one heartbreaking case he related how a father had watched his son die of starvation in a hospital, then had carried his body out into the street past booths of food which he did not have the money to buy. The journalist explained that famine never has to do with supply, but with distribution. You don’t need my father to punish you - as a race, you do a pretty good job punishing yourselves. You are experts at ignoring the long-term consequences of your decisions, so that your own wrath is visited upon your children and your children’s children.

Folks, I didn’t come to earth and become one of you to appease my father’s wrath. I came to save you from your own. I came to instill my divinity into humanity so that humanity might become humane. When my suffering was over on the cross, I did not turn to my father and ask if he was pleased. I cried, “It is accomplished!” I turned to humanity, and I turn to each one of you and ask, “Is it enough? Are you satisfied? Have I proven to you once and for all that God does not desire your death or that of any of you? Looking upon the soldiers gambling over my belongings, can you continue to disregard the needs of the poor? Looking upon the tortured ruin of my body, can you continue to torture each other? God himself has died there at your hands. Having crucified God, can you continue to crucify each other in your daily lives? Can you continue to hate? ”

Beloved, God is love, and I am God. Humanity crucified love. That is not the end of the story. In three days, you’ll see. All shall be well. But for now, it is right for you to gaze upon my body on the cross, and for you to remember that it was not God that put me there, but humanity. And should it be nothing to you as you pass by, it is not God’s wrath that shall be visited upon your children and your children’s children, but the wrath you hold so dear in your hearts. I came to save you. It is accomplished. All that remains is for you to accept the freedom I have purchased from your own selves.

Yours Truly, Jesus Christ,
a true lover of your soul

Sermon040612

Abortion and Forgiveness

A reader writes in:

“Hi there. I’ve got something to ask that I think I already know the answer to, but it’s something I want to say anyway. about 10 years ago, I was in a relationship with a girl who fell pregnant. We hadn’t been together long, were both young, and totally unprepared financially or mentally, and so it came as a massive shock. She told me she didn’t want to keep it, and I said I’d support her decision, so she had an abortion, which I understand to be a major sin. At the time, I had no interest in religion, but over the years I’ve become more and more interested in Christianity, to a point I’ve started asking questions about life and wondering about our meaning. I consider myself a good person, who’s kind, caring and moral, and anyone who knows me would say the same, only I know deep inside that because I allowed this to happen, that my soul is likely to go to hell. Again, I never used to believe in hell, but I’m beginning to think it’s an apt place for me due to what I did. I know it wasn’t my own decision, but the fact I agreed to it makes me just as responsible as my ex. Our relationship fell apart weeks later, she got involved with another guy and I was dumped, and I convinced myself that if we’d had the child, it would either have had to be adopted, or I would have had to look after it on my own and maybe even resent it, which would have been again, terrible to even do to an innocent, but the fact remains that almost 10 years after this event, not even my family know of it, and it’s beginning to eat away at my insides because I’m not convinced no matter how ashamed I am, and no matter how deep I regret it, that I’m going to be punished for it. Is there anything I can do to try to earn God’s forgiveness in this matter, or should I just accept my fate, live a good life, and then take my punishment? It feels kinda good to be able to try to confess this to someone religious, and I can only hope you don’t judge me too harshly in your reply. If I am to suffer God’s wrath, believe me, I’ll accept it, but I really hope there’s something I can do to try to earn redemption.”

I’m going to divide this into two responses, the moral theology response and the pastoral response.  In the moral theology response, I will address the issue of Abortion and the Episcopal church’s stance.  In the pastoral response, I will discuss forgiveness.

Moral Theology

Abortion is a complex question morally, as it has two sets of  goods in conflict.  One set is the woman involved.  In some cases, her life and/or health may be threatened.  Beyond that, there is always the question of her right to self-determination.  The other set are the rights  of the fetus - obviously a question of life.  Many people with pro-life opinions consider this an easy dilemma, as a fetus is a human being with a soul from conception.  Pro-choice people also sometimes consider this decided, as the rights of a woman to self-determination is the core principle.

But neither of these positions are as obvious as some make them out to be.  Who determines that a fetus is a human being from conception, rather than at some other point of development?  Jewish tradition from early times seems to be that a fetus is not a human being from a legal standpoint and there are varying ideas as to when “ensoulment” happens.  Christians have had varying ideas about when a fetus changes from being a part of the mother to a distinct human being.  And even if the fetus IS a human being, in the case of risk to the mother, is it moral to endanger a viable human life (the mother) in order to preserve the possibility of new human life?  Likewise the principle of self-determination is not so obvious.  If the fetus IS a fully human life, does not the right to life trump self-determination, at least as a matter of reproductive choice?  

Beyond the issues of individual morality, there are issues of how to deal with this as a society.   If we do wish to prohibit abortion, are there exceptions?  Does the answer change the further along a pregnancy gets?  Can we really force a woman, against her will, to carry a child to term?  Will legal prohibition actually stop abortion, or will it simply mean that the rich will have access by going to where they can get them while the poor return to the dangerous providers they had before Roe vs. Wade?

None of these are easy questions to answer.  And despite some opinions, there is no unified consensus as to how to answer these questions in either Judaism or Christianity.  Therefore, the Episcopal Church has a nuanced opinion, as reflected in the resolutions of our General Convention.  A good summation of them can be found in an article at Pew:

While the Episcopal Church recognizes a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy, the church condones abortion only in cases of rape or incest, cases in which a mother's physical or mental health is at risk or cases involving fetal abnormalities. The church forbids "abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection or any reason of mere convenience."

We tend to be pretty down to earth with moral issues.  While we recognize the moral problems with purely elective abortion, we also recognize that a woman’s body is her own and that legal prohibition is unlikely to resolve the underlying issues.  While legislating against abortion might make us feel better, there are good questions as to whether it would actually stop abortion, or simply make it more risky for the poor.  Decisions such as these are ones that should be made in consultation with a local pastor, who understands the people involved and the specifics of the case.

Pastoral Response

I’m not going to get into whether what you did was a sin, because it does not matter, you experience it as sin, that is, something that separates you from God.  Blame is not the point, the question is, is this keeping you from a full relationship with God?  The answer from you seems to be, “Yes.”

There is nothing you can do to earn redemption, because redemption is not earned, it is a gift freely given from God.  It was given to you before you were born through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.  There is no sin that cannot be forgiven (Except perhaps “Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.”  See Blasphemy Challenge.)  If you confess your sin, you are forgiven.  Most of the time, WE are the barrier to forgiveness, being convinced we are too unworthy to be forgiven.  But God is quick to forgive.  If your shame and guilt has become a stumbling block to your restoration to relationship with God, I would suggest finding a minister and making a confession to him or her.  Sometimes, another person is able to convince us better than we can ourselves. (See To Confess or Not To Confess)

Confess your sin, your shame, your guilt, and lay it at the foot of the cross.  God loves you, and God forgives you.

David+

For further reading see: Acts of General Convention regarding Abortion