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New Podcast Item - Rebuilding A Cathedral of Compassion

New Podcast Item

A sermon by the Rev. David Simmons. The Episcopal Church of today is not the church of power and influence it was a generation ago. This is a natural consequence of the Church beginning to see the Gospel as something that requires us to take positions on issues of human rights. We are still in the process of rebuilding who we are. (And yes, I am aware that I get the date of MLK's visit to the National Cathedral wrong - I'm preaching without notes.)

The podcast item can be found here.

The podcasting feed can be found on the sidebar or at: http://podcast.askthepriest.org and is listed in the iTunes, Odeo and podcast.net directories.

More information & podcasting software can be found at http://www.ipodder.org

Catching Up with Father Matthew

Episcopal priest, the Rev. Matthew Moretz, provides a meditation on how to become a Saint, in light of All Saints Day and in the light of one of the Tiffany windows at Christ's Church. "Father Matthew Presents" is a regular web series based out of Christ's Church, Rye, NY (www.ccrye.org) which presents the treasures of Christianity one video at a time.

Episcopal priest, the Rev. Matthew Moretz, provides a presentation on the art of stained glass in the light of one of the windows at his church. "Father Matthew Presents" is a regular web series based out of Christ's Church, Rye, NY (www.ccrye.org) which presents the treasures of Christianity one video at a time.

Episcopal priest, the Rev. Matthew Moretz, provides a presentation on the art of icons using the work of Robert Lentz. He also discusses the martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicity. "Father Matthew Presents" is a regular web series based out of Christ's Church, Rye, NY (www.ccrye.org) which presents the treasures of Christianity one video at a time. 

The official website is found here: www.fathermatthewpresents.com

Where is God in the Haitian Earthquake?

A video by contributing author Frank Logue in response to Pat Robertson's heretical comments about the relationship between sin and the Haitian earthquake.

Videos from Trinity Cathedral

These videos are about a year old, but if you have not seen them, they are amazing. They are produced by Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Phoenix, and they illustrate points of theology in a very interesting way.

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Positive Argumentation

One of the challenges my correspondent made in the "Blasphemy Challenge Correspondence" (see The Blasphemy Challenge, Blasphemy Challenge Followup, Blasphemy Challenge Followup Continued, Blasphemy Challenge Followup Continued Part Deux, and Blasphemy Challenge Coda) was for a positive argument for the existence of God. During the conversation, I generally maintained that experience of God is so universal that the burden of proof was with atheists. I still maintain that this is correct, but I think a more positive argument could be helpful. The one I offer here is drawn from N.T. Wright's excellent book, Simply Christian.

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that this argument will not be admissible for some, especially if they are reductionistic fundamentalists of either a scientific or religious bent (see Blasphemy Challenge Coda). Those who want to see reality as being reducible to a few ideas, be they Biblical Literalism or Natural Selection, will not find an argument that is based in complexity satisfying. However, as Dawkins says in The God Delusion, I don't have to prove this to 100% certainty. If that were necessary, we would drop String Theory immediately. I simply wish to point out that a person can come to an outcome that says that God exists and be a reasonable person. Theology is ALWAYS speculative, but so are many of physics' modern disciplines. N.T. Wright cites four areas of human experience that point towards God. I will touch on each one briefly.

The first is our yearning for justice:

"We dream the dream of Justice. We glimpse, for a moment, a world at one, a world put to rights, a world where things work out. ... It's as though we can hear, not perhaps a voice itself, but the echo of a voice: a voice speaking with calm, healing authority, speaking about justice, about things put to rights, about peace and hope and prosperity for all. The voice continues to echo in our imagination, our subconscious." (Simply Christian, p. 3)

The reason Wright believes we hear this voice is because there IS a voice, because the creator is constantly calling us to the justice that was intended. Of course, the question that is always raised is why, then, Christians have done so many unjust things? The answer is that:

"From very early on there have always been people who have done terrible things in the name of Jesus. There have also been Christians who have done terrible things without knowing them to be terrible things, without claiming that Jesus was supporting them." (p. 12)

Being a believer does not make you infallible. Neither is the Church as an institution infallible. When Christians claim infallibility, they are claiming for themselves an attribute that can only be attributed to God. It is an act of hubris. And when Christians use their belief in Jesus as a way of escaping from the demand of justice, they dishonor their faith.

However, you have to remember the times when Christianity has really outdone itself in promoting justice. It is important to recall the stories of William Wilberforce fighting the slave trade in Britain, Martin Luther King, Jr. sacrificing himself for Civil Rights, Desmond Tutu opposing Apartheid, Dietrich Bonhoeffer losing his life in opposition to Hitler and Oscar Romero being shot for speaking out on behalf of the poor of El Salvador. These leaders, and millions more of known and unknown heroes and heroines of the faith have stood up for justice BECAUSE they were people of faith, not DESPITE it. Their heroism is impossible to place outside the story of faith that formed their values.

I suspect an atheist might make an argument about "altruism" being a genetic imperative, but I find such arguments weak. It seems to me that in a purely Darwinian world, altruism to people with a similar genetic makeup would inspire justice, but the history of human warfare seems to indicate that we look for differences in culture, religion, skin color, etc. on which to base our determination of who is human and who is not. Pure natural selection would lead us to extend justice to only those who are similar to us, and there is no place for justice to the non-human world.

The second is the thirst for spirituality:

"'The hidden spring' of spirituality is the second feature of human life, which, i suggest, functions as the echo of a voice; as a signpost pointing away from the bleak landscape of modern secularism and toward the possibility that we humans are made for more than this." (P. 20)

There is something in the human spirit that reaches towards spiritual meaning. When the Iron Curtain came apart, religion literally exploded in Russia and other parts of the former Warsaw Pact. Some writers even credit John Paul II's visit to Poland with being the final stroke that brought the wall down. Spirituality was a "Hidden Spring" that had been paved over with secular totalitarianism but came bubbling up through the cracks. Were it not a natural part of being human, wouldn't it have died out during those years of extreme repression?

The third is our need for relationship:

"Isn't there something odd about this(the need and difficulty of human relationship)? How is it that we ache for each other and yet find relationships so difficult? My proposal is that the whole area of human relationships forms another 'echo of a voice'- an echo which we can ignore if we choose to do so, but which is loud enough to get through the defenses of a good many people within the supposedly secular world. Or, if you prefer, human relationships are another signpost pointing away into a mist, telling us that there is a road ahead which leads to ... well, which leads somewhere we might want to go." (p. 29).

Despite the difficulties of family, dating and friendship, we continue to seek those relationships. Yes, SOME sort of relationship is necessary for living and reproducing as a social animal, but our striving is all out of proportion to the way the rest of the Animal kingdom operates. What if our need for relationship is beyond a survival need? What if it points to the reality that we crave relationship because our creator contains within himself a relationship? (This is trinitarian speculation, beyond the scope of this posting.)

The fourth is our sense of beauty:

"The world is full of beauty, but the beauty is incomplete. Our puzzlement about what beauty is, what it means, and what (if anything) is it there for is the inevitable result of looking at one part of a larger whole. Beauty, in other words, is an echo of a voice - a voice which (from the evidence before us) might be saying one of several different things, but which, were we to hear it in all its fullness, would make sense of what we presently see and hear and know and love and call 'beautiful." (p. 40)

Our sense of beauty changes from culture to culture and time to time, but there is always something beautiful, and it yearns for more completion. In my thinking about Dawkin's book, this is one of my strongest criticisms. He advocates for abolishing religion because it is "wasteful" of resources that might be used elsewhere, but he waxes poetic about Mozart. How is the New York Philharmonic any more "productive" than the Vatican? If we are really focused on Natural Selection alone, where is the place for any of the arts? Yet few athiests would be willing to give up their extensive MP3 collections simply because they were "unproductive."

What religion really provides is an aesthetic response to the questions posed above. Theology is far more art that science. Dawkins claims that religion is a contender with science for truth claims, but I simply don't see it that way. He aims his criticism at "creationists" and the proponents of the re-branded version of that called "Intelligent Design," but fails to see that many Christians share his criticism. He claims that the argument from design is the only argument still in regular use today, but no Anglican thinker I know uses that argument. I agree with him that concepts of "irreducible complexity" and "God of the gaps" are not good science. They are not good religion either.

The reason why I believe has to do generally with the four areas cited above - not with gaps in scientific knowledge. I simply believe that we (and the creation) are by nature more complex than any reductionistic account (religious or scientific) can allow for, and I see "a voice" as the best explanation for that complexity. This does not mean that we will not understand the human genome in great detail in the future, or that we will never reach the stars. I (Along with John Polkinghorne) simply see the nature of human knowledge as being too fragmented to have hope that a "theory of everything" will be discovered.

As to why I am a Christian rather than just some sort of generalized believer - that's a subject for another post.

David+

"Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense" (N.t. Wright)

Technorati Tags: anglican, blasphemy challenge, christianity, episcopal, john polkinghorne, NT Wright, religion, richard dawkins, science, theology

Blasphemy Challenge Coda - Reading Dawkins & Polkinghorne

It has been a while since I heard back from my correspondent from my Blasphemy Challenge discussion. (see The Blasphemy Challenge, Blasphemy Challenge Followup, Blasphemy Challenge Followup Continued, and Blasphemy Challenge Followup Continued Part Deux) There could be several reasons. I hope it is not because I have been uncourteous - I do get a little energetic in debate. I do not believe it is because I convinced him. For me, this discussion has been most interesting, and led me to read a couple of books in the course of my retreat. First of all, I read The God Delusion by noted geneticist Richard Dawkins, following the axiom that one should never critique a book one has not read. I am currently reading Exploring Reality, the Intersection of Science and Religion by the Quantum Physicist and Anglican Priest John Polkinghorne, whom Dawkins remains "baffled" by. (TGD, p. 99)

I have found in the discussion that it was difficult for my correspondent and I to speak the same language. We both could talk about the same scientific terms, but there seemed to be a fundamental philosophical disconnect in our views of reality. I felt the same disconnect reading TGD. It seemed Dawkins seemed to have a very simplistic view of reality, while mine tends to be very complex. Polkinghorne explains that this is a philosophical difference that has nothing to do with science vs. religion. In fact, it reflects a metaphysical divide within the world of science. "Strong reductionists" like Dawkins and F. Crick maintain that,

"the true account of reality lies solely at the lowest level, with the other levels in the hierarchy of complexity being just complex corollaries of what lies beneath." (ER, p. 8)

Polkinghorne maintains that strong reductionists tend to signify the base units of their discipline, genes for Dawkins (and memes when he waxes philosophical) and molecules for Crick. Over and against them, Polkinghorne describes the "emergentists,"

"For them the whole exceeds the sum of the parts, so that it would be absurdly inappropriate to call a constituent account a Theory of Everything. They point to the degree of conceptual independence that exists between the various levels of the hierarchy of sciences. It is clear that the fitness of an organism for survival in an ecological setting is not an idea that can usefully be transcribed into statements about collections of quarks, gluons and electrons." (ER, p. 9)

The difference between these approaches is exemplified in the writings of Neils Bohr and David Bohm. These are both METAphysical approaches to explain why the physcial world operates the way it does. Whichever model you choose, the physical, experimental results are the same since both views are based on the same set of basic research and do not rely on the metaphysic for verification.

Dawkins argues in his book that he is not a "Scientific Fundamentalist," in that he is willing to change his scientific assumptions in the face of better empirical data. I think this is probably true, although there have been cases of scientists resisting data that is incompatible with their cherished views. It becomes more doubtful when you read how he waxes mystical about natural selection,

"But perhaps you need to be steeped in natural selection, immersed in it, swim about in it, before you can truly appreciate its power." (TGD, p. 117)

Sounds kind of like the Dark Side of the Force, doesn't it? But seriously - I can understand someone reveling in creation, but swimming in a scientific theory? Seems a little un-scientific! Therein lies the rub. Dawkins is NOT a "Scientific Fundamentalist," he is a "Reductionistic Fundamentalist." He implicitly makes the claim that reductionism is the ONLY metaphysical model that is supported by the empirical data by not mentioning any other options. He also fails to make the distinction between experimental science and metaphysics, since reductionism is the only metaphysic that makes sense to him. It is hard to tell in the book where empirical data ends and speculation begins. Polkinghorne was able to lay this out for me in a much more scientific way.

And maybe that's the difference. Where Polkinghorne's book is a careful, limited exploration of the intersection of science and religion, Dawkins' book is a political polemic leveled against the perceived abuses of religion. It starts in the preface:

"Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian Partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as "Christ Killers," no Northern Ireland "troubles," no "honour killings", no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money." (TGD, p. 1)

Does anyone actually beleive all these can be laid solely at the foot of religion? (OK, The last one can, and I'd love to imagine that world WITH Dawkins, but there have been plenty of scientific hoaxes perpetrated on people as well.) I've covered the crusades in one of the dialogues, but just to take one example, weren't the Irish troubles largely about English settlers taking over Irish land? Dawkins claims that when you see "Loyalist" you can substitute "Protestant," but isn't it really the other way around? In all of these cases, religion is at best an excuse for material gain and at worst a catalyst. As i've discussed before, if we're going to say that all things done in the name of a religion accurately reflect the nature of that religion, then we must apply the same rule to science. We end up with Hiroshima, nerve gas, death camps, Eugenics, global warming, and a whole host of other evils. Yes, this is the use and perversion of science by an ideology, but the crusades and pogroms were the use and perversion of religion. It took some pretty shaky theology to get from "Thou shall not kill" and "Turn the other cheek" to "Invade the Holy Land and kill the infidel," just as it took shaky science to back up Nazi claims of a "master race."

Science and Religion should not be judged by the times when they simply buy into the natural condition of competitiveness and greed. After all, if you are a reductionist, that could be seen as simply the work of natural selection. Instead, we should pay attention to the times when both disciplines help us transcend the human condition. I would rather judge science by Salk rather than by Mengele. And I would rather judge religion by Tutu than by Torquemada.

The argument I would like to pay attention to next is a positive argument for the existence of God. This is something my correspondent asked for but I have not provided as of yet. I will do that in my next post, after I finish Polkinghorne's book.

David+

"Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion" (John Polkinghorne)

"The God Delusion" (Richard Dawkins)

Technorati Tags: anglican, christianity, john polkinghorne, richard dawkins, religion, science, theology

Father Matthew - Making Sense of Sin

Episcopal priest, Matthew Moretz, of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Yonkers, NY, offers a presentation on one current Christian understanding of sin, with thanks to Kathryn Tanner, Joy Ann McDougall, and Steve Ross.

Further Links:

AskThePriest - Humility, Shame and Guilt
Wikipedia - Sin
1979 EC Book of Common Prayer Catechism - Sin and Redemption
Faculty Bio - Joy Ann McDougall
Faculty Bio - Kathryn Tanner
Anglican Theological Review - Sin-No More? A Feminist Re-Visioning of a Christian Theology of Sin

"Jesus Humanity, and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology" (Kathryn Tanner)

Technorati Tags: anglican, christianity, episcopal, feminism, guilt, kathryn tanner, religion, shame, sin, theology, youtube

We are all catholic. We are all defective.

I am a defective Christian. This is according to a report released last week by the Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This makes me far from unique. You’ve probably already heard the news that you are defective too. That is if you are not a member in good standing of the Catholic Church. All other Christian denominations and their members “suffer from defects.”

I will attempt to give a reasoned response to the Vatican’s statement. But first, we need to be clear on exactly what the statement said. The nearly 1,200-word statement is put in a question and answer format to five questions of faith. All of the questions concern what theologians call ecclesiology, which means “the doctrine of the church.”

The main thrust of the short document is that the Vatican wanted to make it crystal clear that its teaching on the church did not change with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council held in the 1960s. In particular, the document says that work on ecumenism (various denominations coming together in the ways possible) has led to some interpretations that could cause “confusion and doubt.”

In that context, the new document says that the Catholic Church believes and teaches now what it has always believed and taught, namely that they are the one true church. In fact, the text says that to be part of the one Church established by Christ one must be “governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him.” They also state that other Christian denominations can not “be called ‘Churches’ in the proper sense.”

The Vatican statement then affirms that the only true church is the Catholic Church, by virtue of the fact that it is in historic succession to the Apostle Peter and therefore to Christ. Further, this church keeps the fullness of the doctrine as the document says in it “alone are found all the elements that Christ himself instituted.”

Everything I have written so far probably confirms everything you have read elsewhere. But the report did say more and I think this part is underreported and misunderstood. The Vatican did affirm that all other denominations may “suffer from defects “they contain “elements of sanctification and truth.” The Vatican statement also said, “In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation.”

The Vatican statement did not say that one can not find salvation in Christ through other churches. In fact, the statement said that other denominations are used by the spirit of Christ as means for lost people to find salvation. What they wanted to do was to affirm that other denominations can be a means to connect people to Jesus and that they hope that connection to Christ will “impel towards Catholic Unity.” The goal being a united church, with the Pope as its head, expressing “the fullness of universality” they see as “not fully realised in history.”

The essence of the whole thing is a bit “ho hum” to me. I mean “So what?” “Who cares?” The Pentecostal churches of my youth said essentially the same thing about Catholics. They taught that the Catholic Church was defective at best and evil at worst. Perhaps someone could come to know Jesus in their churches, but if you did then you would get out of the Catholic Church and join a good Pentecostal one.

Let’s just be honest for a moment. Protestant Churches stopped caring that Popes thought they had the corner on the God market about 500 years ago. Most denominations now feel just like the Pope. They contend that they have the fullness of the doctrine. Most denominations think that other Christians are right in the ways they are similar to them and wrong in the ways they differ. In that sense, the Vatican only stated from its perspective what most every other church has already stated from their viewpoint.

It is not news that the Pope thinks the Catholic Church was the best thing before and after sliced bread. If he didn’t think so, he probably wouldn’t have been elected to the top job in the world’s largest Christian denomination. What should be news is that he also signed a document affirming once again that there is salvation outside the Catholic Church.

His goal was to reaffirm that the Catholic Church is the most right and the rest of us are being impelled by the Spirit of Christ toward unity with the Catholic Church. But, he couldn’t do so without admitting that the Spirit of Christ is at work beyond the confines of his denomination.

I think part of what clouds the issue for me is the use of the word “Catholic.” Properly understood, and as the Vatican uses it in this statement, “catholic” does refer to a given Christian denomination, but it means much more. Catholic means “universal.” Tertullian coined the term in the second century (who also coined the word Trinity) which meant “the church throughout the world.” In naming itself The Catholic Church, it already makes the claim in name, that the new statement spells out in detail that it is the one true church.

But I know the word catholic with a little “c” to be broader than any denomination. I consider myself a catholic Christian in that I am part of the “universal” church that has Jesus’ as its head. In that sense, all Christians are catholic. We worship one Lord and so we must be one, even though we can’t see it and we have trouble believing it.

I think that the Vatican has it exactly right in the statement in saying, “Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one Church and instituted it as a ‘visible and spiritual community’, that from its beginning and throughout the centuries has always existed and will always exist.” I also agree that all branches of the Christian church, the little “c” catholic church can be “instruments of salvation.”

Where I part company with the Vatican is in its statement that other denominations “suffer from defects.” I don’t think some denominations suffer from defects. I think that all denominations, including my own, do. I think churches are made of humans and so we are not perfect and will never be perfect.

To the degree that we conform to Jesus’ life and teachings as found in scripture, we are coming closer to the truth. To the degree that we conform to whatever we already want to do and call that Christian, we are off track. But the Spirit of Christ is in it all impelling us toward a Kingdom where the defects will be wiped away by His perfection.

Until that coming kingdom, I think Christians will remain both catholic, in worshipping our one Lord, and defective, in not doing a very good job of living out that faith day to day. And between now and that coming Kingdom, I know that no denomination has a corner on what the Holy Spirit is working to accomplish in and through us.

Frank+

Technorati Tags: anglican, christianity, ecumenism, roman catholic, religion, theology