The crisis of this moment has several parts, and like Episcopalians, particularly the ones in Mississippi, they’re all related. The overarching connection in all of these crises has to do with the great Western heresy – that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being. That heresy is one reason for the theme of this Convention.

Ubuntu doesn’t have any “I”s in it. The I only emerges as we connect – and that is really what the word means: I am because we are, and I can only become a whole person in relationship with others. There is no “I” without “you,” and in our context, you and I are known only as we reflect the image of the one who created us. Some of you will hear a resonance with Martin Buber’s I and Thou and recognize a harmony. You will not be wrong.

I listened, just now, to the entire speech. I see only 2 problems:

1) She’d have done better if she had quoted more saints.
2) Because of the above, she sounds as if she is preaching something new.

But, I’ve got bad news for all the Protestants in the room: she’s preaching a most Orthodox message (although, I admit, it is to ends that the Orthodox would not like).

She says first that no one can be saved alone.
She says this idea is a western heresy.
She says this idea of individualism has affected every aspect of our culture: religion, politics and consumption.
She says that the way out of this is to construct a human culture that reflects the image of God present in all of us (but not in any one of us, alone).
She says we can only be saved together.

100% Orthodox, at least as I was taught the faith by Fr Victor, by Fr Alexander Schmemman, by Fr Seraphim Rose: may all of their memories be blessed! In fact, I don’t think there is a thing there I’ve not heard from Converts. If you listened to her with your head tilted to one side, she sounds like some of the more crazy converts out there.

Now, her conclusions might bother you: and as I said, I had the above two problems with her talk.

But there is one thing you need to know: it’s the Evangelical Fundies who are having a problem here because they are hearing what the CHurch has been saying to them for 500 years. There are some serious, not-really-Christian ideas in your heads and they cause problems: bad, or even wrong, theology leads to problems in every aspect of life. Jesus as a fire escape that leads you to heaven is a bad place to start. Jesus is a way of life: the only true way of life. It’s not a doctrinal formula or sinners prayer. It’s a transformation over time of the human life into the life of God. It is not a once-for-all moment: it’s an action – of us together in synergy with God’s energies present in the world.

The Church is not the assembly of righteous individuals, but rather the gathering together of humanity into communion in a mirror of the Trinity. We call it God’s Kingdom and we envision it as a sort of ecclesial version of Versailles. But while the Church is a manifestation of God’s Reign, the Church is also God’s Body. We’re not individuals here: we are one. Jesus. Present. Now.

Again: you may not like her conclusions and I’m not sure that she has a clear idea about what salvation is – so I can’t agree or disagree. You might, even, want to point out the irony of a woman bishop giving this talk. I’d wished she’d realised how Cappadocian she sounded, or maybe quoted some saints who would, really, back her up. (Sad thing is, I think she’d be surprised to learn how traditional she sounds.) But, at least here, in this talk, she’s dead on 100%.

Fr Mark Explains it all here and here.

This isn’t just a disagreement about scriptural authority, as the conservatives (even the for-peace ones) say. In accepting “full communion” with a fascist theocrat like Akinola they are, essentially, becoming the Anglican version of the German American Bund. Lucky them.

Increasingly the religious right is living up to the labels the left has, for some time unjustly, thrust upon them.

And yet, so many other Anglican jurisdictions keep that full communion with Akinola in place too. It’s not like this is an America-only thing.

In other religious news, seeing how they love each other, the Greek “Orthodox” Metropolis of Boston, having excommunicated the OCA and thus destroying this year’s Sunday of Orthodoxy service, a 50 year tradition, went along to celebrate vespers with the Papists.

Plank Filioque? this is Mote Ego of Methodius: You’re stuck in an eye…

See? The SNAFU of the Visible Church is omnipresent.

Thing is: God still loves us all and is desperately working to reconcile the world to himself in Jesus – and the Church is Jesus’ Body in the world. We do love each other. We do. We’re just not so good at living it.

Cartoon by Dave Walker.

You said you were thinking about the Indy Sacramental movement as a home for this. That makes you non-Anglican.

Anglicanism as a polity and an historically open-source philosophy of religion can drive some people batty: the inclusion, from the very beginning, of evangelical and catholic, of what each side saw as “conservatives” and “liberals”, within the Elizabethan Compromise has grown, certainly, to a point of fracture now. But Anglicanism’s charism is inclusion and what we hope to hold out is the idea of such inclusion in a Byzantine context.

The idea is to be, if you will, “non-Canonically Anglican”. I choose those terms on purpose – they will be understood by any and all who are Orthodox. There are 12 or so “officially orthodox churches” in the world. There are 70 or so officially Anglican ones. There are a handful of “non-canonical” churches. What this means, no one quite knows. In the USA, The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), for example, was for a time considered non-Canonical but no one can actually tell you why. They were out of communion with the Patriarchate in Moscow. But In communion with the Patriarch of Jerusalem – and a few others. Some groups were in communion with both Moscow and ROCOR. ROCOR and – for a long time the Ecumenical Patriarchate – considered the OCA to be non-canonical. But they still would go to parties with them. In America the churches of the Jerusalem Patriarchate are considered non-canonical by the Antiochians because of turf issues. But ROCOR welcomed them. Even more exciting, laity came and went between the various bodies at will. Only recently did some bodies decide that others were not welcomed at the chalice. The phrase “non-canonical” means only “some (but not all) of those who call themselves ‘canonical’ Orthodox don’t like you.” Effectively, there has always been “impaired communion” among the Orthodox – including many of the bodies that one imagines to be “Orthodox Vagantes”.

Some canonical Anglicans don’t like the indy movement. But on the other hand some canonical Anglicans do. I’m aware of places where, with the blessing of the local hierarch, indy clergy serve at Episcopal altars. Some even on staff. I think we can say “Non-Canonical Anglican” and get away with it. And have a good laugh at church polity at the same time. And, naturally, laity come and go between the bodies at will.

This underscores what I’ve been saying, towit, Anglicanism and Orthodoxy are very much alike: Orthodoxy, as a collection of national or regional churches, has no unified leader, no central body at all. Only the media (and, sometimes, certain theologians) make the Patriarch out to be the “leader of world-wide Orthodoxy” as a parallel to the Pope.

Anglican land does, even now mirror Orthodox land: with a primus-inter-pares without power save in love’s name, several also-pares trying to up the ante, jurisdictional overlap in the USA, Jerusalem and Europe, sheep steeling and even whole parishes changing jurisdictions, and liturgical in-fighting about who is right with what text or translation that proves it. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes you even see women wearing cassocks, although not as priests. Yet. And the Primate of Finland wants to welcome gay people.

So… there’s a reason there were Orthodox Bishops at the “Fond du lac Circus”. And with ECUSA (or parts of it) being in “impaired communion” with most or part of the rest, she’s filled with “non-Canonical” Anglicans too. If she should willingly walk away from the Communion or vice versa ECUSA would be no less Anglican save in the minds of literalist and legalistic readers.

So you want to lure away Episcopalians from an already-struggling community?

Not at all. There’s no intended “sheep steeling” here.

When I was growing up I was a member of a very wonderful Anglo-Catholic parish. We were Anglo-Catholic on the Novus Ordo model, like many English parishes. The rector was a supporting member of ARCIC, and as a community we were very sympathetic to Roman Catholics who were in exile: cut off from their home communion because of issues with divorce or marriage outside “the faith”. We became home to many disaffected ex-Roman Catholics: married clergy, gays and lesbians, unwed mothers, etc. Father John, the rector, made it clear that sacramental actions were not his to control, but rather God’s to bestow. I remember once, visiting a family in crisis: the parents were divorced and the mother had remarried. No RC priest could be found to make a pastoral call. But I needed only to pick up the phone and Fr John was there for this family.

They, too, joined the parish.

More traditionalist Anglo-Catholic places also fill this role, welcoming Roman Catholics disaffected by the liturgical changes of Vatican II found a home in such places as St Mary the Virgin in NYC or Church of Our Saviour in Atlanta.

At her best, Anglicanism welcomes home the exiles and that’s what I want to be.

Yes: there are disaffected Orthodox. I’ve met them. I had one Bishop in SF tell me that he was talking to many of the youth at the Greek food festival and, for them, the church’s only purpose was that annual food event. They wanted nothing else to do with it. I’d like to be Father John in this context. Gays and Lesbians, the “wrongly” married, single mothers and others who feel cast out of the church of their birth.

How would you get those?

I’m thinking post an ad on Craig’s list after Pascha (as celebrated on the Eastern Calendar) and maybe hold a few meetings in coffee shops.

Is this going to be all about liturgy and fancy eastern vestments?

No. If that’s all there is, it’s kinda boring. Jesus will not ask you how many metanias you did, nor will he care that you did or did not eat meat during Lent. Did you feed the poor? Did you help the needy? These are what he will ask you. To be Church, our community must empower the members to do the works that manifest God’s love in the world. We must show God’s own hospitality to those around us, to those who come to us, and to those we need to seek out. That will be what this is all about. Only in the doing will we be able to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. Liturgy will flow out of this self-understanding as an emergent property, if you will.

But there will be fancy eastern Vestments, right?

Truth be told, I’ve never liked the vestments that look like my grandmother’s flocked wallpaper and costing $400 – $1500. Instead, I would imagine a parish with hand-made vestments could get along fine. We might even have to have a sewing bee. ANd while I know that several devout people make beautiful vestments, the making of them is note a secret reserved only to the initiated. And what would God say to me on judgement day if I were constantly wearing robes more pricey than my parishioners could afford for themselves?

Short term, I don’t imagine vestments at all. In fact, I’m struggling with my desire to own a Kosovorotka or Tolstovka, which I think would just be the coolest shirt ever. Add a vest with pockets to look, you know, clerical. But then, unless I had sewn the Tolstovka myself, I’d be dressing up to “look like” a Pharisee in the market place, nu?

Talk about staring the parish

I already have. Some of my ideas have changed, but the basic sketch is still the same. No, the Didache liturgy is not the same as St John Chrysostom. But we all need to start somewhere – and sharing the Holy Mysteries is what makes a church. So we’ll start somewhere that people can grasp and move forward. (And, truth be told, I imagine any parish will need a pot luck, Bible-study Eucharist, even after it can serve John Chrysostom’s liturgy.)

So, Potluck, Didache and Bible study – with some music teaching thrown in. Move to evening liturgies, and from there… who knows.

Eastern Rite Anglicans FAQ (pt 2)

Which calendar do you use?

This is a two-part question, although only Eastern Orthodox folks (and Church-geeks) will realise it. Both questions were hit on in the earlier post when asking about “Russian” Easter and Christmas.

Eastern-Rite Anglicans do not use the Julian Calendar. Thus, following Modernist Orthodox fashion, Saints are observed on the regular, Gregorian days. The Feast of the Nativity falls on 25 December – not on 7 January as in Russian and other “Old Calendarist” traditions. Why? Because there is nothing special about using the calendar invented by Julius Caesar. Further, old-calendarist claims that “this was the calendar that Jesus used” are totally false: Jesus would have used a very out of sync Hebrew Calendar if he used any at all.

The Roman oppressors of Jesus would have used Julian calendars, yes. Except they would not say that today is February 21st but rather Ante Dies 9 Kalends Martius (9th day before the calends of March). It *does* create a different concept of time, I think – where today is placed in relationship to the future rather than the past. But that is my own bias.

The other calendar issue is the date of Easter. There are several mythological reasons for the difference between the (western) date of Eastern and the (eastern) date of Pascha: most importantly the claim that Pascha must fall “after Passover”. This is proven untrue by two things: on the one hand the issue of the date of the festival was caused by a change in the Jewish calendar. Prior to that, Pascha was simply celebrated every year on the schedule of Passover (in those ecclesial communities that celebrated the Resurrection on a yearly basis). When the Jewish calendar was changed, the issue of when to celebrate was raised in the Churches. The result were several set dates that had nothing to do with Passover and, finally, the canonical setting was the Sunday after the full moon after the Equinox. Since there was no way to ensure the date of the full moon, the church published tables with dates calculated on the Metonic Cycle in a method none as “Computus“. Dates are assigned for the hypothetical full moons. In the west these dates are corrected occasionally to bring the hypothetical date in line with observed reality. This is not so in the east. Additionally, the date “March 21st” on the Julian calendar falls 13 days after the Gregorian equinox. Ergo, Pascha can fall several weeks after Easter… bad form, really.

Eastern Rite Anglicans use the Gregorian Calendar for feast days and use the corrected Computus to calculate the celebration of Pascha.

Then why call it Pascha?

Because that’s the Eastern Rite name for the feast. But they do, really, get used interchangeably. Just not in liturgy (when we sing “Pascha, precious Pascha!” etc).

Any other liturgical changes or modifications?

Yes: 1 Western Saints are recognised and the use of the Revised Common Lectionary

Western Saints is easy to understand, but why the RCL?

The Eastern Lectionary is doubly limited: it does not use the Old Testament at all (save the Psalms) during Eucharistic worship and, during the daily offices, only rarely. The Daily lectionary readings do not use the Old Testament at all. The theological claim is that “the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New”. This is, essentially, traditional, gentile Christian anti-Semitism at work. The other way it is limited is in being only a one-year lectionary. Always the Sunday lections are the same. This limits preaching: some clergy actually have the same sermons to preach every year on the same Sunday! The RCL uses the OT and provides three years of readings covering nearly the entire Bible (but not all of it, truth be told).

Won’t this create liturgical conflicts?

No – for two reasons. 1) There are very few Sundays in the year when the assigned readings are reflected in Liturgical Changes. (On Feast Days the RCL doesn’t usually have assigned readings.) The main reading-liturgy connections are in Matins and Vespers where the RCL would not interfere. 2) on those few Sundays (only those prior to Lent and those just after Pascha) where there is a reason for a specific reading on a specific day, the Slavic tradition provides for multiple Gospels or Epistles to be read, thus the RCL can be read along with the traditional Gospel of the day (the Publican, the Prodigal, Myrrh-Bearing Women, etc).

When visiting an ER-Anglican church would I know I wasn’t in an Orthodox church?

Yes: there would probably be women serving, even women clergy. There might very well be other signs and one minor liturgical modification: the RCL provides a Psalm of the Day. This is used during the Little Entrance as a processional, with an Alleluia response.

What in what Anglican Church are you thinking about doing this thing?

No Anglican Church you would recognise. Actually, I don’t need “An Anglican Church” but rather a community with an Anglican Attitude. Yes, this will drive some conservatives crazy, but ok. That’s not my issue – it’s theirs. I have considered ECUSA as well as several groups within the Independent Sacramentalist Movement. In the latter I’ve found some (but not all) with the “Anglican attitude” of which I speak. I’ve found some more conservative, some, essentially, that were congregationalist. Etc. I think this community is, however, where I might find my best possibilities.

Are there no Orthodox Churches for you to play in? / Why not just be Orthodox?

There are Indy Orthodox churches. Yes. The odd thing is that even the ones that would be classified as “really liberal” get worried about things like “the old calendar” or “ecumenism”. I don’t have time to put up with that silliness. And the other Orthodox “Episcopi Vagantes” (which are usually referred to as being outside of “Canonical Orthodoxy”) are even nuttier. And I mean that in Christian Charity: they are nutcakes. Nearly all of them claim either that “Orthodoxy” is the true church to the exclusion of Protestants and Roman Catholics or, even worse, that only their select few Orthodox folks are the “True Church” while all the other “World Orthodox” are just as bad as the Heretics. The advantage of the Indy Sacramentalist movement over these folks is that it does *not* claim to be the one true Church (although, sadly, some within it do claim…) The final reason not to claim to be “Orthodox” is because I’m not, most simply in the fact that I’m a sexually active gay man in a committed relationship.

I do believe and confess everything else ever taught to me by the moderates within Orthodox church and almost everything taught to me by conservatives within the Orthodox church. I would be Orthodox again in a heartbeat, as I have written here many times – although following the path of the moderates, I’d be an ecumenist modernist. But to claim I am Orthodox whilst “living in sin” – most especially the One Huge Sin du Jure – would cause scandal for most people, Orthodox or not.

Wait! “Moderates” within the Orthodox Church?

Yes. I count some of them among my closest friends and it pains me to be out of communion with them.

So what about Orthodoxy’s Holy Tradition? Will Anglo-Byzantines accept the Tradition?

When I was listening to a recent series of podcasts on Fr Alexander Schmemann, the penultimate presentation, by Dr. David Fagerberg, cut me to the core. For he successfully defined Tradition as over and above (t)radition.

And for a minute I felt cut off from Tradition.

That is, until I realised who was speaking.

Dr Fagerberg was a Roman Catholic standing in a room full of Eastern Orthodox (and others) who, at least in their more conservative modes, would have denied that he, himself, was part of the Tradition. In his definition, the professor was using a recent series of statements from the head of the Roman ecclesial community that reversed rather a lot of teaching about “eastern schismatics” and allowed that they – along with Romans – were the only real churches out there. So, the irony of Dr Fagerberg’s claim that I don’t share in the Tradition simply because I’m in the wrong Institution suddenly made me burst out laughing.

His definition – which I agree with – that to be in the Tradition is to assume the same hypothesis in reading scripture and traditions, in writing theology. To assume a different hypothesis is to be outside of the Tradition. I agree. But part of that hypothesis is to reserve Judgement to God – not to the nutcases of this world. Another part of that hypothesis is the nearly-universal redemption of all of us nutcases by the God in his Divine Human Son.

I think my claims in the series on the Big Three put me in line with Tradition – all else, it seems, is adiaphora. But I know those who would disagree with me in Anglican and Orthodox communities.

OK, so off I go. For this purpose we pull out the rare, and esoteric HTML coding of the Definition List!

What are Eastern Rite Anglicans or Anglo-Byzantines?

Essentially the idea is to do with traditional Eastern liturgies and theology what Anglo-Catholicism did, via the High Church, Ritualist and Tractarian movements, to traditional Western liturgies and theology.

Um… Why?

A couple of reasons. Three, maybe. And one bad historical pun:

1) The English tradition has often felt closer to Byzantine and Russian practice than Roman. This is seen even in the venerable “Sarum Rite”. When performed with a “Latin liturgical idea” in mind it is very exotic, but very easy to do. It has some eccentricities, but ok. Yet when performed with a “Byzantine liturgical idea” in mind, it is neither exotic nor eccentric. It is simply the local form of the liturgy.

2) The Anglican mindset fits well with the Byzantine tradition of multiple patterns coinciding in a non-linear liturgy. The claim is, essentially, that Eastern Liturgy is more Anglican than Western Liturgy, that Roman liturgy at its most traditionally ornate and “baroque” is not as Anglican as a full Russian rite with choir and tinkling censor bells.

Maybe 3) The claim of traditional liturgy to be incarnational – involving all the person, mind, spirit and flesh (all the senses) seems to be not as well manifest in Western liturgy with its robes, postures, colours and incense, as it is in Eastern liturgy with its robes, postures, colours, incense, non-linearity, (traditional) lack of seating which moves the laity closer to the rite and (archaeological) lack of division in the worship space which is restored in more recent practices. This is, however, a subjective point rather than an objective one. More on this below.

Optional Bad Historical Pun: for a certain school of Uberfrum Orthodox, the Holy Spirit lived in the Holy Orthodox Church of the West, prior to the Great Schism. But in England, it lasted right up until 14 October 1066 when the Evil Schismatic Pope Alexander the II sent William the Evil Schismatic Conqueror into England to slay the Good Orthodox King Harold II. On that day the Holy Spirit left the Anglo-Saxon People, never to be seen again save by those who journeyed into enlightened Russia or Greece and found Orthodoxy. So this Idea of Eastern Rite Anglicans might just be the last sign of the Impending Apocalypse for this group of folks.

Speak more of this incarnational issue

Again, I want to be clear, this is a personal experience rather than a theological claim but during my years as an Anglo-Catholic (rosaries, statues, votive lights, etc) it all seemed rather stilted and “pious”, more like “Let’s be stodgy English people pretending to be prim French or Austrian Catholics. But upper class ones…” There were elements of misogyny and racism as well. When we really cut loose, we’d deck out a statue of Virgin Mary with twinkly lights and make jokes about “Mediterranean” or “Latin” piety. The official face was called “liturgical boredom”.

I never had this problem in Eastern Rite worship. Between kids running around on the carpet (I remember, especially fondly, my Godson learning to toddle back and forth in front of the candle stands) and the choir singing one thing while the priest was singing another and the congregation singing along (as and when they felt like it, with or without skill or even knowing the words) and the deacon censing the walls and the icons, and the adults moving around in the center of the room, and the monks making smirky smiles when the Abbot wasn’t looking…

Yes, everything was involved, and every part of Life was present (sorta).

It’s a personal bias: I think perhaps based in no small part on the mind I learned to have in such situations growing up. Yet even now when I go to WR Orthodox worship (at the Monastery in Hamilton), it’s theologically rich, mentally engaging, while the rest of me is bored. Again, your mileage w/ WR worship may vary. This is not a critique of Western Worship. But of an experience within western Worship.

As the assistant Bishop of New York once said to me, “The word became flesh, but Anglicans wallow in it.” I think we can wallow very much in an ER setting: we can be all that we can be. Yes, we can.

So what kind of liturgy are you imagining?

Well, to start off, the Antiochian Book Divine Liturgy for Clergy and Laity as it has easy-to-use music and all the words written out. Yes, yes, I know: it’s missing some of the litanies, but so what? The vast majority of ER worshippers in the world do not use those litanies any more. In the long run, however, I imagine using the books produced by the Monks of New Skete. They are more modern, less awkward and, to some extent, easier to use.

And there is a wealth of music out there – as well as a whole world of Anglican music waiting to be adopted and adapted into ER services.

Where is this being done already?

Nowhere. Some of my friends seem to have imagined that my former parish, St Gregory of Nyssa Church, in San Francisco, was doing Eastern Rite worship. No. They do have a very eastern flavour to their worship, but their words are (largely) right out of the BCP and the NRSV. Collects and standard Victorian hymnody make up their worship. Not a thing wrong with it – I go when I can, listen to the CD when I need to, watch the DVD when I need a fix and get the sermon podcast every Sunday. But not a thing ER about it (in the sense of this post).

But you’re not Theologically Orthodox? And you’re gay?

Kinda but Yes. And there you’ve hit on a point: I want to underscore again, Anglican theology and Anglican approach to liturgy plus Eastern Wroship. Heck, I could be a member of the United Church of Canada for all that the denomination is important. I do imagine we’ll read the Church Fathers more often, and the Synaxarion (or, more to the point The Prologue from Ohrid) but I do imagine some more theological play back and forth than most Orthodox or conservative Anglicans might like. I do imagine some debates about all the usual things that spark debates among Protestants, and, like the Good Anglo-Catholic divines before us, I imagine having people insist “that’s not Anglican” and “that’s not Orthodox” and “Neither Fish nor Fowl” and “neither Fresh nor Foul” and the like. And, joy, I’ll not care.

Is this that “Emergent Church” thing I keep hearing about?

No, not yet, anyway. But it could be. Later.

Will you have “Russian Easter” and “Russian Christmas”?

No and No. But the New Martyrs of Russian (including the later Royal Family) might be important.

To use an over-abused word, all of ‘em are Mavericks. A maverick is an unbranded range animal, especially a motherless calf. It can also mean a person who thinks independently, a lone dissenter, a non-conformist or rebel. Other definitions report that the origin of the word is one Samuel Maverick who used to leave the calves of his heard unbranded. A crucial comment on the definition is that traditionally, whoever found a maverick, got to claim him for their own. Clergy who are Mavericks do tend to buck the system: sometimes they spend their entire ministry doing so. I think of two rectors who have spent the last 20 – 25 years bucking the system of ECUSAn clockwork and have built successful parishes and ministries. I think of a few young clergy who have not bought in to the system at all.

Usually the maverick clergy (admired or despised) are cutting-edge liberal sorts who want to re-do liturgy and/or theology, but in a few not-very-rare cases they are admired or despised conservatives. I can think of two such conservative rectors off the top of my head in ECUSA whom I love and admire greatly, and even a couple in Orthodoxy. I know: mavericks in Orthodoxy, how scary! But, as Glinda the Good Witch says of the Ruby Slippers, “There they are. And there they’ll stay.” These priests are building (or have built) ministries against all odds and, while I mightn’t like all of ‘em, I have to admit they’ve done some good (and some not so good) by Maverick-Rolling Along.

To point at one obvious example and, perhaps, one that is not so obvious, St Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco and St Nicholas parish in Asheville. The former is one of the most vibrant and growing parishes in all of ECUSA. And, while it might surprise you, until a round of troubles took over the later was one of the largest and most-active Orthodox parishes in the entire South East for a while and, yes, being a Maverick did that – and, to a certain extent, also caused the problems. But it is an example to hold up for admiration. Other examples can be found around the web. There is a string of ECUSA parishes revitalised and rescued from certain death by one priest. There are also several bishops who have acted in what they see as the best spiritual interest of their people and led them away from ECUSA. I disagree with their various actions, but it’s clear they want to save the souls of their flock. And they have the cojones to do so.

There are also the cases of my two Patron Saints: St Francis of Assisi and St Raphael of Brooklyn. Although they were both loyal sons of the Church (Western and Eastern respectively), both were, in their way, revolutionaries who raised a banner – Holy Poverty and Radical, in-person Mission & Ministry.

All of these people did what “the system” might refer to as “damaging to your career”. All of them struck out as the spirit led them to do what they were called to do and, reluctantly, the church ultimately went along with the vast majority of good things, and ditched the bad things and – in two cases – made them Saints.

The main point being not that I imagine myself to be such a radical, but, to be 100% honest, exactly the opposite: I am rather a wimp. A case in point would be this very essay (as you’ll see later).

I know (and have connected with) several clergy who fit my own mould. They have nice jobs. They have nice families. They have nice lives. I’m very bored by them and find them to be tedious company. Although I love and pray for them, they are not ministries I’d like to write about or interview. They are not people I’d call “friends”. In one case, a certain priest worked as Canon to the Ordinary for one of the most conservative bishops his diocese has had in recent years and now is working under one of the more liberal ones. There was nary a hitch between the two administrations. I think also of all the very liberal and very conservative folks I know who just passively put up with (rather than actively connect to) all the people of the opposite polarity. Contra this, my own (very liberal) rector has often been friends with the most-conservative clergy in the diocese where both are cut-off by the wider stream of “normal” folks. (And since I’ve already been asked, if you and I know each other by first name, call each other on the phone and have lunch, at least, from time to time: don’t worry.)

Again, the point is: I’m not one of these Mavericks. I’m one of the Nice People. In all the jobs I’ve had where I’ve been unhappy, it’s taken years (nearly a decade) to actually act on my dissatisfaction. I’ve often taken better positions only by accident – never actually engaging in a betrayal of my current boss no matter how annoying I found him or her. I usually find myself flustered with a style that I see as dysfunctional, but pissed off at my own inability to either fix or escape the problem.

Examples: when a job I was in began to take advantage of my technical skills (while still paying only for my secretarial skills) I only acted to save my neck after about 2 years of abuse. Prior, the same company had made me “assistant manager” of the bookstore while still paying me to be a cashier. This also lasted nearly 2 years – and only when I finally threatened some sort of legal action did they take the right steps. But even then, I didn’t fix it without going to therapy. And then there is the instance of spiritual abuse about which I’ve blogged here. Even when invited to write the Bishop, I simply sighed and went on my way weeping.

To put it succinctly, I have no well-honed “flight or fight” skills (if any at all): only passive resignation. It would be just as much when I became Fr Milquetoast – at the whim of a Bishop, or Deanery or Vestry, and terribly annoyed at the entire thing.

Now… apply that to what I know of THE PROCESS in ECUSA. Most clergy take it as a given that the process will be abusive. Most clergy take it as sort of an inside joke and a bit of an initiation. I’ve been warned that ECUSA is not a nice place to work (I know that, after 10 years at the Episcopal Church Center in NYC, which Sunday I referred to as “our Guantanamo Bay”). I’ve seen it: my future colleagues are often a bunch of back-stabbing administrators who often have a sense of competition on a win/loose model; who can smile benignly at ecumenism and make fun of “them” all at the same time; who are, essentially, human sinners like the rest of us. But something about that all too human moment is to heavy to bear when it comes not only from someone who feels threatened in their employment, but who happens to be wearing a Clerical Collar at the same time. I know people who wondered innocently and unwittingly into the maw of this beast. Ordained at 25, they were in their first parish in 6 months and out, resigned and on their way to law school (or secretarial school or teaching elementary school, etc) before 18 months has past. I don’t want to be one of those people.

Some wonderful emails were sent to me in response to my last discernment posting. My favourite is about the “voice we need to hear articulating the wonderful, Anglican vision you have of Church.” Readers have seen my vision articulated in these pages and close friends have heard me speak of it in person.

What I’m trying to figure out is would I have the cojones to institute that vision, or would I just be trapped in some falling down building doing pledge drives for the parking lot, with a thermometer stuck to the side of the reader board?

To phrase the question more directly: John Plummer ordained me in Asheville (before I had “officially” left Orthodoxy and before I “officially” became Anglican again) it was so that I could be empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring my vision of Church into reality. ECUSA rejects that ordination as “invalid”. (One Orthodox priest told me, he treats it like any other Anglican ordination – “Valid within your own tradition”. And several Episcopal clergy have said, “Ordination is Ordination”.) In some of the most-staunchly Company circles of ECUSA they, in fact, would treat indy ordination as a mark against me. The discernment question at hand: is that Ordination a gift from God to go out and act – without worrying about things – or should I wait until I get a “real” Church to give me the go-ahead.

You can see a bit of my wimpiety in my asking of the question at all: several times, recently, I’ve come close to a decision one way or the other only to be afraid to actually speak the decision aloud, including a couple of times being afraid to mention it to Mom or Brodie. I keep coming back to the paycheck: it will be hard to have a paycheck as an Indy. I’d be working in bookstores or coffee shops for the rest of my life. Truth be told, however, I imagine I’d be happier doing so.

And while I don’t deny a sense – in nearly all cases – of “well done, Good and Faithful”, part of me wonders if the sudden rush is not precipitated by self-preservation.

That may sound cynical.

Really: ECUSA is in a time of bitter transition right now. If the province should manage to get ECUSA disinherited (unlikely and not probable, but possible) a series of Court Cases will need to be decided, but traditional court understandings of hierarchical churches will, eventually, give a lot of money, property and titles to the new province. Even if the “new American province” should all come to naught (unlikely and not probable, but possible) there is the reality of a decade or more of lawsuits over pensions and property. If the province should end up being in some nebulous middle ground (likely, possible and probable) where there are some primates who like it and some who don’t, the result with be the same decade or more of problems extended into the foreseeable future (until the current generation dies, would be my guess). These cases will all move through the courts, trusting in hierarchical churches, deciding one way or the other, willy-nilly. Will the church have enough money to pay off everyone? Will the pension fund (which I’ve been told is operating at a surplus) be split in half? So far we’ve been talking about a few properties. We’ve not yet gotten to the real debate: the clergy Pensions of the departing deacons, priests and Bishops.

In my eyes, the most-likely scenario is the least attractive one. Just to be clear.

In *any* of the above scenarios, what we need are good, present and experienced leaders.

Why, then, are all of them suddenly retiring?

What I really wonder is, “Do they see, sense or otherwise imagine something on the wind that tells them (like the rats on a ship) that now is the time to go lest they be caught empty-handed?”

Liberality about faith comes from believing God is so important, that all lesser beings have a lot of play space, and you can trust him to sort out the wheat from the tares, and don’t therefore have to be paranoid about enforing doctrine, such that our methods begin to compromise our ideals. All that I buy as a noble ideal.

I think that’s an excellent comment… my own connection to religious liberalism is a bit more tenuous. I struggle when I hear people dissing certain doctrines of historic Christianity. By “dissing” I don’t mean “admitting that they have doubts” I mean “tossing out”. And by “tossing out” I don’t mean “not saying the creed inliturgy” I mean “rejecting the creed – even if they say it.”

Then there was this wonderful comment…

A resurrected Milton would doubtless be online, blogging away at the tyrannies and self-deception of our powers that be. He believed that monarchies and theologies of infallibility in the Church bred a sick, servile society. He would fall about laughing at people craven enough, as he would see it, to imagine final religious authority could be found in any human source, least of all popery, Protestant or Catholic.

The founding entities of the Anglican Church in North America are the members of the Common Cause Partnership namely:

• The American Anglican Council
• The Anglican Coalition in Canada
• The Anglican Communion Network
• The Anglican Mission in the Americas
• The Anglican Network in Canada
• The Convocation of Anglicans in North America
• Forward in Faith – North America
• The Missionary Convocation of Kenya
• The Missionary Convocation of the Southern Cone
• The Missionary Convocation of Uganda
• The Reformed Episcopal Church

The new Anglican group has:

1. Bishops who ordain women.
2. Bishops who insist that women can’t be ordained.
3. Charismatics.
4. Evangelicals.
5. Reformed.
6. Praise bands and Morning Prayer.
7. People so High Church they have to look down to see Rome.
8. And Anglo-Papists all in their Novus-Ordo garb.

In other words, they are just like the Episcopalians: you know damn well the Catholics and the Charismatics do *not* agree on Doctrine or the Authority of Scripture. You know the Bishops who don’t ordain women will get annoyed if women clergy come into their diocese. You know the Evangelicals & the Reformed will accuse the High Church folks of heresy (and vice versa). The Reformed Episcopalians object to using the term “Altar”, for goodness sake – or at least they used to. The new group is as prone to doctrinal unity as real Anglicans have always been and if you try to nail them down to any confession, they will either balk or cross their fingers. They have no common understanding of Tradition, Church or Authority. (Or else they have individually been telling lies to ECUSA all these years.)

But what unites them all? Easy:

They are Gayless! Fag-Free! Unqueer! Sans-Sodomites! Uniquely Liberated of Pickle-Ticklers!

But, really. It’s about the doctrine.

BTW: when someone said they were a new Anglican Denomination, I took offense and I said, “Just like WomenChurch is a new Roman Catholic denomination”.

Then I realised both claims were, in fact, true. I welcome the ACNA to the Anglican Family.