Sarx

N TODAY’s Lambeth Journal, Bp Neff Powell comments on an ordinary day:

The Bible study group went very well as we began to discuss the matter of Gene Robinson and homosexuals in the Episcopal Church.  The presenting issue for us was how this issue affects our efforts in evangelism.  The African bishops said that in Muslim majority countries, openness to homosexuality made evangelism more difficult.  I pointed out that in some places in our culture, especially with those under age 35, it was rather the other way around.   I think, I think we heard each other.

I’m still not sure how Gene makes evangelism hard for them. I would think the death threats for trying to convert Muslims would be worse. I would think the death sentence for apostasy on the convert would be a bigger problem.

If someone says to you, “Yes, I would convert - death threats mean nothing! But I refuse to go to a party where a gay man might be in the room…” there’s some other issues going on. Seriously.

But, let’s assume for a moment is is about evangelism. Neff has the right counterpoint. No one in this country under the age of 35 - and an increasingly large number of the rest of us - want anything to do with a religion that can’t outgrow its cultural biases. If we can use interest-bearing accounts to run our economy, I think we can A retrograde stance makes it hard for us to evangelise.

Tags: anglican, gay, lambeth, muslims

Amazing Icon.

Tags: icons

IA The OrthodoxJobs listing, we find this:

The name alone is worth the price of admission.

The internships are open to Orthodox Christians (male or female) over the age of 18. The internships are for one calendar year commencing September 2008. Interns will be expected to commit themselves to full participation in each and all of 4 aspects of the Lived Theology School as given below. The practical work (diakonia) of the interns will be carried out at the St John the Compassionate Mission in Toronto. The liturgical life of the intern will be at both the Mission and the St Silouan of Athos Mission parish attached to the Mission. The study programs will be conducted at the Mission and elsewhere. The interns will live in their own community house.

A click-though brings us to some of the most wonderful pictures of Orthopraxis I’ve seen in a while. The letter of invitation from the School is… wow.

Granting, for a moment, the claim that doctrine is important, one must admit that Jesus spent a lot of time talking about what we would call “social justice” issues and - again, granting the argument - if nothing else, doctrine was as important as justice.

Every once in a while I hear of something - Fr J wanted to give hospitality at the front door of our rented space, or a parish might work with a food programme. But not as much as I hear of it in the rest of the church (I doubt there is a Roman or Anglican parish that doesn’t have some kind of outreach programme). Yes, I speak mostly of convert parishes rather than cradle ones, although I get the perhaps mistaken sense sense from the net that many charitable groups in ethnic parishes tend to be charitable only to one ethnicity (ie, “us”) but this isn’t true in all cases, maybe.

But news of this… heck, if they’d let Anglicans in, I’d think about it.

Tags: charity, mission, neighbours, orthopraxis, outreach

(Pen & Ink on cardboard, about 14″x14″)

Tags: art, Tao, yin-yang

HERE WAS To be a couple of final posts from Rick Fabian’s Worship At St Gregory’s, but I see that the last segment on the Church Year is reprinted with permission from another publication - from which publishers I do not have the same permission. So I will respect the sources.

Here is a list, in the proper order, of all the posts in this topic:

Continue Reading »

Tags: liturgy

F YOUR Charity, please remember the Servant of God, the Priest Joel, in your prayers - recently reposed, together with his wife, Marcia. They are old, old friends of mine. From back in the 80s…

Tags: prayer, RIP

Which Dain Brammaged, megalomaniacal vigilante said it? The ever-wise Secret Pants sketch comedy troupe explore the options:

Tags: batman, bush, comedy, letusattend, secret pants, widsom

VIDENTLY The ancient Romans liked to mix black Pepper and Honey as a flavour combo. This sounded interesting to me. But I also had a free sample of McCormick’s Worcestershire Ground Black Pepper Blend. So off to the kitchen I went.

• 1 Yam, peeled an cut into cubes.
• 1 Cup uncooked lentils
• 1.5 cups of water or veggie broth
• 1/4 cup of honey
• 2 tsps (or to taste) of McCormick’s Worcestershire Ground Black Pepper Blend

Continue Reading »

Tags: baked, clay pot, cooking, covered pot, honey, pepper, roasted

ODAY’S Readings in my RSS are filled with an odd counterpoint: on the one hand there are the Lambeth Bishops. The officially scoured and spun blog from 815-land. There are on-going Episcopal contributions such as Bp Alan and there are newbies to the fold such as Bp Porter.

And there is news of Emergent PoMo leader, Brian McLaren speaking to the Bishops.

At the same time, I read about Tribal Church, which seems to be growing by leaps and bounds, just as liberal as everyone’s worst nightmares in ECUSA, and I hear of many other missional and PoMo churches rising up, in and out side of traditional denominations.

And I wonder where, in all this chaos, church is going.

If - as I believe - the church needs to move beyond her denominational and Constantinian attitudes of Christendom and privilege, then why do I sit around wasting time working on the Stewardship campaign for Trinity Buffalo? What is the meaning of church if it’s to be found beyond lockstep obedience to some ancient ideas that have no relevance on the street?

To be certain, these were the same questions that pester me when I was in college, looking at ministry in ECUSA or conversion to Orthodoxy. I’ve pretty much repeated the cycle of my spiritual journey from 1987 - 2001: going from Christian to generic to Christian to Jewish to WHAT? all in the last year and a half.

I’m feeling very spent.

I want to open a book reading group of The Roots of Christian Mysticism. Can we invite the founder of Revolution Church to come share his insights on the book? Imagine everyone hanging out at Spot Coffee (along with Cam and the folks from Trinity) discussing what it means to hear St Ignatius. Not what it means to *obey* St Ignatius - but rather to enter into conversation with him. Or St John Chrysostom, or St Basil or St Gregory of Nyssa… It’s not about starting a new church, it’s about Being Church.

Other times, I want to just run away, bake bread, cuddle with Brodie and do Zazen (I’ve been enjoying the ideas of Dogen).

The troublesome part is I can do the former & the latter: but if I pick the latter first, I exclude the former.

Tags: church, ecusa, emergent, missional, outreach, trinity church

WO More sets of prayers have been added to my online “Commonplace Prayerbook“. Both of these are Eastern Rite and communion related:

Cannon of Preparation for Communion
Prayers after communion

In the production/editing line are ER Pre-communion prayers as well as pre- and post-communion prayers from the Western Rite as. I’m also exploring the use of icons in this context. In all cases the language has been modernised (Southron Orthography is going through a phased application at this time.)

Tags: communion, liturgy, prayer