Girl's Best Friend

Here's Suzanne Guthrie singing "The Prayer Book Is A Girl's Best Friend." Do watch the credits!



Here is what she writes about herself on her blog Come to the Garden:

Suzanne Guthrie is an Episcopal priest, the author of Praying the Hours and Grace's Window, retreat leader, former university chaplain and mother of four grown children. Besides serving as the chaplain of The Melrose School, Suzanne's current project includes "a kind of visual and thematic itinerary of the interior life" for beginners of all ages.You can see the progress of that work at http://www.edgeofenclosure.org.

I have both of Suzanne's books, which she signed for me when we were both involved with the Will Our Faith Have Children conference back in 2003.

Peace,
Jeff

Catechism

cat*e*chism (kat' ǐ-kǐz' əm) n. 1. A book giving a brief summary of the basic principles of Christianity in question-and-answer form. 2. A manual giving basic instruction in a subject. 3. A body of fundamental principles or beliefs, esp. when accepted uncritically. 4. A close questioning or examination, as of a political figure.
--The American Heritage College Dictionary, 4th ed., 2002.

Who knew?

We do have one in the Episcopal Church. Honestly. It's on page 843 of our Book of Common Prayer. Although it's titled "An Outline of the Faith, commonly called the Catechism." Most of the church doesn't seem to pay much attention to it except in relation to Confirmation. Occasionally it will get pulled out when teaching new folks about our church. We used it in my confirmation class as a beginning place for discussion. I was 29 at the time, and if I found it boring, I can only imagine what teenagers think of it.

From time to time I refer to it in the course of my work as the Children's Formation Officer for the Episcopal Church. And sometimes I bring it up in conversations, especially when I get on my "the Episcopal Church doesn't believe its own Prayer Book" soap box.

If we're going to teach about Christianity and the Episcopal Church, then we need to think outside the book. The book is a great starting place, but let's face it, not everyone learns by reading, and even those of us that do are not held by the rote repetition of the Catechism. So what do I mean by outside the book? If you're not already familiar with Father Matthew Presents, I suggest you go to YouTube and check him out. We ought to be including his videos in Confirmation classes, newcomer classes, and quite frankly, many of our Christian Education/Formation programs.

Here is just one example of his work, and while it's not typical of it, it is a powerful piece.



Peace,
Jeff
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My Five Most Important Books

Newsweek runs a regular column in their "Periscope" section called "A Life in Books." Usually an author of note is asked to list "My Five Most Important Books," plus one or two additional books, which might be "A book you hope parents read to their kids," or "an important book that you admit you haven't read." There is also a brief reason why with each title. If you want to look at some of the series, go to the Newsweek web site and type "A Life In Books" into the site's Search engine at the top of the page.

After reading Claire Tomalin's list in this week's issue, I found myself pondering the topic during the rest of my train ride home. It has been a more difficult exercise than I thought it would be. Often one of my most important books is the one I'm reading or have just finished. Are they the ones I reread most often? Or the ones that have had the greatest impact on my life? Do I even realize how much a book impacted my life years after reading it? Or what if a series played a major role (and so many Science Fiction and Fantasy books are written in trilogies!), how do you pick one of the series?

At this moment, and in no particular order, here is my list.

1. Watership Down, by Richard Adams. A group of rabbits strike out on their own to make a new home. Adams creates a rich culture and an adventure/quest story.

2. The Book of Common Prayer. I AM an Episcopalian, after all.

3. La Folle de Chaillot (The Madwoman of Chaillot), by Jean Giraudoux. Greedy businessmen plot to destroy a Paris neighborhood in order to profit from oil found under it. They are defeated by a group of "misfits."

4. Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn. "A Novel in Letters" chronicles an island country's slide into totalitarianism and ultimate redemption. Both funny and frightening.

5. The Mayor of Castro Street, by Randy Shilts. As a college freshman spending Thanksgiving Break with a dorm mate on his family's farm in a small Minnesota town, I watched the story of the assassinations unfold on TV and in the newspapers. Shilts' book was published the year I graduated from college and played a role in my own coming out process.

"An Important Book" that I admit I haven't read: Pedagogy of The Oppressed, by Paulo Freire.

A classic that, on rereading, disappointed: The Old Man and The Sea, by Earnest Hemmingway. I hated it in ninth grade English class, and I hated it when I tried to read it again a couple of years ago.

A book you want your kids (if I had any) to read: It's a toss up between The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (and this surprises you how?) and Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series.

So that's my list. What's yours?

Peace,
Jeffri

Just How Many Wise Men Were There?

Today was one of the rare years where Epiphany actually falls on Sunday. At church we had the "Three Kings" bearing gifts in the processional, the postponed Christmas Pageant with Sound Effects, and two baptisms. All in all it was a joyous occasion.

As we went through the service, starting with the reading of the Collect, I could not help but be reminded of the small brouhaha over Katharine's choice of a Christmas card. Here is the Collect for Epiphany, Contemporary version from the 1979 BCP of the Episcopal Church:

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

No mention of manifesting God's only Son to only three men, be they wise men, kings, astrologers, or whatever. And for those who find the 1979 BCP to be a departure from the "classic" BCP, here is the collect from the 1928 BCP of the Episcopal Church:

O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles: Mercifully grant, that we, which know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Nope, no mention of the manifestation being just to men there, either. But let's take a look at the 1662 BCP, which seems to be the favorite of those who wrote the first draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant. Oops, identical to the 1928 version. Just to be safe, why not check out the very first BCP, which appeared in 1549 and contains Cranmer's original Collects:

O GOD, which by the leading of a starre diddest manifest thy onelye begotten sonne to the Gentiles; Mercifully graunt, that we, which know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruicion of thy glorious Godhead; through Christe our Lorde.

Interesting. Except for some archaic spelling and a missing "Amen," it looks like the same collect to me. Hmmmm..."diddest manifest they onelye begotten sonne to the Gentiles." No mention of it being just three men from outside of Judea. I may not be the most educated theologian in the world, but I do know that the Collect, in whatever version you choose, makes an interpretation of the Biblical text, because Matthew specifically mentions "wise men," not "the Gentiles:"

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. (Matthew 2:1-12, NRSV)

The Collect interprets the visit of the wise men as a sign that Jesus came for the Gentiles as well as the Jews.

Now look at the passage again. Something struck me as our priest read the Gospel this morning. Do you see it? Or more specifically, do you see what isn't there? What I do not see is a clear enumeration of how many wise men came. We assume three because there were three gifts, but there could have been two or twenty for all we know. In other words, our traditions have interpreted the story as being about three wise men, and many of our visual interpretations of the Nativity depict one of the three as being black, in spite of the fact that Africa is WEST of Judea.

Matthew does not give us any specific place from which these wise men traveled; the Gospel says only that "wise men from the East came to Jerusalem." There is a whole lot of world east of Jerusalem. The wise men might could have come from the Indian subcontinent, China, or even the Americas. So the "multicultural" part of Greg Griffith's jibe is pretty silly. What really irks him, and many of the so-called "orthodox" folks is that the card depicted wise women. The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Fort Worth was not specific about their objections to the card, but given the diocese's stand on women's ordination, we can guess that it probably also had to do with the depiction of wise women.

Even if we stick strictly to Matthew's telling of the story of the "wise men," there is plenty of leeway for interpretation, midrash, and storytelling. When we consider both Gospel accounts of the Nativity, there is space to imagine women--even wise women--visiting Jesus in Bethlehem. There is space to imagine people just like us--ALL OF US--visiting God's Son in the stable in Bethlehem.

Peace,
Jeffri

Common Prayer?

Since my July 19 post "Education In The Episcopal Church," I have been pondering what it is that holds us together as Episcopalians. What is it that we need to teach our children and people coming into the Episcopal Church about being Episcopalian--sort of an "Episcopalian 101" followed by an "Anglican 101." Being the incorrigible researcher that I am, I headed right for the books.

Since I was contemplating an "Episcopalian 101," I first went to the Episcopal Church's "official catechetical guide," Called to Teach And Learn. Skimming through it during my lunch break, I came across this passage:

Fundamentally, Anglicans are Christians who worship according to some authorized edition of the Book of Common Prayer and are in communion with the See of Canterbury (the seat or jurisdiction of a bishop). We are a worldwide Church comprised of many diverse cultures. Whenever we are found, our identity is as a community of practice. We are bound together by our liturgy. To put it simply, we are best understood as a “prayer book tradition.” Orthodoxy, for us, is right worship. Theological and ethical issues are resolved through decisions concerning liturgy rather than doctrine. (p. 64)

Well, that's all well and good, I thought to myself, but if I remember correctly, the Prayer Book was mandated by Parliament first at the direction of Edward VI (or, more correctly, his Regents' Council) and followed by his Tudor and Stewart successors, with the exception of Mary I. Back to "the library" to find some books on the history of the Prayer Book.

Further reading confirmed my understanding of the mandating of the Prayer Book through successive Acts of Uniformity. Even the beloved-by-conservatives "classic" 1662 Prayer Book was imposed on the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity of May 19. 1662. I did learn something new about the usage of the Prayer Book at the local level during the reign of Elizabeth I from William Sydnor's The Prayer Book Through The Ages.

After these [legislative] failures, Puritan opposition became more secret in its methods. The disloyalty to the Prayer Book, both as to services and ceremonies, continued. Emasculated editions of the Prayer Book appeared and were illegally used in secret.

The Elizabethan compromise, on a middle ground between the fanatical Puritans and the embittered Romans--known as the Elizabethan Settlement--was never fairly accepted. The 1559 Book was used in mutilated form. (p. 35)

Not only have political concerns influence the contents of the Prayer Book through its different editions, people have been picking and choosing from it and using alternative forms of the Eucharist for almost as long as it has been in existence. Which makes it all the more amusing when the Prayer Book Societies in various provinces argue vehemently for the "purity" of the 1662 or 1928 Prayer Books.

So are we truly "bound together by our liturgy?" Is that really what defines us as Episcopalians and Anglicans? In some ways, it is. Whenever I have contemplated leaving the Episcopal Church for a more "liberal" denomination, one of the things that keeps me from jumping ship is the liturgy. But in other ways...

So what should be included in an "Episcopalian 101" curriculum? What is it that is important for every Episcopalian to know? Any ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Peace,
Jeffri

Education In The Episcopal Church

[Note: This is a slightly revised version of a comment I left on this post at Father Jake Stops the World.]

I believe that one of the root causes of our current troubles in the Episcopal Church is our lack of education. I do not mean to suggest that Episcopalians are uneducated people. However, over the last 20 years or more we have not done a good job of teaching our younger generations or those coming into the Episcopal Church (from other denominations or from among the "unchurched") what it means to be an Episcopalian. What is our history? What is our theology? What do we believe? What does it mean to have bishops? How is our church governed?

I also think that there is an appalling lack of biblical literacy in the Episcopal Church. By literacy I do not mean memorizing long passages of Scripture or the entire Bible. The stories are important. The histories are important. The Gospels and the Epistles are important. But we also need to know how the Bible came to be. What shaped the book we know today? Why is it still important to us as Episcopalians--not to mention as Christians--today? How does it continue speaking to us today?

Nor do we teach about the Book of Common Prayer. The prayer book is what binds us together as Episcopalians--and as Anglicans. What is so special about the prayers and liturgies it contains? Why do Anglicans continue to use various versions of it some 460 years after it came into being? What is its history? How has it changed over the years? Why is it important to us as Episcopalians?

And we need to educate ourselves about ourselves. Who is sitting in the pews now? Not 50 years ago during the great, near-mythical "heyday" of full churches and overflowing Sunday Schools, not 40 years ago during the civil right era, not 30 years ago when so much energy was focused on prayer book revision and the ordination of women, not 20 years ago, not 10 years ago, not even 5 years ago. Who is in our churches NOW? It makes no sense to plan a large Sunday School program for a parish with five children and the rest of the congregation full of "widows and orphans," all of whom are over 40. Or to plan prayer services and bible study groups during the day when 95% of the congregation is made up of commuters who often do not arrive home until well after 6:00 p.m. Who is here now, and what do they/we need? What are the skills we have now, and how can we use them to reach out to the greater community?

The Episcopal Church does not mandate a curriculum to be taught in all Sunday schools across the whole church. I do not think that doing so resolves the issue. Nor does it address the issue of educating newcomers or continuing education. However, we must educate ourselves and our future generations about what it means to be a part of the Episcopal Church.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

Peace,
Jeffri

Of The BCP, The KJV, And WS

I have a confession to make. I have a fondness for the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (BCP). Me, staunch defender of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and proponent of expanding our liturgies beyond even its confines. And if we are going to use Rite I, we might as well use the service from the 1928 BCP, thank you very much. I also enjoy (gasp!) the King James version (KJV) of the Bible. I love the poetry and the literary qualities often lacking in many of our modern translations. And I like William Shakespeare's (WS) plays and sonnets for much the same reason, as well as his wicked sense of humor and ability to capture the human condition in the space of a few spoken lines of iambic pentameter.

However, I was 18 before I came to appreciate Shakespeare. I had read Romeo and Juliet three times before I was a junior in high school--the first time when I was 12--Hamlet twice, and Macbeth at least once. I slogged through them each time, struggling to understand the vocabulary enough to figure out what was going on in the plays. It was almost like learning a foreign language. The second semester of my senior year in high school I took an elective class in Shakespeare taught by a member of the faculty who also happened to be an actor. Suddenly, Shakespeare came alive for the 25 of us in that classroom. Who knew that the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet was so funny, or that the characters were throwing insults at each other like we did in the hallways of our school? Why hadn't anyone told us exactly what Hamlet was saying when he told Ophelia to "get thee to a nunnery?" It took someone to explain the first couple of plays we read that semester almost line by line before we started to see all of this. Once I had taken that Shakespeare class, the world of the King James Bible opened up to me as well.

And that is also the problem with the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and, for hard-core purists, even the 1662 edition. You need a professor to walk you through it line by line before you can fully understand and appreciate it. The more time that passes since 1600, 1611, 1662, and even 1928, the less accessible the language of the early prayer books, the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible becomes for us. And wasn't that a major reason for the Book of Common Prayer in the first place, to be accessible to worshippers in language they could understand? Even if the majority of the population in Reformation England could not read, they could understand the liturgy and the portions of the Bible read during the liturgy because the services were conducted in English--their English, not the English of Beowulf.

Language evolves, no matter what the purists (the Académie Française in France, for example) say or try to do to stop it. Proponents of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer will point out that it is not just the language, but the theology as well that changed when the 1979 Book of Common Prayer was written. I agree with them. The theology is different. As our understanding of God and of our relationship with God has changed, so, by necessity, has our theology, because if it did not, our faith and our church would stagnate. Nor did the Book of Common Prayer remain unchanged from it's first edition in 1549 until the Episcopal Church's 1979 revision. Even a quick comparison of the Lord's Supper (Eucharist) through the various versions will give you a feel for the changes.

Nor can we deny the fact that English politics also played a role in the development of the Book of Common Prayer from the very beginning. Just as they did in the creation of the King James Version of the Bible, which was first published on this day in 1611 (for a good look at the history of the King James Version, read Adam Nicolson's God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible).

So, while I can appreciate the 1928 prayer book and the King James Bible for many reasons, including their language, I do not really want to use them for worship on a regular basis. Just as I do not really want all of my recreational reading to be Canterbury Tales or Beowulf in their original English. I want to participate fully in the liturgy, and I cannot do that carrying a dictionary and translating every third word in my head!

Peace,
Jeffri

The Devil Is In The Definitions

In her letter to Archbishop Peter Akinola urging him not to perform the installation of Martyn Minns as a bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America in the United States, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote,

...such action would not help the efforts of reconciliation that are taking place in the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Communion as a whole.

Reconciliation. It is an action Katharine has urged us to consider and pursue again and again. My American Heritage College Dictionary (2002, p. 1163) defines reconciliation as

1. The act of reconciling. 2. The condition of being reconciled. 3. See penance 2.

Not particularly helpful, except for the third definition, which I will return to later. Looking at the definition of the root verb, [to] reconcile, the dictionary says

1. To reestablish a close relationship between. 2. To settle or resolve. 3. To bring (oneself) to accept: reconciled himself to the change in management. 4. To make compatible or consistent.

It appears to me that Katharine and others are urging some combination of the first two definitions. They want us to work at repairing and rebuilding our relationships within the Anglican Communion so that we can eventually resolve our differences--or at least learn to live together with our differences. The conservatives (I use the conservative/liberal terminology with reservations, but I find the reasserter/reappraiser language even more problematic), on the other hand, are pretty clear that their view of reconciliation involves penance, as in "The Reconciliation of a Penitent" found in our Book of Common Prayer.

For many of us, however, reconconciling the Episcopal Church with the more conservative elements within the Anglican Communion looks more like the definition of [to] reconcile found in the Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2001, p. 1612):

1. To cause (a person) to accept or be resigned to something not desired.

In the interest of staying in community as a Communion, perhaps we might want to find a different word, one with a definition on which we can all agree. Of course, we should probably work on a common definition of Communion as well...

Peace,
Jeffri

Of The Baptismal Covenant

I have often said that we Episcopalians do not believe our own prayer book. In response to the question “Who are the ministers of the Church?” our Catechism says, “The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons.” Note that the laity is listed first. Yet for all our proclaiming of “the ministry of all the baptized,” we don’t believe lay people do ministry, and we defer much of the ministry of the church to our bishops, priests and deacons. More than that, we seem to be abdicating more and more of our responsibility for the administration of our church to the ordained. I believe we can see this in the current struggles and our willingness to grant the Primates of the Anglican Communion so much power over the future direction of the Episcopal Church.

And, except for Bonnie Anderson, the president of our House of Deputies, our lay leadership seems remarkably silent when it comes to responding to the Primates’ Communiqué of February 19, 2007. Bishops on both sides of the issue, and from the “center,” continue issuing statements daily, and we await each one with eagerness. And our elected leader Katharine also seems willing to allow the Primates Gathered to be authoritative for the Episcopal Church—or at least have a sizeable say over the future direction of our church. She continues to ask, repeatedly, that we look at this time as a time of pause—to step back from the movement toward full and equal participation in the Episcopal Church for its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members. To many of us this seems to be a case of “justice delayed is justice denied.” For others, it does not go far enough.

Do we believe our Baptismal Covenant as it appears in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, or not?

Celebrant Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?
People I will, with God’s help.

It is clear that a significant number of us do not intend to do this. They refuse to come to the table and participate in the breaking of the bread with those who do not agree with them. There are congregations that refuse to allow their bishops to visit them, and there are bishops who refuse to visit congregations.

Celebrant Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever
you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
People I will, with God’s help.

So while the Primate of Nigeria vocally and visibly supports a bill in the Nigerian legislature that will outlaw even the right to gather and discuss lesbian and gay issues—and I feel relatively certain that bisexuality and transgender issues are not even a blip on the radar screen for the good Archbishop--the Primates consistently demand that the Episcopal Church comply with certain parts of their Lambeth Resolutions, the Windsor Report, and their Dromantine Communiqué but refuse to demand compliance to the rest of those documents by their own members.

Celebrant Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
People I will, with God’s help.

Good News? You mean there is Good News for us gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people? It is hard to hear the Good News when we are essentially being told to go back into our closets and let the rest of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion talk about us and make decisions about our lives without speaking with and listening to us.

Celebrant Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
People I will, with God’s help.

The last time I looked, “all persons” included lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. But maybe we can only be loved when we are second-class members of the church.

Celebrant Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
People I will, with God’s help.

Apparently not, since we are being asked to step back from this striving. Quite frankly, if the reactionary factions of the Primates gathered succeed in banning lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from consecration as bishops, then they will then seek to have us banned from ordination as priests and deacons. And once they succeed in that, can ordained women be far from their sights?

If we do not truly believe our Baptismal Covenant, which we all say together whenever a new person is brought into our community through the rite of Baptism, then we should take it out of the Prayer Book and replace it with “The Ministration of Holy Baptism” from the 1928 Prayer Book. Or why not return to ”The Ministration of Publick Baptism of Infants” in the 1662 Prayer Book? That is the version of the Prayer Book highlighted in the current proposed Anglican Covenant.

What part of ALL do we not understand?

Peace,
Jeffri