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The Provincial Boors Get Their Comeuppance
Or more properly the (Alexander) Boot:
What comes naturally to most Americans is ‘the pursuit of happiness’ stipulated in their founding document – not the pursuit of beauty or, God forbid, the truth. This has produced the happiest society in the West, and also the least Western. There’s a price to pay for secularism, and in America’s case the most prominent rubric on the bill is aesthetic.
Few Americans stop to think why just about everything man-made in their country is ugly, and even when such a thought crosses their minds they do not gasp with horror. Real life isn’t about beauty.
This vehement (but not unique) rant brings the following thoughts:
- His post got a lot more glasses raised on this side of the Atlantic than one might think, and not just from the Canadians. Europhilia is more strongly rooted in the message people get here in an élite upbringing than many realise. That ethic is buttressed by a simple fact: European countries (and now the EU itself) have strong centripetal tendencies, something any élite would like to see in its own country.
- Attempts to Europeanise this country via public policy (like this one) will not take root and flourish in the way some would like to think they will. The U.S. has been successful being itself; attempting to make it in another continent’s image and likeness runs the real risk of failure.
- Much has been made of Americans being “better travelled”, but as Boot’s illustration shows, a lot of that money was flushed down the toilet from the standpoint of “broadening”. It’s easier for people to travel physically than it is from the standpoint of learning something you didn’t know before.
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Genteel Episcopalianism is Indeed Gone: A Family View
@markdtooley documents it well:
Former U.S. Senator Harry Byrd, Jr. was buried on Saturday in Winchester Virginia after a brief funeral at Christ Episcopal Church, with which the Byrd dynasty was long associated. Presiding at the funeral was his former colleague retired U.S. Senator John Danforth, an ordained Episcopal clergyman who also presided at President Reagan’s funeral.
The last time I was in Christ Episcopal Church was for my uncle’s funeral in 1989. He was related to the Byrds via marriage; Harry Flood Byrd Jr. was a pallbearer at his funeral. Sen. Byrd was there when my aunt and uncle married in 1940, an event announced by another institution in turmoil these days, the Washington Post.
Being Anglican or Episcopal was almost synonymous with being in Virginia’s upper reaches from Jamestown onward. My uncle’s heritage was of long standing in that. My aunt’s came via her New Orleans mother, who brought the religion of Cranmer and Laud to the iron works people. (One thing my aunt never adopted from her husband was his family’s Democrat politics; she was a Republican when she married him and one when she buried him).
For all of its defects–and it did have some–the kind of Episcopalianism (to use Tooley’s odd-sounding word) that was practised by the Byrds and my aunt and uncle–and to a lesser degree by my parents–was a good civic religion which inculcated a sense of fairness and equity into those who led our society. Its doom came when our society decided that this kind of belief and conduct structure was too bourgeois and philistine for its taste. Subsequent events have shown that the replacement has not been an improvement.
The worst part of it is that a great deal of the destruction of the old Episcopal ethic came at the hands of Episcopalians themselves, and specifically the left-wing ministers who have come to control the church. But I went on one rant about that already, involving the Diocese of Virginia, and one was enough.
The old Episcopal Church and people like the Byrds and my aunt and uncle who inhabited it is largely gone, and those of us who want to make it in this life and the life to come must make other arrangements.
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On Councils, FiFNA, Icons and Intercession
One of the more recent kerfuffles in the Anglican world surrounds the recently adopted statement of belief by FiFNA (Forward in Faith North America for those who aren’t nourished on the Anglican alphabet soup), the Anglo-Catholic organisation. The point of controversy is #8, which affirms that the (first) Seven Ecumenical Councils are in fact “ecumenical and catholic”, i.e. universally applicable.
The resulting problem concerns the last of these councils, Nicea II, which upheld the veneration of icons in the wake of the Iconoclast Controversy (one which, admittedly, had some inspiration from advancing Islam). For those of a more Reformed or Protestant bent in Anglicanism, the veneration of icons or images is anathema.
I can remember an Episcopal Church which had reservations about using a crucifix as opposed to a plain cross, something which I had some fun with at the end of this. But the issue has many alley ways, and this piece hopes to explore at least some of them.
Let’s start with the business of conciliar authority. One of the aims of Anglo-Catholicism is to improve union with other churches which share the apostolic succession (and that, for some Reformed types, is controversial in itself). The ecumenical councils would seem to be a good place to start. But the stopping point varies even among these. The non-Chalcedonian churches such as the Copts, now in the crosshairs of the Muslim Brotherhood, would stop earlier than that. (We won’t even discuss the Nestorians…) OTOH the Roman Catholics claimed to have run up the number of ecumenical councils to 21, including controversial Vatican II. So, in some ways, the stopping point is arbitrary, and the attempt for unity and continuity isn’t as meaningful as Anglo-Catholics would like to think.
Second, the authority of any of the councils is an iffy proposition in the formative stages of Anglicanism, up to and including the 39 Articles. Basically a religion Reformed (well, mostly) in doctrine but “catholic” in liturgy and ecclesiastical structure, councils such as Nicea I were helpful but only so insofar as they affirmed what was in the Scriptures. Since the Scriptures didn’t explicitly endorse the veneration of icons much less asking the dead to intercede for us (to say nothing of that pesky Second Commandment, about as unpopular in some circles as the Second Amendment), most Protestant churches, even ones which are not strictly speaking Reformed, reject these practices.
Under these circumstances, getting to the heart of the matter can be difficult. Usually the central issue is worship or veneration, but for those of us doing the praying the heart of the matter is intercession, and that’s the way I plan to approach this problem.
The concept of asking someone else to pray for your needs–or something that’s on your heart that may or may not directly affect you–is well supported in the Scriptures. The intercessor par excellence is Jesus Christ, who as both God and man is able to take requests effectively from the latter to the former:
Again, new Levitical priests are continually being appointed, because death prevents their remaining in office; but Jesus remains for all time, and therefore the priesthood that he holds is never liable to pass to another. And that is why he is able to save perfectly those who come to God through him, living for ever, as he does, to intercede of their behalf. This was the High Priest that we needed–holy, innocent, spotless, withdrawn from sinners, exalted above the highest Heaven, one who has no need to offer sacrifices daily as those High Priests have, first for their own sins, and then for those of the People. For this he did once and for all, when he offered himself as the sacrifice. (Hebrews 7:23-27 TCNT)
As time moved on and Christians moved on to eternity, the idea sprouted that those who had lived especially exemplary (saintly) lives here had special favour with God, and that favour (along with their souls) did not expire when they did. So, if we asked them to intercede on our behalf, it would be effective.
But why did Christians feel the need to do this, with Jesus Christ at the right hand of God? The core force driving this trend was the nature of the Roman Empire itself. The whole Roman system was patronage driven, and as the Empire wore on the role of government expanded even as its stability receded. In a system like this, the key asset is access–access to those in power who can affect our lives, even to the point of ending them.
Coupled with this was the increasing remoteness of those at the top. The Roman Empire, without modern telecommunications of any kind and sprawled from Arabia to Scotland, was never a “flat” society (and our own society isn’t as flat as we’d like to think either). As time went on and the security of the system deteriorated, the emperors became more remote, and the Middle Eastern tendency to deify them in their lifetime became standard practice. With a remote leadership, the need to “know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody” to get what you need became even more important.
This kind of thinking permeated the Church as well. Jesus Christ became more and more remote, a trend accelerated by the theological controversies that followed Christianity’s legalisation. Those who were perceived to have access to him–Mary, the departed saints–took a larger role. Coupled with a society which had up to then worshipped pagan gods and idols, and the incentives for icons and their veneration was complete. And, seen in a context of intercession, the thing was entirely sensible.
Part of the goal (if that strong of a word can be applied) of the Reformation was to “cut out the middle man” (and woman) and restore the direct access we have to Jesus Christ, since “Our High Priest is not one unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has in every way been tempted, exactly as we have been, but without sinning. Therefore, let us draw near boldly to the Throne of Love, to find pity and love for the hour of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16 TCNT)
The basic problem with any system that encourages the veneration of icons and statues and asking intercession from those which they represent is that it distracts us from Jesus Christ, who is our perfect intercessor. It also discourages us from asking intercession from those who are still with us on the earth, which is an injustice to them because we pray not only to get results but to build our relationship with God, and the saints in heaven need neither. One of the reason modern Pentecost has been as successful as it has is that its saints on earth have had the reputation of getting prayers answered, something that would have been forfeited if it had encouraged asking the saints in heaven to intercede.
And as for Anglo-Catholicism? It needs to recognise that its idea is not really compatible with Anglicanism as originally formulated. It needs to either merge into Roman Catholicism (something the Ordinariate has simplified) or recognise itself as another branch of the Apostolic tree, a tree which is these days very leafy.
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Leaving Liberal Churches: Where the Treasure Is
Over at Patheos, Connor Wood wonders why:
Liberal Protestantism is dying. Rod Dreher says so in a recent column in The American Conservative, and the statistics back him up: for decades, liberal and mainline Protestantism has been on the decline in the US, with some denominations (such as the United Church of Christ) losing adherents so quickly that their future is in peril. Meanwhile, more conservative and evangelical denominations have generally held their own, or even experienced growth (see graph below). But liberal Protestantism in many ways exemplifies the best of what religion could be: it’s tolerant of differences, non-judgmental, open to scientific knowledge. Good stuff, right? So why is it that the open-minded liberal churches are dying out?
This is a question this website/blog (it’s been both) has tackled since its beginning in 1997. In that piece, I gave one reason:
Let’s suppose that you really believe that a) the basic teachings of Christianity are false and b) that you’re idealistic enough to want to “do good” under the new rules. What’s the quickest way of getting going? Well, to start with you have the usual plethora of political groups, environmental organizations, the government, the United Nations, and countless other organizations that have nothing to do with the church but which propagate your message. All your church is succeeding in doing is to add one more organization to the confusion. It would be simpler to simply dispense with the church and proceed with the secular organizations.
Wood throws in another one: churches that demand little from their flock don’t do a very good job bonding their members to the church, and same members leave. He’s right on that too. Having spent the last three decades in a church that has, until recently at least, demanded a lot out of its members, I can attest to the resilient results of the “ecclesiastical boot camp” complete with “martial law”.
Wood’s question is simple: if liberal churches simply demanded more of their members, wouldn’t they keep more of their people? That doesn’t answer the question I asked the fans of John Shelby Spong sixteen years ago, or the ones of Katharine Jefferts-Schori today. But there’s another question out there: how did these liberal churches get these people to start with? If you’ve got people leaving, after all, they had to be there to start with.
One passage where I still diverge with my Pentecostal bretheren on its interpretation is this one:
Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures for yourselves in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6:19-21 TCNT)
Most Pentecostals and probably many Evangelicals would interpret this in a stewardship fashion: we store up treasures in heaven by giving to the church and other Christian organisations. But I, in my usual fashion, start at the end and go backwards. A person’s “treasure” is what’s important to them. If it’s the acquisition of wealth, then that–and the wealth accrued in the process–is what’s the priority of their life. If their primary goal is eternal life in Jesus Christ in heaven, then that’s where their treasure is and will be, and they will live their life accordingly.
I’m like J. Vernon McGee on this: I’m not dogmatic on my interpretation, but if you want to be right, you’ll agree with me. And I think that I can back it up with the following:
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will attach himself to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (Matthew 6:24 TCNT)
But first seek his Kingdom and the righteousness that he requires, and then all these things shall be added for you. (Matthew 6:33 TCNT)I think that one big problem with liberal, Main Line churches, is that they went into the fire of modern and post-modern times with a large chunk of their parishioners whose first priorities in life were not living in and for God. And that goes back to the demands of the church: when you have flocks like this, you’re not in much of a place to make demands. And so we have the vicious cycle we’ve watched for the last half century, including the Episcopal Church’s campaign to run off the more conservative wing who had a decent shot to, if not completely reversing the cycle, at least slowing it down.
But our God doesn’t just ask for our money. He asks for it all. As the General Thanksgiving puts it:
…we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days;
The sooner we understand this the sooner we will be ready for the rough voyage ahead.
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Iron Women and Wooden Ships, A Winning Combination
The tyranny of GPS and synthetic materials is broken on the Pacific:
It took a thousand or so miles of sailing with the long, powerful waves of the Pacific Ocean for Hannah Jenner, a rising star in ocean racing, to get comfortable in this year’s Transpacific Yacht Race. Jenner, a 31-year-old from Britain, is used to racing ultralight 40-footers across oceans. But in the Transpac this month, Jenner was sailing Dorade, a 52-foot wooden sailboat from 1930 that is trimmed in varnished mahogany and adorned with polished bronze hardware…
Dorade, considered the forebear of modern ocean racing yachts, won the 2,225-nautical-mile Transpac race from Los Angeles to Honolulu in 1936. And 77 years later, the slender white hull with tall spruce masts rolled to victory again, beating the most modern carbon-fiber ocean racers to win its division and the overall King Kalakaua Trophy.
Readers of the blog know that my family has a long-time heritage on the sea and in yachting, running from the 1880’s to the 1960’s (and bleeding on both ends, too). Although most of our time was spent under power (steam and diesel) we had some success in sail and were involved in the early years of the Canada’s Cup races. Boats made from mahogany, although even then under threat by the fibreglass kind, were the way we made many of our trips to the Bahamas in the 1960’s. (And they were certainly capable of rolling, as my mother and cat found out the hard way).
It’s easy these days, with all the computer simulations we have out there (and I’m getting my PhD in that) to minimise the value of old stuff made from “old” materials. But ultimately design consists of taking the materials and analytic capabilities we have and, combined with a good “feel” for the application, to produce a superior product. That was what the Dorade was all about, and the value of an internalised understanding of the art–something that both my great-grandfather and Olin Stephens had–is crucial for success, both when the boats were designed and built and now.
And, although not an event today, we should note that this victory was won by a woman. True to its conservative traditions, seafaring was slow to put women at the helm. This is in contrast to, say, aviation, where women became pilots much more quickly. With the family’s yachting era in suspension, in 1934 my grandfather feted Laura Ingalls after she flew from the U.S. to South America and back. We should have done this sooner, not only for the skill such as Hanna Jenner exhibited, but this: one of the interesting rules of the 1898 Canada’s Cup race was that “…crews shall be limited to six men, whose total weight shall not exceed 1,050 pounds”, or an average of 175 pounds per man.
It’s good to know that some of the “old stuff” still has the “right stuff”, particularly those of us who have been involved with the old stuff for a long time.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 