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  • Journeying with The Table

    That’s what the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis is doing:

    With thanks for God’s abundance, I am writing to tell you about a sign of new life and growth in our diocese. Over the last year, The Table, an Indianapolis congregation planted in 2015 as part of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), has discerned a call to leave that denomination and become part of the Episcopal Church. Last week, The Table’s congregation voted 44-4 to disaffiliate formally with ACNA and to pursue affiliation with the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis, and yesterday, that decision became final. The Table, which currently worships in the Broadway United Methodist Church on East 29th Street in Indianapolis, will now begin the process of applying to become a missional community under Canon 20 of the Diocese of Indianapolis.

    Although I’m sure a few in the ACNA will exhibit a shame-honour reaction, this is really good news. If people really believe that the ACNA is wrong about the things that concern them, they need to leave and become (or become again) Episcopalians. As far as being a “major catch” for TEC, the congregation (even by Episcopal standards) is too small to rate as major. In the long run the ACNA will be better off.

    And, of course, the fact that it was named The Table should have raised some eyebrows, as I explain in Don’t Tell People to “Come to the Table” Unless They Really Do–Or Should

  • Horrors! John Wesley had a Prayer Book!

    It’s Monday morning. Worship pastors and leaders at Pentecostal (especially semi-Charismatic ones) are gathering at their favourite coffee shops (or Chik-fil-a) to celebrate their taking the congregation to the “Throne Room” once again with their Spirit-led worship. No thought of liturgy enters their heads, even though the schedule they followed was down to the second.

    Some of these worthies have at least some seminary education, and somewhere back there they heard that modern Pentecost is in the Wesleyan tradition, descended from the movement started by John Wesley. So they’ve thought, “I’ll bet that Wesley moved in the Spirit the way we do!” But they would be wrong. Not only did Wesley have a very high opinion of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, but in 1784 he prepared an abridged version of same for Methodist churches in the newly independent United States.

    Now that our worship leader friends have spit out their coffee or waffle fries (they would have included carrot and raisin salad had Chik-fil-a had the good taste to keep it on the menu) it’s time to face facts: people in the past, including John Wesley, who believed and preached the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ, followed and appreciated liturgical worship. They benefited from forcing our ministers to go through the scriptures and not just hit the “high spots.” They also benefited from forcing everyone to pray for our government and its leaders even if they disliked them intensely.

    The relationship between Wesley’s abridged version of the 1662 BCP is complex and given fuller treatment here. What I want to do, as someone who was raised on the 1928 BCP, is to compare the two Morning Prayer services. Doing that yields the following:

    • Wesley omits the Venite altogether. In doing so he avoids the issues that the Episcopal Church attempted to deal with. In reality he only has two of the chanted hymns: the Te Deum and the Jubilate Deo. That part of Morning Prayer tends to get a little repetitious and Wesley’s abridgment of same isn’t bad. He also softens the absolution, which was the 1662’s (and 1928’s) attempt “thread the needle” between the powers Our Lord gave his apostles re binding and loosing and their successors abuse of same.
    • The prayers immediately after the Creed are much shorter, a trend repeated in the 1928 BCP.
    • He replaces the prayer for British royalty (the importance of which has been underscored by the recent death of Elizabeth II and the accession of Charles III) with something more generic for the new Republic.
    • He omits the prayer for the “bishops and other clergy.” It’s tempting to think that he was hoping that the clergy could receive more than the “continual dew of thy blessing,” but my experience with our ministers tells me that, for most of them, that’s about all they can absorb.
    • He, by reference, picks up the two best prayers of the bunch: the prayer for All Conditions of Men and the General Thanksgiving.

    There are other issues of difference–the lectionary, the church calendar itself, etc.–that deserve better treatment for those who are interested. But my point is simple–just because we think that the way we worship is from the Throne Room and the only way to really approach God doesn’t make it so, and seeing how those we follow in the faith did it only underscores that point.

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  • The EU is sleepwalking into anarchy — UnHerd

    All eyes may be on the Italian election results this morning, but Europe’s got much bigger problems on its hands than the prospect of a Right-wing government. Winter is coming, and the catastrophic consequences of Europe’s self-imposed energy crisis are already being felt across the continent. As politicians continue to devise unrealistic plans for energy…

    The EU is sleepwalking into anarchy — UnHerd

  • The Queen shows the democracy of death — UnHerd

    Edward VII was the first monarch to lie in state in Westminster Hall. Half a million people queued up to see the King over those three days in May 1910, many of them in the rain. 1,214 more words

    The Queen shows the democracy of death — UnHerd

  • Gen Z’s worship of the Unabomber

    “The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.” Writing those words as the introduction to his 1995 anti-…

    Gen Z’s worship of the Unabomber

    His idea is more mainstream amongst his contemporaries that they care to admit, as my outline of American environmentalism in Should My Students Be Here? shows

  • Who can rule Britain now?

    I never imagined I’d feel profound grief at the passing of a public figure. At those points in my life where someone close to me has died, the hours …

    Who can rule Britain now?
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  • When Morning Gilds the Skies from @StJohnsPriest

    It’s a little late in the liturgical calendar, but I present this hymn, not well known outside of proper circles, from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Detroit, my usual “go-to” for proper High Church procedure:

    On a separate note, one of the thing necessitated by the Daily Office is prayers for the country and its leadership, which have been a trying business these last few years. But Steven Kelly, St. John’s Rector, is a better man than I am because, at Evening Prayer, in addition to our officials in Washington, he also must include Gretchen Whitmer.

    Those that have gone before us in the faith have prayed for the likes of Nero, Domitian, Decius and Diocletian, so must we pray for those who have come after them, too.

  • Joe Biden Finds Out the Police are Eternal

    It was inevitable:

    Biden explained how his plan is based on one specific tenet: giving law enforcement the resources and funds necessary to engage safely in public policing.

    He’s found out what his Chinese counterparts could have told him a long time ago: “All police forces get buffeted from time to time, but they know one thing: through revolutions, political-line changes and the fall of governments, the police are eternal.”

    But, as I’ve pointed out, stating the obvious to Americans is a good way to get people angry. His progressive wing and others, oblivious to the experiences of their counterparts elsewhere, have put their own moral sensibility above reality, not understanding this:

    Given the totalitarian urges out and about in our own society, for us–on the left or the right–to think we’re immune from this, or that we can abolish the police at will, is foolish.  The police exist, among other things, to uphold the existing order, and it’s reasonable to say that, if that existing order were to radically change, whatever replaces it will need the police as much as the one it displaces.

  • RIP Mikhail Gorbachev

    The former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is gone:

    Alongside Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Gorbachev was a key protagonist in a global drama that many thought impossible and, for those who lived through it, seemed almost surreal.

    Under Gorbachev, the Berlin Wall crumbled, thousands of political prisoners were released and millions of people who had known only communism got their first real taste of freedom. But he was unable to control the forces he unleashed — and ultimately waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire.

    Gorbachev died Tuesday at a Moscow hospital at 91.

    My family business had extensive activity in what started out as the Soviet Union and ended up as the Russian Federation in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. There were strange moments such as Who’s this idiot? That’s me!, He is Prepared to Sign Anything and Half a Million Roubles. Is it Enough?. Neither the Soviet Union nor the company survived the era, but it was a way to see an important country in a new light, something that our so-called “experts” would have done well to do.

    My Russian colleagues weren’t much impressed with the General Secretary. The Russians a) preferred a stronger leader and b) have a deep distrust of their government, an interesting combination which would have been a challenge for anyone. One thing he gets credit for that he probably doesn’t deserve is the “smooth” transition from the Soviet Union to what came after. I was always amazed at how life “went on” through the upheaval that was the end of the Soviet Union. I doubt that, when the time comes for our superpower to face the moment of truth, the transition will be that smooth. Americans are always trying to “do something” when it’s too late to do the “something” that they should have done a long time ago. The Russians, more used to major changes in government, were more phlegmatic and adaptable.

    But, as the Russians say, may the ground be down for him.

  • The Trigger Warning for a Criminal Justice Course

    Got this in my university email inbox, from a professor in the criminal justice program, it’s the trigger warning he puts in his (maybe her) syllabus:

    As with most criminal justice-related courses, the subject matter contained within the class is often shocking and controversial. While I understand that each individual is affected differently by topics discussed, the material is designed to help meet student learning outcomes and prepare students for employment within the field. Thus, topics addressing the realities of police violence, addiction, sexual violence, abuse, and the consequences of engaging in deviant and criminal behaviors is necessary as the field in which you enter is not sterile and anything discussed in this class cannot compare to the realities that you, as a professional, will encounter. Thus, while I am empathetic to any discomfort, the material is necessary. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

    When you’re in a tough field, you need to address tough issues.

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