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  • Another Scanlan Prophecy, and How Did Ralph Martin Get to #straightouttairondale?

    Ralph Martin has posted a follow-up to his broadcast of Michael Scanlan’s prophecy:

    There’s a lot to unpack here.

    First, much of what he says is fine.  One of the things I’ve tried to do is to discourage people from leaning too hard on the benefits of the civilisation (such as it is.)  The call of Jesus Christ is too high to do so, either in times of prosperity or certainly in times of trouble like we’re in now.  In this country the worst thing we do is wrap our Christianity around “moving up,” and I’ve decried this for a long time.  It may produce big numbers but it isn’t prepared for what we’re facing now.

    My real issue is his context, and that may seem abstract, but it’s not.  He’s come up with another prophecy from Fr. Scanlan and that brings up two important questions, one for the time it came out and one for now.

    In the traditional Roman Catholicism Martin professes to live in, the prophetic gift didn’t (and doesn’t) work in the way that Scanlan exercised it.  The Church has generally taught that the Holy Spirit acts through the church as a whole.  The way he exercised it is more in line with what we’ve seen in modern Pentecost.  So how can he fit the two together?  Or better, how did Ralph Martin, like Scanlan, get to #straightouttairondale?

    The fact is that many of us at the time, when confronted with this radical call, couldn’t figure out how to respond to that meaningfully in the parish system then and now.  So we left.  Given the current state of things, the only way to do this is to go for a “church within a church.”  That was what the Sword of the Spirit was all about, and it wasn’t all that Catholic.  (It had other problems, too.)  That’s also what SSPX is about, and they’re having problems.  The Trads are trying to do the same, and they’re not getting the cooperation from the Church they think they should.  It’s great to set forth a radical call to the Gospel, but how do we get there?  We couldn’t figure it out forty years ago, why should we think you can?

    There’s no doubt that we’re facing bad times.  There’s also no doubt that the Catholic Church at large in this country is unprepared for them or unprepared to defend its flock.  Do we need two layers of problems when it’s hard enough to deal with one?

    But I guess these are the problems that result when you’re better at making unlikely transitions within the Church rather than facing the problems the way they are.

     

  • The Story of Our Hymns: There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood — Anglican Compass

    This is the third of a series on sacred hymns, the story behind them, their text, a recording, and a simple companion devotional. “God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.” ~William Cowper Every Hymn Has a Story William Cowper was…

    via The Story of Our Hymns: There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood — Anglican Compass

    I was surprised to see this hymn featured.  Cowper was certainly an Anglican, but the Episcopalians saw fit to exclude this “great” hymn from both the 1916 and 1940 Hymnals.  I never heard it until I was among the Baptists.

  • Now St. John’s Episcopal Church Feels the Wrath of #BLM

    From Twitter:

     

    Evidently the protesters look at the Episcopal Church as it is and not as it would like itself to be.

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  • The Social Justice Church Loses on the SC Property

    Yes they did:

    Making factual findings as to each of thirty-six individual parishes, Judge Dickson ruled (1) following the still-controlling decision of the South Carolina Supreme Court in All Saints Waccamaw, ECUSA’s Dennis Canon by itself does not create or impose a legally binding trust on any church property in South Carolina; (2) none of the thirty-six parishes ever expressly acceded to the Dennis Canon in any written document; and (3) Bishop Lawrence’s Diocese did not lose its status as beneficiary of the Camp Christopher Trust when it exercised its legal right to disassociate from ECUSA (again following another holding of the Waccamaw case).

    If there’s one thing in recent history that belies the entire social justice thrust of the Episcopal Church, it’s the USD60,000,000 campaign of theirs to retain their church property.  Doesn’t anybody know that any social justice effort is ultimately about redistributing property from those who have it to those who don’t?  You can bet that any Antifa or BLM Marxist knows that.  So why did they spend so much money (which had better use elsewhere) on this project?

    I’m sure that some you will attempt to rebut this with the following:

    When Jesus was still at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, while he was at table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of choice spikenard perfume of great value. She broke the jar, and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those who were present said to one another indignantly: “Why has the perfume been wasted like this? This perfume could have been sold for more than thirty pounds, and the money given to the poor.” “Let her alone,” said Jesus, as they began to find fault with her, “why are you troubling her? This is a beautiful deed that she has done for me. You always have the poor with you, and whenever you wish you can do good to them; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has perfumed my body beforehand for my burial. And I tell you, wherever, in the whole world, the Good News is proclaimed, what this woman has done will be told in memory of her.” (Mark 14:3-9 TCNT)

    But this exegesis won’t work any better that the vestry’s did at Bethesda.  Today Our Lord, having sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, is in heaven, ever-interceding for us.  We still have the poor, and this dreadful campaign of legal war hasn’t helped them one iota.

    So much for the social justice church…I hope the ACNA learns something from this sad adventure.

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  • It’s Not Just White Privilege in the Anglican/Episcopal World

    A short time ago I linked to a Pew Research study showing that both the Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican world in this country are overwhelmingly white.   A little later I showed that the Episcopal Church, for all the years of gaudy rhetoric about social justice, is still right there at the top of society.

    There are a couple of other Pew studies that I’d like to put in front of you.

    The first is this one, from 2016, that the Anglican/Episcopal world is more highly educated than the rest of American Christianity.  The church I’m now in is at the other extreme.

    I think this shows that Anglicans and Episcopalians are, by and large, out of touch with the needs of groups at the other end of the spectrum, irrespective of their ethnicity.  It’s just a fact that the two ends of the socio-economic spectrum look at things differently, but most Anglicans and Episcopalians are hard pressed to walk a mile (or even a kilometer) in the shoes (or lack thereof) of many others.

    And this leads to the consequence of that educational disparity: the Episcopalians are again at the top of American Christianity when it comes to income.  Mercifully the Anglican side dodged the bullet (wasn’t included in the survey,) but given that the ethnicity and education are so much the same, it’s hard to believe that the income Anglican parishioners are pulling in is that much different from their Episcopal counterparts.

    The class stratification of Protestant American Christianity is something that has always bothered me, which is a big reason I enjoyed being Roman Catholic for so many years (until the status seekers got the upper hand.)

    There are those in the ACNA who want to go the way of the Episcopalians in the social justice field.  The Episcopalians’ way isn’t Biblical (otherwise they’d to this) and hasn’t worked either.  American Christianity may not deserve better, but it certainly needs it.

  • Don’t Like White Privilege? Quit Your Job!

    That’s Bernard Goldberg’s sensible suggestion:

    Here’s the idea: Every white corporate CEO who thinks racism is ingrained in our culture, every white journalist who thinks racism has infected every facet of American life, every politician who thinks this is a fundamentally racist country — all of them should voluntarily give up their jobs, on one condition: that they be replaced by qualified African Americans.

    I’ve said it before: if you want to make an American really vein-bulging mad, tell him or her the obvious.  If you look at the comments, and see the virulent reaction to this idea, you’ll see what I mean.

    Renunciation of any kind is an impossible sell in this country.  Much of the fault for this, beyond ordinary human nature, can be laid at the feet of Protestant Christianity in general and Evangelical Christianity in particular, who have taught that renunciation is unnecessary, even though it’s a central part of Jesus’ message.

    This reaction mirrors a more polite form of this debate I had last summer with a prep schoolmate about a piece he wrote entitled “Renouncing Privilege.”  I actually put forth the idea that renunciation meant what it said, and his reply was as follows:

    Many of the students were, and probably still are wealthy, still privileged. I would not try to make the point that the young men became followers of Gandhi, just that they recognized an abusive power that they had the means to abolish and voted accordingly.

    Maybe that’s why they’re howling to remove Gandhi’s statue…

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  • Minority women can think for themselves — UnHerd

    The backlash against Priti Patel and Munira Mirza has been something to behold. Mirza, recently appointed to run the Government’s new Racial Inequality Review, has been described as a ‘racial gatekeeper’, among other things; Patel has been accused of ‘gaslighting’ by Labour MPs after talking about her own experiences of racism. I feel it especially because…

    via Minority women can think for themselves — UnHerd

  • A Time to Mourn — Stand Firm

    I’ve been slowly reading through JK Rowling’s “Reasons for Speaking Out on Sex and Gender Issues.” If you have time, it is worth the effort—she reiterates many points I’ve run into elsewhere. She clearly and, I must say compassionately, lays out the dilemma for both women and for people suffering from gender dysphoria. Moreover, she…

    via A Time to Mourn — Stand Firm

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  • Harvard Dropping SAT Tests? Why not!

    They say it’s temporary…

    Harvard College has joined peers in a major — albeit temporary — shift in college admissions: It’s dropping the requirement for standardized testing for the class of 2025, as the pandemic has restricted access to the SAT and ACT.

    For these institutions in particular, I think it’s a waste of time.

    I’m not a big fan of testing as the “end all” of educational evaluation.  As my Computational Fluid Dynamics prof noted after a disastrous midterm, testing isn’t ideal but it’s the best we’ve got.  I don’t think that testing is an entire way to evaluate students, which is why I’ve always weighted my homework–with the effort to prevent being Chegged–more than many of my colleagues.

    But really, with their admissions process, standardized testing for any Ivy League school is a waste of time.  That’s because they’re ultimately looking for the “balanced” person, an approach they came up with to trim the number of overachieving Jews they would have otherwise admitted (and one they still use against Asians, now with court approval.)  So why throw in standardized tests, with all of the inequities associated with them, to waste the time of admissions officers when they have more “important” considerations?

  • Being Unpatriotic Slowly Becomes Fashionable

    That’s the finding of this Gallup poll:

    American pride has continued its downward trajectory reaching the lowest point in the two decades of Gallup measurement. The new low comes at a time when the U.S. faces public health and economic crises brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest following the death of George Floyd in police custody.

    Patriotism is the glue that holds this country together.  Without it, things will eventually come apart.

    Ever since the 1960’s, when they burned everything–flags, cities, bras, you name it–the message from the left has been that this is an evil country.  Now that they occupy places of power–with the possibility of more–they appeal to our patriotism, thus the wild goose chase re the Russians.

    You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t say that this place was born in fundamental injustice (which is the message of things like the 1619 Project) and then turn around and expect us to look up to the place as the fount of everything beautiful and good when you’re in power.  That’s especially true when Democrats who poll as proud of the country poll in the low 20’s.  They had already gone south of half before Barack Obama left office. Do they expect a solid rebound if they get back into power?

    I don’t, and neither do I think that it’s going to get better on either or both sides before it gets worse.

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