Occam's Claymore

The Incarnation and God's Timelessness-God both in and out of Time

2011-03-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

It should not be surprising to find God's relationship to time boiling down to two logically irreconcilable positions of an eternal God outside time or an everlasting God inside time. As Paul Helm has summarized the argument. “no individual can both be in time and outside time”. God must be one or the other, but neither alternative seems to be sufficient. This impasse is natural if we approach this matter only from elementary logic, for logic can only get us to what is knowable from our experience, and we only experience what our created senses can perceive. By its very nature the uncreated realm is closed to us and to our knowledge of it. If we are created beings then logic impels us to understand our Creator as substantially unlike us and so naturally imperceptible to us. But beyond this elementary philosophical fact we are bound to apophatic silence. We can say nothing about the nature of his existence as God. Yet the central Christian truth is that a bridge has been made between the created realm and the uncreated by which the creature can actually know the Creator: the Incarnation. Outside of that reality it would be futile to speak of God in any positive form. All our God-talk would be mere speculation and simplistic misleading anthropomorphisms.

Time and Eternity through the Chalcedonian Formula

It is the Incarnation of God in the man Jesus Christ that makes it possible to claim real knowledge of God that transcends mere anthropomorphisms because it reveals them to be real and true. In Jesus, God and man are united, the divine and human, and thus also the eternal and temporal. As T. F. Torrance put it:

As both God of God and Man of man Jesus Christ is the actual Mediator between God and man and man and God in all things, even in regard to space-time relations. He constitutes in Himself the rational and personal Medium in whom God meets man in his creaturely reality and brings man without.

The Creator enters into his creation and becomes part of it and thus perceptible and knowable to his creatures. This is not a tertium quid, a third plane of being, but an intersection of the two. Every aspect of the uncreated divine nature is made one with the created nature. Such a union is spelled out in the Chalcedonian formula and this formula can be used to reconcile time and eternity in Christ.

As Jesus is both fully divine and fully human without confusion or diminishing of the natures so also the eternal nature of his divinity is present to him every bit as much as is the temporal nature of his humanity. One can no more think of him as having “left” eternity to “become” temporal (such a concept is self-contradictory) any more than we are allowed to think of him leaving his divinity to become a man. Christ cannot be treated as just a man or as solely God, or even mostly a man or mostly God. He is both God and man equally and simultaneously even if we cannot understand how it works. In the same way we must approach the matter of time. To quote Torrance again: we must learn to ask questions in two opposite direction at the same time, developing a relational and differential understanding of space and time in accordance with the nature and acts of God and in accordance with the nature and acts of man.

What this means is that we cannot treat time as strictly one way or the other, as stasis or as process. God, who is the ground of whatever reality exists, not least that of time, exists as God the Son in both the eternal timelessness of his divinity and in the temporal time-bound nature of his humanity. Because of this both the process “A” series of time is true as well as the stasis “B” series. It can and must be said that the past and future do not exist, but only the present, as Aristotle as Augustine affirmed, while at the same time we are claiming that past and future have real existence NOW. This contradiction is bound up in the hypostatic union of the two natures in Christ.

In his divinity as God the Son, eternally begotten of the Father, Christ exists outside time. Or rather, he possesses an existence outside time. In this existence he is not bound or limited by the created nature which was made through him. For him all times are equally NOW, time being perceptible to him as a finite created thing. He is not measured by time nor changed within it. Whatever can be said about God in his eternal nature is true for Christ. Yet at the same time Christ also exists as the son of Mary, born into history, growing and changing as men do. He experiences only the present as NOW, the past being remembered and the future anticipated. In Christ God, dwells in time. He has a history, not just with us but within himself.

Yet this divine history does not begin in temporal terms with the birth of Christ or the Annunciation, for the Incarnation, as we have seen, is not just the ultimate and fullest manner in which God relates and reveals himself to us. It is the very means by which he does this at all times. Since the Incarnation is the means by which the invisible God of spirit is known to man in the flesh it follows that all of his actions by which he is known would come through some form of incarnation revealing himself in material form. Incarnation is the means whereby God is enabled to interact with his creation, the “chosen path of God's rationality in which He interacts with the world”4, an extension of the uncreated and timeless into the created and temporal. God creates an intersection between the infinite and the finite whereby he can enter space and time and have a reciprocal relationship with his embodied children dwelling in time. Through the reality of the Incarnation God could speak to Adam in one moment before the Fall and question him later after the Fall. He could call Abram, ague with him over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah and hear the cries of Israel in Egypt. The sequence of these events would be as real for him as they were for his people because God has made himself part of the temporal process. His history with us is not merely an illusion created by our memory of his actions in time. It is part of his nature “now”. Without ceasing to be uncreated and timeless he has taken created time into himself. Thus he could truthfully reveal himself to Israel as the God who rescued them and who will bless them in the future if they keep his covenant.

The concept that the Incarnation represents a reality that pre-dates the historical life of Jesus and is present from the very beginning of time is buttressed when looking at the Incarnation from the divine and eternally timeless side of the equation. Since in God's timeless nature there can be no change or temporal sequence there cannot be a time when that timeless nature was not temporally incarnate just as there cannot be a time when the Son was not begotten of the Father. These actions taking place within the divine realm must partake of the divine nature. They must be timeless actions. The Son is always “born of the Father” and he is always related to creation through union with it, which is the ground and essence of the Incarnation. As Helm states:

there was no time when the Son of God was not willing himself to be incarnate, but only decided at a particular time to become incarnate in our history God did not exist and then at some later point decide to become incarnate, for there is no change or succession possible in the timeless eternity of God's life.

But there is also a model for this concept within the commonly understood beginning of the Incarnation as it is defended in the Catholic faith. The chronologically determined point in which God took flesh can be related to his visible entry into the world in his birth in Bethlehem. But the orthodox faith understands this visible entry to be merely that, a visible one. Before that moment, within the womb, God was already Incarnate, though not made fully manifest. This point was driven home in the Nestorian controversy. God did not adopt a pre-existing flesh. That flesh even in Mary's womb was his flesh, making her the mother of God Incarnate. By analogy we can thus understand all “pre-incarnational” manifestations of God to be like his existence within the womb, fully incarnate but not fully manifest. The incarnation is eternally present to the world, but its manifestation is temporally received and comprehended.

The Hypostatic union of eternity and time.

The hypostatic union of Christ's nature means that he does not alternate between natures but works in and through them simultaneously, each nature functioning according to its properties. It was not through Christ's divinity that he died on the cross but through his humanity, just as it was not through his humanity that he was one with the Father's but through his divinity. Yet each nature partook of the benefits of the other through union in the one person of Christ so that we can say that it is the man Jesus that is one with the Father and that it was the Son of God who died and was raised. Christ is always united in both natures but his various works will be understood better through one nature or the other. This means that while some of his works will not be fully understandable from the perspective of his humanity, or alternatively of his divinity, yet every moment of Jesus' existence will be perceptible as fully human or as fully divine.

In the same way each facet of God's relationship to time is real from the perspective of either of the two natures. To us, dwelling in a linear temporal process, God's actions change as history is “unfolded”. From our perspective we can see the Incarnation as beginning in history circa 6 BC. But in God's timeless nature 6 BC is not experienced later than 5,000 BC or earlier than 2010 AD. All days are experienced as one. In such a timeless relationship with created time no chronological causality or sequence can exist. But just as the two natures in Christ do not cancel each other out so both the chronological sequence of time and its simultaneity in eternity exist alongside each other in Christ, and this coexistence would be true for every experience he has of time.

Our temporal understanding of Christ's actions with and in the world occurs as a series of definite events following one after the other. The broad scheme can be boiled down to three events or phases. Creation, Incarnation, and Parousia. In this the Incarnation is seen as the middle point of time, what has been called the hinge of history. All time since the Creation was leading up to it, and since its occurrence it has become the foundation for the new age that is to come in the Parousia. But seen only from this temporal perspective the historical event that began with the Annunciation seems like a secondary development, temporally speaking, to the act of creation. It may be a natural development, planned from the beginning, a perfection or culmination of creation, but it is still secondary in chronology and thus stands in dependence upon what comes before as preparation. To then speak of Incarnation as an operative principle behind all of God's relationship with creation, behind even the event of Creation itself, would make the historical event we encounter in the Gospel as but one instance, even if the supreme instance, of such an incarnational property in God. Seen only this way, the birth of Christ would seem to diminish in importance. How could we really claim or believe that God did something new when he was really doing it all along?

But if we turn the hypostatic union around and examine the same event from the side of God's eternity a different relationship emerges between Christ's taking flesh in Mary's womb and every other action of Christ in space and time. Here all instances of God's interactions in the world through the Medium of Incarnation, including being born of a virgin, can be seen as a single event. Even Creation and the end of the world followed by the new Creation are wrapped up in this one timeless event. Their ordering in time follows the flow of time, but in eternity they are ordered by no temporal movement. Causality follows a logical rather than chronological pattern. Just as the Son is logically, not chronologically, dependent upon the Father for his being, so all instances of incarnational relating stand in logical dependence upon that which establishes the reality of Incarnation.

The birth of Jesus whereby God became man can be described as the culmination of the Incarnation which began in Creation. Since Jesus said that those who had seen him had seen the Father we can assume that no greater union of God to man will come but only the removal of fleshly barriers to see this union. Jesus the God-man is thus the end of the Incarnation. A matter's end, temporally speaking, stands dependent upon its beginning, but understood as purpose the “end” is what all others are logically dependent upon for existence. Thus from the eternal perspective all incarnational acts of God are dependent upon his taking flesh 2000 years ago. Creation itself is logically dependent upon this “later” historical event. Paul uses a similar non-chronological reasoning when he says that if there is no resurrection of the dead then Christ is not raised (1Cor. 15:13). Since the universe that God created is one in which he would be a part, this universe must necessarily have been created with that in mind. The reality of the Incarnation was logically the ground upon which the universe and time itself were created. In this way a fuller understanding of “The world was made through him” becomes clear. The distinction between the Father and Son in which the world is made by the Father but through the Son lies in the Son's Incarnation being the operative premise of creation and the template through which it is made.

Just as creation's beginning is dependent upon the Incarnation of God in Christ so is every moment of its existence in time, as all are alike simultaneous in eternity in the “moment” of creation. The timeless aspect of creation makes every day a day of creation. This would align perfectly with Jonathan Edwards' concept of God's continuous creation of the world by constantly willing it into existence.

God’s upholding created substance, or causing its existence in each successive moment, is altogether equivalent to an immediate production out of nothing, at each moment, because its existence at this moment is not merely in part from God, but wholly from him; and not in any part, or degree, from its antecedent existence.

But rather than seeing this as a series of separate acts of willing, as Edwards does, it should be seen as a single act in eternity. Every moment in time is willed into being through God's one act of creation. The very nature of time whereby things in time change from moment to moment, being different now than they were before, is but a facet of God's willing into being what was previously not. The existence of the universe is expressed through the nature of becoming, and this existence is possible because the nature of becoming exists in Christ in his eternally willing to become part of the universe.

This nature of becoming provides us with a bright dividing line between the eternal creation of the universe and the eternal begetting of the Son from the Father. This line is necessary if we are to preserve the essence of God's transcendence over creation. Both the creation of the world and the begetting of the Son originate from God in a timeless moment such that we cannot claim any moment when they did not exist. Thus there is no period of time when Christ was begotten of the Father while the world was not yet created. This makes it hard to perceive the distinction between the Son and creation. For if they both timelessly derive their being from God how are they different? The difference lies in the difference between becoming and being. The nature of becoming, which defines creation, is different from being in that what becomes, what comes to be, also has the possibility of ceasing to be. The divine essence, which the Son has from the Father, gives the Son the power to be in himself. As Jesus said, God “has granted the Son also to have life in himself”, (John 5:26). Consequently, the Son cannot cease to be. The universe, on the other hand, has it in its nature to fall out of existence unless it is sustained by the Son. All that exists through coming into being exists in and only in Christ who is the author of its becoming. Outside of him there can be no existence of anything that was created.

Since the purpose of the Incarnation is to reveal in human flesh and in human history the God who created both flesh and history we must conclude that such media are the only natural means by which the infinite divinity of God can be supremely revealed in the world. Time is as necessary as flesh to make God manifest. Jesus, born of a woman in a specific time and place, is the natural embodiment of God. He was born in the moment in time that was created for him, for God's creation of time included not just the process of time's succession but all the times that would occur within that process. Time was created as a unit. This block of time, or space-time, as Einstein saw it and as it is now known in physocs, is, like the man Jesus, the natural expression of its divine counterpart. It is eternity made flesh. And when eternity takes “flesh” it naturally does so as history.

One consequence of this view of time's creation from eternity is that for God the future is set because it already exists in God's eternity even if it has not yet come into being in time. Our future and past exist equally with the present for God in his divine nature. All times share this simultaneous existence in eternity, while retaining their chronological sequential nature outside eternity in created time. In time the future is not set because it does not exist. What we do now effects what it will be. The present creates the future, but only from a chronological perspective where causality works only in a forward direction. But in God's eternity there is no chronological causality but rather a theological one, a causality which binds all times together and allows the future to be as much a creative force for the past as the past is for the future. But such theological causality only functions because all times are united in Christ, through whom they came into being. Thus any backward causality of the future upon the past, especially reflected in prophetic knowledge of the future, only occurs through the mediation of the Incarnation, not through any process natural to the created realm. Real knowledge of the future is possible because the Incarnate Lord who reveals it in the past is the same one who exists in Eternity where the future already IS. Specific instances of “future knowledge” throughout time are interwoven in the same act of creation as all times were when they were created. The creation of time paradoxes, such as killing one's own father before one was conceived, is eliminated because the future that is created is the one that will be accomplished even with knowledge of it interwoven into the past through the nexus of eternity.

The Monophysite question: does history end in eternal timelessness?

So far the question has involved the beginning of time and how its progress relates to God's timelessness. But another question looms that the Chalcedonian formula will help illuminate: Does time come to an end? We are left with two choices: Either time ceases to be, terminating in a mirror image of its beginning, or it continues on forever

There is a strong Christian tradition dating at least as far back as Augustine that time will cease at the end of the age when we are resurrected and fully united with God in all his glory. History will be over and our eternity will begin, so to speak. Certainly Scripture speaks volumes of history leading toward a final consummation. Heaven and earth will pass away and history as we know it will cease to be. Modern physics also give us a similar apocalyptic forecast of an end to the universe, and with its end the end of time. While there is a debate about whether the universe will continue to expand until all its matter evaporates into simple radiation following the second law of thermodynamics, or whether gravity will finally stop its expansion and reverse it until it ends in another singularity, a Big Crunch, both of these theories have the same end result: no universe, no time.

On the philosophical side it is easier to contrast the infinite nature of God with the finite nature of creation and define that finiteness by its being finite on the end as well as at the beginning. This removes the difficult questions of how God could comprehend a creation if it is infinite too? Can one infinity be greater than another? It is easier to conceptualize how God can see all of time if the sum of all times is still finite. But this is the problem with conceptualizing the infinity and finiteness with measure. We naturally do this because measure is what we know by nature. But infinite measure, like zero, can neither be increased by multiplication or addition nor can it be decreased by division or subtraction. One infinity is effectively like another. Thus God's infinity can only be seen as greater than creation if creation, now matter how large, is limited in measurement. But the problem here comes when we try to measure them up against one another. Against the infinite defined by unending measure the finite shrinks into nothing. If times' finite existence is contrasted with a never ending eternity it is hard to see how time's existence has any effectual reality.

This was the same problem the Monophysites had. Their heresy proposed that Jesus' divinity consumed his humanity once he returned into heaven, for the uncreated divinity is infinitely greater than created humanity. This made his humanity a passing thing of little eternal importance. The orthodox response was to say that his humanity remained as critical with him on the throne as on the cross, for it was not just our redemption at stake but our union with God. If Jesus was no longer fully man he no longer could be our bridge to God. The Monophysites exalted the divine at the expense of the human but ignored the fact that we are and remain human and so need the human nature to remain in Christ for us to be connected to God through him.

The same critique, mutatis mutandis, can be made against the idea of time ending, for this idea rests upon the superiority of eternity as a mode of existence. It presupposes that eternity is the genuine reality and time a passing phase, practically an illusion because it lacks true being, having it only for what will effectively be of an infinitely short duration. This is again the trap of comparing immeasurable timelessness with measurable time. But therein lies the proof against a Monophysite view of time, for we cannot help but imagine eternity as infinite time because we are created for time, and time for us. Temporality is not just our nature now. It is our nature forever, for it is the nature of all created things. Yet if time is a facet of the nature of creation, which all created things bear, then only by ceasing to be created can we escape existing in some form of time. But we will never and can never cease to be created beings no matter what change we undergo or how close we get to God. What is created can never become uncreated. Only the never-created can be uncreated, so only God can be timeless.

The doctrine of the Resurrection is proof enough that our existence after the end of this age will be analogous to our present embodied state. Even If we are embodied with spiritual bodies substantially different from our mere carnal bodies now, still they will be bodies nonetheless,. And if we are in some way embodied then we are bound to time as well. Time will not end as long as we exist. But the nature of our experience of time may change.

From the beginning we have experienced time as a two-edged sword. It is the arena of growth but also of decay. This has made time seem such an inferior mode of existence to the philosophers. Where there is time there is the potential for change, so any state of perfection would be unstable. It is the cessation of such negative change and the final achievement of perfection that is believed and anticipated in the “End of time”. But this need not entail a cessation of all forms of change unless the definition of perfection is a state that cannot be improved. But this is itself a finite form of perfection. If perfection is defined simply as the absence of corruption or anything disharmonious with a state of goodness then it is easy to conceive of an eternity, or everlastingness of growing from perfection to perfection. This is Gregory of Nyssa's image of time in the angelic realm, constantly growing in understanding of God's infinite goodness and glory.

What the Parousia and Resurrection mark is the end of a specific dispensation of time which has existed since Creation. In this era we live as sinners fallen from Grace and redeemed back into it. We wrestle against Sin, the World and the Devil, and God's kingdom is expanded. It is an age of battle of good against evil. But that battle will end, and with it an age, and we will have achieved the perfection we will have (with the possibility of continuing to perfect it) in the everlasting eternity. Like the angels we will never fall away from God again but will continue to grow in glory. That our bodies will be “spiritual” may signify that, just as Christ after the Resurrection was still embodied, yet without being limited by that embodiment as we are now (he could pass through walls and disappear into the heavens), so, along with this new corporeal existence, we might find our temporal existence expanded or “perfected”. We might call this form of temporality Resurrection Time. Akin to what others, like Barth, have called Divine time, it would be the nature of temporal existence that God had created us to have from the beginning. As the Incarnation has always been understood to be the divine affirmation of the goodness of our corporeal existence, reaffirmed by our resurrection into new flesh (a fact sadly forgotten in much of our contemporary gnostic visions of heaven), so it also should be seen as God's affirmation of time. God chose to dwell in time. Thus time is good. And in the Resurrection we will finally be perfected enough to experience it properly.

How to fix American government

2010-09-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

There are five simple (as in simple to understand and express, not to implement) amendments to our Constitution that need to be made that I think would cure all our institutional ills:

1) Term Limits: Not just at the federal level but for all elected offices in the country. My thought is that 12 years for legislative offices and 8 for executive. This would not prevent the existence of career politicians but it would make them have to change jobs more often.

2) Abolish gerrymandering: This could be simply done by requiring that all federal districts be made up of whole counties with the exception of those that are smaller than the single county in which they reside. Those geographically smaller urban districts would be required to be made comprised of whole municipal subsections.

3) Statute of limitations for statutes: All laws will expire 20 years from passage unless re-passed. Only the US Constitution and State Constitutions would be permanent unless constitutionally altered.

4) Statute length limitations: No single bill longer in word length than the US Constitution may be passed.

5) National Referendum: All federal laws and rulings of the Supreme Court may be overridden by a national referendum held every four years. I don't know whether it would be best to have it on a presidential year, a midterm election years, or an odd year election to completely separate it from federal politics.

Her Mad Hat

2010-06-18T12:01:00.001-07:00

Who knew this would ever take place,
That Rowan would show Kate her place?
It did not delight her
To deny her mitre.
Let the world now behold her dis-Grace.

New security measures

2010-01-25T20:36:00.000-08:00

Defending the rights of terrorists to kill us.

2010-01-12T20:49:00.000-08:00

Mary Ever Virgin

2009-12-26T07:47:00.001-08:00

On the day after the Nativity of our Lord it seems fitting to ruminate on the virginity of His Blessed Mother and why so many Protestants have a problem with its continuity.

There is a scandal in the Incarnation, which is just a purification of the scandal of special revelation. Rationalists are scandalized that God would reveal His truth to a particular group of people at a particular time, let alone that He would make Himself known through one man born at a time and place inaccessible to most men. This is an objection shared in a lesser way by most Protestants who object to the idea of any man or woman being made holier by God's actions than any of us can expect to be. We have been trained to think that each Christian is or can be equal in glory to every other, a form of militant spiritual democratism. I think there is a little bit of pious leveling going on in our desire to deprive Mary (and other saints, but Mary is the major focus) of special honors.

Of course there are higher motives than simple spiritual envy. The Blessed Virgin Mother suffers from the Baby-and-Bathwater effect. Recognizing the great spiritual error and danger of subverting her in worship to her son we have been trained to bend over backwards in treating her just like any other woman, any other woman who just happened to be chosen as the vehicle for the Incarnation of the Savior of the world. That last clause should have clued us in to the insanity of such a course.

The irony here is that most of us never have a problem seeing the Holy Land as, well holy land, merely because God chose it to give to His people and especially because He walked there. We would naturally feel a special sense of spiritual presence at the spot where Christ preached, where He was arrested, and where He died, and also where He was born. These are holy places, even those these events happened 2000 years ago. Yet the idea that God's mother would also have a tangible holiness that remained upon her sends many of us Protestants into some kind of anti-romish orbit. Such it is with Mary's perpetual virginity.

The biblical witness for Mary having other children is pretty weak. It is stated clearly that Joseph did not lie with her "until" Jesus was born. This may seem to imply that he did so afterwards but it can equally mean simply that he didn't do so through the period from their marriage to Jesus' birth without saying anything about the time afterward, the point being that Mary was a virgin when Christ was conceived and born. Scripture talks about Jesus' brothers but such a term was used to identify cousins as well, there being no Greek word for "cousin" nor for "half" or "step" brother. When we supplement Scripture with the witness of the early church, Tradition, we find a unanimous witness that Mary remained a virgin, that Joseph never slept with her. Thus, the only reason for disputing her perpetual virginity is Reason, some logical or theological argument why it is either impossible or simply wrong.

One reason not to disbelieve is by refuting a bad reason to believe. There can always by bad defenses of a right doctrine or theory. If the only reason left for believing something is that most people believed it to be so, well that would still be enough. One can dismantle wrong or even idiotic explanations for something without yet being able to disprove it. I have heard a few defenses of Mary's continued virginity that I think are wrong and have been used to discredit the truth among Protestants.

1. Jesus' birth would be less miraculous if Mary had other children:
I consider this pious but absurd. The miraculous nature of His birth attested to the power of God and to Jesus' divine paternity. If Mary had children naturally afterward that would do nothing to change the fact that Jesus had no early father in the flesh.

2. Mary's virginity is a necessary feature of her holiness:

This is a compound error. First it is in thinking that sex after marriage is less pure than virginity. It makes holy marriage, an institution God created before the Fall, into a compromise with Sin. I know that sometimes marriage is looked at this way both inside and outside the church (outside the compromise is seen as good and natural as opposed to unnatural and irrational, think Billy Joel's "only the good die young"), but this is neither correct biblically nor theologically nor is it actually official church teaching, especially with regard to married women. Secondly it makes Mary into a divine figure who possesses attributes necessary to her divinity. God would hardly be seen as God if He were not omnipotent or holy or good or a few other things we associate with being God. So Mary here is seen a needing to have certain qualities that make he what she is. Her virginity is not just something which she possessed at one time but something which she must possess. It becomes like a special heroic power. "Lo, she shall smite the enemy with the power of her virginity!"

Was Mary holy because she was a virgin. No. She was holy because she was chosen to be Jesus' mother. Certainly her being a virgin was a factor in her being chosen, but that was a matter of timing. She was holy due to her maternity, not her virginity. Thus she would have remained holy as Jesus' mater, virgin or not.

3. It would be a sin for Joseph to have sex with her afterward: This is closer to the mark, but still, I believe false. that is, I do not think that Joseph would have sinned if he had taken her as his wife physically as well as legally, unless he thought it was a sin.

This gets us to what I consider to be the convincing reason for believing Mary to have remained a virgin: I can easily see Joseph, rightly or wrongly, believing that it would be wrong for him to enter the place from which God's Son had emerged. If he was a pious Jew it seems entirely logical that learning that God had used his virgin wife to be the vessel of God's Son would bring to mind images of the ark of the Covenant and of the fate of those who touched it unworthily. Would it have seemed right for him to use for his own fleshly desires the vessel of the Lord? It seems incredible to me now to imagine that these questions would not have been in his mind. Would I have reacted the same way thinking as a 21st century Protestant if I was married to the mother of God? I can't say. but I think it foolish to imagine that my priorities would not be radically transformed by such an event.

The upshot of all this is, that while I don't believe it was necessary morally or theologically for Mary to remain a virgin I can't see any logical reason why Joseph would act in any way to change her condition. And as there is no clear witness that she ever had any other children by a human father it seems irrational to insist that she did.

Greater love hath no man.

2009-04-10T17:36:00.000-07:00

This is a presentation I made for this Good Friday.

Preliminary thoughts on "gay marriage".

2009-02-21T05:26:00.000-08:00

Marriage in this country, as in other Christian based societies, is both a religious and civil institution. Religiously it is a sacrament established by God and is not subject to change. It is between a man and woman as Scripture shows and this is in accord with deep theological as well as biological realities.

In civil terms marriage is an arrangement sanctioned by the State and given special status because of the benefits such arrangements give to the State. It is not a matter of individual rights, because it involves not individuals but specific pairings of individuals. Those parings are granted a license to become recognized as a married couple, as a marriage. Licenses by their very definition are not matters of civil rights. No one has a right to be licensed by the State for any activity unless they meet the criteria which the State lays out and essential. Drivers must be a certain age and have a minimum visual ability in order to having drivers license. This discriminates against ten year olds and the blind. Likewise, mandating that doctors pass certified medical board exams before they are recognized as licensed physicians is also discriminatory, a discrimination which is justified by the very need to recognize and license physicians. Without such discrimination there would be little purpose to licensing.

The purpose of marriage for the State has always been the production of children. The State needs emotionally and intellectually healthy children. If the State could produce them by itself, ala Brave New World, there would be no need for marriages and the licensing of them. People might still be allowed to couple and raise children, but the State would be at best neutral toward such arrangements. But as it is, most governments still recognize the obvious empirical fact that children are best raised by a father and mother who provide the emotional and physical structure and safety for children. Only in rare instances is the State able to do better than a given mother and father, but it is never able to do better than the vast majority of marriages. For this reason, marriages, as a class, are recognized with a license and given special protections and privileges that other human partnering arrangements do not get. These are meant to offset the difficulties that marriages entail. Not all marriages produce children, but optimally they are designed to, and it is more practical and less intrusive for the Sate to treat them as a class according to the basic commonality of a man and woman.

Since homosexual couplings cannot produce children by their very nature they do not strengthen the State in this way. Whatever children might possibly be involved in such couplings must be produced outside of them, which is naturally and statistically proven to be far less advantageous to children. Most so-called gay families require that an original normal family be broken up. And all of them require that either the mother or the father figure, both of which are essential ingredients for healthy psychological devlopment of children, be at best distant. Encouraging this is not to the State's interest.

To redefine marriage as between two men or two women may sound compassionate to those involved, as if marriage were nothing more than an individual right, but it is anything but compassionate to all children in that society who depend upon stable man-and-woman marriages to be supported by the State. Gay marriages make those marriages, and thus all marriages in principle, all about the adults rather than about the children. It questions the very purpose the State has in sanctioning marriage. This is the very reason that same sex marriage threatens traditional marriage. It is a continuation of the weakening of marriage that began within easy divorce. And given that very few homosexuals are really that interested in being “married”, and the stats are already coming in regarding the greater frequency of their divorces, it seems a vast understatement to call the undermining of State support for a millenia old institution at the heart of all human society merely to indulge the whims of a societal minority a rash and foolish act. The political push from homosexuals to grant them marriage is but one more facet of the attempt to remove all recognition that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality, as if the blind demanded the right to drive. Giving the blind drivers licenses might seem compassionate, but who would then want to drive on the roads?

Could a good Christian vote for Obama?

2009-01-27T08:48:00.000-08:00

Of course none of us can claim to be truly good, but we ought to seek to behave as if we were good, and our behavior can be either commended or condemend as not being good Christian behavior. So, was a vote for Obama a good act for a Christian to make?

NO. That is, unless we devalue the meaning of "good".

Here are the facts:

Fact 1: Obama is the most pro-abortion politician ever to run for president. He is not just prochoice. He has never met an abortion procedure he would restrict. He approves of funding it. He opposed criminalizing Partial Birth Abortion. He even opposed giving legal protection to babies who SURVIVED an abortion. In the realm of ethics this is called INFANTICIDE.

All this was known before he was elected, before his first week in office when he released funds to provide abortions overseas. Yep. We're in a financial crisis so we must prioritize our spending.

We must pay to kill more babies.

Fact 2: Politics is the realm of the application of morality, and the way we do that in a democratic republic is to vote. We stand up for right and against wrong by voting.

Fact 3: Abortion is the deliberate murder of innocent life.

Now given this it needs to be asked what priority the issue abortion has as a political/moral issue on which to decide one's vote. Well, what other issue could take first place if not abortion?

The economy? But that is just about money, not life, and the debated economic issues are hardly as cut and dried as is the slaughter of the innocents. Who knows for sure what economic plan will really work? But we do know that millions of babies are being killed while the state does nothing to protect them. What greater purpose does the state have than to protect the lives of the innocent? Protecting liberty is a high priority, as is the protection of personal property, but life is greater than property or liberty. If the state will not respect life what respect do we think it will give to our liberty our property rights?

Maybe some will cite the war as a greater issue. But we must remember that war is not murder. But even so, we do not treat war as an individual right or as a practice that doesn't need to follow clear rules and be closely monitored. Such is not the case with abortion, which thrives on our being unwilling to talk about it or look at it. It thrives in secrecy. God HATES murder done in secret. And let's compare the body counts, if we may. All our wars pail in comparison to the holocaust we are allowing within our own nation.

Abortion is not just a great evil that cries out for vengence, it is a cancer that is detroying the soul of our nation and making chaos of all our laws.

To vote for a politician who clearly stands in favor of the state sanctioning abortion is to approve of abortion yourself, or to say that it doesn't matter all that much.

It is the gross abdication of moral responsibility, something a good Christian must not do. One might as well say that a good Christian can vote for Hitler, or for the Devil himself, because of the other benefits that a strong leader can give, blah blah blah.

One might have an out if there was no better candidate, or if the other was even worse on the GREATEST MORAL ISSUE OF OUR DAY. If Obama was running against Hitler himself I would consider voting for him as the decidely lesser of two clear evils. But such was not the case here. Whatever McCain's other failings, he was pretty good on the issue of life, not perfect, but far far superior to Obama.

No, the only way one can say that one was behaving as a good Christian in voting for this man is by claiming ignorance. But given his clear pronouncements on abortion for anyone to hear who bothered to listen such ignorance would have to be rather deliberate, either the willful avoidance of uncomfortable and inconvenient information, which itself would be a moral failing, an act of sin, or it would be the product of a habitual disinclination to be at all informed on the issues and where the candidates stood. In which latter case one might a good Christian, but not a good American.

So, with the same certitude that it can be said that a child in the womb is a human being love by God, I can proclaim that for a well informed American to vote for Obama it was a SIN.

Death to the orthodox...I mean traitors!

2008-09-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

The useless body of suppositories that is the HOB of the episcopal sect has just voted on whether to depose Bishop Duncan because he has supported the idea that a diocese can leave.

All in favor?
The ayes have it.

יּﬣוּﬣ Incarnate

2008-09-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

The Pope, or at least the Vatican, has come out with new directives for worship eliminating the use of Yahweh in songs. This sparked an interesting conversation I had about the appropriateness of speaking the Tetragrammaton יּﬣוּﬣ,YHVH, for Christians. One friend said that Jesus would never have said it, being a good Jew. I think there is no record of Jesus ever addressing the Father by this name. But what does this mean? Was Jesus showing us that we could call God, Father, but should not speak His most holy NAME? And what is the relationship of יּﬣוּﬣ to the Name which is above all names? Moreover, if Jesus never addressed the Father as יּﬣוּﬣ, why not?

To me the answer is obvious. יּﬣוּﬣ is not the Father's name. It is God's name. Jesus, as God incarnate, would also be the proper recipient of that name. He would be addressing Himself as much as the Father, so the more intimate title and the one which distinguishes the Son from the Father, is used. Jesus is יּﬣוּﬣ. He has to be יּﬣוּﬣ. It would be impossible for the Father to be known as יּﬣוּﬣ unless the Son were not included.

As to the first of these statements Christians need look no further than John 8:58: “Before Abraham was I AM". Here the Jewish respect for not speaking the NAME is blown out of the water as Jesus clearly identifies himself with that NAME. If Jesus says that he is the One who IS then it is only logical, emphasis on the logos, that He means to be identified by the Name that says the same thing.

But why do I say that it is impossible for Jesus not to be יּﬣוּﬣ?

When this Name was revealed to Moses, who revealed it? Was it an angel, like that which Muhammad claimed to give him the revelation from Allah? No, it was God Himself who revealed His Name. But as Christians we know that no one has ever seen God except through the Son. The Father is invisible, and I would add inaudible. He is beyond the realm of our senses, as our senses only register material things. Jesus is the Incarnation of God the Son so that we created beings can see God with our eyes and hear Him with our ears.

So Who really was Moses hearing when he was given the Name? Logically, it was the One who makes God known and knowable. It was the Son. God, the Holy Triune God of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, was, through the Son, revealing His Name, a Name which distinguishes Him from all creation. He alone is the great I AM. All other beings have a beginning and their being is dependent upon their Creator. Not so with God. He eternally is. The Father is. The Son is. The Spirit is. יּﬣוּﬣ is not the Name of the Father only. It is not the name of the Son only, or of the Spirit only. It is the name of GOD.

But there is another name by which we know God. But this is a name which tells us how He relates to us. This name is Jesus, which lexically means “the Lord saves”. This name is really no less intimate than יּﬣוּﬣ. Rather, it is more intimate. This makes Rome's decision to forbid use of Yahweh in worship entirely appropriate for perfectly Christian reasons. Why address God by a Name which separates Him from us when we have a name, which is above all other names, and which shows that transcendent Lord as One who comes down to us? The common use of Yahweh becomes, from this perspective, a use of a more transcendent name but without the proper respect and awe that should accompany that. If we want to express God's intimacy with us and our intimacy with Him then we should use the Name by which he intended before all time to be known to us as Savior and as Friend.

Is there Kool-Aid in the chalice?

2008-08-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

When I see a document from the Global South Primates who attended Lambeth 2008 I anticipate some recognition of what a colossal failure it has been.

Not so fast.

The first paragraph begins with the traditional fluff and then we get this:

In the midst of the current critical crisis in the Communion we strivefaithfully
and honourably to ensure the Communion remains and continues steadfast in and to
the faith once delivered to the saints.

That seems nice. One might expect some concrete details or at least a sketch of a plan how they will ensure this. One would be mistaken. But wait, there's more:

In this, the Holy Scripture – which, as the testimony to God’s workgiven by the
Spirit of God is the written Word of God – is the final authority for Christian
belief, teaching, life and conduct. Authentic traditions of doctrine and
practice acknowledge its supremacy. It underpins all bonds of affection,
expressions of fellowship and shaping of structures in the Communion.

Wow. That seems strong. But, wait a minute. Aren't they aware that American and Canadian liberals pretty much reject that authority? Might one expect that subject to be addressed? Alas, one would be disappointed.

The second paragraph has two statements: fond greetings to the absent GAGCON bishops and “solidarity” with the suffering orthodox in the heterodox west. Might this mean a sympathy and “solidarity” for the more than verbal assistance given to these same orthodox by the GAFCON bishops? (he asked wistfully and oh so foolishly). I am all a tingle to find the answer to that question.
Paragraph three is the standard babble about what was heard and liked, without being specific as to content or reasons for liking anything.

Paragraph four is pretty much a kiss blown to Rowan and Lambeth (though a different kind of kiss comes to mind. Why are they “encouraged” by the ABC's first address when the Communion is “at the brink of collapse”? [Stop asking questions, you fool!] Sorry, sorry, I forgot).

Paragraph five indicates that they have some belief that the “Windsor process” is still actually processing somewhere and they are backing the “Pastoral forum”. Would that be a forum in the sense of an academic roundtable where the actual merits of ideas and actions are reasonably debated, or is it more like a community chat room where everyone get to “tell his story” blah blah blah? When I hear the term pastoral these days I am less reminded of a shepherd guiding his sheep with a staff and maybe a handy sheepdog, than I am of a pasture, a blissful meadow wherein one may take ambling walks to nowhere and frequently step in cow pies.

When I come to the next paragraph I am puzzled:

We expect the Lambeth Conference, as a significant instrument of unityof the
Communion, to give vital leadership towards resolving the present crisis over
faith and order.

WHEN was this written? By this wording I would expect that it was written BEFORE Lambeth 2008, when there was still the possibility for the kind of hope that the Present always has for the Future. But now Lambeth 2008 is Past. How anyone with a scintilla of concern for orthodoxy could, afterwards, call Lambeth “a significant instrument of unity” or think that it would lead to any real resolution of this crisis is beyond me.

What is their idea of resolution, or leadership toward that end. “My advice to you is to start drinking, very heavily”? I've tried that before. It is a tried and not-really-true method. Sure, it helps one forget one's troubles, but in the morning the troubles are still there, along with a splitting headache and sometimes dim memories of embarrassing things done the night before. And what is there to do in that situation, sober up and deal with the problems, or have another drink. I fear this WGC process is just some hair of the dog.

That they embrace the ABC's and the WGC's false equating of gay ordinations and SSBs with border crossing without making any acknowledgment that the border crossing came in response to the first two, as well as to the abandonment of Scripture and creedal orthodoxy in TEC and ACoC, which is the underlying cause of those symptoms (something GAFCON noted and addressed) makes me think that they don't really understand the position of the orthodox in those institutions, despite their claim to be in solidarity with them. What do they mean when later in paragraph ten they state their intention to “work together...with all orthodox groups in the United States of America and Canada”? Will they not work with the heretics? Will they in any way oppose the heretics' claim to authority and power over the orthodox there? If so, how is that significantly different from border crossing? If not, how is it any help at all?

Paragraph seven is simply a justifiable complaint of bad behavior, yet without any threat of negative consequences for it. Been there. Done that. Got the T-Shirt, made in China by slave labor.

There are some nice things embedded in the next paragraph, implications that they see their churches growing because of orthodoxy, which would offer hope that eventually orthodoxy will re-emerge as liberalism dies of its own sterility, that is, if it hasn't destroyed everything of value in the Communion in the process. Two difficulties with this:

1. Why not be more clear in stating what seems to be the subtext? Is there really any virtue in obscurity these days?

2. Their description of themselves as having a “prophetic and priestly vocation...as a precious gift to the Anglican Communion”, is problematic. First, as to prophecy, are they claiming to possess that spiritual gift, because they have yet to show in this document that they can speak or write like the prophets? Furthermore, the idea of a prophetic ministry within the church has been much abused, and that on behalf of the very same heresy that they are fighting against. it does not seem wise or prudent to justify the flippant use of that term.

Secondly, I suspect that the use of “priestly” is not well thought out. Priests are those who intercede for sinners. They stand as the bridge between God and those who need to be reconciled to Him. The church has always been seen as having a priestly function, but that is by its interceding for the world, not for itself, or parts of itself. Are these bishops claiming that there are elements within the church that need intercession by the Global South churches? Would that not be tantamount to an admission that some in the church aren't really of the church? I would applaud that admission, but how does one practically live out that belief without altering one's ecclesiastical relationship with those in but not of the church?

Paragraph nine is just more needless verbiage, this time about what “encourages” them, as if it were a pressing concern on the church's part to know how it's leaders were feeling.

Having noted the disconnect that paragraph ten has with the preceding I will only add that the saying that they commit to “listen together to what Lord Jesus says to his church today” is poorly worded in that it leaves open the idea that Jesus might say something new, precisely the wedge that the heretics use to justify abandoning revealed truth.

I wish this statement was anything other than the wishy washy Anglican pablum that it is.

Resistance is Futile

2008-07-10T22:27:00.000-07:00

Prepare to be modernized. Obsolete theologies will be disgarded. All will be harmonized. All will submit.

"We are the TEC Demagogic.
Let go of your outdated logic.
Your tradition is doomed.
You will be consumed.
So bow to the new Gynologic."

rules shmules

2008-04-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

To no malice will Kate not resort
Nor wording of canon contort
This arrogant witch
Made the bishops her bitch
And their meeting a kangaroo court

The Principal Bozo

2008-04-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

Our PB has one great renown
It's a unity in festal gown
Her faith's manifested
In the way that she's vested
For she speaks and she looks like a clown

April fool's joke (I wish)

2008-04-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

The message she saw fit to impart
Was bereft of the faith from the start
For this Easter week
She saw worthy to speak
Of the threat to the earth when cows fart

Kubla Kate

2008-03-31T20:38:00.000-07:00

In San Joaquin did Kubla Kate
Her sovereign diocese decree:
Where Lamb, her stooge, did navigate
Through canons meaningless to state
- Down to a Sonless See.
No legal rules can thus withstand
Their will and lawyers they have at hand.
And there were graying men with modern views
Perfumed by many an incense-bearing priest.
And here was jargon wooden as the pews
Spoken but saying nothing in the least.
- But see ! their hearts' desire by what is treasured
- Through plans they make with pseudo-canon cover:
- A power play ! unholy and unmeasured
- Like an addict's raving 'till at last he's pleasured
- This mitered matron serves her demon-lover!
- And from this Schism, with ceaseless propaganda,
- To say this anal hamster were a panda,
- A thinly veiled and pointed threat was sent
- To dioceses that still will not repent
- Of stubborn clinging to the ancient ways,
- Rejecting all the godly gifts of gays.
- That orthodoxy shall not be permitted
- That to exclusive Truth is still committed.
- “We'll deal with them before they try to leave.
- Ere they try to change their constitution
- They'll be stopped by this final solution.
- For we'll not back down on what we believe.”
- And midst her triumph Kubla Kate dismissed
- The protests of some fools who did insist
- To be the San Joaquin SC.
- That they resigned, they denied.
- To all their claimed authority
- “That's been settled”, she replied.
It was a ruthless scheme of rare device!
Her faithless diocese was oh so N.I.C.E. !
- Apostate with a rainbow cap
- On her head that looked like crap,
- In Zion did she take a stroll
- Pretending she could fill the role
- Of a catholic order.
- Her Easter points imparting
- A warning for the earth
- Of dangers when cows are farting.
That's what her gospel is worth.
We must flee her lawless way
That knows no rule save power alone,
Where all her cronies shout and say,
“You cannot leave. Obey! Obey!”
This is no church in which to stay.
Desolation's on the throne.
And Sin's embraced and flesh adored.
They are not brethren in the Lord
Who think no Sin must be atoned.

Pax vobiscum, or else

2008-03-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

In Lodi did she thus opine,
"No need to protest. All is fine.
As elsewhere, here in San Joaquin
We say what the canons mean.
I bid you peace. Now get in line."

Ozymandias' church

2008-03-08T13:07:00.000-08:00

I met a Christian of the ancient creed
He said: A church once sound and orthodox
Stands in the city, decked with dust and weed,
Its windows dark and doors fixed with padlocks
And placard whose authority decreed
That parishes can never TEC depart,
And 'piscopal this church will always stay.
The narrow minds must chose to walk apart,
For those who stay must pay obedience due.
This Church will always make its point to say
To all of reasoned faith “We Welcome You”.
And silence reigned inside as in a grave
As pointless pulpit faced an empty pew.
Why come to churches if they will not save?

Episcopal sacra-mince

2008-02-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

The hotest Episcopal scene
Is a bishop we call Vicky Gene
But when he lays on his hands
To his new confirmands
Does his chrism cantain vaseline?

Can Lambeth be seized by the orthodox?

2008-02-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

Well, that's the real question, isn't it?

Actually, I think it isn't the real question at all. It is a distraction from the real question.

If we ask if this Lambeth can be hijacked for orthodoxy the way everything good and decent in this church has been hijacked time and time again by the heretics then we are faced with a simple practical political calculation. Of course this calculation has much to do with the level of optimism one is ready to sustain when considering the potential for success in this venture. But my experience has been that there has been a surfeit of optimism about defeating the liberals in their relentless assault upon the Faith. It seems to me that some optimists are simply not willing to see the facts as they are but insist upon reading them in the most optimistic, by which I mean fanciful, light possible. Since Jesus calls us to count the costs before undertaking some great task there can be no room for approaches which misrepresent the facts.

Now some may counter: “Aren't you opposing optimism with pessimism or even cynicism? After all, with God all things are possible.”

Far be it from me, as one who believes in the Resurrection, to limit my actions based upon what I understand to be possible on my part. I have often trumpeted the example of Gideon against arguments that those leaving TEC or Lambeth are draining the strength from the orthodox fight within TEC or within the Anglican Communion. This is the central thrust of Bishop Wright. The conservative defectors are dividing the conservative side just like Teddy Roosevelt divided the Republican forces with his Bull Moose Party. But this is as much a strategic calculation as those who say the fight is hopeless and already lost. The argument is not an illogical one, if worldly logic is all that is counted. But the force of the Gideon example is that worldly calculations should not be the crucial factor in deciding whether this or that venture will be successful. It is rather meant to strengthen the faith of those already tasked with a seemingly impossible mission.

However, the omnipotence of God should not become a license do anything. God can indeed do all things. But that He can do all these does not mean that He will do them. God could indeed cause me to float in the air. Does that mean that I should defy gravity and jump off a building to show my faith and God's power? (I seem to remember a biblical story about something like this) No. Only lunatics and snake handlers (possibly the same thing) operate by that theologic. God could convert the hearts of all those in 815 and the ACC and give conservatives the control of the Communion. Well, He could. But is it likely, based upon how He has acted throughout the last 1900 years of church history that He will break precedent and act in a way He has never acted before?

I believe a dispassionate examination of the evidence will give small hope for turning TEC around and a little less than even odds that ABC and Lambeth will do anything to effectively deal with the rampant apostasy in the Communion. It may be possible, with a determined unified show of force on the conservatives' part, to wrest the agenda of this Lambeth away from the revisionist aparatchiks ensconced in ACC, but I wouldn't put much money on that bet.

But let us assume that even the small odds of success are not there. Let us say that there is no way short of the Second Coming that anything will turn Lambeth into a vehicle for addressing TEC's abuses, let alone disciplining it to bring it back in line with biblical teachings, or at least with what the last Lambeth Conference claimed it believed. Such an assumption might lead one to conclude that going to there would be a waste of time because it won't accomplish anything. If there is no real chance for success why bother? Would that not be throwing good money after bad, in a sense?

But this flows from the wrong way of looking at things. It is starting with the wrong question. Rather than deciding what is the right course of action by seeing which course will be successful, which will “work”, Christians should instead decide which course is right regardless of whether we think there is any chance of it working. Ethics are governed not by the considerations of the possible and impossible or of the probable and improbable. It is dictated by the knowledge of right and wrong. Christianity especially is not a “practical” or pragmatic religion, not when what is practical is defined by our limited human knowledge of what we think can or needs to be achieved.

Before the Resurrection Jesus' death on the cross could well have been looked at as a failure. What did He accomplish by challenging the religious authorities in Jerusalem except a violent death? But the wisdom of God is built upon the foundation of victory through defeat, life through death. Consider John the Baptist. Could he not have spent his time more profitable supporting Jesus' ministry than challenging the moral habits of a powerful king? What did he accomplish? He certainly failed to turn Herod around and only wound up getting killed himself. Look at Paul. Was he successful in his attempt to win over the Jews in Jerusalem? There is little evidence of it. He certainly failed trying to convince Herod Agrippa and Festus. Was he wasting his breath?
No. It was right to make his witness regardless of the evident success or failure of the endeavor, for the witness itself has a benefit of its own.

The Christian principle of being a witness is, I believe, a strong argument for all conservative leaders going to Lambeth and making a stand, even if they know it will be their last one. I believe I am not simply imposing an idea and dressing it up as a moral imperative based solely upon my own authority. It seems to me we can see a clear Dominical ethic revealed in Scripture in Jesus' commands for dealing with sin in the church. Mt 18:15-17

If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

What is important to see here is that the sinning brother is confronted openly in the church. Before you can break fellowship with him he must at last be dealt with openly before the whole church. Once you have gone that far you can be done with him if he refuses to repent, but you must go that far. This is not just for his sake but for yours and for the sake of the church. By going the distance to the final level before cutting ourselves off we proclaim the importance of our fellowship in Christ. It is not lightly dissolved. Christians are not to take the easy way out.

Yet taking the easy way is a very common temptation for us, and I speak from my own experience. How often have we failed to confront an erring brother, not because we have forgiven him but because we doubt any good will come of it. He won't repent, we think, perhaps based upon plenty of past experience, and so we write him off. We “let sleeping dogs lie”, and buy ourselves some peace, but at the expense of fellowship. What we have settled for is a less Christian and less honest relationship because we are reluctant to suffer the risk of pain in the honest confrontation. Again, I speak for myself first and foremost. Even in the area of witnessing for Christ it is too easy to hold back for fear of an assumed negative reaction. Why preach if people don't want to hear it? This is cowardice and sin, no denying it. It is sin, though not because we are denying the possibility of God accomplishing what we think impossible. There is that, of course. But it is also sin because we are called to bear witness regardless of whether that witness will be “successful” or not. Maybe the only success is that a stand was taken and a witness made.

Back to the issue at hand; personally I believe that the Canterbury based Communion is broken, the rules are stacked and the game rigged and that there is no way on earth the Lambeth conference is going to address, let alone solve the issues that have been ripping the Communion apart. If there is to be a healing for the Communion it will have to come from outside Canterbury and the ACC. The AC will have to be rebuilt from the outside. I could be wrong, but that isn't the point. The point is that despite this pessimistic, but realistic (as opposed to rose colored) outlook, I still think that our orthodox leaders should go to Lambeth. They should go not with the thoughts of capturing Lambeth and of capturing the Anglican Communion but of confronting it. Since the Communion is something of worth its structure are important. That importance means that if we are going to reject them as fatally flawed we owe it to them and to ourselves to make a public announcement of that at the highest level possible.

Now I know some will be thinking, “What is there to announce? It's all over the internet what this Archbishop thinks and what that Archbishop has said about this and that.” That is true. But these things have not been said at the highest level of the church of which we are all a part. What is the forum for Anglicans to make a statement before the entire Communion? It is not a Synod meeting of a local Province. It is where the entire Communion is officially gathered in its greatest numbers. Lambeth is the only contender for that title. For ++Akinola to make a pronouncement from Nigeria is, as far as the Communion goes, no more than for me to privately tell Bob that I have this grievance against him. At most it is to bring another brother into the picture to confront Bob. But I am commanded to go farther. I must make my case before the church. So likewise I believe that our voice should be made at Lambeth if only to say “This game is over”.
This is the price of Christian community. If there is any hope for a non-Canterbury centered Anglicanism it will only be if we take the communion nature of the Communion more seriously than has been done by those who have done what they pleased and those who have looked the other way. This cannot be done if we start out by paying so little heed to the nature of community when it seems difficult or pointless.

Practical questions:

1) What kind of witness needs to be made at Lambeth? Is it necessary to attend all three meaningless weeks of this silly affair?

I don't think more than a day, maybe two or three, would be required. Coming with the express intention of only making a statement and then leaving would also have the beneficial effect of getting the attention of the rest. It would be like one who, while all the other sheep dutifully take their place at tables so that the meeting can progress, insists on standing in the doorway. The impression should be to come as a visible sign of contention and disagreement. If this causes the rest to decide to address the real issues instead of playing parlor games, all the better. If they refuse to heed the no time need be wasted. A swift exit can be made, making the witness all the more potent. The stand will have been made, which can only be done by going.

2)What about the expense, if many leaders are also going to GAFCON?

I Think there is money enough among all the orthodox in America, Canada, Australia and England to pay the fares of the global south bishops. But even if this becomes a real obstacle it isn't necessary for all bishops to go. Even the Pope never went to any of the universally accepted Councils but he sent a legate. The Primates can well represent their churches, and key representatives of the orthodox from within unorthodox Provinces can be selected. If we are not depending upon outvoting the heretics, but simply confronting them, then it doesn't matter if we aren't there in the greatest numbers. But our chief leaders should be.

Skipping Lambeth is no light matter. It may only be an invention of less than a century and a half in age, but the Communion itself is really little older. The Communion is a new and very fragile thing, and it is breaking apart. If it is to be reforged it must be done carefully, and honorably, and honor has been a thing greatly lacking in the present system, a system that a boycott of Lambeth is implicitly rejecting.

Complex Stupidity

2008-02-25T12:41:00.000-08:00

The problem with academics is that they often don't know how stupid they really are. They can dress up rampant foolishness in sophisticated verbiage and nuanced constructions such that it will gain the fealty of the great mass of intellectophiles (a term if not already existent I am coining to signify those who so desire to be included in the great ranks of intellectuals that they habitually dress naked emperors out of class loyalty) while the more humble “non”-intellectuals will see through the obvious idiocy even if they can't explain its deficiency in a form acceptable to the ivory tower Magisterium. What the common man sees clearly the “intellectual” is unable to see because he has obscured his vision with needless complexity, the very purpose of which, whether intended or not, seems to be only to present a foolish idea with the image of a credible argument by the sheer mass of its verbiage and mental gymnastics. It is rather like walking into a maze and thinking you have traversed a great distance in it when you have really only ended up a few feet away in another tortuous passage. There is no progression. A smarter man would have walked around the maze, recognizing it for what it was.

Case in point: Rowan Williams' blithering idiocy regarding the inevitability of sharia law. The idea that any portion of this monstrosity of Islam could be permitted on a voluntary basis only shows that Williams has not thought out clearly at all what sharia law is or what is the very nature of Law in a civil society. In ant civilization there can be only one supreme law. All other relationships must be, from a political point of view, inferior and subordinate, and the form of this subordination is directed not by the inferior but by the superior. One cannot have a system that makes the woman inferior to the man with severe restrictions of liberty tolerated under a modern Western legal system which grants equality to the women, unless such inequality is freely accepted by the woman and constantly remains freely accepted. But this would make of the “lesser” legal system nothing more than an individually chosen relationship. Sharia could not be binding in any way because it can be allowed no force to bind. Only the common law of the land can bind. Otherwise there is no common law and hence no common land, no common wealth.

But such an arrangement is exactly what sharia does not permit of itself. It is not a set of principles expressing a cultural variation of a common humanity. Sharia represents itself as the very expression of the law of Allah, a law which is meant to be implemented in human society. Sharia cannot be modified to fit the frameworks of a Western civilization. Sharia is the “natural” law of an entirely different civilization, one which repudiates the legitimacy of all other civilizations. One might as well try to integrate republicanism into a monarchical system. Or one might try too sustain a democratic republic birthed in the recognition of human equality while tolerating the enslavement of a class of men. It doesn't work and civil war is the inevitable result if the attempt is persisted.

Many of the initial defenses of William's statements concerning sharia have taken the standard intellectophile approach. Williams is simply “too smart” for many of us plebes to understand his complexity. “Thinking”, some say, “is hard work”, and we should be thankful we have a leader willing to undertake the enterprise.

Yes, well, this is the very problem. Thinking may be harder than not thinking, but thinking stupidly or half assed is easier than thinking things clearly and thinking them through. It is one thing to “raise the question”. That is the east part. Offering thoughts that productively guide us to a conclusion on the issue is the real hard work that many of our pointy headed intellects seem to eschew. William's may be credited for seeing the difficulties of the relationship of law and religious groups in secular and multicultural society. But beyond raising the issue what has he done to hint at a solution? If there is any direction that his raw and hastily and imperfectly informed comments it is only toward that conclusion which he is distancing himself from now because of the vast negative reaction it is receiving.

If we are to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't mean what a simple and unnuanced reading of his comments indicate, that he was merely seeking to “open up some of these wider matters” and “tease out some of the broader issues” then he is to be blamed for speaking as if he was saying something definitive when in fact he wasn't. Secondly he is to be blamed for not speaking definitively, for not giving some definitive answer. What is his position as chief cleric in the land if it is not to give concrete guidance? What is the good of opening the issue of the futility of modern life, say for a teenager, if you don't go on to direct him toward something meaningful that will keep him from blowing his brains out? Thirdly Williams is to be blamed for speaking before he has thoroughly informed himself on the matter.

The simple and easily demonstrated matter is that Williams doesn't know what the hell he is talking about when it comes to Islam and sharia. He seems to assume that Islam allows for a “dual identity” of citizen and believer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Islam is a coherent traditional religion in which the politics of the state and its religion are inseparable. Islam is meant to be a spiritual as well as worldly religion. In fact, it is far more intent on being worldly than it is otherworldly. Islam must rule the world, according to its prophet and all his disciples who follow him. This is quite distinct from the Christian witness that the kingdom of this world is fleeting and will pass away. It is the kingdom of heaven, which exists now in heaven in perfection, which will come to reign upon the earth after earthly kingdoms pass away. This picture of the two kingdoms, or two cities, allows for the kind of duality that Williams seems to think possible under Islam but in reality Islam recognizes no two kingdoms. The two realms that do exist in Islamic thought are the two houses, the House of Islam, the dar al-Islam, and the House of War, the dar al-Harb. The latter is wherever Islam is not the ordering principle of society. Williams has been listening too much to liberal Muslims or Muslim apologists smarter than he who know how to tell him what he wants to hear. Muslims only possess this duality, this enlightened idea of religious toleration when they aren't ruling. Williams only demonstrates that he doesn't get around much in the Muslim world or simply doesn't open his eyes. He might as well be defending the Third Reich by saying that Auschwitz was an abuse of Nazism's purer principles.

What is equally bad about Rowan's musing is that in simply seeking to raise a serious issue he unreflectively assumes things he should rather question. He takes it as a given that Britain will not or cannot maintain Christendom and that a multicultural society is inevitable. Let us leave the question of why he does not think a Christian culture can or ought to be defended. What seems remarkable is that it does not occur to him to question the very establishment of a church in a nation no longer dedicated to the faith that church is supposed to proclaim. If Britain is no longer to be a Christian nation, whose laws should all be based upon Christian morality, should the ABC not call for the State to be utterly neutral toward religion and treat it as an irrelevancy in regard to the law? Would this not free him to be freer in preaching Christ and Christian morality and less shackled to defend the politics of multiculturalism and trying to figure how to make discontented Muslims happy? Rather, he should be trying to make Muslims become Christian.

When he defends giving sharia space in order to give freedom to Christians in the realm of abortion and adoption, allowing Christian hospitals not to be forced to perform abortions and Christian adoption agencies not to have to place children with gay couples, why does he not instead question the authority of the State in making rules in this regard. Instead of champoning for more freedom for all he fights for freedom of one group to oppress another. Braindead and shameless. That Anglicanism's chief cleric can't see what an atheist like Christopher Hitchens sees is bad enough. That so many of Anglicanism's illuminatti line up to defend his droolings as being marks of a superior intellect is worse.

Lie back and think of the Church of England - or - The ecclesiological rape that is the "reception" of Women's Ordination

2008-01-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

The idea that the radical break from 19 centuries of uniform Christian practice, that is the ordination of women to the priesthood and to the episcopacy, is in a process of "reception" presumes that it is being received, that it is being taken on board and tested to see if it is acceptable to the wider Communion. What is not articulated is how any unacceptability would be properly discerned or in turn "received" by this innovation's advocates. Given that there has been a marked departure of many Anglicans from the various provinces that have adopted this change and that such departures are rarely, if ever, held up as any kind of evidence of unacceptability by those promoting the idea of "reception", it seems an obvious conclusion that such reception as we are expected to undergo is that of gradually, and sometimes not so gradually, breaking down resistance, or waiting until all protesters have given up and left.

At the very best, this type of reception is little more than a democratic test of what can be forced upon the collective church. What is a change too far? This seems to be the operative question in the minds of our process oriented churchmen. Certainly the advancement of homosexual activity as tolerable within the Christian church, and especially within the clergy, is for many Anglicans a change too far. The vast majority of Anglicans worldwide reject the normalization of sodomy. But the rejection of WO has not been so strong. Therefore, argue many moderate evangelical and pseudo Anglo-catholics, WO is acceptable and not a communion breaker. But that is a democratic argument. Should we suppose that if the objection to the gay agenda were less strong that that also should be "received" by the church? Perhaps it is just a question of timing. The church is not now ready to receive this new understanding of sexuality.
Give the homosexualists a little more time.

Why not? Why should the church's No to homosexuality now be permanent when the 19 centuries of the church's No to women in orders was thrown over so easily?

This imposition of democratic processes to implement change within the church is nothing less than a spiritual rape of the body of Christ. It is the kind of rape that takes place subtly but all too commonly in the "dating" scene today where, absent hard and fast rules, boys and girls are left to fend for themselves and the desires of the males are too easily imposed upon the feeble resistance of the girls. Sure, it may take some coaxing and pressure, accusations that she doesn't really love you if she doesn't give in, but eventually the odds are she will submit herself more and more. Boys who pressure their girlfriends into giving up what virtue they have, merely because they want it and the girls don't have the strength of character to keep resisting, may not be the kind of rapists we should throw in prison, or in a shallow grave in the woods, but they are rapists of the sort who, in a more civilized society, were presented with an option to marry or bury.

So-called conservatives who support altering the universal priesthood of the church, merely because they want to or because they don't see what the problem is, may not be the same kind of defilers of the church as those who seek to rob any clear sense of sexual morality from the church by enshrining that which God repeatedly has condemned into the priesthood and episcopacy, but they are still guilty of raping the bride of Christ buy making her something to be altered to suit their desires. Rather than cherishing the church they have made her a harlot.

But only a little bit. Just like Bill Clinton didn't have sex with Monica because it was just oral.

Lambeth Follies

2008-01-07T12:10:00.000-08:00

Our ABC right now is Rowan
But I can't tell if he's comin' or goin'
His leadership's risible
And intention invisible
But I believe it's a schism he's sowin'

It seemed appropriate to begin this new venture with something silly that yet presumes to also be serious, for what could be sillier than posting thoughts on the ether.

If I have not either gotten a life or a girlfriend, or a good case of beer, I will in a little while post my likely irrelevant argument as to why all the conservative bishops who can should go to Lambeth regardless of what can be realistically achieved.