Icons of Christ: the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever

I've been reminded over the past few days of how easily institutions can fail to meet our expectations.  In the midst of those musings, I was reminded of him who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  In the idleness of my mind, I began to cast around for some tangible object which could be for me an icon of him who will never leave me or forsake me.  I sought some common and yet constant reminder which models if you will consistancy and unchanging functional goodness so completely that it might become for me a picture of something much greater than itself.  I imagined some Platonic "shadow" which might point me to the true form of all that is constant and true: Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour; and my Master.

Barbour's Beaufort Jacket

As I pondered these things, I decided to retire to the TV Lounge and wax my old Barbour shooting jacket.  When Rebecca surprized me with it a few years back, it was right out of a fashonplate, glistening dark green with a brown courdoury collar, brass zippers, the trademark tartan lining, and a quilted removable liner which could double as a vest underneath a tweed or herringbone jacket.  Now, it is well worn.  With its broken game pocket zipper and the odd tear or hole here or there, it is a veteran of many hunts.  Rebecca says it stinks and tells me that I ought not to wear it, save to the barn or afield.  I prefer to think of it as a bit "birdy," and take some rather unseemly pride in the fact that it marks me apart from those shooters, hunters, and horsey types that only roll out for the opening day of the season or for the odd horse or dog show.

And so I sat down with my old friend and a very overpriced can of "Barbour Original Formula Wax  Thornproof Dressing."  It took two full episodes of Inspector Barnaby and DS Scott in "Midsomer Murders" to repair last year's tears and to wax the jacket, with special attention to the seams.  But now it glistens with the soft gleam of fresh wax and hangs at the base of the stairs with my faded old Orvis Crusher Fedora, ready for yet another season.  It will keep me absolutely dry without the stifling odor of manmade fibers or the collected heat of a plastic or rubber shell.  Like all Barbour coats, it is cut for the specific sport for which it was designed, and I can swing right to left on a high pass  pheasant as if I were wearing only a light shirt.  My Barbour Beaufort shooting jacket has all of the function and style it had the day we bought it at Mad River Outfitters in Columbus.  It is just about as consant and true as any physical thing I own, even after these years of hard use on the farm and in the field. 

Now, when I look around me and see so many of the things I love passing into history, I look down at my barn coat and smile, because some things- the truly important things- never change.  It may seem strange to some of my gentle readers to think of a shooting coat as an icon of the Christ.  But there are many things in this great world which he can and does use to remind us of his faithfulness and changelessness.  I will never willingly give up the beautiful hand written Icon of Christ that cousin Helen brought back for me from Kiev.  And I doubt that my good friends at Holy Cross Carpathian Orthodox Church will be hanging up a Barbour jacket on the iconostasis anytime soon.  But when I don my faithful old friend on a cold and rainy winter's day, I will always think of Jesus, who saved me, and keeps me, and who will come again to receive me as his own.

Jesus Christ, by Heinrich Hoffman
My Constant in the Midst of Change

  

Building Bridges Through Honest Scholarship, Well Reasoned Faith, and Love

The Rt. Rev'd Michael Nazir-Ali

Today, twelve of us from St. John's travelled to Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania to hear Bishop Nazir-Ali speak about who Jesus is.  As always, I was deeply impressed by the humility and scholarship of this man of God.  His willingness to seriously consider the beliefs of others very different from himself as he develops and shares his own faith always impresses me, and calls me to learn from others.  As he reviewed the beliefs of devout and serious scholars from Islamic, Hindu, and secularist traditions about our Lord, I could not but remember the admonition in Proverbs 27:17 that "Iron sharpeneth iron."  His review of the scholarly debate between the Cappodocian Fathers and early Islamic scholars was balanced, respectful, and profound, and at the end of the day he called us all to reaffirm the creedal faith of our Holy Mother the Church that God is One: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

I was particularly moved by his admonition that we all be willing to move from our traditional methodologies of living the Christian Faith into a new era wherein we would allow the light of Christ to shine forth through our lives by knowing when to give thanks for light in the professions of others, even when that light is incomplete or misunderstood.  He modeled for us a methodology of true dialogue.  In an age in which dialogue is seen by so many as merely an exchange of ideas, he defined dialogue is its historic sense as careful scholarly debate designed to find truth- the truth of God for all people.  He exhibited a rare ability to find the good and the true in others, and to call them to develop a deeper understanding of that truth in a way which would lead us all to God together.

Thank you Bishop, for helping me to see opportunities where so many see only difficulty and division.  thank you for giving me a concrete model whereby people of good will might seek truth together.  Thank you for acknowledging honestly the very real differences between the great belief systems of the world, and for preserving the unique proclamation of the Church that Jesus is indeed our Saviour and our Lord.

Thinking About Faith

Events and discussions of the last few days have led me to consider again the true nature of creedal Christianity. What is it that our Holy Mother the Church calls us to believe? What is the irreducible minimum content of that faith once received from the Apostles? While there is certainly room for argument around the edges, if there is no core verity to our Faith, then I seriously doubt it is really worth believing. It ceases to become an understanding of reality based on verifiable experience which enables us to enter into a living relationship with the Triune God.

I have long held Bishop FitzSimons Allison to be a man whose life is characterized by closeness to God, faithfulness to the Scriptures, and consistancy of character. He recently posted the following short essay on the website of the Diocese of South Carolina, and I pass it on in its entirity. I hope you will find it as thought provoking as I do. He cuts to the heart of one of the major issues facing the church today, the erosion and even the denial of doctrine. His essay, like so many of his writings over the years is provocative and takes sides, and therefore I think it is rather likely to be prophetic in nature. I offer it with a prayer for our beloved Episcopal Church, that we might see the beam in our own eye, and thereby be better enabled to see clearly the light of Christ.

Faithfully,
Bill+

Shrinking Jesus and Betraying the Faith
The following article was submitted by the Rt. Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison, XII Bishop of South Carolina, Retired

What caused the crisis now being faced not only by the Diocese of South Carolina but by the entire western Christian Church? It’s more than an issue of sexuality. It’s one of pandering to the secular culture, of shrinking Jesus and betraying the faith.
Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan are two remarkably popular theologians who teach a version of Christianity that reduces the Christian faith to contemporary secular assumptions. For Crossan, Jesus was an illiterate Jewish cynic. No Incarnation no Resurrection. The Easter story is “fictional mythology” (p. 161, Jesus a Revolutionary Biography). Borg claims that Jesus was only divine in the sense that Martin Luther King and Gandhi were divine. Borg dismisses the creeds (p.10, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time) Jesus was a “spirit person,” “a mediator of the sacred,” “a shaman,” one of those persons like Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Mohammed, et al. (p. 32)
Recently Borg and Crossan have collaborated on a book, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem. Their Jesus is a semi-revolutionary leader of peasants and outcasts against the priestly elite and those who accommodate to the dominant system of Roman coercive authority. It was not our sinful condition that demanded his crucifixion but this elite. Borg and Crossan’s Jesus does not come from God to take away sin but arose from among the innocent to teach us how not to
be a part of the dominant systems. They fail to understand the depth of sin in all of us at all times, including peasants, as well as the elite. More importantly they lose the assurance of ultimate mercy and forgiveness.
Speaking of elites these two “scholarly authorities” purport to tell us, “What the Gospels Really Teach about Jesus.” They pander to an increasingly secular culture and to the human itch to find some undemanding simplicity that now finally explains everything. And they do this while
ignoring, and without reference to, the multitude of superior contemporary scholars such as Richard Bauckham, Raymond Brown, Luke Timothy Johnson, N. T. Wright, Richard Hays, Leander Keck, Christopher Bryan, and scores of others whose works reflect the faith of scripture and the creeds.
In addition to the academic arrogance of claiming that everyone has been wrong about Jesusuntil now, Marcus Borg, who is a member of the Episcopal Church, denies, in his writings, the creeds and doctrine he affirmed at his confirmation and in his present worship. It is the same
moral issue as that of Bishop Jack Spong who was asked by one of his clergy, “How can you, as a bishop, ask those you ordain to swear to doctrine that you expressly and personally deny?” Crossan, on the other hand, showed some moral integrity when he resigned his Roman Catholic orders. These are not times when people readily think in terms of doctrine or of honor.
Christian faith, but not secular faith, now effectively banned from schools, colleges, and universities, has been relegated to the private and subjective arena. The result is the growing popularity of any who eliminate from Christian faith all that secular trust finds incompatible: miracles, the radical nature of sin and the consequent radical nature of grace, transcendence, holiness, and our human desperate need for God’s initiative action in Jesus. The consequence of this secular replacement of Christianity over the years is that otherwise educated people can be bereft of any substantial grasp of scripture. One glaring example is Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori who tells us that Marcus Borg “opened the Bible to me.” (Acknowledgements A Wing and a Prayer). The Christian creed’s affirmation, to which she has repeatedly sworn, (but Borg negates) is that Jesus Christ is: “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light ofLight, very God of very God begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made . . .” Borg has not opened the scripture for Bishop Jefferts Schori but closed its revelation of Jesus’ divinity.
One must ask how such apostasy has come about in the Episcopal Church. One answer is given by the new bishop of Connecticut, Ian Douglas. He accurately claims,” The Episcopal Church does not readily think in terms of doctrine.” As one thinks carefully about this statement the spiritual pathology of TEC becomes apparent. Doctrine is “that which is taught, what is held, put forth as true” (Webster). Doctrine is a synonym for teaching. When we “do not readily think in terms of doctrine” we are unaware and
ignorant of Christian teaching. This is true of both “liberals” and “conservatives.” We were warned in scripture about losing our grasp on doctrine and the danger of false doctrine; (“. . . so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of
doctrine by cunning men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.” Eph. 4:14 (see also Titus 2:;7, I Tim. 1:3, and 4:16, II John 10, II Tim. 3:16, 4:2)
Bishop Douglas’s statement, however, is only true of Christian doctrine. The Episcopal Church does indeed think in terms of doctrine: doctrines of litigation, abortion, divorce, sexual behavior outside of marriage and all kinds of current politically correct doctrines, as well as teachings that Jesus is reduced from the Son of God to a “subversive sage.” (p. 119, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time ) The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church personifies this sad reduction, this shrunken Jesus, this betrayal of Christian faith. Her claim that “salvation is attained by many ways –Jesus Christ is a way, and God has many other ways as well. . .”(italics provided) (Interview, Time Magazine, July 10, 2006) is a violation of her ordination and consecration vows regarding the church’s creed (p. 519, Book of Common Prayer, , 1979). It is also sadly bereft of the Good News that salvation is never attained but freely given to those who believe. As to her belief in eternal life, she is unsure it exists and she contends that Jesus was more concerned with heavenly existence in this life. (Arkansas Democratic Gazette, Jan. 7, 2007) This sad result reduces Christian faith to the secular assumptions of this age while this age is in
desperate need of the very faith that has made it great. Dean William Inge’s famous warning has never been more apt than today: “The Church that marries the spirit of the age will find herself a widow in the next.” We thank God that the leadership of this diocese not only thinks in terms of Christian doctrine but is courageously committed to the sworn faith of scripture and creeds.
When Episcopalians do not think in terms of Christian doctrine they consciously and unconsciously conform to speculations of the current age. When the creedal and biblical affirmations of Jesus’ full humanity and divinity are given up we lose the promised assurance of God’s mercy. The sad secular substitute for divine mercy is a culture destroying permissiveness, lowered standards of morality in society, and diminishing honor in human character. Permissiveness is no substitute for mercy.
Let’s be clear – the doctrine of Borg, Crossan, and Jefferts Schori makes nonsense of the Eucharist: Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us for yourself; and, when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your
only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all. He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world. (p.362 Book of Common Prayer 1979)
The doctrine of “mere man” (like Martin Luther King and Gandhi) is indeed a widespread heresy in modern times but finds no reflection in any of the major heresies. It was so rare that only a specialist is apt to know its name: psilantropism. One of the outstanding contemporary scholars, Timothy George, has this to say about heresy: Heresy is a deliberate perversion, a choice (hairesis in Greek), to break with the primary pattern
of Christian truth and to promulgate a doctrine that undermines the gospel and destroys the unity of the Christian Church. A Church that cannot distinguish heresy from truth, or, even worse, a Church that no longer thinks this is worth doing, is a Church which has lost its right to bear witness to the transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ who declared himself to be not only the Way and the Life, but also the Truth. Rest assured the Bishop and Diocese of South Carolina, in the face of heretical assault on the Church will be faithful to the “one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all.” The challenge for us at this time is the opportunity to recover the neglected duty of “thinking in terms of doctrine” and to show the cruelty of heresy and declare the Gospel good news of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior.

Belief and Behavior

Rector's Rambling: July 2009
I’ve been reading John and Paul over the last few weeks, and have noticed an entirely predictable pattern. Both of them consider belief and behavior to be very important. What we believe, especially what we believe about Jesus, defines whether or not we are Christians. How we behave is the proof of what we believe.
The Christian believes that Jesus is the only begotten Son of the living God, who lived among us, died for our sins, and was resurrected on Easter to prove forever that God’s power and love are greater than sin and death. Since his glorious ascension into heaven, he is seated in heavenly session, interceding for us and awaiting that day when he shall return to meet us as his own and to vindicate the claims of God forever and ever. There may be some wiggle room about how we interpret and apply these doctrines of the Christ, but they are mandatory components of the faith of the people called Christians. To believe otherwise and yet call oneself “Christian” is somewhat akin to calling a dog a horse, or a chicken a boy. They may have the same number of legs, and may resemble each other in several important ways, but they remain nevertheless separate species. Definitions do matter, and we as individuals are only kidding ourselves if we reject commonly agreed upon definitions in favor of our own wants and desires. To do so is to install ourselves as the arbiters of truth, and such an installation is fraught with dangerous results, including arrogance and exaltation of ourselves to the place of God.
Behavior, the second teaching of the Apostles, has an equally important role in the life of the Christian. Both John and Paul preach that if God has truly transformed our lives, if he has truly brought us from death to life, it should show in the way we interact with each other. While none of us are perfect in this world, we should be drawing closer to the ethical example of Jesus every day. Right belief which is true must inevitably lead to right behavior in ever increasing amounts. Our attitudes should be characterized by love for each other, by humility, by a sincere appreciation of our strengths and our weaknesses, by a willingness to prefer others before ourselves, by a desire to serve God by serving others, and by genuine joy. Such attitudes mean that I will respect the property and opinions of others, even when I believe they are wrong. They necessarily instill in me a strong work ethic and a desire to provide for my own needs and contribute to the relief of suffering in the lives of others. They certainly lead me to exercise restraint and self-control over all of my passions, whether they impact my finances, my relationships, my sexuality, or any other appetite that I may have.
To believe aright and to live in accordance with God’s will are twin indicators of how deep our Christianity really goes. During these dog days of summer, I hope we all might find some time to honestly evaluate how we are doing with our faith, that we might offer ourselves more perfectly to the Father, and become more like Jesus, in the power of the Holy Ghost. AMEN.

Bill+