Today, December 29, is the anniversary of the murder of Thomas a Becket, perhaps at the orders of King Henry II, certainly to the great relief of that most protean and impetuous of Kings. As I wrote two years ago (crikey!):
Imagine my surprise when, years later, I found out that one of the most pressing grounds for the conflict between Becket and Henrywas the treatment of "criminous clergy" who committed offenses against the laity; in the face of years of inaction by the ecclesiastical authorities, Henry wanted the right to try such clerics in the secular courts.
There was much more to it than that, of course. The real Thomas Becket may have been headstrong and arrogant, but he was also seeking to preserve the institution of the Church as it was entrusted to him, and to resist a King who was re-making the political institutions of his day and centralizing power in the King's person.
As to Becket's murder, the King's role in it has always been sharply disputed--the authenticity and meaning of the infamous quotation, "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" have been debated for centuries. (An excellent account is contained in W.L. Warren's biography, Henry II).
Regardless of the merits of their dispute, there's no denying that the story of Becket has given rise to much great art. My personal favorite is the admittedly ahistorical play by Jean Anouilh, brilliantly filmed with Richard Burton as Becket, and Peter O'Toole as Henry:
Great though the movie is, it does considerably less than justice to either Henry (who fought a civil war to a standstill to become King) and Becket himself.
And, of course, T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral is a great favorite of mine since Fordham College (thanks, Dr. Antush!), and one which combined great insight into human nature and into theology. For me, the lines that hit home most are the scenes between Becket and his Tempters. So, the Fourth Tempter offers him the power of martyrdom:
This Times Magazine profile of Catholic Natural Law expert Robert P. George highlights my fundamental inability to understand relate to much of conservative Christian thought. George, widely regarded as " the reigning brain of the Christian right," (it took, of course, the rise of women's rights and the concomitant legalization of abortion to overcome the distaste many evangelicals have long held for "popery"), has successfully urged that fellow conservatives, especially RC bishops should narrow their focus:
He told them with typical bluntness that they should stop talking so much about the many policy issues they have taken up in the name of social justice. They should concentrate their authority on “the moral social” issues like abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and same-sex marriage, where, he argued, the natural law and Gospel principles were clear. To be sure, he said, he had no objections to bishops' “making utter nuisances of themselves” about poverty and injustice, like the Old Testament prophets, as long as they did not advocate specific remedies. They should stop lobbying for detailed economic policies like progressive tax rates, higher minimum wage and, presumably, the expansion of health care — “matters of public policy upon which Gospel principles by themselves do not resolve differences of opinion among reasonable and well-informed people of good will,” as George put it.
Or in other words, fulminate, enact moral standards into law, but on poverty and justice issues--just empathize. This is utterly opposed to what a good friend of mine, a Deacon in the Episcopal Church calls "trench theology." And he has pretty good warrant for it, too. The Daily Office reading for Saturday, the same day I get the NYT Magazine? Matthew 25: 31-46:
31 'When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." 37Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?" 40And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."a 41Then he will say to those at his left hand, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." 44Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?" 45Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'
The moral disjunction here seems pretty straightforward to me. George seems all too eager to focus attention that matters onto policing the morals not just of his co-religionists, but of his fellow citizens.
The summer before I started college, I first read Anthony Trollope's The Warden and its sequel, Barchester Towers. Its depiction of Nineteenth Century clerical life was a delight to me, and the depth of the character-drawing made me a fan for life. (Still am!)
At the time, I somehow missed the BBC's adaptation of the two novels. Viewing it now, it holds up quite well--Donald Pleasence captures the goodness and naive quality of the Rev. Septimus Harding,and endows him with a gentle, pawky sense of humor; Nigel Hawthorne is funny and credible as his choleric son-in-law, Archdeacon Grantly, and a young Alan Rickman is superb as the slippery Mr. Slope. The women are excellent, too; Susan Hampshire is positively delicious as the charming but naughty Signorina Madeline Vesey Nata Stanhope, and And Geraldine McEwan shines as Mrs. Proudie, the bishop's domineering wife.
Trollope is unique in English literature, in that he can make the goodness and gentle good humor of Mr. Harding credible, and not cloying. (CP Snow thought that only Dostoevsky made goodness more believable). Admirable though Rev. Harding is, I regret that I often am more like the Archdeacon--quick-tempered if well meaning.
Enjoy, but be careful--one trip to Barchester is never enough, and there are four more novels after these. And, then, of course, there are the the Pallisers:
Dr Williams has admonished the Episcopal Church (again) for another provocative act in deepening Anglican schism. “It confirms the feeling that they’re moving further from the Anglican consensus,” he tells me. Can there ever be a consensus in which biblical traditionalists can be in communion with homosexual bishops? The man who has committed his archbishopric to unity pauses: “I’m not holding my breath.”
However, he does, if tepidly, finally get around to condemning the Ugandan legislation:
And there are those who seek to make a moral equivalence between Los Angeles and Kampala, asking why the Archbishop upbraids the Episcopalians while failing to condemn the Ugandans. Added to which, some American traditionalists have markedly failed to condemn the Ugandan proposals.
“Overall, the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can’t see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the Communion has said in recent decades,” says Dr Williams. “Apart from invoking the death penalty, it makes pastoral care impossible – it seeks to turn pastors into informers.” He adds that the Anglican Church in Uganda opposes the death penalty but, tellingly, he notes that its archbishop, Henry Orombi, who boycotted the Lambeth Conference last year, “has not taken a position on this bill”.
Not much in the way of comfort here on the part of TEC and our sympathizers.
Any similarities to the challenges of attempting to interpret a certain book (or collection of books) for the purposes of modern ethical and theological thinking and spiritual living is purely intentional.
It just strikes me as a remarkable example of how absurd the conservative movement really has become. (There are so many examples but this brings them all under one roof.)
….or has it always been this way? Have the intellectual pockets of conservatism always been just that – merely pockets?
Watching Schlafly try to reconcile free markets and Christianity is just sad. It’s exactly why thoughtful proponents of free markets run into such jaded and hostile reactions from people on the other side of the fence. I think Christianity and free markets are reconcilable but only with the addition of some form of safety-net-state. The Christian Democrats understand this concept over in Europe. Americans like Schlafly think Jesus was the first coming of Milton Friedman.
It just makes me throw my hands up in the air. I try too hard to retain the word “conservative” – to hold on to some other sense of its meaning, some other definition that the American right has no hold over. I have great admiration for the paleocons, but I would never really fit in even with that idiosyncratic bunch. I’ve tried to come to terms with the idea that the movement can be changed for the better but I’m beginning to doubt myself even there. The invention of the modern Tea Party only reveals how deep the fraud runs.
Andrew Schlafly thinks the Bible is too liberal. Way too liberal. Not too theologically liberal. Too politically liberal. So the founder of conservapedia.com is out to fix that.
The Lead at the Episcopal Cafe reported last fall on the Conservative Bible Project. The goal of the project is to "develop a conservative translation that can serve, at a minimum, as a bulwark against the liberal manipulation of meaning in future versions." Some of their guidelines include:
Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level
Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop; defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle"
Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
Some ideas for work include:
The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34: Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.
The idea is not going away. The AP reported this week:
The project's authors argue that contemporary scholars have inserted liberal views and ahistorical passages into the Bible, turning Jesus into little more than a well-meaning social worker with a store of watered-down platitudes.
"Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world, and it's professors who are doing the popular modern translations of the Bible," said Andy Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia.com, the project's online home....
...This liberal slanting, Schlafly argues, ranges from changing gendered language — Jesus calling his disciples to be "fishers of people" rather than "fishers of men" — to more subtle choices, like the 2001 English Standard Version of the Bible, which uses "comrade" and "laborer" more often than the conservative-friendly "volunteer."
The problem, Schlafly says, is the professors. Professors are overwhelmingly liberal and therefore have slanted the Bible in their direction. So avoiding those pesky scholars, the Conservative Bible Project is depending on their revision to be done wiki-style with contributions coming via the internet.
"The best of the public is better than a group of experts," said Schlafly, whose mother, Phyllis, is a longtime conservative activist known for her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.
(Timothy Paul Jones, a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., who calls himself a theological conservative) says the project is a misguided effort to read contemporary politics back into the text.
Dierdre Good at General Seminary looked at their Gospel of Mark and responded:
"No one thinks any translation is perfect. But does substituting "The Divine Guide" for the term "Spirit" in e.g. the baptism narrative convey Mark's ideas about Jesus' Baptism or the Spirit itself? And the translation of the verb in Mark 1:12 "the Divine Guide then led Jesus into the desert" is just wrong. I simply disagree that translations not using the term "man" to speak of Jesus emasculate him. Changing "scribes" or "Pharisees" to "intellectuals" in passages reporting controversies pits the latter against Jesus. Is this the message we want a bible translation to convey? Finally, the proposed translation of Mark 1:34b: 'he commanded the devils to be silent, because they knew Jesus as God' introduces a description of Jesus that simply isn't in the text."
Okay. So there are a few bugs. I mean, heck, translating the Bible is hard. And what do these Bible scholars know, anyway?
Well, they can cease their labors. Another Biblical non-scholar beat them to it. In 2006, Al Franken came up with this version of the story of Jesus, and it seems to meet all the requirements of the wiki-translation, except maybe for the "dumbing down" part. Presenting "The Gospel of Supply-Side Jesus."
Well, here we go again. After persistently holding only one side--the Episcopal Church--accountable in the widening schism, even though we are in fact the only "side" that has observed the moratoria requested until now--Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is threatening consequences to TEC if it approves the Diocese of Los Angeles' selection of Mary Glaspool as Suffragen Bishop. Williams' comment:"The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold."
Meanwhile, Archbishop Williams remains utterly silent on the violations of the moratoria by more conservative provinces making geographical incursions into TEC's jurisdiction and on the utter failure of these churches to participate in the so-called "listening process" to hear the concerns of gays and lesbians. (It's all here). Moreover, Williams has been for two months silent on the ghastly proposed Ugandan legislation which seeks a death sentence for "aggravated homosexuality," and prison sentences for all--parents and priests included--who become aware of a person's homosexuality, and fail to expeditiously report it to the government. Notably, this legislation is fostered by American right-wingers, a fact noted by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in her denunciation of the legislation.
Abp. Williams managed to denounce the selection of a lesbian suffragen within a day; the persecution of gays and lesbians with support (albeit equivocal) from the Anglican Church of Uganda does not rate a mention. Sadly, this is typical of Rowan, as I observed in the links at the beginning of the post. He should remember that for the bonds of mutual affection to hold, he needs to be seen as someone worthy of our affection. I for one doubt this proposition, and am more and more inclining to welcome the impending schism.
Starting this year, in order to standardize parish contributions and better predict parish cash flows, we have implemented a fee-for-service Eucharistic coding and billing system. Rather than rely on haphazard donations from parishioners, pledges turned in at the last minute, etc., parishioners will be billed for each Eucharistic encounter.
For the purposes of coding and billing, all bishops, priests, and deacons will simply be referred to as “Eucharistic Service Providers” (ESP’s). Parishes are free to establish billing rates for services, as long as they are not below the minimum allowable billing rate as established by the Diocese (printed on the Diocesan web site). It is unscriptural to entice members from another parish to your ESP by offering a rate lower than the minimum allowable billing rate for Eucharistic services, and is considered against the mandate in Prayers of the People, form III, that ESP’s be “faithful ministers of your Word and Sacraments.”
Parishes will submit weekly billing to the Diocese: At the end of the month the Diocese will issue statements that will consist of an Explanation of Eucharistic Benefits (EoEB) as well as a monthly bill for Eucharistic services rendered.
Parishioners are free to purchase individual Communion Insurance Policies (CIP’s). The names of these providers should be turned in to the church secretary of each parish and this information submitted to the Diocese. Parishioners should keep in mind, however, that some policies require pre-approval from the Bishop, and may only authorize a given number of trips to the Communion rail per calendar year or only pay for Eucharistic services performed in our Diocesan network. For a list of all network providers, again please refer to our web site. All parishioners also need to sign and file a statement with the Diocesan office that they will be responsible for any Eucharistic billing over and above amounts allowed by their CIP, or for all services rendered if they do not have a CIP.
Parishioners who wish to donate over and above their billable Eucharistic services are also free to establish Home Parish Savings Accounts (HPSA’s) and can also donate to the parish by this means. Some employers may have pre-tax benefits for HPSA’s and parishioners should also check with their employers for these possible options.
Statements for billable Eucharistic services will be due 30 days after the issue date; a 2.5% surcharge will be added to payments in the 30-60 day due range. Payments in arrears of greater than 60 days will be turned over to the Lucifer, Inc. collection agency.
Parishes who submit weekly Diocesan billing electronically will receive a 1.5% discount on their Diocesan pledge. Mission congregations, because of their rural location, will receive a 2.5% bonus in Diocesan aid if billing statements are electronically submitted within 48 hours following Sunday services.
How Eucharistic Fee-for-service Billing works:
As each parishioner enters the church, the greeter will distribute tucked within the bulletin, a Eucharistic Encounter Form (EEF). Pencils should be readily available for parishioners at the pews; we suggest your Altar Guild add this to their duties.
Each parishioner should check the parishioner demographic and level of service most applicable for EACH member of your household. A sample EEF is provided in this bulletin. Feel free to personalize these with your church logo, and use fonts that you feel would be attractive for your parishioners. Statements that major credit cards or PayPal payments are welcome at the bottom of your EEF often result in faster payment. Billing code groups are Parishioner Demographic (PD), Eucharistic Level of service (ELOS), Spiritual Need (SN), and any applicable modifier.
Parishioners should sign the statement at the bottom that they are intending to receive only the Eucharistic services they predict will be rendered.
EEF’s should be turned in the collection plate at the offertory. This method also frees bursars from handling large amounts of $1 bills and loose change, which can be time-consuming. Following church services, we suggest bursars arrange the EEF’s in alphabetical order in order to expedite submission of Eucharistic billing by your church’s secretary.
Any parishioner questions about Eucharistic coding and billing should be directed to parish clergy or to a Eucharistic billing specialist (usually only available in larger parishes.)
Sample Eucharistic Encounter Form
(Your parish name, address, logo, etc.)
Parishioner name __________________________________________
If you are a visitor or have changed address, please provide it in the space below:
Parishioner Demographic Code:
❏ PD31601 Regular attendee, baptized, confirmed (attends services more than 2x/month) ❏ PD31602 Occasional attendee, baptized, confirmed (attends services less than 2x/month but more than 1-2x/year ❏ PD31603 Eucharistic screening exam only (Christmas/Easter) ❏ PD31604 Baptized but not confirmed ❏ PD31605 Heathen ❏ PD31606 Out of network attendee (visitor in good standing from another church) ❏ PD31606 Other attendee, not otherwise specified___________________________________
Eucharistic Level of Service:
❏ ELOS14301 Eats wafer, drinks wine from chalice ❏ ELOS14302 Dunks wafer in chalice, eats intincted wafer ❏ ELOS14303 Wafer only (small children/alcoholics/wine allergy) ❏ ELOS14304 Blessing only; no wafer, no wine (Infants/unsure if should partake) ❏ ELOS14305 Sat in pew, didn’t go up ❏ ELOS14306 Dropped wafer on floor, looked sheepish ❏ ELOS14307 Other Eucharistic level of service, not otherwise specified _________________
Spiritual Need
❏ SN66601 Usual and Customary Life Stressors ❏ SN66602 New or Temporary Acute Life Stressor(s) ❏ SN66603 Recent Illness(es)/Death(s), whether self/family member/friend ❏ SN66604 Domestic Partner Life Stressor(s) ❏ SN66605 Other family member/friend/extended family Life Stressor(s) ❏ SN66606 Deep dark secret unknown to clergy ❏ SN66607 Deep dark secret of a sexual nature, unknown to clergy ❏ SN66608 Other Spiritual Need, not otherwise specified ______________________________
Modifier Codes:
❏ -59 Sudden decrease or cessation of income ❏ -60 Unchurched person who suddenly felt need to attend church ❏ -61 Won lottery or had sudden windfall to income
Certification: I, the undersigned, state that the Eucharistic services checked are a reasonable and accurate account of the Eucharistic services I intend to receive at Communion, and understand that failure to code accurately is considered “bearing false witness” as outlined in Ex. 20:16.
____________________________________________________ Name and Date
