No matter your tradition, someone in your church probably rehearses something.  In my congregation, a liturgical Lutheran church, the pastor practices his sermons and the choir rehearses the hymns.  The pastor rehearses his sermons for the double-purpose of being able to effectively communicate and to do so comfortably in front of a large group in a large building.  The choir and organist rehearse so that the music is done at the best possible quality and the liturgy as smooth as can be done.  The grand purpose of the Lutheran liturgy is to declare God’s promises to the faithful through the words of absolution, the proclaiming of the Gospel, preaching, and the Supper.  Rehearsal in liturgical churches, in theory, takes place to prevent the intrusion of attracting attention to any individual during the mass.  In charismatic churches the band must practice, even if the songs are all four-chord songs with little musical variation and comparably simple lyrics.  At the funeral home I was even privy to the rehearsal of a pastor who was both preaching and singing the one song (“I Can Only Imagine” in a duet with his daughter) of the funeral service.  I was with him to ensure that the funeral home equipment was all working properly with what he wanted, but while in the back of the chapel I heard him singing and between verses I heard him practicing one of those very special impromptu-sounding, “we just”* prayers.  I also heard him discussing things with his daughter about how to make the service more emotional so that he would have a bigger impact on the congregation.  A few weeks ago I was also present when another pastor very cleverly designed the end of his sermon to go along with some light background music so as to garner the largest emotional response possible leading up to the eventual altar call at the end.  Although not in the majority of services, Charles Grandison Finney’s “anxious seat”** is making its appearance in the chapel of the funeral home where I work.  At least the first pastor I mentioned was honest about his objective: emotional response.

I have always been suspicious of praise bands, charismatic worship, and anyone claiming to “just be a Christian” (and condemning a particular tradition/denomination by implication).  The closest I ever got to participating in it was as a camp counselor at an Episcopal diocese’s camp that did utilize some praise songs and contemporary settings of genuine Christian hymnody, but the Prayer Book liturgies were always kept intact so we were shielded from its full negative effects.  As a college student involved in campus ministry and later as a campus chaplain I encountered many manifestations of this “great cataract of nonsense” (hat tip: C.S. Lewis).  The trouble with being opposed to something is that its leaders don’t tend to admit their intent to you, but as a funeral home employee who always gives deference to the clergy, regardless of religion or custom, I have been able to hear admissions from the horse’s mouth, as it were, that the intent really is as I suspected: emotional manipulation.  And they practice to more fully accomplish this end.

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*I refer to them as “we just” prayers because of the frequency that this phrase finds itself in impromptu prayers, usually preceded by “Father” or some other paternal descriptor.

**I suppose proper credit is due to Eleazar Wheelock who developed its predecessor, the “Mourner’s Seat” in the 1730s-40s.  Finney changed the name and was the pioneer of the heretical theology that surrounds the practice saying, “The church has always felt it necessary to have something of this kind to answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles, baptism answered this purpose. The gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were willing to be on the side of Christ, were called out to be baptized. It held the place that the anxious seat does now as a public manifestation of their determination to be Christians.”

Engraving accompanying the Visitation of Prisoners, from an 1843 edition. (justus.anglican.org)

Written on the inside of my copy of Evangelical Lutheran Worship I have written some prayers from other sources and a list of various Psalms for different occasions.  One of the prayers I have written is taken from the 1892 edition of the Book of Common Prayer of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA.  The 1892 BCP is the last American BCP that included the rite for “Visitation of Prisoners” a trend that other provinces of the Anglican Communion have also followed.  Near the end of the service there are several prayers appointed for use by the Minister and this is one that I find quite powerful:

O LORD, we beseech thee, mercifully hear our prayers, and spare all those who confess their sins unto thee; that they, whose consciences by sin are accused, by thy merciful pardon may be absolved; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

There are some excellent prayers elsewhere in the rite that specifically address being a literal prisoner, prayers for those condemned to die, and even a prayer debtors, but this one strikes to the core for all of us.  Every Christian as a human being knows what it is to face an accuser, another person(s), an authority figure, an institution, etc. and every Christian knows that the worst of all is the terrible oppression of conscience accused by sin.  What makes the Christian is the faith and trust in the face of this that absolution is not only possible but attainable via gift through our merciful Savior.  It is the emphasis on the conscience that makes me think this prayer is important.  Disney has tried to convince us that our consciences will never steer us wrong if we but listen to them.  The Disney-esque conscience is a compass that always points us in the right direction.  The mature person knows that things are much more complicated than this, sometimes it is our inner voice that acts as the Accuser.  The Christian knows that not only are things more complicated, but that the compass fails us.  The Christian knows that it is precisely this broken compass, the old Adam, the “old man” who clings to our necks and would drag us down to the grave, that is drowned in Baptism as we are born into the Second Adam, the Christ, who sets us free from our very consciences and extends to us “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in [God's] presence” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, “Holy Baptism,” p. 231).

O Lord Jesus Christ, who wilt come again in glory and bring in thine eternal reign: Establish in us the Faith, and by thy might defend us amid the temptations and cares of this life; that in steadfast devotion we may look for the consummation of thy glorious kingdom; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.  Amen.  ~ p. 223.

This prayer is also interesting because it maintains a very Pauline view of the faith, that is, that it is fundamentally one of expectation.  Our life in Christ, yet in this world, is a kind of eschatological liminal period.  Incidentally, in the new Heaven and Earth, as there will be no need for my work with death being a thing of the past, I think I’d like to grow figs.  No, they’re not my favorite fruit, I don’t even like them.  But, after all the ultimate things have ultimately happened I suspect I will.

The second is that the Abbot of the Order of Corpus Christi, the Rt. Rev. Richard Price, died Tuesday afternoon.  I ask your prayers for the repose of his soul, the grieving process of his family, and the continuation of his work of ministry within the Order.

3rd-century house church in Dura Europos (Syria)

I saw on one of the message boards I haunt a post by an Anglican who lamented that there are no “traditionalist churches” in the area he lives and asked advice about what to do.  Some of the responses focuses on the possibility of commuting long distances, others on finding a traditional version of another denomination and existing as a kind of refugee, and still others on finding other similarly isolated Anglicans and meeting at someone’s home.  It was the last option that stuck out to me as I was reading the several dozen responses.  When the idea was originally floated, someone else’s immediate response was that it was impossible unless one of them was ordained.  The first person struck back and reminded everyone that there have been periods of history where people gathered for Morning Prayer and other such non-sacramental services and got the sacraments whenever a priest happened to be in the area, whether once a month or once a year.  It got me thinking about how one of my own great-grandfather’s was a circuit rider and this was exactly the reality in which he existed for Methodists in certain parts of Montana.

A Nazarene house church in Singapore

As travel expenses continue to rise and denominational bureaucracies continue to face financial struggles, the notion of such house churches or that of churches without an ordained presbyter* may have to be one that we become comfortable with, except perhaps for those of us in urban areas.  It is not just people of small traditionalist denominations that struggle with this as they move around, even if they feel it more often currently.  The rest of us will likely face similar situations as the Church situation in this country deteriorates.  Orthodox immigrants to this country have always known this situation even as their churches are popping up around the US.  The Assyrian Church of the East actively encourages laity in various cities to gather together in homes, etc. and once they have 50 members of a congregation they can petition for a priest.  We do not all exist in the same reality, just ask Episcopalians in rural areas that have a priest despite an average Sunday attendance of a dozen.  This may not be the case for too much longer.  Getting back to the message board, the original poster mentioned that he did stumble across a Reformed Episcopal Church in the area but it had just recently permanently closed its doors.  This man is faced with a dilemma I do not envy, join a congregation with whom he does not identify or start a church and go without sacraments.

Something that Christians, especially but not exclusively Anglicans, discuss and debate is what is the “fundamental unit” of the church?  Is it the province, diocese, district, synod, or congregation that is the chief source of ecclesiastical identity?  Both the Augsburg Confession and the Anglican Articles of Religion describe the church fundamentally as “congregation” of the faithful where the Word is preached and the Sacraments administered.  Perhaps, though, it is possible to simplify even further down to the household if trends continue and an increasing number of us are geographically isolated from our church.  Perhaps it is worth developing an ecclesiology that includes, but is not based upon, the role of overseer, presbyter, and deacon.  Perhaps a new ecclesiology for this century should instead be based upon the role of people like Lydia and individual households:

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. . . So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.  ~ Acts 16:14, 40.

It may just be time to identify ourselves in a way that sounds more like this.  Instead of saying we belong to such and such church which is a part of such and such synod, etc. we should answer in terms of our houses saying that our household has been baptized and our life of faith is guided by such and such confession.

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*This, of course, could lead into a discussion about the viability of bi-vocational clergy, but this is another topic for another day.

A modern Pidyon HaBen in the Chabad Lubavitch community of Poland

The occasion for today’s commemoration includes something that is very ancient, very Old Testament, and is still practiced by Jews today.  It is called Pidyon HaBen and is the ceremony where firstborn sons are redeemed from their sanctified state by giving a priest (‘Kohen’) 5 shekels.  Christians probably don’t pay too much attention to it, but originally in Genesis it was firstborn sons who were to perform ritual duties for the family and were dedicated to God.  Then, after the apostasy of the Golden Calf, the priesthood was taken away from firstborns and assigned to the tribe of Levi, particularly the priests (‘Kohenim‘) descended from Aaron.  Accordingly, each Israelite firstborn son is to be redeemed, bought back, by his parents from the priests.

Yes, Candlemas, does include the ritual purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but it is important to note that Joseph and Mary performed a ‘mitzvah‘ by going to the Temple, presenting Jesus to a priest, and redeeming him as a firstborn of Israel.  Let us never forget that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were faithful in their observations of the ‘mitzvot‘ of the Torah.  As Jesus would later state, “Think not that I am come to make void the law or the prophets; I am not come to make void, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17, Darby).  Today is a festival marking an early step in the consummation of the Law.

I write all this so that any pastors, priests, or lay leaders who may be reading this will be aware that there is a longing among the faithful to have deeper conversations about things that matter.   We want to discuss the Trinity, the person and work of Christ, and yes, even a little bit of sacramental theology.  To borrow a phrase from someone I deeply respect, “treat us like children and we’ll act like children.”  To our bishops and other leaders in the mainline Christian world, I know you have noticed that your congregations, districts, and dioceses are losing members.  Yes, some of that is from people leaving because they disagree with the method and/or the ends of the social goals being pursued, but it also has to do with the fact that many of us are simply tired.  We are tired of the barrage of dumbed down liturgy, theological education, and Sunday School curriculums.  We are tired of endless arguments and law-suits over property when brethren wish to part ways.  We are tired of being talked to like children.

Elevate the conversation and do not be afraid to say things that are hard to understand at first.  We stand on 2000 years of conversation, debate, and asking the big questions in the light of Christ.  If you can’t find anything meaningful to share, teach, or say from any part of this tradition besides the most recent hybrid of pop political-theological-psychological fad, then some of us would rather you not talk at all.  There’s something funny about constantly lowering the bar in order to bring more people into something, eventually the bar is so low that the people present no longer care and those outside are no longer interested.

 The event that touches off this special experience is something called the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Traditionally celebrated between 18-25 January (in the northern hemisphere) or at Pentecost (in the southern hemisphere), the Week of Prayer enters into congregations and parishes all over the world. Pulpits are exchanged, and special ecumenical worship services are arranged.

~oikoumene.org

It can be a very nice experience I suppose, but having never been in a congregation that really took part in something like this, I can’t really say.  Being in an ecumenical Order, though, I can testify that interdenominational conversation and worship can be astonishingly powerful.

Unity is an interesting proposition because there are so many different ways to pursue it.  There is a unifying of ecclesiastical bodies by an outside agent (King Frederick William III) such as in the Evangelical Union of 1817 that “married” Lutherans and Reformed into a single entity.  There is also a unifying of bodies by internal agreement such as in the various mergers that led to the United Church of Christ in this country and the Church of South India, the United Reformed Church, and the United Church of Canada in India, the UK, and Canada, respectively.  Whether done by an outside agent such as a monarch or by agreement, there tends to be groups who resist and refuse the merger.*

Another way to approach unity is by partnerships.  The ELCA, for instance, is in full communion agreements with the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Moravian Church, to name a few.  These churches did not unite into one structure, but there is a recognition of each other’s ministry and ministers despite doctrinal differences.  In the agreement with the Episcopal Church, the ELCA even adopted an episcopal polity, something not typical for Lutherans in the US, with some Lutheran flair.  Likewise, the Episcopal Church had to get over some of its obsessions with the “historic episcopate” in order to recognize Lutheran sacraments and pastors.

The question that seems to plague us more often as time goes on, Christianity continues to wane in the social-political sphere, and our denominations water themselves down to appeal to outsiders is what difference is there between a Lutheran and a Presbyterian and why does it matter?  I often sarcastically remark that if I were to provide a Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Zwinglian definition of the Lord’s Supper on a piece of paper to each member of the church I belong to, only a few could successfully identify our own Confession’s definition of the Supper, much less identify the origin of the others.  And I don’t think we’re unique in this.  Churches don’t seem to care about providing a genuine education to their congregations rooted in their own history.  A source of recent frustration about my own church is my having been informed that the teenagers are being taught from a curriculum publishing by Group, not Augsburg Fortress or Concordia.

My answer to this trend toward a blanding and blending of our denominations is rooted in the same foundation as my opinions on Christian unity.  We each need to spend time seriously understanding, teaching, and asserting what our respective Confessions confess.  Protestant unity is always based upon that proclamation of the Reformation that justification is by grace alone through faith alone, but we should not be so naive as to assume that our other doctrines (and differences) do not matter or are not important.  We need a proper perspective to appreciate the danger of presuming little or no difference between our churches.  As soon as we see no difference between Episcopalian, Lutheran, and Reformed, the world won’t either and will likewise likely see little difference between Christian and deist.

In closing this post, I’d like to offer an excerpt from the end of Philip Schaff’s Principle of Protestantism:

As members of a particular division of the Church of Christ, we must be true to the patrimony of our fathers, conscientiously turn to profit the pound entrusted to our care, and advance with free, genuine historical progress as the wants of the time may require.  To forsake the church communion in which we have been born naturally and spiritually, without urgent reason, is base perfidy.  Let us labor then within our own denomination and for it, as knowing that God has given us here our own special commission to fulfill.  We will manifest, in this very way, our church feeling and regard for history.  Only, let all be subordinated to the interest of the general kingdom of God.  If we have any right idea of the church as the communion of the redeemed transcending all limits of time and space, we shall feel that we cannot extend our view too far.

~Philip Schaff, Principle of Protestantism (Wipf and Stock, p. 215).

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*The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, The Reformed Church in the United States, and the National Association of Christian Churches are examples of bodies formed in response to such mergers.

From what I can gather from radio, internet, and televised media there is no clear understanding of what Marxism, Socialism, and Communism are, much less that they are not synonymous.  All three are so frequently used to smear people within the Democratic Party that I believe the biggest hurdle for the actual Socialist Party in this country to be to explain how they are different from the aforementioned smeared Democrats.  A fun, although admittedly nerdy, experiment to conduct to test whether someone has any idea what they are saying when they refer to someone as a Communist, Socialist, etc. is to engage said person in a conversation about dialectical materialism, commodity fetishism, or even something as simple as Animal Farm - it never ceases to amaze me that people don’t realize Orwell was a Socialist and that Animal Farm was a critique of Stalin – chances are they will have no idea what the heck you are talking about.  This goes back to what I said in the previous paragraph, I don’t believe people really accept that there are any such people who exist who genuinely self-identify as a Marxist, Socialist, or Communist.

In other circles, the opposite problem seems to exist.  I have known a number of liberal Christians who so eagerly embraced all things progressive that they started using “Socialism” as a kind of stand-in for social or economic justice.  A conversation I will never forget hearing at seminary illustrates this point:

Seminarian 1:  It is clear from Acts that the early Christians engaged in a form of Socialism.

Seminarian 2:  I find that assertion offensive, they did no such thing.

Seminarian 1: On what theological grounds can you deny this?  It’s clear that the Apostles engaged in a sharing and redistribution of goods according to people’s needs and that this was a basic element in early Christianity.

Seminarian 2:  No, you misunderstand.  I’m not offended as a Christian, I’m offended as a Socialist.  You’ve reduced Socialism to something trite.  I don’t recall the Apostles ever mentioning the means of production.

The conversation went on for quite a while and I won’t pretend to be able to reconstruct the rest of it.  The point is that it’s the same mistake the political conservative makes, from this exchange it is clear that it never occurred to Seminarian 1 that any genuine Socialists actually existed separate from an otherwise generic liberal sentiment, much less that they would take offense at something probably intended as a misguided compliment to the movement.  To some, a revolutionary label is the ultimate political insult, to others a fantastic compliment.  Both paint broadly and ignorantly.  This problem goes far beyond conversations about politics and those we would like to call Socialists.  Just spend an afternoon observing how Anglicans/Episcopalians talk about each other or how the term “Confessional” is thrown around among Lutherans or Calvinists to get the Christian version of this problem.

We should take offense at the incident.  We should be offended that when a company or person makes an irresponsible decision, the outraged response appeals to our baser selves and not our reason.  Mercedes did something stupid, but any chance at real societal growth was lost in the rash response.  Yes, Che Guevara killed people in battle and executions as part of a campaign very few Americans genuinely know anything about, but the man he helped to overthrow, Fulgencio Batista, tortured and executed some 20,000 people during his dictatorship our government supported.  We could have educated each other, but we didn’t because we were busily and opportunistically criticizing our political opponents.  We should be offended that we talk about each other using language that masks reality.  We should be offended when the outspoken pretend others don’t actually exist.