That is the Question.

In last night’s post, I proposed that the movement away from the liturgical calendar was a motion towards the secular. There were two comments, as I had cross-posted that at the two blogs on which I’m active, and got one from each.

Mr Trabue asks for clarification:

I know you said “arguably,” but I was wondering how exactly you see a move away from a liturgical calendar as being in any way a move towards secularization?

While Kyle points to Zwingli (and do visit as the whole comment is worthwhile)

It has to do with the puritan movement in England, but I forget exactly the argument. I think there was something to do with a radical misapplication of the principle of sola scriptura, so you’ll need to ask Zwingli. If they banned musical instruments because they weren’t mentioned in the New Testament (though actually they are), can you wonder that they also eliminated scheduled holidays?

[…]My personality is such that I’d rather every day were the same – I hate keeping track of dates. But I’ve sort of resigned myself to celebrating holidays, since everyone around me insists on doing it. If I ignore them for no good reason, what am I communicating? But it seems to me that, if we’re going to start celebrating holidays, we might as well celebrate all of them. I suppose we will eventually.

My attempted clarification and further remarks can be found below the fold. Read the rest of this entry

The 12th Carnival of Christian Reconciliation will be held my home blog at Pseudo-Polymath.
For submission guidelines see this post. The carnival submission will be due by Midnight EST Friday June 20th, although technically I’ll probably do most of the work putting the carnival together over the weekend so the real “cut-off” will be some undetermined time on Sunday. It might be important to note that this carnival accepts multiple entries from each person. See the details on posting guidelines at the above link. The Question/Topic-of-the-Month for this month is:

In St. John Cassian’s Conferences Abba Moses teaches that our thoughts come from three sources, the Holy Spirit, Satan, or ourselves. He then teaches discernment is perhaps the most important Christian virtue, to separate those three in our minds and subsequently our actions. Our Church has split from one into so very many over the almost two millennia since Christ’s resurrection. Some have suggested that perhaps the prevalence and predominance of division in our church is a sign that it is God’s will that the Church be divided. But is this so?

In analogy to Abba Moses’ instruction, one might propose that the origins of any one of these divisions arises from the work or activities of the Spirit, Satan, or Man. One would expect that the latter two are the ones which, if one supports ecumenical movement, should be the ones we actively oppose. How should we discern the difference between these, if indeed that is even a thing we should attempt? Is the motive behind the division a thing which we should discern as we try to heal that same division?  Is such a discernment (or claims to the same) today even useful?

This year, Eastern and Western liturgical calendars were about as far apart as they can be, the Western Easter was in March and won’t be that early calendrically for over a hundred years, while the Eastern Pascha was in May. Next week … the East celebrates the ending of its Paschal season (and to be honest with the feast of the Ascencion just past much of the Paschal liturgical changes have been removed). Pentecost begins “ordinary time”, marking the days between Pentecost and the Nativity fast (although at least 2 “minor” fasts exist between Pentecost and Easter).

Liturgical time is a reflection of the non-secular nature of Church. Secular, coming from the Latin, saeculum has to do with marking time. Liturgical markings of time, the liturgical season strikes a “fork” into our daily time-bound lives grounding us periodic reminders and connections to the timeless. The secular “holidays” that come closest to this like the major sports finals seasons, right now we have the NBA playoffs and coming up the Summer Olympic games, NHL, MLB and NFL as well as many other sports all have their “holidays”. These games are in one way notably unlike liturgical holy days (holi-days) in that typically our “games” are numbered but specifically and purposefully, liturgical holidays are not. There is good reason why Pascha this year is not the 1975th Paschal/Easter celebration. Pascha/Easter is a connection, via liturgy, a forging of a connection to the original Eucharist and the historical resurrection of our Lord, as well as to the eschatological Pascha out of or beyond time. It is a communing with God and our Theosis outside of time.

I’m curious, some Protestant churches have abandoned essentially all but Easter and the Nativity from their set liturgical calendar. The Protestant Reformation was a rejection of many practices in the Roman church that deemed to have  mislayed the essence of the Christian faith and were drawing the laity away from their calling and a distraction. I’m curious. If you belong to a church which does not follow a full liturgical calendar, marking Nativity, Epiphany, Lent, Annunciation, Pascha, Ascension and Pentecost in your season as well as the myriad of lesser feasts (for example coming up “next” in the Orthodox calendar at the end of June is the St. Peter and St. Paul fast and feast). Why? What was the reason for that move, a move arguably toward a secularization of Church?

Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength has in the last week been running a series on spiritual resources for the terminally ill and their caregivers. Now, where I’m placed in my life’s journey has not found me interacting closely with the terminally ill and I’m not naturally very emotive/empathic anyhow. However, it so happens that this Sunday afternoon our choir visited a terminally ill member of our congregation who is (had been) a member of the choir. I hadn’t gotten to know at all over the past year so we haven’t been visiting until now. But … to the point. When we visited we sang a few songs.

As our final song, our choir sang St. Simeon’s prayer (in the west the Nunc Dimittis) :

??? ???????? ??? ?????? ???, ???????, ???? ?? ???? ??? ?? ??????,

??? ????? ?? ???????? ??? ?? ???????? ???,

? ????????? ???? ???????? ?????? ??? ????,

??? ??? ?????????? ????? ??? ????? ???? ??? ??????.

or more usefully, i.e., in English (which is actually how we sang it but some Greek was sung, i.e., the Paschal Toparion)

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.

This is a song well known in Orthodox liturgy as it is part of the Great Vespers service, which in the States is sung every Saturday night.

On the drive home, we were discussing in our family whether this was appropriate to sing in the presence of the dying. I think it is, for that is the precise context of St. Simeon’s urge to speak these words. He has now seen the Christ child and is, as an elderly and likely infirm man … ready to depart … life. The common usage of this song is at the end of a service, and often “now let thy servant depart” is taken as to depart from this place of worship and return to secular life. However, that is now what was meant in the original context. So in that regard, as a song for the dying … it both is appropriate and may provide some comfort.

Comments?

In a discussion, I can’t locate right now, I accused Dan Trabue of equating Jesus message with class warfare. Now we have some disagreements, but that accusation was and is unfair and wrong … and I apologize.

Mr Trabue is far more comfortable with Marxist Liberation theology than is healthy for anyone, err, than I. Particularly seeing as how I think, and I think I can support, the idea that Marxism is inextricably linked with genocide. But that is no reason to connect Mr Trabue to a line of thinking that link  Jesus teachings on charity to the poor, via Liberation theology to Marxism and thereby conclude that Mr Trabue thinks that Jesus commends class warfare. So, no I don’t believe that Mr Trabue thinks that the outworking of Jesus theology is Holodomor.

Mr Traube holds his beliefs out (see comment 10 in the above linked item) for us all to review so we might examine our differences. I’m going to list these items and remark on some of them in the hopes of exploring in a gracious way, our differences.

1. We are saved by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus. Not by works.

Now a lot of theological fire is held in abeyance in this statement. Catholics affirm it, yet they continue by noting that faith without works is dead … so by logical inference works are required as well, but the works don’t save us, Christ does. Works are the evidence of our faith. Paul also notes works without faith avail us not in Romans.

2. We are not saved merely by believing in Jesus (”yeah, he was a good guy, son of God, that’s all cool”) – even the demons believe, we’re told – but by believing in Jesus and his teachings, the Way he told us to live. By embracing that as the Right and Good Way, by asking for forgiveness when we get it wrong and trusting in God to help us follow in those steps.

Sacramental efficacy? Baptism into life, “all who are Baptized into Christ have put on Christ” is sung at times in Orthodox liturgy. Fasting, prayer, confession, repentance, charity, and the liturgy are the ways in which we follow that way. We don’t ask forgiveness “when we get it wrong” because we always get it wrong. We must pray continually, ask forgiveness continually, etc.

4. Because we’re flawed humans, we don’t always get it right. Sometimes we misunderstand the Bible. Sometimes, our reasoning is off. Thankfully, we are saved by God’s Grace.

What has been accepted by Ecumenical council and received by the Church catholic are how we judge the correctness of our interpretation. See also St. John Cassian on discernment transmitting the wisdom of the Desert.

5. The Bible has clear teachings – consistently throughout the whole of the Bible – about wealth and poverty. To ignore them is foolishness

I agree. I just think the teachings on our attitude toward God, our repentance are more important. That is the crux of our argument.

6. One of the consistent gists of biblical teachings on wealth and poverty is that God is especially concerned for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized. God clearly loves us all, but consistently throughout the Bible, God says, “woe to those who’d mistreat the poor.” God never in all of the Bible says such about the rich, the powerful and the mainstream. There are lessons to be learned there.

“woe to those who’d mistreat the poor”? Where? Just curious. On the “never says that about the rich” I don’t know what is meant by that. St. John Chrysostom taught that the rich should help the poor as part of charity and the poor for their part in charity should pray for the rich. I think that is right.

7. The lesson, though, isn’t that God is a class warrior or a mere marxist – playing the rich against the poor. Again, God loves us all. Rich and poor. God wants what’s best for us all.

“God wants what’s best for us all.” Which is that we are holy, priestly, God-fearing people.

8. This world is a world of abundance and plenty, with plenty for all – providing that some don’t overconsume resources and especially that they don’t do so by “false scales,” “buying land upon land,” etc. i.e., providing that people don’t oppress others by systems or methods that are designed to take advantage of people to one’s own benefit.

?! See my prior post.

9. Both Marxism and capitalism are flawed human constructs – ways of dealing with matters of economy. Neither is perfect and, in fact, both have quite potentially large flaws. My personal inclination is towards a regulated capitalism. I think Marxism is difficult to pull off well on the large scale.

Marxism is evil incarnate. Slavoj Zizek writes that Lenin is to Marx and Marxism and Paul is to Christ and Christianity. You cannot have one without the other. Marxism implies genocide. Marxism was “pulled off” just fine by Mao and Lenin. The result speaks for itself.

10. Because I recognize the reality of the large number of verses dealing with wealth and poverty, because I point out that James said, “Is it not the rich who are exploiting you?” or that Jesus said, “it is difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom,” doesn’t mean much beyond that I’m pointing them out and that I believe that what Jesus and James and the prophets and all the other writers of the Bible had to say is important.

I’m not disputing that. I’m disputing your comfort level with Marxism and your theological elevation of poverty/charity in the Gospel.

Frequent commenter in these here parts, Dan Trabue and others brought up the discussion of homosexuality and Scripture. It is said, where two or three or gathered there will be four or five opinions on theological matters and that seemed to be the case. As this conversation too often brings up lots of heat and little light, I’m going to put most of it below the fold. Read the rest of this entry

To all you in the Western tradition. In the East, on Pascha/Easter the homily has been the same for over 1500 years. St. John Chrysostom preached this one Pascha morn and it was decided it couldn’t be improved upon. This is what he preached see what y’all think of it:

If any man be devout and loveth God,
Let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast!
If any man be a wise servant,
Let him rejoicing enter into the joy of his Lord.

If any have laboured long in fasting,
Let him how receive his recompense.
If any have wrought from the first hour,
Let him today receive his just reward.
If any have come at the third hour,
Let him with thankfulness keep the feast.
If any have arrived at the sixth hour,
Let him have no misgivings;
Because he shall in nowise be deprived therefore.
If any have delayed until the ninth hour,
Let him draw near, fearing nothing.
And if any have tarried even until the eleventh hour,
Let him, also, be not alarmed at his tardiness.
For the Lord, who is jealous of his honour,
Will accept the last even as the first.
He giveth rest unto him who cometh at the eleventh hour,
Even as unto him who hath wrought from the first hour.
And He showeth mercy upon the last,
And careth for the first;
And to the one He giveth,
And upon the other He bestoweth gifts.
And He both accepteth the deeds,
And welcometh the intention,
And honoureth the acts and praises the offering.

Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord;
Receive your reward,
Both the first, and likewise the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival!
You sober and you heedless, honour the day!
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
And you who have disregarded the fast.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy ye all the feast of faith:
Receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.

Let no one bewail his poverty,
For the universal Kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
For pardon has shown forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
For the Saviour’s death has set us free.
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.
By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:
Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.

It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be glory and dominion
Unto ages of ages.

Amen.

Cross-posted at New Covenant

In writing about the phenomenon of the culturally feminized man, perhaps I have been amiss in my use of certain words. Not that I’ve changed my opinion, mind you, but I think I underestimated the manner in which my use of the word “feminized”, for example, would be taken. It seemed (and it still does) pretty clear to me, as it must to authors such as Mark Steyn and Nancy Pearcey, how the word should be taken. Yet, I think the negative aspects of this use of “feminization” is perhaps too easily linked up with the mere trait of being feminine (a wonderful trait, I might add, provided that one is female).

So… what word to use? Girlie-man? Nah. Too Terminator-esque. I had thought that “infantile” would be a valid substitute – but that wouldn’t be fair to all the infants in the world (given that they are not yet in a position to defend themselves). So, I’m pretty much left with the word – wimpification – to utilize in describing what I see as negative cultural influences within our society.

That said, first up in this series of posts highlighting evidence of our wimpified culture, is a tidbit from Mere Comments, titled Is Easter Too Scary for Preschoolers?.

The pastors at this church in Raleigh, North Carolina, were perplexed when they saw the Holy Week Sunday school lessons for preschoolers from “First Look,” the publisher of the one to five year-old Sunday school class materials. There wasn’t a mention of the resurrection of Jesus. Naturally, the pastors inquired about the oversight. It turns out it was no oversight.

…

“Easter is a special time in churches,” the letter from the publisher says. “It’s a time of celebration and thankfulness. But because of the graphic nature of the Easter story and the crucifixion specifically, we need to be careful as we choose what we tell preschoolers about Easter.”

…

The curriculum marketers must know how bad this sounds, so they reassure the church they believe that the Gospel is for all people. Leaving out the cross and the resurrection is actually to help children come to Christ. They write, “We’re using these formative preschool years to build a foundation for that eventual decision by focusing on God’s love and telling preschoolers that ‘Jesus wants to be my friend forever.'”

Not only do they think that the Easter Resurrection Day story is too graphic for preschoolers to handle, they also think we should be teaching those same preschoolers some anti-Biblical notion that Jesus wants to be my friend forever. One has to wonder if their curriculum has some benign “Jesus”, smiling, and clad in a sweater, asking the children, “Won’t you let me be your friend? Please? It would mean so much to me? Oh, please, let me be your friend?”

Consider, though, is the “Jesus wants to be my friend forever” message, to four year-olds, any different from the “Jesus wants to have a personal relationship with you” sermon, pitched to adults? For a wimpified culture, I fear that the answer is, no.

For this months Carnival of Christian Reconciliation, the topic Mr Platypus suggests is:

All of this prompts me to propose “Reconciliation and Liturgical Time” as the special topic for this Carnival. How are divergent or competing understandings of the liturgical year an obstacle to reconciliation? Conversely, how does the idea of liturgical time open up possibilities for greater unity? In any event, how do we live out our Christian discipleship among fellow believers who approach liturgical time differently?

As I write this most of the readers of this entry will likely be entering their Holy week celebrations. Many will be looking forward to finally breaking their fast, to celebrating, “getting their alleluia’s back”, and in general filling their own traditional ways of celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord and our God.

In A Secular Age philosopher Charles Taylor begins by noting the secular comes from the Latin: saeculum which relates to an “age” a specified length of time. Secular consequently is bound up in time. The Sacred is not. And this is true of our worship. Sunday worship “connects” and is “closer” to other Sunday’s and specifically that first Easter Sunday, than it is to Monday even though “in time” it is not. Our liturgical calendar pierces our secular time lines as the tines of a fork pinning us to the Eternal. The Orthodox teaching is that there is no time in liturgy. That in the divine liturgy we participate in the eschaton, in the timelessness of God.

But it is true there is division and unity in our liturgical calendars. Having the same calendar does aid ecumenical union. Last week, on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, while traveling on business I visited and had a wonderful experience at a very small rural ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) parish in Northern Georgia (web site here). Orthodoxy does not precisely share the same calendar … but for Lent/Pascha/Pentacost we do. Orthodoxy is split between the Julian and Gregorian calendar for the rest of the year. But because we share the same calendar in this season, I heard the same readings, and the homily was preached on the same subject. There were some differences, no parade of Icons and a little over half of the service was in old Slavonic … which was something of a challenge to sing. But … enough about me (or alternatively … I digress). The point is ecumenical connections between myself as a new OCA (Orthodox Church of America) member were eased by our liturgical similarities including our calendar. I would have felt out of place, having just finished my first week of Lenten fasting in joining a Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic, or other Protestant church which was celebrating Palm Sunday … not “the Triumph of Orthodoxy” and the victory over iconoclasm.

But while, the non-shared liturgical calendar hurts the ecumenical meeting of Orthodox an non-Orthodox does it help for instance the meeting of main line Protestant churches and Catholic? And here, I must confess my ignorance of what praxis and calendars are followed by the non-liturgical Protestants. But it seems to me likely, in for the traveller or the visitor, the non-sharing of secular (set in time) of the Sacred events is a hindrance to the mixing of our sectarian splits.

And that is perhaps a most important point. For noting our ignorance we have an opportunity to fill that void. As we are widely ignorant of the “Others” calendar … we can try to share. So in the interests of informing the y’all, I’ll point to this program, a free download, provided by (yet another) Atlanta (this time OCA) church. It provides the hymns (troparia and kontakia) assigned for the day, the Scripture readings, and the Saints as well as the official record of those Saint’s life for each day.

If you could, leave as comments here, links or references to your liturgical year … so we can all share and by our differences find what we have in common.

One of the biggest issues I have with the evangelical church in America is its obsession with capitalism. Or, I should clarify, the philosophy of capitalism.

Maybe it’s my Calvinistic bent, but I cringe every time I read about church growth programs, evangelistic methodologies, and cool, innovative ways to trick reach the lost with hip sermons.

I guess that’s why, when purusing the posts at Lifehacker, I was impressed with one titled, Give a Presentation like Steve Jobs. Kevin Purdy, the Lifehacker author, links to Deliver a Presentation like Steve Jobs, from BusinessWeek, and states:

BusinesssWeek gets a communication coach to analyze Steve Jobs’ latest Macworld keynote speech and pull out 10 tips that us mere mortals can apply to our own presentations. One strategy in particular seems to be what makes Jobs’ product introductions stand out from the typical “gee whiz” events:

Sell the benefit. While most presenters promote product features, Jobs sells benefits. When introducing iTunes movie rentals, Jobs said, “We think there is a better way to deliver movie content to our customers … most of us watch movies once, maybe a few times. And renting is a great way to do it. It’s less expensive, doesn’t take up space on our hard drive…” Your listeners are always asking themselves, “What’s in it for me?” Answer the question. Don’t make them guess. (emphasis in original)

How close is that methodology to the so-called evangelistic pitch we often hear in churches today? Rather than hear the Biblical idea that we are all sinners, we’re presented a notion which purports to sell the benefit of having a personal relationship with Jesus. Rather than hearing that God commands us to repentance, we hear messages which pander to the “What’s in it for me?” question our listeners are always asking themselves.

Think about it, the next time you’re in church.

Russ Neglia of “Pro-Life Pro-Logic” has a post up about the church — Catholic and Protestant — and its reluctance to take a public stand for life. Aside from its own teachings to the faithful, Russ sizes up the church in general and finds it generally missing from the public square. As to why this is, Russ believes that “non-offense” and “tolerance” — that is, modern day political correctness — have seeped into the message and the preachers.

Calling something “wrong” is inherently offensive and intolerant. Can the church still do this?

[tags]abortion,pro-life,Christianity,Russell Neglia[/tags]