WAR!! Archbishop launches attack on the US!!

That's what the headline reads: World Anglican Leader launches attack on US!!

Apparently, in an uncharacteristically decisive move, the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has dispatched the dreaded Lambeth Guard to attack the US! Their probable mission: to assassinate President Bush and his Cabinet! As everyone knows, the members of the Lambeth Guard (full title: "The Holy and Imperial Order of the Guardians of the Palace at Lambeth, defenders of the Most Holy Anglican Faith and Primate by Royal Edict and Divine Succor to the praise of God, Etc."), are trained from childhood in the arts of combat, infiltration, espionage and the proper use of the 1662 Prayerbook. They are far more elite even than the pope's Swiss Guard.

No doubt for fear of his own life, President Bush has been continuously airborne aboard Air Force One, surrounded by Secret Service agents and a large fighter-jet escort ever since the Archbishop announced his decision in a recent homily given at a ceremony commemorating the life of Ghandi. George W. Bush has reiterated that the enemies of the US must be destroyed, and has suggested that the Archbishop (and possibly all of the Anglican Communion) may be added to the official Axis of Evil blacklist. US reprisals against UK targets - London and Canterbury in particular - are feared, though the British government has made no formal statements at this point. Experts believe the Prime Minister, in consultation with the Royal Family, and the bishops of the Church of England, is studying the social and political implications for siding with the US against the Primate of All England. It is possible that deadly MI6 agents will be sent out as counter-operatives...

Or at least that's what I thought the article was going to say with such an...uh...exciting title.

So this leads me to ask a number of questions:

1) Is the title intentionally sensationalized or mis-leading?

2) Does the need to compete on the "news market" lead to a distortion of the purpose of news media - to facilitate a well-informed public (or is that even the purpose of News Media)?

3) Would anyone have read this article if it had a more realistic title like: "Rowan Williams makes critical comments not unlike those of many other religious and political leaders concerning Iraq"?

4) If the answer is "NO" what might that imply?

5) Does our current constellation of news media inhibit or facilitate (or neither/both) thoughtful and well-informed social debate?

Reign of Christ, the King

Christ the King Sunday is coming up this weekend: the last Sunday of the Christian Liturgical Calendar; after that we'll trade our white paraments for purple (or blue) as we'll be starting a new Christian Year with Advent.

The Kingship or Lordship of Christ is one of those intensly political beliefs of the Christian faith, the implications of which are often missed because "King Jesus" has simply been heard as the pious "language of Zion," and therefore (presumably) relates to piety and not politics (because the Enlightenment divorce between these two aspects of reality has been accepted uncritically).

In fact, we are all (or should be) subjects of a King, whose name is Jesus. He is the rightful ruler of all creation (by virtue of his being the one through whom it was created). He is Lord both of my heart and of our "polis" (lit. "city") - our way of living together as a community. He is king both of how we pray, and of how we spend our money, (and what we do with our sexuality). He designed us and has the best possible plan for each. His Monarch-al claims forever put elections and earthly kings, patriotisms and individualisms in their proper places. Jesus is Lord is the fundamental confession of the Christian (Rom. 10:9).

And his Kingship is a once-and-future reality. His Kingdom will come in all of its fullness and Creation will rejoice even as it is renewed (this future New Creation has already begun to happen in our history - begun at the Resurrection). The question before each of us and before all of us is: when the kingdom comes, will we be found to be subjects, even co-heirs of the kingdom, who welcome and are welcomed by their King? Or will we be rebels, who can are cast out of, even flee from, His royal city/polis? (since by definition a rebel can have no share in the Kingdom, unless perhaps he killed the King and replaced him...but then, we already tried that)

The coming of his kingdom IS the good news (see Luke 4:43) - the "gospel" that is to be announced - and among those (such as John Piper, unless - as is always possible - I mis-understand his critique of N.T. Wright) who believe this jeopardizes the Reformation definition of "the gospel" as primarily a system or formula by which individuals are saved, it should be remembered that Christ came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) - the one who led the rebellion against God. Completely destroying the works of the Devil must mean that God's rebel sujects will be restored to right relation with him, their King, -- and this in turn must imply a royal pardon for their sins. But this gospel implies not only pardon for an individual's sins, but also the "restoration of all things" (Acts 3:21) to a state of being ruled by the love of God, which goes beyond an individualistic gospel of personal forgiveness and extends to all the universe (the larger scope of the restoration of all creation to God's Kingdom seems to me more appropriate for the BIG view of God's sovereign rule which Calivinists are supposed to have).

Almighty and everlasting God,
it is your will to restore all things to Christ,
whom you have annointed priest for ever and ruler of creation.
Grant that all the people of the earth,
now divided by the power of sin,
may be united under the glorious and gentle rule of Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.

(United Methodist Hymnal #721, based on Book of Common Prayer [1979] p.236 )

Bill Maher - prophet of the Lord?

I often disagree with Bill Maher (especially his atheism), but I'll watch him anyways when he's on TV because he's so dern clever - like Colbert, but more earnest.

But here, we are in nearly complete agreement. Maybe our lifestyles are unhealthy (and I would add, perhaps "unholy" is closely related) and our consumer-culture has taught us to assume that the answer can be bought in a store. And drug companies are happy to deliver. Maybe we should look to common sense, rather than commercial sensation, for guidance here?

That exercise is JUST as effective as drugs in curing depression was, I thought, especially important if it is true, as the book/movie by this title claimed, we have become a "prozac nation."

Of course, the question might easily arise (and should): where is the Church on this? Where are the clergy? If the problems (and rate hikes) of clergy health insurance in my conference are any indicator, the leaders of the Church, for our part, are not by-and-large modeling "whole-ly" living here.

Evangelicals seeking traditionalist spirituality

Yes, I know I write frequently about the ecumenical/catholic turn that my own spiritual life has taken over the last few years, both in terms of theology (see especially here, the post I am most proud of) and also in practice: I now strive to practice more liturgy, keep the Christian year, observe weekly communion (thankfully, more Methodist churches are doing this), and make relatively regular use of the Anglican/Ecumenical rosary; I also get excited about the little ways our worship that displays historical rootedness - whether that means icons, or incense, or robe-wearing ministers (please don't think that I am advocating organ-only music, I believe the Charismatic movement has taught us alot about worship that can be incorporated without at the same time ditching those displays of historical rootedness - thus ancient/future worship is closer to my ideal). I write about these things so much because I believe I have discovered something important.

And the stories (or observations) of Evangelicals who have made similar moves abound (so we invent phrases like "walk the Canterbury Trail" or "swim the Tiber"). Here are a couple of articles I ran across recently. The first is a shorter one from a Baptist minister-turned Eastern Orthodox priest and the second is an illuminating article from the Internet Monk. This second article is, I would say a must read (especially if what I am saying doesn't resonate with you).

Both express a dissatisfaction with the spirituality of American Evangelicalism. This yearning for a deeper spirituality, one that is not based upon getting one more "mountain top" experience of God (through newer, more annointed, more relevant, music/conferences/7-step plans), but rather a spirituality that has been proved over centuries and capable of seeing me through the dry, dark valleys. This yearning may be one reason why Richard Foster's work has been so popular - which itself is very "catholic" in the broad sense of the word (the way I usually use it and the way my fellow Louisianians rarely do) - Foster listens to voices across the ages and across the divisions of the One Church.

My hope for The United Methodist Church (UMC), now faced with the decision (among several other big decisions regarding "identity" in the coming decades) of whether we will follow many of the free churches into the entertainment buisiness, is that we will instead turn back towards our own very catholic spirituality that we inherited through our Anglican heritage. Lest we forget, the UMC is - as our doctrine, liturgy, and history continuously testify - a Church of the Anglican tradition, and I believe we need deliberately to recover, appropriate, and celebrate that, as many are now seeking to do. So let us whoop out those prayer books, robes, or whatever, and let us get on with the business of dying, with Christ, to the world. Let us learn to do this using liturgy, fasting, vigils, cross-bearing, such spiritual disciplines as chastity and obedience, and other things that are not "relevant" (read: 'entertaining' or 'crowd pleasing') to contemporary society.

O God, make speed to save us.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Amen.

Canterbury speaks out on abortion

As you may have already heard, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has recently voiced concern that people in Great Britain and the West are insufficiently troubled about the commoness of abortion. He suggested that this signals a lack of respect for the human lives that are being taken through abortion. When abortion was legalized, it was still widely assumed that it was "profoundly undesirable" and was meant to give an option to women in extreme cases.

Now, abortion is easier, more common, and more socially acceptable in Great Britain, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe. Williams lamented that something had changed in people's assumptions about the unborn life of the baby and called for people to think harder about the consequences of their actions. In the face of home-administered abortion pills, Williams called for individuals to confer with others and not to make such a serious decision alone.

In keeping with my own Church's stance on this issue, I pray frequently for an end to abortion as a means of birth control (which, as I understand it, accounts for around 95% of all abortions), and I hope the Archbishop's statements will indeed cause people to re-think this issue.

What are we doing? - Willimon's comments

In his one of his closing lectures in our Systematic Theology class, Dr. William Abraham emplored us to "talk about God." We Methodists/"Mainliners", he said, spend lots of time talking about ourselves, or about spiritual techniques, or about oppression and social action, or even about "langauge about God" - but so often we shy away from direct focus on the One that actually is the reason and the source for all the other good things. We are the Church because of God and nothing else. Now, what Dr. Abraham said may be more true of the seminary than of the church, but I wonder if he isn't on to something here.

Bishop Will Willimon, former Dean of Duke Chapel and current Methodist bishop of Northern Alabama (and in my humble opinion an exemplary bishop) gets at this same issue on his blog : it turns out that growing churches are those that actually connect people to God! What people actually want from church, according to studies that Willimon cites, is something specifically religious: to be connected with God. Imagine that?!

Some argue that the church isn't relevent if it fails to appeal to and incorporate the lastest intellectual trends or pop-cultural fads, speaking the right lingo or drapping our worship in the latest trappings. I've got to say (as you might have already gathered) that I am skeptical about the health of this attitude. I think first and foremost we must worship God and learn to be awed by the Good News of what God has done in Jesus Christ and is doing by the Spirit.

I like this story Bishop Willimon tells because it rings so true of Methodists, how it seems we sometimes focuse on the details so as to miss (or almost miss) the whole point of things:

Halford Luccock, that great teacher and preacher, told the story of the Methodist congregation, somewhere in the remote Dakotas, who suffered a severe blizzard one winter. The snow was high. Even the mail did not get through for a week. That meant that the pastor and congregation had no clue what was the denominational emphasis for that week. They did not if know this Sunday in February was United Nations Sunday, or the Festival of the Christian Home Sunday, or what. So, said Luccock, the pastor strode embarrassed before the congregation that Sunday and said that, "In the absence of any other reason for gathering today, we'll just worship God."

So, how about your church? Is God the reason? Are people being connected with God? Or can most of the stuff that happens basically get by without much interaction with him?