I saw a Northern Cardinal this morning, and a crow with nesting material in his mouth. What have you seen? Leave a comment. Maybe this winter will end sometime…..
Archive for March, 2008
I’ve gotta say, the ability to go from the resurrection of Jesus Christ to cow emissions in the space of a couple hundred words is truly extraordinary.
Read the whole thing here.
The Globe and Mail’s Michael Valpy has written an article about a United Church pastor who is “post Christian”.
That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, Jesus Christ Has Risen Today – Hallelujah, this morning will rock the walls of Toronto’s West Hill United Church as it will in most Christian churches across the country.
But at West Hill on the faith’s holiest day, it will be done with a huge difference. The words “Jesus Christ” will be excised from what the congregation sings and replaced with “Glorious hope.”
Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected – an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit – but not Jesus, contrary to Christianity’s central tenet about the return to life on Easter morning of the crucified divine son of God.
Generally speaking, no divine anybody makes an appearance in West Hill’s Sunday service liturgy.
I really have to wonder what exactly it is that makes this congregation Christian, then…
Like Bishop Holloway, Ms. Vosper does not want to dress up the theological detritus – her words – of the past two millennia with new language in the hope of making it more palatable. She wants to get rid of it, and build on its ashes a new spiritual movement that will have relevance in a tight-knit global world under threat of human destruction.
Would that be “God’s word written” that she wants to get rid of? How can we be Christians if we give no credence to God’s revelation?
[Ms. Vosper] says there’s been virtually a consensus among scholars for the past 30 years that the Bible is not some divine emanation – or in [her] acronym, TAWOGFAT, The Authoritative Word of God For All Time – but a human project filled with contradictions and the conflicting worldviews and political perspectives of its authors.
All I can say about that is that she can’t be very widely read. Here’s the nub of the issue, though:
She wants salvation redefined to mean new life through removing the causes of suffering in the world. She wants the church to define resurrection as “starting over,” “new chances.” She wants an end to the image of God as an intervening all-powerful authority who must be appeased to avoid divine wrath; rather she would have congregations work together as communities to define God – or god – according to their own worked-out definitions of what is holy and sacred. She wants the eucharist – the symbolic eating and drinking of Jesus’s body and blood to make the congregation part of Jesus’s body – to be instead a symbolic experience of community love.
I have to wonder if this woman has even read the New Testament. She seems to have no real concept of God’s love, or who Jesus really is. How do you work out a definition of what is holy and sacred without divine guidance? What she is advocating is remaking God in man’s own image. At least she is being honest about it. I really wonder why she just doesn’t resign her United Church orders and go get ordained in the Unitarian Church. This is what Unitarians have been doing for decades, after all.
This really breaks my heart. It’s not really that she and her congregation have tried Christianity and found it wanting; they haven’t really tried authentic Christianity. So sad.
We had an Easter egg hunt at church today. My youngest, who just turned three, had a hard time waiting for the end of the service (because, of course, he had spotted some of the eggs). When he was finally allowed to collect the eggs, he grabbed as many as his little hands could hold, and refused to eat them. He just clutched them until they started to melt, and I could not convince him that he would ruin them if he didn’t eat them soon.
It made me think. Is that how God sees us, with our fancy toys and money? Clutching as much as our little hands can hold, and not seeing the good we could do, if only we loosened our grasp a little?
Picture yourself tied to a tree,
condemned of the sins of eternity.
Then picture a spear, parting the air,
seeking your heart to cut your despair.
Suddenly—a knight, in armor of white,
stands in the gap betwixt you and its flight,
And shedding his ‘armor of God’ for you—
bears the lance that runs him through.
His heart has been pierced that yours may beat,
and the blood of his corpse washes your feet.
Picture yourself in raiment white,
cleansed by the blood of the lifeless knight.
Never to mourn,
the prince who was downed,
For he is not lost! It is you who are found.
–Johnny Hart
Along The Road
I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chattered all the way.
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow
And ne’er a word said she;
But oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me!
©Robert Browning
R.I.P. Maggie S. Tuesday of Holy Week 2000
This fellow’s stage presence is horrid – minimize the window and just listen…
h/t Stand Firm
…Connie Wookcock of the Toronto Sun, who Just Doesn’t Get It. You can read the whole article here, if you want to.
Let’s start here, shall we:
The Anglican church of Canada’s many problems have been much in the headlines lately as a small number of congregations have voted to leave ostensibly over the issue of same sex marriage, but really because the evangelicals within the church don’t want to deal with more liberal views of Christianity itself.
I wonder what Ms. Woodcock thinks we have been dealing with for the last 20 years? She obviously wasn’t at the last two General Synods, where Anglican Essentials Canada had a major presence. I wonder what she would consider “dealing with” to be? Saying “Peace, Peace” probably.
If you don’t know anything about Christianity, here are the two most important items. (1) Love God. (2) Love your neighbour as you love God. That’s all there is.
But some Anglicans are having trouble with (2), especially those neighbours who are (1) gay, (2) lesbian or (3) different from the fundamentalists. If Jesus Christ himself were to walk into one of these fundamentalist churches on Sunday morning, he’d likely be found wanting. Too liberal.
Have you ever actually attended a conservative Anglican church, Ms. Woodcock? What exactly is your definition of love? I would guess that love=being nice in her books. Trouble is, sometimes love has to say the hard thing. Sometimes love has to stand up and say “No, this is wrong, and it is taking you further away from Jesus”. Sometimes love has to speak truth to power.
Anglicanism has always been a big tent that has made room for a broad range of belief. Those on the far right, who call themselves orthodox Anglicans, a small group despite the noise they make, believe the Bible literally, right down to Adam and Eve.
Only a small group in North America, not world wide. We haven’t actually been making a very big public noise, it’s just that the actions that some bishops have taken against us have garnered a lot of press. I do believe that the Bible is God’s word written, but the way Ms. Woodcock has described it, you would think that I had to leave my brain at the church door in order to believe, which is incredibly insulting. I would suggest that she take any J.I. Packer or C. S. Lewis book on Christianity out of the library, that would disabuse her of that notion p.d.q.
And then there are the rest of us in the middle, wondering why we can’t just go back to the way we were — worshipping in peace and tolerance.
Translation: As long as it doesn’t affect what goes on in my little corner of the Anglican world, I don’t care if heresy is being preached.
Tolerance, however, is a word, along with inclusivity, the right wingers apparently aren’t acquainted with, so there will be much more agony before these problems are sorted out, if they ever are.
Tolerance means to put up with. Jesus didn’t tolerate anybody, he loved people, and that is what we are called to do. Love, mind you, not luv or be nice.
The question of who owns the churches will be settled quickly. The Anglican church, like the Roman Catholic church, is hierarchical and church law is quite clear that property rights, along with power, reside with the diocese and its bishop.
That’s not what was argued when the Diocese of Caribou went under. This paragraph alone proves that the author Doesn’t Get It.
Meanwhile, it would be nice if the fundamentalists took a little look at the bracelets they’re so fond of wearing — the ones made of beads bearing the letters WWJD which stand for “What would Jesus do?”
One suspects Jesus would weep.
I think he probably would, but not for the reasons Ms. Woodcock thinks.
