Some Pros and Cons for Papal Supremacy

The Roman Church's use of the title "Catholic," derived from the Greek word for "universal," presents a historical and theological tension. While undoubtedly an ancient and globally significant communion, its claim to universality is challenged by the historical reality that the Bishop of Rome was initially understood as a co-equal patriarch alongside the leaders of other major Christian centers like Constantinople, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, particularly during the era of the first seven Ecumenical Councils (ending 787 CE). The later assertion of Roman primacy contributed significantly to the tragic divisions within Christendom, leading first to the Great Schism with the Eastern Orthodox and subsequently to the fractures of the Protestant Reformation, meaning the Roman Church has arguably never represented the entirety of the universal Church. 

The Entangled Reality of Spirit and Water Baptism

Ever since I began following Jesus in my late teens, I have read about the debate over the nature, efficacy, and relationship between Spirit baptism and Water baptism. Are these two separate events? Are they one event? Does one lead to the other? Does one exclude the other? To unpack this, here are some preliminary definitions and some Scriptural sources they draw on:

Rejecting the Reconquista for Christ's Mission of Inclusion

Earlier this week I found the Reconquista movement, with its Episcopal version, which details a plan to "re-conquer" historic denominations and take over their property, resources, and reputation with a form of exclusionary Christian faith. In these pages, we find "95 Theses" which are a syncretistic mixture of three strands of incompatible ideas: 

First, there are ancient Creedal beliefs about the Triune God, incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ, who works through the Holy Spirit to extend the mission and incarnation of Christ through the sacramental community of the Church. 

Second, there are explicitly Reformed or Calvinist or "Evangelical" framings of the Nature of God and of salvation which are historically rejected by most non-Reformed Christians (such as Catholics, Orthodox, and non-Reformed Protestants). 

Third, there are modernist exclusionary stances to reject certain social/racial critiques, political-economic ideas, and gender/sexual identities, while at the same time implicitly or explicitly affirming other modern categories of race, social structure, politics, economics, gender, and sexuality. 

This is to say they do precisely what they accuse others of doing: They use reformed and modern categories to view and mold the Ancient Creedal Faith, rather than interpreting theology and culture through the lens of the Ancient Creeds. 

Overview of the Seven "Ecumenical" Councils

Ecumenical derives from the Greek word "oikumene", which roughly translates to "whole inhabited world". A Church Council is an official gathering of representatives to settle Church business, often dealing with doctrine (belief), behavior (morality), and questions of Church polity (canon law). Worldwide Councils are called rarely and are not the same as the regular regional gatherings of church leaders (synods, conventions, etc). An "Ecumenical Council" is one at which the whole Church is represented from throughout the world. 

Does priesthood derive from the New Testament?

I have a friend who objects to the idea of Christian priesthood because he believes it diminishes and even denigrates other members of the Body of Christ who are not priests or bishops. His objection is to a distinctly “sacerdotal” image of the priesthood, in which only the priests or bishops can perform sacraments and teach in the Church, while all other members are more or less passive. To put it in a simplistic and crass way: Priests and bishops are seen to have “magic hands” which can consecrate sacraments, while everyone else is “non-magical”. To be fair, this view of the priesthood is a caricature, and very few people would insist that all ministry must be done by ordained clergy, while everyone else must be passive and receptive. However, this CAN be an implication of some early modern conceptions of the “sacerdotal” priesthood.

Twitter Gospel

A friend talked about summarizing the Gospel in 280 characters for Twitter. So here’s my Twitter Gospel. What is yours?

The Good News is that the LORD of Love is drawing us ALL into God’s embrace through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as God journeys with us through our hells &  heavens, and guides us in our trials & triumphs, so we may share fully in God’s Life and Love and Light.

I even have a 9 word version:

Christ shows God. 

God is Love. 

Love heals all. 

Amen.

Beware of Prophets for Profits

“Think again Sunshine!” Pop-intellectual Jordan Peterson has released a video in which he takes the role of a prophet and tells all Christian churches— Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox— how to do outreach and what our message should be. It is a video in which an exemplar of unhealthy right wing “good think” lobs rhetorical grenades at unhealthy left wing “political correctness” in the name of a religion and a God he himself does not embrace. His central thesis is that young men are burdened with a version of “original sin” experienced as guilt and shame for three overstated reasons, promoted by his enemies such as Derrida and Marx, deconstructionists and cultural Marxists. 

Should Holy Communion be open or closed?

One of the hottest debates of the Episcopal General Convention this year is the subject of “Open” versus “Closed” Communion. The battle lines have been drawn. On one side are those who want communion open to “all people” as “God’s people”. They feel that closed communion is “theological insider baseball” used as an excuse for “gatekeeping” by a hierarchy which implicitly denies God’s Love for all. On the other side are those who fear lack of adequate preparation for reception of the sacrament for those who are not baptized into the Covenant People of the Church. For these people, it isn’t gatekeeping, but maintaining the vital link between the “sacrament of new birth” into the Covenant Family in Baptism, and the “family meal” which is served in the Eucharist. 

Let's explore this issue, shall we...

Mark Nine Twenty Four

A Proem...

Living Vine, Dead Trellis

A poetic reflection on John 15.5 and institutional religion.

The Sacrament of Imagination

An abnormal Sunday approaches
When Church pews normally filled
Lie dormant and desolate
As the faithful search for ways
To fill the void
In their schedule 
And in their hearts

Authentically Christian AND Genuinely Inclusive

A recent article in the Church Times worries that we are failing the next generation of Christians by not handing down the great ideas and ideals of Anglican spirituality in an effort to "simplify" Christianity so it can be more easily digested to those who are un-churched or de-churched. In the name of compassion and inclusion, we often fall into the trap of ignoring our distinctive ideas and practices to be more "user friendly". The truth is, if we do not preserve and transmit our distinct spiritual, theological, and ethical concepts, we will have nothing to include people into. When you tear down all the walls in an effort to remove barriers between people, you cease to have a house that can protect people during life's storms. 

A Prayer for Notre Dame

I want to say something that could easily come off as flip or snide or holier than thou. So I want to preface it by saying that I struggle mightily with my relationship to “organized religion” even though I am a priest. So I do not blame anyone for being lukewarm or burned out on Church. With that said...

Credo: The Story that Reads Us [A Mini-Systemic Theology]

This was originally written in 2006 in partial fulfillment of requirements for Systematic Theology at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. It is fairly representative of my current thought, although in several ways I have built on, or superseded, what is written here. This is especially true in matters dealing with Science, World Religions, and Socio-Economic Justice.

This is the FULL 18,000 word original version that was trimmed to around 10,000 words to be turned in. Note that all endnotes have been removed from this version, due to the limitations of the blog format. However, all sources cited and consulted are found at the end of the essay.

A Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, send forth your Spirit that I may say what needs to be said, in space allowed, and bear witness fully to your Father's Glory and His Story which writes us all. Amen+

The Lombardi Trophy and American Civil Religion

This Sunday I was fascinated by the presentation of the Lombardi Trophy at the Super Bowl, and how it becomes the final sacrament at one of the High Holy Days of American Civil Religion. As a scholar of religion, it was a particularly vivid example of how American Values can be concretized into a set of rituals and even in a central sacramental object. As a Christian pastor, it also kinda horrified me as an act of explicit idol worship. As many have pointed out, sports have become a functional form of religion in our culture, even if they may lack an explicit religious hierarchy or creed.

Religion and Incarnation, Exclusivism and Inclusivism

In this short essay, I would like to fill out a few aspects of what it means to have an inclusivist vision of religions in relation to Jesus Christ, rather than an exclusivist or pluralist vision of religions. If these terms are new to you, or you wonder how I mean these terms, I have a helpful chart here. As our starting point to dive in, I want to begin with one of the unique and central images of Christian Faith: The idea that Christians make up "The Body of Christ".

Only 23 years left for the Episcopal Church?

I recently saw a WaPo article claiming that, based on the statistical free fall of membership in Mainline churches, we only have 23 Easters left before we cease to exist. On one hand, I would put this in the category of "the sky is falling" news reports we read about every few months, which are inevitably followed by a series of articles on signs of growth in "organized religion". This seasonal yin-yang of religion news fuels the constant back and forth of "told you so" posts on social media, as those for and against religion make competing claims. Yet on the other hand, there is something to listen to here. While I think we have many more than 23 Easters left, I do think things will change, and need to change, a great deal. By the year 2117 I would imagine that all American Mainline Protestants will have merged into 2-3 fairly small denominations. If I had to guess, probably one that styles itself a multi-faith fusion Religion, along the lines of Unitarian Universalism; One that is a Liberal Trinitarian Sacramental tradition, including many Lutherans, the Episcopal Church, and some Methodists; And one that is Liberal Trinitarian non-sacramental, and includes folks like Liberal Baptists and those who currently identify as Progressive Evangelicals. 

The Fallacy of the One True Church™

Recently a sincere and well intentioned person approached me on social media with a raft of questions about the Anglican Church, the Episcopal Church, and Christianity in general. This questioner is seeking to convert, and one question above all dominated his concerns: Which is the One True Church™ that he should convert to? After all, as he put it, the Church was “united” for the first millennium, so one of those churches that split off must be the One True Church™. Which one is it?

What counts as "Christian"?

Recently I was in an online discussion about whether a group of people and the ideas they represent are "Christian". My initial response was that if they have been baptized into Christ, and they do not renounce that baptism, then they are Christians. They may be faithless Christians, bad Christians, hypocritical Christians, uninformed Christians, unjust Christians, but they are still Christians.

Christianity in Two Hours or less

I have spent the last five years working with students from all kinds of Christian traditions, and from non-Christian religions and secular families as well. Multiple times each year, I have the opportunity to introduce them to Christianity, in all its various versions and sects and denominations. Whether it is talking in chapel, teaching New Testament, or discussing world religions, I often have to help students find a "road map" to understand the diversity and variety of spiritual viewpoints and practices we call "Christian".

As a result of this experience, I have developed a curriculum of key ideas, charts, and videos designed to introduce teens and adults to the vast family of Christian traditions in around two hours. This assumes that the audience already is introduced to the basics of what the Bible is all about, and what basic ideas are shared across Christian traditions (such as Trinity, Incarnation, Revelation, Salvation, etc.).