Month: August 2015

09Aug

God’s Pugilist

We aren’t talking here about Cardinal Ratzenberger in his pre-Pope years, or any of those evangelical leaders who are vocal about politics, but about a real boxer; namely George Foreman.  It appears that in his post-boxing years he has become a pastor in Houston.

HOUSTON — The Rev. George Foreman flipped his Bible open to the Book of Genesis, let fly with a left hook for Jesus and sent Satan sprawling into the ropes.

“You’ve got to learn how to fight!” he exhorted. “If you believe in God, you’ve got to fight for him.”

The Sunday morning faithful, warmed by a hand-clapping round of gospel singing, rocked on their hard wooden pews with the verbal punch.

The article quoted above goes on to speak of an incident in 1977, following a boxing match, in which Foreman had a vivid experience in which he felt he was struggling with death, and realized that he didn’t truly believe.  He then felt a sense of Christ’s presence plucking him out of darkness.  Read it all:  New York Times

03Aug

Famous Statements of a Controversial Bishop

The U.S. Episcopal Church met in convention in July 2015 to consider many weighty matters. Among other things, they elected a new presiding bishop.  On the anniversary of this occasion, it seems a good moment to look back “fondly” at the tenure of the former presiding bishop, Katherine Jefferts Schori. She has been vilified by many, revered by a few, but unknown to just about no one. She was never one to shy away from controversy. She appeared keen not so much to “preside” over the entire church body, as to take up firmly for its leftist factions. A charitable position might be to suggest that she stepped into the helm of a church already in schism, and that she would have had little choice than to act as she did. Of course, she will be remembered for spending millions on aggressively suing departing congregations, and disciplining those bishops who lent any support to them.

But rather than comment further on these issues, we will recall some of her most famous (and infamous) public statements. Here they are,

Top Schori statements

1. On the shrinking of the church, and how it reflects better education and stewardship:

Q: How many members of the Episcopal Church are there in this country?
A: “About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children.”
Q: Episcopalians aren’t interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?
A: “No. It’s probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion.”
2006 New York Times Magazine Interview: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/magazine/19WWLN_Q4.html

2. On that evil apostle Paul, “depriving” a slave girl of her demon, er “gift”:

“Paul is annoyed at the slave girl who keeps pursuing him, telling the world that he and his companions are slaves of God. She is quite right. She’s telling the same truth Paul and others claim for themselves. But Paul is annoyed, perhaps for being put in his place, and he responds by depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness. Paul can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it. It gets him thrown in prison. That’s pretty much where he’s put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she, too, shares in God’s nature, just as much as he does, maybe more so!”

Sermon preached in Curacao, May 2013: Episcopal Digital Network

3. On how how if it’s found in nature than it’s A-okay:

Well if one looks at the rest of creation, there are lots and lots of instances of same-sex behaviour in other species. They’re generally a small percentage of the whole, but they’re clearly evident. If they exist, an evolutionary theorist would say they have some kind of evolutionary benefit, or they don’t have a massive evolutionary detriment, and if we can affirm that creation is good, as Genesis would say, then I think we have to take those instances quite seriously.

Interview in 2006 with Stephen Crittenden: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/religionreport/katharine-jefferts-schori/3323620#?utm_source=StandFirm&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=link

4. On how “Reason” trumps Bible in religious debates:

As Anglicans, we have always asserted that we listen to three primary sources of authority to scripture, to tradition, and to reason. The debate which has risen to the level of the Anglican primates has its roots in putting different emphasis on those three sources of authority. The Episcopal Church’s General Convention acted last summer out of a sense that reason and a broad reading of the Great Commandment required a different conclusion about matters of homosexuality than did strict adherence to seven passages in scripture which seem to speak against it. The other wing of the church says that those seven passages have ultimate authority, and therefore “we will obey the Bible.”

Article: http://www.nvdiocese.org/?utm_source=StandFirm&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=link

5. On how Mormons are Christians too:

Every religious tradition has its skeletons and its saints, and sometimes they are the same people. Paul is warning his hearers not to count themselves better than their ancestors, for they all depend on the same rootstock – a root that nourishes the olive tree or the grape vine we cling to as intimate connection to God as Creator of all. That root is why we are here, and it is also why the LDS church is here.
When General Convention shows up here just over 3 months from now, many of the volunteers and dispensers of hospitality will be our sisters and brothers from that tradition. Will we recognize their welcome as a product of the same root, or will we assume that they come from a different and unrecognizable species?

Source: Stand Firm blog: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/31775

6. On the “resurrected Christ”, where the body of Jesus apparently remained a corpse, but his ideas live on in his followers.

“What does that resurrection reality mean for the Body of Christ of which we are part? How does the risen Body of Christ – what we often call the church – differ from the crucified one?”

Sermon, Easter 2014: http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2014/04/07/presiding-bishops-easter-message-2014/?utm_source=StandFirm&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=link

7. On how the Bible used to “sanction” polygamy and we must redefine marriage:

“The theology of marriage has evolved over time, with biblical examples including polygamy, concubinage, and other forms of relationship no longer sanctioned in The Episcopal Church,” noted Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori. “We no longer expect that one partner promise to obey the other, that parents give away their children to be married, or that childbearing is the chief purpose of marriage. This task force is charged not only to take the pulse of our current theological understanding of the meaning of marriage, but to assist the faithful in conversation and discernment about marriage, in particular what the Church might hold up as “holy example” of the love between Christ and his Church.”

2013 Episcopal Church Website: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/notice/presiding-bishop-president-house-deputies-announce-12-member-task-force-study-marriage

8. On “Mother Jesus”

Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation — and you and I are his children.

Episcopal Life: http://archive.episcopalchurch.org/26769_5280_ENG_HTM.htm

9. On the “Western Heresy” of personal salvation:

“…the great Western heresy — that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God. It’s caricatured in some quarters by insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus. That individualist focus is a form of idolatry, for it puts me and my words in the place that only God can occupy, at the center of existence, as the ground of being.”

Reported in USA Today: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/religion/post/2009/07/68494086/1#.Vcf5JlVViko

01Aug

Selling Body Parts, and Giving Away Our Collective Soul

“You have the forehead of a prostitute, you refuse to be ashamed” (Jeremiah 3:3).  Thus says God to his rebellious kingdom.  The “forehead of a prostitute” is an ancient expression that referred to an inability to blush.  It bespeaks a loss of shame, a seared conscience, a calloused soul, and a hard heart.

What is shocking about the recently released Planned Parenthood videos isn’t just the scandal of fetal parts for sale by abortion providers, but the disturbing nonchalance (nay, defiance) with which it is being greeted by many.  (I’ll pause, of course, to acknowledge that Republican presidential candidates have made a lot of noise about this).

A writer named Robin Marty at cosmopolitan.com opined on July 14: “I’ve read the emails. I’ve watched the short-version video. I’ve read the website and the other anti-abortion action groups’ press releases. I’ve even poked through all the primary sources posted so far in the “Document Vault.”  Now, frankly, I’m just going to yawn.”

A conservative website called Newsbusters has helpfully counted up the minutes and concluded that “the broadcast news shows spent more time in one day on Cecil the Lion than they did on the Planned Parenthood videos in two weeks.”

The media have begun to cover this because they aren’t able to cover it up.  When they have taken up the story, it has generally been to sympathize with Planned Parenthood. Lester Holt on NBC’s Nightly News intoned that Planned Parenthood is “under fire” from “activists”.  This headline from Reuters proclaims: “Planned Parenthood slams secret video as false portrayal of fetus tissue program”.  The “Grey Lady” leads off an online article in this way: Abortion opponents on Tuesday renewed their campaign against Planned Parenthood, with immediate impact among Republicans in Congress and the presidential race.  (The New York Times online).

The dominant narrative of the media seems to be that this is a “stunt” or “fraud” (as though the Planned Parenthood representatives are scripted actors), perpetrated by a “far right” (and therefore dismissable) group. (As an aside, I find it odd that we never hear of any “near right” groups, or of conservatives that aren’t also “extremists”).

Salon.com has screaming headlines like “What the Planned Parenthood hoax really proves: Right-wing extremists have no qualms about destroying peoples’ lives” and “The Planned Parenthood hoax is the GOP’s Trojan horse: How Republicans are hijacking the national conversation” (www.salon.com).

Newsweek (article here) implies soothingly that one can disregard the source of the material, because David Daleidan once wrote an anti-abortion article for the conservative outlet “The Weekly Standard”, and made reference to “prayer life”.

Even the Obama White House has chimed in:   The White House on Thursday waded into the debate, calling the group behind the sting videos “extremists on the right.”  (CNN article)   Always keen to show that they are thinking for themselves, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. “And Planned Parenthood has indicated that’s what has occurred here.”

I am not going to opine here about the legality of the fetal parts trade–I don’t doubt that in fact it is legal, just as abortion is legal.  “Legal” doesn’t equal “good”, of course.  I’ll accept that Planned Parenthood doesn’t make that much money per body part–as if that has any relevance.   Perhaps people can even justify the fetal body parts market, by representing fetal biomedical research as a silver lining of hope in the dark cloud of abortion.  I furthermore won’t even question here the claim that Planned Parenthood may provide many good medical services to women that are not related to its abortion provision.

At the end of the day, though, all of this public conversation depressingly reveals the coarsening of our culture.  Our outspoken ones flash with anger that any would dare shine a spotlight on this tragedy, but do not blush with shame that it has even been occurring. It reveals just how far askew our moral compass has drifted in recent decades.  Our national discourse has become an echo chamber of cynicism and spiritual death.

We have sold baby parts, and bought a prostitute’s forehead in the bargain.